I am king of the 9-pin frame. That last pin just stares at me down the lane, sometimes centered and others hugging that back corner. It always keeps me from breaking the 150-point mark. Last week I bowled the best game of my life — a 147. I know, it’s pretty bad, but bowling is about fun.
I love nights with friends debating politics — it’s kind of what I do — analyzing cinema, art and cultural changes, but I do that as part of my job on a weekly basis. Sometimes a trip to the bowling alley with my girlfriend Betsy and a less-intense group of friends is the best way to unplug.
Betsy has been best friends with Megan since elementary school and with Sean since the newlyweds met at Kamodo Klub (always a running joke) in downtown Des Moines seven years ago. The couple is relaxed. There is no pretension while hanging with Megan and Sean. There’s rarely talk of topics which keep up the tension, and any political speak Sean does with a nonthreatening smile. Megan and Sean are the couple you hang with when nothing matters but pure human interaction. They put you completely at ease.
Last weekend we had our off-the-radar night at the lanes. Sean pulled his personal bowling ball out of it’s dark-blue, leather bag and a white cloth to buff and polish. He didn’t wear his 300-game ring that night, but I knew it was probably sitting on his dresser at home, and the ring’s mere existence gave me the feeling that I was about to be scratched all the way out of the alley. But Sean’s “no-worries” attitude and Megan and Betsy’s infectious laughter — summarizing two decades of friendship in one quick moment — made my 86 and 97 games less about the scoreboard and more about the fun happening at our table.
We remembered the moment that Megan’s 4-year-old nephew face-palmed during outdoor pictures at the couple’s wedding that summer. I was the wedding photographer and captured Megan’s tear-jerking laughter as her nephew looked like a little-adult walking in his mini-tuxedo. Sean proudly trumpeted his research on the perfect market conditions to buy a house. Betsy and I told the tale of my dad’s recent birthday boar-hunting trip to Texas.
With heavy references to “The Big Lebowski” — and for fans of the film there was plenty of “marking it zero” on my scorecard — and a good Sam Adams Cold Snap, our night of bowling did what it intended. It allowed us to detach. Sometimes it takes friends that care about the simple things to get a strike in life.
Contact Mike Mendenhall at
mmendenhall@newtondailynews.com