our oldest bowling member wins the tag team medal

When I talk to people about our bowling group the number one thing that potential new members are worried about is "I'm not very good." I always try to reassure them that most of us are also not very good and we actually would prefer that new additions are really BAD. One time in the past we had a guy that joined us that was a league bowler back in the USA, he had his own ball and shoes and was a 200 point per game bowler. After about a month in our group we politely told him that he shouldn't come bowling with us anymore and pointed him towards a league that existed with guys that are on that level.

Despite the fact that we have a bunch of awards and a championship, we are not at all competitive and would prefer that it stay that way.

To let people know how not so serious we are about this group and the scores, we were all delighted when our oldest member Larry teamed up and won the tag-team championship yesterday.

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_{that's a lovely bowling alley, it isn't ours but still!}

Larry is a wonderful guy and as people in their 80's go, he is getting around just great. I know my own grandparents passed away in their mid 80's and they were in no way the sort of shape that Larry is in. I guess the dude just has good genes.

Normally I don't post pictures of the people in our group but I got permission from Larry and his tag-team partner Alex to put this online and they don't mind.

Larry has some mobility issues as you would probably expect an 80 year old to have, but he has a wonderful sense of humor and his own bowling style. Like me, he bowls with a curve but he is left handed. Often, we feel as though when he cleans up extra pins on a spare attempt that it is just dumb luck when he get them but it doesn't matter bro! A pin knocked down is a pin knocked down whether you meant to do it or not.

Tag-team bowling works just like regular bowling but the first ball of each frame is bowled by one member of the team, and the second ball, if necessary, is bowled by the other person. It can be pretty funny if you end up getting a horrible split and there are lots of laughs and apologies to teammates going on during the competition because as is the case with 90% of our members, none of us really take it seriously. Several things happened during the event though and one of them was that the tag team scores, including my own, were piss poor. When my team finished and we had a mere 112 and were at that point in first place, we were kind of shocked. 112 is NOT a good score but we were ahead of 5 other teams with only 3 teams yet to finish. One after the next the teams finished with less than 112 but I noticed that Larry's team was just a few points shy of beating us.

In the last frame they needed a mere 5 pins in order to get the win. Larry bowled the first ball and only got 3 on the outside because he botched the landing and the ball curved too much to the right making contact with just the 6 and the 10 pin and this normally will result in knocking down the 9 as well because of how the pins are arranged and because of physics.

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His partner, Alex, needed to just get 2 pins in order for them to win. he mis-bowled as well and I was praying that he get the pins even though by doing so, it would mean that my team was not going to win. I win awards all the time in our group, Larry never does. Therefore I was really happy when Alex got 4 pins and now they had the first place score winning with 114 to our 112. The place erupted with applause because everyone like Larry and we kind of see him as an inspiration because most people in their 80's just sit around and wait for their next meal while watching TV and napping. Larry gets out there and does stuff that is active.

Larry and Alex almost certainly will not be able to defend their championship next week. Defending the tag team championship is one of the most difficult things to do because you have to bowl against all of the other teams. In the history of DUMBO, there have only been a handful of times that teams managed to remain champs for multiple weeks in a row.

Larry was happy and we were all happy for him. Even though someone bowled a 221 on Thursday as well, the highlight of the day was definitely having the oldest (by a long ways actually) bowler in our midst wear championship gold.

Our group is a social group that just happens to go bowling. We are not serious about it and if anyone comes along that is serious about it, we point them in the direction of the other serious bowlers. I think I speak for everyone in our group when I say that we like to keep it silly and friendly and if anyone comes along and contests that they will first be politely asked to stop coming and if that doesn't work then we will bar them from attending.

Well done Larry! You are a winner!