Duckpin bowling

Our last night in D.C. we spent with the Winthrops at the Chevy Chase Club. Following dinner and drinks, we rolled two games on the duckpin lanes, just off the dining room. Dudley has apparently gotten quite into the "sport," playing in a club league. He even has his name on the wall for the third highest single game score (159?) this year. He'll need to card a couple more strikes to catch the top bowler though, who if I recall was at 181. Anyway, duckpin. Much more fun, I thought, than big boy bowling. No holes in the balls, which are about the size of a bocce ball and much lighter than even the lightest bowling balls. 4 lbs? So you can hurl them with much greater velocity, which is always thrilling, and they smash into the pins in a very satisfying way. The problem is the pins don't fall down easily. Many times I chucked it straight into the pyramid and two pins would fall -- something the pros call "a chop." It's a little worse than a split since it's much harder to "pick up." You get 3 balls per frame and Dudley tells me in the long history of duckpin nobody has ever carded a perfect 300. The Merrills did not alter that statistic, but I will note that I beat Greta by 1 point in both games.

Mom chose wine over bowling. She reports the noise was much less than regular bowling, given the smaller size of the balls and the pins.

This is perfect form.

This is after one of my four "spares," which is knocking down all the pins with two balls. A strike is a strike, and knocking all the pins down with two balls is called "a ten."

This is what a college student looks like.