A Saturday Evening in Portland: Cosmic Bowling at Interstate Lanes

Every now and again, I get it into my bean that it would be good to head on over to the lanes and throw some rocks at the wood and see what falls over. Dolly-girl likes it too as she's a Dudist and a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. So, when I read that Donn Allen's Interstate Lanes, not far from where me and Dolly-girl set our brake, was having Cosmic Bowling with black lights and mirror balls and music and such, well, it was dialing our blower and we were taking the call.


So what's rolling without friends? Did the Dude roll without Walter and Donny? Hell no, I mean HELL, NO Dude! We DO NOT ROLL ALONE! My buddies didn't DIE face down in the MUD in 'NAM so we could ROLL ALONE! Oops, wrong character.
So we scratched our noggins and figured it out. We knew Slim and Tootsie would be on board--hell, Slim has his own ball and shoes!



I dialed then up. Tootsie. I talked, she listened, she talked to Slim. I listened. "Slim's on board. Saturday, you say? We'll take the intraurban. See you there." I said to Dolly-girl, "How about Nunzio and Juanita? I know they roll rocks." "Sounds good to me, they're always up for fun!" Truth is, the last time I threw a ten in the pit, we were at the heads with Nunzio and Nita. That was the night Dolly-girl damn near picked up the bedposts but went in the ditch on the backends.


Nita and Nunzio Zambone live just down the avenue from us. Nita runs the circumstances that lead to pomp at the far end of the academic year, follow? Yep, she keeps watch over three Rs and a mind-full of Ps and Qs as well, I suppose. Nunzio dreams stuff up and makes it work. He says he's an engineer, but I never see him down around the tracks, or the track for that matter. I think he does stuff with what Dolly-girl calls "computers." Beats me. But, sure enough, they were interested. We made a date.


Saturday night rolls up and me and Dolly-girl and Nita and Nunzio decided to whistle up a Radio Cab. You just can't beat them when you think you might want to drown a couple, or maybe have a couple Grain Belts. The call must have gone out fast, because double quick the hack was in front and we were on our way. "Doin' a little rollin', eh?" was all he had to say. "Throwin' rocks tonite," I answered him and then went back to balloon juice, you know, gum bumping, with the rest. Nunzio had us howling with stories from Beantown where he set the brake on his perambulator.




It wasn't but a few minutes before we were looking down the lanes at ten pins in black light. We got into fast and kept at it for a couple hours. Here's some of the actions.

I went over to where you could wet your whistle. Turns out they'd had some trouble with the Volstad folks, so they were taking names and looking at pictures before they'd put hops and barley in a pitcher for you. They even strapped on a little paper thing so as they knew they'd checked your papers. Go figure. Everyone had to line up for the line up in order to get a cup. 'Course if you weren't beyond sharing a cup with the dish you were spooning..." We got serious about rolling, with Slim and Dolly-girl picking them up and setting them down!

Well, about the time our hands and arms were about to fall off, we decided to head on over to the Nite Hawk for a nite cap and a review of the nite's games. The Hawk's a good place to take a load off and get a load on at the same time. Missy brought us cocktails and kept them coming 'til we cried uncle. We drank a toast or three to Dixie and Slider. They were supposed to be with us, but Dixie tried out a new hair-do and it didn't work. By the end of the nite, it was time to call it one. Tootsie and Slim breezed out the door and right on to the intraurban, headed for their pied a terre. The four of us flagged a Radio Cab. "Enjoying the nite, eh?" "Yep, a little rolling and a couple hours at the Hawk makes Saturday what it is, all play and no work."