Zen and the Art of Bowling
My father was a secret Zen Master
My dad was a natural born athlete. He excelled at every sport he played and sports were a big part of his life — at least the early part of his life. When I was a kid, my dad was always taking me, my brother, and my sisters either to the swimming pool, baseball field, or bowling alley. Sunday was “get the kids out of the house day” for my mom, so every Sunday our dad would take us to indulge in some sport. (He also, thankfully, took us to the library every Sunday.)
I once watched my dad run 12 racks in a row on a pool table. He probably could have run more but he quit without missing a shot. He was incredible. Baseball was his favorite sport — he was a pitcher — but he excelled at all the sports. He was a master horseshoe thrower, a good golfer, an unbeatable ping-pong player, and he was an extremely good bowler. So on many a Sunday, our dad took us to the little 6-lane bowling alley on the military base. He tried to teach us a little, but mostly he just let us play. He would bowl, too, to keep himself in shape and his game up in the upper 200’s. In all his life he never bowled a perfect 300, but he came within a few pins on many occasions. If my dad bowled under 240 he was having a very bad day.
So we kids learned the basics and became bowling fools. But no matter how much we improved, we…
