60' at a time

     Hey everyone, I am starting this blog to document and update my return to bowling after a long 10 year hiatus.  My return to competitive bowling begins with the turning of one page to another in my book of life. I had a lot of enjoyment traveling around playing beach volleyball tournaments, but with any physically demanding sport there comes a time when injuries and nagging pain offset the enjoyment and it is time to place that activity on the back burner. I will now rarely if ever play tournaments and leave it for a fun weekend activity with other "seasoned friends" here and there. No more spending 8-12 (or more) weekends each summer traveling out of state for the weekend chasing and competing on the volleyball tours. Which brings me back to the reason I starting this page.....Bowling.

    Although not the first choice of lots of kids my age my love for bowling began when I was in my late pre teen years. I had participated in several other sports too but really got hooked on Bowling fast. Both my parents had bowled for most of their adult lives and after a layoff for several years my Mom started back into it, at that point I started to go bowling with her. I immediately loved it. I used to light up when I was heading off to my Saturday morning youth league or the frequent Saturday nights I got to go to "Rock and Bowl". I spent many Saturday mornings and afternoons bowling with my coaches and working on improving my game. I became more and more competitive and found I really enjoyed bowling in tournaments and traveling leagues. This continued up until my late teens when volleyball took over. I found myself too busy playing volleyball tournaments indoors all winter and beach tournaments all summer. Up until my early twenties and a nasty ankle fracture I hadn't really bowled hardly at all. In my recovery I really couldn't jump let alone walk well for a while, I discovered quickly that it didn't hurt to bowl with it being my "non slide foot" so back to bowling it was. Dove right back in and got in 3 adult leagues averaging between 210-230 in them. Started bowling in a few bigger tournaments again and practicing several nights a week after work. The equipment had come leaps and bounds more advanced in those 5 or so years I wasn't really bowling. It was amazing the advancements. The only thing that stopped me was moving to the eastern shore of Maryland and that there were not really any bowling centers to stay involved. One dated center with no tournaments and pretty much no leagues. So once again, I stopped this time much longer. Time passed by and while my bowling equipment collected dust other activities and day to day life took over. Several years later here I am once again, eager to get involved in tournaments and ready to have Bowling once again fuel my competitive nature.

     A great thing about Bowling which I really love and now appreciate much more is the fact that anyone can participate. Young, old, handicapped, disabled, strong, weak, tall, short....you get the idea. It truly is something everyone can get involved in. It is also an activity that can be highly competitive and on the other end of the spectrum something families and friends can do to get together and enjoy themselves. Some use it as a means to compete, some for stress relief, some just for a fun evening with friends. Bowling truly is whatever you want it to be. Stay tuned in as I update and add pictures of local tournaments, leagues, equipment and of course my journey back into the world of competitive bowling.