Today we went duckpin bowling. I had never heard of duckpin bowling until I moved to the Washington, DC area. I've only been three times and that includes today. It's a lot of fun.
The first difference between duckpin and ten-pin is the size of the pin. As you can see, the pin is about 1/2 the size of a ten-pin.
The pins are set up the same way as in ten-pin bowling.
The second difference is the size of the bowling ball.
As you can see, the ball is much smaller and much lighter. Claire can easily hold the ball which is about 2 pounds. There's also no finger holes.
You wear bowling shoes just like with ten-pin. These are Trent's. He wears a size 13.
The final difference is you get to roll the ball three times for each turn. If you knock down all the pins the first try, it's a strike. If you knock them all down with the second ball, it's a spare. If you knock them all down with the third ball, it's a 10. If after three tries there are still pins standing, you must not be a very good bowler. Just kidding! Your score for that round is the number of pins you knocked down. In duckpin bowling it is much more difficult to knock down all the pins than in ten-pin. That's why you get three tries. No professional Duckpin bowler has ever achieved a perfect score of 300. That's how hard it is.
Duckpin bowling is still more popular in this area than anywhere else, but even so there are only a handful of alleys still open. The one we visit reminds me of when I used to go bowling with my mom a long, long, time ago.
The most modern thing about this alley is that the computer does keep score for you, although you have to punch in your score after each turn. When we first came here, I marched up to the counter and said, "Something is wrong with our computer. It's not recording our score." To which they said, "You have to punch it in." Oh! Then we noticed that the pins weren't getting cleaned up between each ball. I went back up to the desk and said, "There's something wrong with our lane, it won't clean up the downed pins." To which they patiently said, "You have to step on the pedal after each ball." What pedal?
This pedal.
Then we noticed that after we had rolled our three turns, the lane wouldn't reset. We went up to the front desk and they asked, "Did you press the reset button?"
As you can see, the ball is much smaller and much lighter. Claire can easily hold the ball which is about 2 pounds. There's also no finger holes.
You wear bowling shoes just like with ten-pin. These are Trent's. He wears a size 13.
The final difference is you get to roll the ball three times for each turn. If you knock down all the pins the first try, it's a strike. If you knock them all down with the second ball, it's a spare. If you knock them all down with the third ball, it's a 10. If after three tries there are still pins standing, you must not be a very good bowler. Just kidding! Your score for that round is the number of pins you knocked down. In duckpin bowling it is much more difficult to knock down all the pins than in ten-pin. That's why you get three tries. No professional Duckpin bowler has ever achieved a perfect score of 300. That's how hard it is.
Duckpin bowling is still more popular in this area than anywhere else, but even so there are only a handful of alleys still open. The one we visit reminds me of when I used to go bowling with my mom a long, long, time ago.
The most modern thing about this alley is that the computer does keep score for you, although you have to punch in your score after each turn. When we first came here, I marched up to the counter and said, "Something is wrong with our computer. It's not recording our score." To which they said, "You have to punch it in." Oh! Then we noticed that the pins weren't getting cleaned up between each ball. I went back up to the desk and said, "There's something wrong with our lane, it won't clean up the downed pins." To which they patiently said, "You have to step on the pedal after each ball." What pedal?
This pedal.Then we noticed that after we had rolled our three turns, the lane wouldn't reset. We went up to the front desk and they asked, "Did you press the reset button?"
Ben is pointing out the reset button.That was our first time. Today went much smoother. We just forgot what we needed to do to sweep up the knocked down pins, but after a quick reminder, we were on our way.
Between turns, the girls spent their time and quarters buying little trinkets by the front doors.
Kate and Trent helped keep score.
Ben tried his hand at the "A Winner Every Time" game. He only won candy that he's not supposed to eat because of his mouth expander.
And the winner of the day? Eleanor!!! She did a great job! Tomorrow we go to the pool. Indoor, of course!
No comments:
Post a Comment