Driving Past the Bowling Alley

Driving past the Bowling Alley

Shortly after I got my license I was driving around town. We had a 1951 Kaiser at that time. Dad had been a Kaiser dealer and that was the remnants of that era. Kaiser stopped making cars about 1955 and I got my license in 1959. Of course I had been driving quite a bit before that so I knew how to drive. Or at least I thought I did.

The evening hang out for Kingman was the bowling alley. Herschel Bennett ran it. Herschel was a little old man who knew how to please the kids and older people too. Everyone hung out there. It was a typical store front building with big windows in the front and building attached on either side. There were benches in front and the older guys would sit out there telling the stories of the day. There was a grill inside and Herschel served grease burgers. He would grill those thin burgers, toast the bun and pile it high with onions and pickles and it was a yummie. You could sit at the counter, in a bench or at a table. At the rear of the building was a bowling alley. I don’t think it was a full size alley but it was all we had. He also had pin ball machines.

It was cool to burn rubber when you drove from the brick street and turned left to go past the bowling alley. It was done for years. Someone would turn that corner and step on the gas and the tires would squeal. The old guys sitting out front of the bowling alley would shake their heads and wonder what this world was coming to. One night it was my turn. I turned that corner and stepped on the gas squealing away.

Dad didn’t go to the bowling alley too often but that night he was there. I didn’t look over to see who was there I just continued on down the street. That was the process…just drive up and down the streets seeing what was going on.

I got home later in the evening and Dad was home. He asked me what I had been doing and I told him that I had been driving around. He told me he was sitting on the bench outside the bowling alley. He told me how he told everyone what a good driver I was. In fact he said it was about that time that I came squealing around the corner.

It was hard to get away with anything in a small town.

Another time at that same intersection, I was stopped at the brick street waiting to pull out onto Main Street. I was looking at the bowling alley to see who was there and I pulled out and crashed into another car. I hit it right in the side. No one was hurt. It didn’t even ding my car.

Dad had to fix the other car. We didn’t turn it in to the insurance or report it to the police.

Another time Earl Newnum was driving a John Deere tractor around the block and was stopped at the brick street waiting to come onto Main Street. He revved up that old tractor and took off and flipped the tractor. He shattered his leg but he and some other kids pushed that tractor back upright. He always walked with a pronounced limp after that.

The older kids with cars would stop in front of the bowling alley and rev up the engine and pop the clutch and peel out. Sometimes a couple of cars would line up and take off pretending to drag race. They would drive off for a couple of blocks. One time Darrell Gilliland who had a 1956 Ford and someone else, lined up front bumper to front bumper. That would be facing opposite directions. They started going down the street that way. Right down Main Street. Darrell was going in reverse. Bumper to bumper. They kept going faster and faster. They went all the way through town to the town boundary. I don’t know how fast they were going but it was probably 60 or 70. Crazy.

That was the conversation around town the next day.