Sarah Brown
Another year has rolled on, bringing with it bowling league season once again. On Fridays, Linn Lanes in Lebanon is filled with the sound of pins getting knocked off their butts and friendly chatter from members of the Young Oldies League.
The league, consisting of “seniors” (minimum age requirement is 50) who live in Albany, Lacomb, Lebanon, Sweet Home and Brownsville, meets weekly to compete for prize money, but most of the bowlers will tell you they are there for the exercise and friendship.
Joy Alton, 90, of Sweet Home, said the camaraderie is the main reason she enjoys showing up every week. When she gets to her lane, she sets up her area with her own drink coaster and personal hand towel with a little devil design on it. It’s an inside joke with some of her friends, Alton explained, because sometimes “the devil made me do it.”
The first time she bowled seriously was while her husband was stationed in Okinawa some 70 years ago and the other girls at the base wanted to start bowling. The alley was housed in an old quonset hut, and the girls would have to take turns setting the pins.
“It got so hot back in there,” she said. “I did not know those pins weighed so much. By the time you set it up for one game, your body’s falling apart and you’re melting.”
But after the business hired a setter, the girls were able to form what Alton believes was the first women’s league there.
“I bowled pretty much ever since,” she said. “Everywhere we went, I bowled.”
Alton recalled bowling on a team with her sisters at the former Lebanon Lanes, where they took first place for several years. Today, she still bowls with a sister on the “Joy’s Guys” team, and is one of five nonagenarians in the league, averaging about a 130.
Grace Purkerson, of the “Fab Four” team, joined the 90-plus rank after she turned 90 this summer. It’s the fellowship, exercise and challenge that keeps her coming back, she said. She likes to continue trying to do better because “as you get older, some things you can’t do as well, but you need to keep trying.”
The bowlers are quick to brag on Linn Lanes League Coordinator (and Bowling Hall of Famer) Penny Fentiman who, by the sounds of it, is the fire, iron and glue that keeps the teams on their game. One would be hard-pressed to find someone in the league who had a bad word to say about her. It’s the opposite, in fact, when you find people singing her praises, sharing how she encourages people to join and does not hesitate to help anyone.
“We wouldn’t be doing this without her because she totally rebuilt the camaraderie and the people,” Alton said. “She gets people interested in it, and she’ll coach them the whole time if they want help. She’ll stop any time and help someone.”
It was Fentiman who gently persuaded her own mother, Angeline “Angie” Fischer, to join the league in 2017 following the death of her husband, Dennis, that year.
“I gave her all kinds of excuses why I couldn’t (play),” Fischer said.
She didn’t have a ball, her shoes were mildewy and she was on a budget. But Fentiman told her she had an extra ball and shoes, and would cover the costs.
So Fischer joined the league and, to this day at age 94, still looks forward to seeing her “Golden Girls” team. She hadn’t been bowling since she was a young married woman on a league in Wisconsin. Back then, the sport was an opportunity to escape the routine of life and the one time a week she would splurge on a babysitter.
Returning to the pins some 50 years later, Fischer found she did “OK,” but eventually her balance began to betray her, so her daughter offered tips – as she does for every one of her bowlers. The Sweet Home resident currently bowls about 94.
“I got so it wasn’t a matter of getting a good score,” she said. “It was just the matter of being down here, being with other people to socialize with. I was having fun and it was something to look forward to.”
Purkerson, of Lebanon, didn’t deliver a ball until she was 65. She found herself at her granddaughter’s birthday party at Linn Lanes about 25 years ago, so she tried her hand at the game for the first time.
“I got a whole 38 on that first game, which made me feel like I’ve got to go back, I could do better than that,” she said. “I was so good at the gutter that day, you’d have thought I was trying for it.”
And “do better” she did, eventually averaging 140 until she partially tore a hamstring, she said. Since then, she’s had to change her approach and has been challenged yet again to bring her score up. Currently Purkerson averages about 100 to 125.
Gilbert “Gil” Little, 90, a former teacher and principal in the Sweet Home area, probably has them all beat at 196. He recalled his early days at the old Skyline Inn and Sweet Home Lanes. He enjoyed the game so much that he began bowling also in Lebanon, Albany and Corvallis and, at one time, was a member of six different leagues. Currently he bowls with the “Alley Dusters.”
After the death of his wife, Little married Trish, whom he met through the leagues. Together, they remained committed to the Lebanon league so much so that they drove to Linn Lanes every Friday even while living in Newport for two years. Now they reside in Albany, where they’ve celebrated 20 years together, and they still bowl at Linn Lanes every Friday.
The Littles were not the only ones to make a love connection through bowling. Floyd Simpson, 90, of Lebanon, picked up bowling just a couple weeks ago after a 20-something-year hiatus when he met his girlfriend, Maureen Pedersen, who participates with the “Three Friends” in the Wednesday SpareTimers League.
“We bowled a couple times and I want to keep with her as much as I can, so I decided to bowl,” Simpson said. “I like being around her, so that’s good enough reason for me.”
The former high school teacher used to bowl a 160, but now struggles to reach 100, he said. But for someone who hasn’t bowled in so long and only recently picked it back up, that’s not bad.
“I love to bowl. I like the camaraderie,” Simpson said. “You always have something to do, and I’m competitive; I love to try and get better.”
And then there’s Pete Heineck, 90, of Lebanon, who took a job setting pins when he was in high school while living in Wisconsin, but had never rolled. It wasn’t until he moved to California and went on a blind date that Heineck caught love and bowling in one strike.
His now-wife, Sheila, came from a family of bowlers who taught him the game. He quickly took to the sport and would make the sport the basis of a date night with his girl. After three games, he said, she’d be done, but he wouldn’t stop until he filled a full 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper with scores.
As part of the “Four Cronies,” Heinick could bowl about 195 until a recent injury.
“I used to be right-handed until three years ago,” he said. “I got so much arthritis in the shoulder I can’t do it, so I turned to the left hand.”
In his first year as a southpaw, he reached a 96. The following year, he hit 120, and then 142.
“Old people get better after a while, just like wine,” he said.
Many in the league have had to change their approaches or adjust their skills after overcoming physical ailments, but they’ve never let it stop them from showing up.
As Linn Lanes proprietor Gary Heintzman said, “People get hip replacements and knee replacements and come back faster than the younger people do. They might be walking with a cane or something, but I’d probably still be sitting in my chair whining about it. Bowling’s just a good, healthy, clean sport now that there’s no smoking in the buildings like in the old days.”
Heintzman likes seeing the 90-year-olds among the other seniors he’s gotten to know at the lanes over the course of many years. Bowling, he said, is a fun sport that keeps them mobile and active and helps build friendships.
“I meet a lot of good people; I don’t know where they are right now,” joked Four Cronies player Heineck, who stood among the crowd at the alley.
For those looking for something to do, Fischer offered some advice:
“Get out there,” he said. “They’re always looking for somebody, even if it’s just to fill in. People our age, some of us don’t show up every time. I tell people, ‘Don’t just sit at home feeling sorry for yourself. Get out there and do something.’ You’d be surprised with the interesting people you meet.”