On Saturday, I spent the morning saying goodbye to an Albany institution: the Playdium bowling center in the city's Pine Hills neighborhood. The Playdium has been there since 1940 but the valuable land on which it sits has been sold to make way for apartments; the building will be torn down. There was an auction to sell off everything inside: bar fixtures, signs, TVs, kitchen items, and a telephone booth to name a few. For two dollars, you could take home a bowling pin. I bought five. There were some hardcore auction folks there to scoop up the bargains, like dishes, glasses and stools, but many more were there, like myself, to pay our respect: ex-college students who remember going there for inexpensive recreation, parents showing their children where they spent their Saturday mornings in youth leagues, and older folks who just had to stop by one last time and reminisce.
I bowled in my office's Thursday night league for ten years. I hadn't been inside the Playdium in 20 years. It didn't take long for nostalgia to kick in as I walked around. Most of the lanes had already been stripped, machinery exposed and pins missing. The sanctity of the foul line was gone. The lanes that were still intact stood as the final soldiers on sentry duty. The seating area was still there. So I sat down behind lanes 27 and 28, looking around and thinking back to Thursday nights in the late 80s and 90s.
My league, the PSC Mixed, was an assortment of co-workers, their spouses and a few special guests. Bowling abilities varied, but we were mostly there for fun. Several of the higher average bowlers - Eddie, Jeff, Dick and Craig and a few others - would give a dollar to whomever had the highest game of the evening. By the end of the season, I think we all broke even.
One of the spouses who joined in that fun was Bill. His wife had worked at the PSC. Bill was a jovial guy, smiling and always telling stories. Everyone seemed to know him. As a teen in the 1940s, in the days before the lanes were automated, Bill worked at the Playdium as a pinboy, setting pins in between frames. Bill would tell about getting an extra two bits when a guy, wanting to impress his date but perhaps lacking bowling abilities, would have Bill, hidden above the lane backdrop, throw an extra pin towards the deck as the ball hit the pins, guaranteeing a strike. He also told us about the secret door in the back of the lanes. Since most of the pinboys were underage, state labor officials would make surprise inspections. Someone at the front desk would send a signal to the pinboys whenever the inspectors would show up, and the boys would flee out the secret door and scurry down Park Street. My favorite Bill story was the time he told us he was shooting pool at the Lamp Post, another long time Albany institution and watering hole. A news report came on the radio, prompting Bill to look up from the billiard table to ask "what the hell is Pearl Harbor"? It was December 7, 1941.
Bill also was in the Playdium on September 27, 1990. So was I, bowling that night on lanes 27 and 28, the last two lanes in the house. I was having a pretty good night as I entered the 3rd game. I started with a strike on lane 27, followed by a strike on lane 28, and that pattern kept repeating - four in a row, then six and then eight. The thing about bowling alleys is that word spreads pretty quickly if someone has shot at 300. I had reached this pinnacle several times before but never made it to nine. I got up on lane 27, pulled the shot a bit, but carried the 6 pin; nine in a row. That meant I'd have a chance in the 10th frame for bowling immortality. I sat in a chair trying to blank out anything that entered my mind. It wasn't easy when you picture your parents bringing you to Saturday morning youth leagues, but I did my best; check your emotions - this may never happen again.
And so I stood on lane 28. By now, more people had drifted down to towards my lane. The first shot in the 10th - strike - and a roar from the crowd. The ball is returned, I lift it, and place my fingers all so carefully in the holes. I take my five step approach, release the ball, watch the ball drift a little high but strike eleven. The roar is louder as the ball is returned. I pick the ball up, except this time, I have no feeling in my hand, or arm or most of my body. I take a very deep breath. My five step approach feels more like the one you take right before being asked by an officer to blow into a breathalyser. The ball is released somehow and the pins explode - strike twelve; I bowled a 300. The crowd roars and I jump up and down like a maniac. I receive hugs and high fives from all around. I collect my $1 from Bill. The owner of the Playdium, Neil, also watching, shakes my hand and buys me a vodka and tonic.
It's 11am and the auction was about to begin, so I got up from where I had been sitting. I saw an older man and realized it was Neil, who was in about the same place as he was when he bought me that drink 28 years ago. Clad in a bomber-style jacket, he was seated, being interviewed one by one by local TV stations as he watched as his bowling center was being sold off, piece by piece.
The Playdium was the last bowling establishment within the city limits of Albany. Farewell Playdium; it was a honor to have bowled there. My gold 300 ring sits atop my dresser.
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