Bowling

Diary

I started my new job Monday April 14, and it's wonderful, but I'm not going to write about it now.

I've adapted to the cold and strangeness of Illinois, but I'm not going to write about that now, either.

Bowling. I'm going to write about bowling.

The Midwest does not pretend to the Right Coast's stuffy heritage or the Left Coast's pretended glamour. In the Midwest you don't attend DAR conventions or count the days to your next high colonic. In the Midwest you bowl.

And I hadn't been two days on the new job before I was invited to substitute in a weekly bowling team--Team SPAM, as they have it. These rowdies didn't care that I didn't have one of their matching, loud, extremely badly tailored team shirts. They didn't care (I hope) that I bowled only 2/3 of their scores. They didn't care that I was the new guy. When I showed up and when I bought them a beer, I was OK by them.

Sure, I could have been under palm trees in the breeze or in my nice house in Florida; I didn't have to be breathing smoke with bikers across from the train tracks in lovely Streamwood, Illinois and ruining my thumb throwing a 15-pound ball and having to put on a heavy coat to walk across the parking lot and drive home. But, you know--no one in Orlando ever asked me to bowl. This was sure different. Maybe this was better.