An Exploding Bowling Ball like Creamed Spinach
-or- what you’ll learn bowling with Mark Fenske

If you learn anything when you go bowling with Mark Fenske it may not have anything to do with bowling and it may have everything to do with Korean barbecue.

You’ll learn that there is still a bowling alley in Richmond without futuristic computerized computer displays, Teen Disco Nights and large, plastic fluorescent flutes of Coors Light beer. You’ll learn that in Richmond you can still find lanes with orange and red sandstone-bricked exteriors, decades-old trophy displays, gruff and bearded and short-sleeved league employees who always call you “Sir,” faux-wood paneling, the bathrooms of a 1974 junior-high school gymnasium and the je ne sais quois of suburban Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

You’ll also learn that Bowl America frowns upon flash photography on league nights.

You’ll learn that hot dogs at the concession counter are $3 apiece (which is expensive before you consider that the casings are cut with a knife). Breakfast is available every morning and current specials may include potato and bacon soup with a grilled cheese for the honest price of $4.99.

You’ll learn that Richmond’s Bowl America has Yuengling on tap and that the Korean barbeque doesn’t have a single bottle of Hite. You’ll learn that O.B., Korea’s best and worst impression of Bud Light, stands for Oriental Beer. And you’ll learn to always order the yook hue, which isn’t even barbecued. It’s raw.

You’ll learn to take your hat off indoors. That humility can take you a long way. And that if you want to get things done, you’ll need to take breaks. It doesn’t matter how hard you work if the ideas suck. Live with the stuff you can’t change. Ignore the things that suck. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, it matters what you think.

You’ll learn that the best lines can be something like, “An exploding bowling ball like creamed spinach.”

You’ll learn that when you bus the pitchers from your table and Mark carefully places his monogrammed ball back into its LL Bean tote bag and when the public address system announces that someone has rolled a frame in the 280s not once but twice that your score of 114 is still fine.

Because even if someone from the league rolls a 300 they still won’t stop off for Midlothian Turnpike Korean Barbecue and a round of O.B. beers before getting bibimbap to go (for breakfast) and taking a wintry drive back to S. Jefferson Street on an early March night.

AD JEFF DRYER