south hills bowl

"This place is deader than Stephen Hawking's legs."
-Shawn Masten

People say that life goes in circles, and I'm beginning to understand why. While perusing the once cherised lanes of South Hills Bowl on a 24 hour weekend bender, I found something interesting hanging on the delapidated walls of the "shithole on the hill". It seemed to be a very old newspaper article from at least 50 years ago signifying the opening of a place in South Baldwin, PA, that would be known as South Hills Bowl. If I recall correctly, it said something to the effect that they would be the most modern lanes in the whole state with the automatic ball return and automatic pin setters. Oh, how the times have changed. As I was finishing up the article, something at the bottom stuck out at me. It was the picture of a smiling young man with glasses, and I quickly turned to the caption to read that "Bill Glus will be the manager of the newly established South Hills Bowl." I could hardly believe that Bill had been there for all those years and had still managed to keep that quirky smile as he watched the place rise to the top of the tops and sink down into the hellhole that it currently has been for the last five years. Since the turn of the millenium, that place has been on a slipply slide to the bottom, and it almost crashed head first this year by nearly failing to open in early September. No matter how terrible the smoke is in there or how black my hands ever get, that place will always feel like home to me. And one day, when the place is long boarded up or getting its shit ruined by construction equipment, I'll be able to look up at the shithole on the hill and remember all the unforgettable times that I had there.

Other than the all night bowling, there was nothing really great to speak of this weekend. Friday night consisted of me hanging out with kathleen and sarah at jeff's bonfire, and myself, jeff, conroy, and another kid doing a live rendition of Wonderwall by Oasis. God I love that song. Saturday night I spent the night bowling with kevin, nayhouse, and shawn masten, who I hadn't seen in quite some time. It was good to reminisce as I could see that although we had moved our seperate directions since graduation, there was still a bit of the old friendship that was rekindled that night. I spent the rest of the night fitfully sleeping on the floor of kevin and nayhouse's dorm in oakland. We went down to marketplace sunday morning, and later on I traveled out to west mifflin.

In other news, the online poker seems to have hit a rough patch. In just two days, I watched as 25% of the bankroll went off to cyberspace as I simply went card dead for about 36 straight hours. It started saturday when I was down to the last 100 of a 5+.50 tournament on stars. I had an average stack, but just got blinded away to 42nd place. Very disappointing because I felt as if I had a decent chance to final table it. The rest of the weekend consisted of me bubbling in SNG's four or five times and running into a terrible situation in a cash game where I flopped a set of jacks and lost to a flopped straight. I'm known for writing about bad beats, but that was just a bad situation there. There was nothing I could do(I guess I could have mucked when he raised), but obviously it's tough to put your opponent on exactly A 1O on a J Q K rainbow board. I began to recover tonight as I got 5th in a 45 person SNG and tripled cashed in back to back to back SNG's, yet I failed to win either of the two that I got heads up in. It just seems that it's coming down to me getting a little card dead or losing races. You have to win races to win SNG's as you can only expect to get in dominating spots every once in awhile.

To end this post, I'd like to give you a little taste of Claude McKay. I discovered him this year in my poetry class, and out of all the African American authors we have read, he is second only to Langston Hughes(who is probably one of my three favorite poets of all time). That will be a topic for a future post, but until then, enjoy this one.

If We Must Die
By: Claude McKay

If we must die- let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die- oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!



mh