Let's go on a bowling date
A bit about candlepin bowling (and a story excerpt and author update)
Happy Valentine’s Day!
It’s the perfect day to read a romance! I’ve got one that is on sale everywhere this month and two that are included in a Buy One, Get One promotion at Kobo (which I already told you about, but wanted to remind you of).
Today also seems like the perfect time to talk about dates. Or more specifically, one date from Don’t Tell My Best Friend I Love Her because I wanted to make this into an Images and Excerpts post and share another little bit of Nova Scotia culture with you.
If I go to the bowling alley around the corner and down the street from my house to partake in a game, I would be playing candlepin bowling.
When I helped the Student Activities Counsel organize bowling activities for our high school kids at the Christian school where I taught, the bowling that the kids (and teachers) did was candlepin bowling.
When I wrote about Esther’s date with Steve at a bowling alley, I had them playing candlepin bowling.
Because that’s the kind we play here.
I know it’s not just a Nova Scotia thing. But it’s also not widely played and might be unfamiliar to many. So today, I thought I’d share a few pictures to help you imagine it when you’re reading about Esther’s date.
You’ll notice that the pins are a different shape from regular 10-pin bowling. They are tall and thin.
The ball is also different. It has no finger holes, is about 2 lbs in weight, and 4.5 inches in diameter (so, it’s small).
The rules of play are also a bit different. For instance, there is no clearing of the knocked down pins between balls – only between frames, and you have three throws of the ball per frame instead of two. There are a few scoring differences as well, but I’ll let you look that up if you’re interested. I don’t want to bog this newsletter down with too many details. :)
Here’s how chapter six (the bowling date chapter) begins:
Esther stuffed her phone in her pocket and grabbed a small blue and pink swirled ball from the line of them on the ball return machine.
“Did you see that?” Steve asked. “I don’t know why I don’t go bowling more often. This is fun.” He came to stand in front of her. “And not just because I’m currently running the highest score I’ve ever had.” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “The company I’m keeping makes it pretty awesome.”
Esther shook her head and smiled. She was having a good time. Maybe not as good a time as Steve appeared to be having, but he wasn’t wrong. This was fun.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, while remaining directly between her and where she needed to be to take her turn.
“Nothing’s wrong.” The half shrug that accompanied her words was a reflex and wasn’t going to convince anyone that the worship team schedule hadn’t made her heart pinch.
“You looked troubled by something on your phone a minute ago.” He gave her what she would call a dad glare. She had seen him use that same look with Madison many times. It was a look that said he didn’t believe her and thought she was hiding something. Usually because Madison was hiding something – kind of like Esther was doing right now.
She sighed. “It was just the new worship team schedule. Fred’s changed things around and suggested we need to be prepared for more changes after the holidays are over.”
“You don’t like change?”
She shook her head. “Not overly much.”
Especially since the main change was that she wouldn’t be singing with Fred any time soon. She had only ever NOT sung with him when he was on a trip or sick – or when she was at university. Standing on stage at Hatfield Falls Christian Church without him just felt wrong, and now, it appeared that she was going to have to feel that on the regular.
“It’s just…” She watched herself spin the ball she held slowly between her hands. “You get used to who you’re serving with. You know how they are going to play. How long the intro will be. Their nods and looks about continuing the chorus.” She shrugged. She knew all of Fred’s cues.
What if she didn’t catch the cues from others? She’d look like the kid with the new clarinet in band class who only knew how to squeak when everyone else knew how make the thing play music. She had no desire to go back to that.
“Ah, so there are going to be new things to learn.”
She nodded as she stopped spinning her ball and instead passed it from one hand to the other.
“You must be good at learning new things. You’re a teacher. Right?” Steve’s tone was optimistic.
“Yeah. I guess.” She chuckled. “But I’d really like to pout about having to do so.”
Steve laughed. “How about taking out that displeasure on those poor, unsuspecting candlepins down there instead?” He tipped his head toward the lane.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “You know, I’m not seven, but nice try attempting to redirect my attention back to the game.”
“Meh,” he said. “We’re all seven-year-olds on occasion. And sometimes seven-year-olds can be much wiser than their toothless grins would suggest.” He took a seat at the scoring table and picked up the pencil.
“Oh, don’t I know it,” Esther agreed. “My class surprises me frequently, and they’re not even seven yet.” She stepped forward while swinging her arm back and bent to let the ball go.
“I’m pretty sure they get their wisdom from their parents or grandparents,” she said as she tipped her head and watched her ball curve toward the gutter. Thankfully, it still managed to take out two pins.
She turned and held her hands up. “I think you have sucked up all the good luck from this lane.”
“I doubt it.” He came to stand next to her as she grabbed her next ball. “Show me how you’re holding the ball.”
She held it up for him.
“I saw this online, and so far, it seems to be working.”
“You studied for a date?” she asked in surprise.
He smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t want to look bad.” His soft admission felt sweet as it registered in her mind.
“Which, as you are finding out, is hard to do when bowling with me.” She laughed. “So, how do I fix my game?”
Can you see the pins waiting to be knocked down more clearly now? And can you see the ones that did get knocked down, just laying there in the lane? Does it make it easier to understand how Esther can be passing the ball between her hands and spinning it in her hands?
Hopefully, the images and explanation that I shared was helpful in creating a more immersive reading experience.
Here in the Halifax area, there’s been a good bit of snow that has fallen in the past month. We had none at the beginning of January. I’d like to go back to that now, please. LOL
It has made my food delivery job a little more tricky at times. (I ended up stuck in a snowbank once!)
And those potholes on the road – like the one in Esther and Fred’s story – are becoming dangerous to keeping my car in one piece. Some of them are so big and deep! It hasn’t helped that the cold weather has brought on several water main breaks which means the water company has dug up roads to fix them and then refilled the holes… and then, that has “settled” as cars and trucks have driven over the patches. It’s enough to almost make one long for road construction season to begin. :) Almost.
I’m currently experimenting with a different schedule for dividing my time between driving for Uber and doing my writing business work. So far, the experiment seems to be positive for helping me get more writing stuff done.
My writing focus at present is on beginning a new Leenie Brown story, so all the Hatfield Falls story ideas are impatiently waiting their turn to be worked on. But, I’m hopeful that I’ll get to start a short project that I have an idea for soon.
That’s it for this newsletter. I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Until next time… Happy reading!
<3 Annilee
Image attributions for candlepin bowling collage:
Image of ball sizes: RCraig09, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. (No changes were made to this image)
Image of candlepin lanes: Rene Schwietzke, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. (No changes were made to this image)
Candlepin graphic source: DepositPhotos