I haven’t been bowling in 11 years, but Hubby and I will be participating in a bowling fund raiser with the Lions Club this month. The Lion’s Club is a service organization that raises money and awareness to help prevent blindness and for other causes and Hubby is a member.
This event got me remembering about the last time I went bowling with my friend gHost and a bunch of folks from my co-op. gHost re-names everything in his personal universe. Aliens and Pods? A&P.
gHost also comments on random people he sees. “That guy watches Miami Vice re-runs,” he’ll say of somebody driving beside us. He is an incredibly entertaining person to be around.
Everyone who lived in the co-op got new names, and they stuck. There are people who barely know I have a name other than the one he gave me.
That year in the co-op I had a purple moped and a purple helmet and a green cape. The green cape is a literary reference which I will now use to plug one of my favorite books – How Green Was My Valley by Richard Lewellyn about family, union organizing and relationships in a Welsh mining town at the end of the 19th century. My favorite literary character of all time, Bronwen Morgan, is wearing a green cape as she enters the story. I would wear the green cape, not sitting on it, and let it fly out behind me on the moped. I’d go into stores and people would be like, “You’re the purple moped woman!”
So, I went bowling with the gang and gHost told me: OK, your new name is in the bowling system. When you get a strike, it will appear on the board in flashing lights. But you have to get a strike to get it.
We played through two games. It was nearing the end and I had not gotten a strike. gHost came and stood beside me saying, “We’re going to have to stay here alone for a third game if you don’t make this,” he says with his arms crossed over his chest, “and I really don’t want to be here for another game, but we will if we have to.” He gives me the serious look. gHost is totally serious about some things: barbequing, being a good friend, and renaming everything in his personal universe. We would have stayed there all night.
And somehow I knocked all those big wooden sticks over.
SCOOTER appeared on the board. That’s me, Scooter. Scootie, sometimes, when he’s in a playful mood. When my moped was stolen later that year and it took me another year and a half to pay it off (yeah) the nickname was forever sealed.
So, next weekend, I’ll see if I can get SCOOTER up on that bowling board just one more time.
Happy Birthday gHost!
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