The Sporting Life
by Frank Macdonald
The first time I visited Detriot was the summer of 1963 if I recall correctly, when Greet and Hughie bundled me amid all the other children in the station wagon and set off from Cape Breton. This was an adventure for me, including one of my boyhood’s most memorable moments. I was a fierce baseball fan and rooted then, as today, for the Cleveland Indians.
One day while I was in Detroit the Indians were in the city to face the Tigers in a doubleheader. I was given enough for a fare and directions on the bus (the city was that safe then) and found my way to Tiger Stadium where I watched Rocky Colavito and Al Kaline change place in centerfield in the slow ballet that is baseball.
But another sports event stands out as well. When I left Cape Breton as a green teen for the streets of Detroit I couldn’t imagine what summer heat actually was. It was terrible, day and night of unrelenting 90 to 100 degrees.
A street away from Cherrylawn I discovered a bowling alley, my first experience with air conditioning. I would go there almost daily and roll balls down the lane. Before this, I had never been in a bowling alley or picked up a ball.
As the days passed with me bowling against myself (all the Ferguson kids seemed to have jobs) I imagined I was getting pretty good at the game.
One day, when I was the only bowler, a taxi driver came in, guiding a man on his arm. He spoke with the manager who then came down to talk to me. The taxi passenger was a blind man who wanted to bowl but needed to bowl with someone who could tell him the story of the pins after each throw. Would I mind if he bowled with me?
I said yes, but was already embarrassed for this poor handicapped man and decided that no matter how many gutter balls he threw I would tell him they were strikes.
He sat beside me then , opening a sports bag from which he pulled a bunch of aluminum pipes and connected them one to each until he had built a rail. He asked me to set it up in the middle of the gutter line and from there he picked up a ball and gauging his distance from there to his chosen place on the lane fired a ball.
I told him it was a strike because it was.
I told him what pins formed what splits as we played and at the end of our first game he had beaten me by 100 points. It didn’t get any easier after that although I nobly refused to lie when he hit a strike by telling him his ball went in the gutter.
The blind bowler never returned while I was there that summer, but he left a lasting impression that I still try to evoke when meeting with or dealing with other people with disabilities.
Greet: Greet Macdonald, Frank’s aunt
Hughie: Greet’s husband, Hughie Ferguson
Characters • Ferguson, Hughie • Macdonald, Frank • Macdonald, Greet • Stories • Storytellers • told by Frank Macdonald | Dave Ferguson December 24, 2006
