ALAN writes:
One day two weeks ago, I went bowling with three friends. That was highly improbable, because the last time I bowled was in 1964.
The outing prompted me to remember my Uncle Gus. He died at age 70 more than half a century ago. He and his wife, my Aunt Leona, created for themselves a lifelong marriage and a lovely home.
Uncle Gus was opinionated as could be, and therefore a man after my own heart. He had zero tolerance for nonsense and excuses. He enjoyed baseball, fishing, and bowling. The syndicated program “Sea Hunt” was one of his favorite TV shows (and mine) in the late 1950s.
Remembering him prompted yet another memory from the years 1953-’54. On Friday nights in those years, my uncles and grandfather would watch the “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports”, either at our home or on the television in the corner tavern. What I remember especially from those nights are the sound of the advertisements for Gillette Blue Blades and the voice of “Sharpie”, the Gillette parrot. The melody played in those advertisements was that of “The Look Sharp March”, a cheery melody that projected a feeling of confidence and optimism. It was composed by Mahlon Merrick, musical director for many years on The Jack Benny Program. That melody was so agreeable and we heard it so many times in the 1950s that it cemented itself into my memory and became part of my memories of Uncle Gus.
St. Louis had dozens of bowling alleys in the 1950s-’60s. Many Catholic parishes also had bowling alleys. My own parochial school had a bowling alley in the basement of one of its buildings. Many of my classmates took advantage of that, but I was not among them because I was too busy playing baseball, collecting baseball cards, and building model cars.
My mother remembered bowling with friends at the Fairground Hotel in north St. Louis, across from Fairground Park (both named after the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis). Only vaguely can I remember her taking me to another bowling alley in north St. Louis in the 1950s when I was too young to understand or appreciate the game.
My uncle belonged to a bowling league at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in south St. Louis. How I regret not learning about that until it was too late to ask him about his favorite memories of bowling.
Our recent outing was enjoyable, more so than I expected it might be. But the setting for bowling in 2026 is very different from what it was in the 1950s-’60s. And by “very different”, I mean that if my uncle could see and hear what it is today, it would not fill him with glee. Of course bowling in those years was accompanied by the ambient sounds of the bowling balls and pins and conversations going on throughout the game. I am confident that my uncle was comfortable with those things and that setting. And I am equally confident that he would not be comfortable with multiple screens suspended overhead and loud “music” being played throughout. They are part of the “total experience” that today’s younger generations now crave. Such people cannot imagine doing anything or being anywhere without multiple screens and non-stop noise as part of the setting. They cannot imagine that such things detract from the game and the enjoyment that my uncle and countless other Americans found in the game without those things.
For people in those years, the game was the reason to be there. The game was the point; not the “music”, not the noise, not the commotion, not the screens, and not any form of hype. To my uncle, those things would be part of the nonsense for which he had no patience. Neither do I.
If he were here today, he would ask why Americans can no longer do anything or be anywhere or play any game or enjoy any game without constant noise and wall-to-wall screens. And I would say to him: “My dear uncle, be thankful you lived when you did. You could not know that our country today is not the country that you and I remember from the 1950s.”
