August 12, 2010
Somehow in the fall of 1969 we got involved in a bowling league that ran concurrent with the school year. I haven’t the faintest idea anymore how this all came to pass but I remember all of my friends were involved at one time or another. I wrote in my diary on September 12, “Today we started bowling. Rolland is in bowling too.” Rolland Gillies was in our class at school and I had an on again, off again crush on him, but mostly on that fall.
We were in a Saturday morning kid’s league at the King George Bowling Alley downtown. Once upon a time the King George was a nice hotel with a fancy lounge and restaurant but as the years passed, it became somewhat shabby. When we were older, but still underage, we would go to the bar there and drink draft beer. Sadly, it had become that sort of place.
The bowling alley which was on the basement level of the hotel was typical bowling alley-esque. You came down the stairs and entered a sort of foyer situation that had soda and candy machines. We were crazy for cherry Coke back then and that was the only machine I remember that had it. Just past the vending machines was the desk where you checked in, got your shoes, found your lane assignment, and talked to dreamy Jerry Phillips. Jerry worked at the bowling alley part time and played football for the Hilltops, Saskatoon’s Junior Football team. I noted in my diary the first week that his number was 55. I also wrote down his phone number which I must have looked up in the phone book. I had a real habit of recording phone numbers, for some now unknown reason. Two weeks after the start of bowling we went to the Hilltop’s game and I wrote in my diary, “After supper we went to Jerry’s game. They won 32-0. YAY!”
I am guessing that when we first met him, Jerry was about 18-20 years old – and we were 12. He was tall and athletic and had dark wavy hair. Moreover, he was the sweetest guy any of us had ever met. He teased us and flirted with us all of the time, but not in a weird older guy - little girl way. I suspect it was as much fun for him as it was for us because we were wild about him and I’ve never met a 20 year old guy who wasn’t completely flattered when a whole herd of little girls think he is the best thing since pizza. As you can imagine, this let loose the perfect storm of prepubescent raging girl hormones culminating in lots of excuses to go the front counter. We wanted to keep tabs on our Jerry.
The bowling alley was a total zoo on Saturday mornings – filled with rangy kids. I think there were 20 or more lanes and all were in use. There were both girls and boys teams which led to a certain amount of additional tearing around but I really don’t remember any of us actually being interested in any of the boys from bowling. Officially there were 5 of us on the team but the rest of the girls bowled with us sometimes when we needed a sub if someone wasn’t able to show up for one reason or another. We struggled at first to agree on a team name, but in the end we settled on the Godly Goons. No, I am not kidding. Eventually it was shortened to the Goons and we came to really identify with the name. It made us feel funny and silly and somehow it gave us license to act goofy – as if we needed any more encouragement for that. And because we had a wacky name and were always laughing and carrying on, not a lot of teams took us seriously. Big mistake. As it turns out, we were pretty good AND we had our secret weapon – Barb Olson who was a spectacular bowler and won all kinds of tournaments. Plus she had long blonde hair and was really cute, definitely a team advantage!
Barb was one of the original Grade 1 crew at Hugh Cairns, our local public school, but later her family moved to a bigger house just far enough away that she attended a different school than us for a few years. Still, she came to bowling with us. And let me tell you, that girl had a great eye and superb aim. There rest of us were not bad and could usually hold up our end of the game reasonably well, but without a doubt, Barb was the star of the show. In October I wrote in my diary, “Today at bowling our team went to watch Rolland’s team. They are lousy. We are a lot better.” Always the modest one …
This is how it generally played out: we either took the number 4 bus going downtown or someone’s parents dropped us off at the King George. We would be there for about 2 hours bowling, messing around, eating junk food, and visiting with other friends who came down to watch and hang out with us. After bowling we would always go across the street to The Bay for chips and gravy in their third floor cafeteria. Oh, and chocolate milk. I went through a big chocolate milk phase then and liked it best at The Bay. Plus if you got a straw, or used a Twizzler as a straw, you could blow mega chocolate milk bubbles and make a huge mess. The cafeteria was usually busy with lots of Saturday shoppers so it seemed lively and filled with energy to us. Once in a while you would run into your Mum at The Bay which was good if she bought lunch but bad if she crimped your style or got mad at you for “bothering” the other shoppers.
Anyway, these were the days before the Midtown Plaza opened a few blocks away where the old railroad station used to be so The Bay was almost the only game in downtown. Eaton’s also was downtown but it was just far enough away that we didn’t usually want to walk those 3 or 4 blocks in cold Saskatchewan weather. We would come straight over from bowling, head up to The Bay’s top floor, have our lunch, and then “run away” on each other. Essentially this meant two or three girls on a sort of team would go hide somewhere in the store and the other team would have to find them. We did that for hours and hours. It is a total wonder we were never thrown out of the store. Occasionally we would steal a Crunchie from the candy department, especially when it was on the main floor near the Second Avenue entrance. We were such hardened criminals. The only thing I ever stole was chocolate bars because I was too scared to go big time. I had a big fuzzy gold parka then with a hood that had fake white fur trim around it and I would mosey past the Crunchies and slide one up my sleeve. Then I would panic because I was absolutely positive I was going to get caught and be sent to reform school. (I didn’t actually know anyone who ever was sent to reform school, or for that matter what reform school was, and honestly I can’t actually be certain there was such a thing in Saskatoon, but the notion that it might exist was enough to scare me silly.) One or two of the other girls would periodically steal cheap makeup, but that was not common. Well, unless we are talking about Kim because I think at one point she had a nice little stash of Mary Quant lip pots going on and I seem to remember she got caught at least once shoplifting at the Bay.
Sometimes we would go to a matinee after bowling at either the Capital or the Odeon. The Capital Theatre was spectacular. It was an old fashioned movie house with a long red carpeted entry that had an incline ending on what would have been the equivalent of the second floor. The candy counter was just past where you handed off your ticket. From there you could go straight in to the lower level or up to the balcony. I LOVED the balcony. Inside the theatre was painted gold with stars and clouds and lots of ornate design. This was also in the days before cup holders became standard in theatres so you would stick your drink under your seat and hope you remembered not to kick it over. I also remember there was a fairly big stage with velvet curtains because before the Centennial Auditorium was built, we used to go to the Capital to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet or the National Ballet when they were on tour.
At any rate, bowling was a major social event for us. Sure we actually bowled and really cared about how we placed, but we loved bowling mostly because it was a way to hang out downtown without being supervised, meet other kids, and just generally pretend we were older and more sophisticated than we were. And in Saskatoon in 1969, it was about the biggest adventure available to us. It was the next year when we were in Grade 8 that everything changed and our universe expanded. Of course, that was after we met the boys from Grosvenor at Murray Livergant’s bar mitzvah …
