Killing kids while we bowl

October 1st, 2005


Well, okay, none of the kids actually died. Or even wound up with serious injuries. But the bowling outing today was definitely a little more eventful than the last one we took with the church. An autistic girl that was along with us burnt her hand on someone's pizza, then passed out and fell to the floor. The college girl who was watching her took it even worse than the girl who fell, I think. Aside from a blister or two from the burn, the girl turned out to be fine.

Scarier yet, one of the toddlers with us (not mine, thank goodness) got away from his parents and everyone trying to keep him in check and ran down the bowling lane. He made it all the way to the end with the bowling pins and was back there with them before his mom and one of the teens ran him down and dragged him back. The alley workers just about had a fit; apparently the sweeper for the bowling pins is triggered by sensors back there and is powerful enough to really hurt a kid. Fortunately, he was retrieved with no injury and no damage.

Aside from these little moments of excitement, the event went very well. We had a turnout of somewhere around thirty, I think, and everyone had a great time. Paul's brother, who lives in Brooklyn these days, joined us. My friend Jay brought his son Dylan and stayed for the second half or so. He'll be joining us for lunch, football, and baseball tomorrow. A family in the church came with their youngest son, a teen now; this is the first event planned by us that this family has ever attended, I think. Three girls we hadn't seen before came with one of the regular teens. We were very glad to see several of the others who came. In case anyone is wondering, I bowled respectably but not spectacularly, with one game in the 110-120 range and another in the 150s. Paul Funchess had the only standout game of over 200. Turns out that some of the people in the church were better bowlers than we knew, though. We'll probably do this again in the near future; it's a pretty big hit with the church folk.

And now, back to preparing for teaching Elijah and Elisha for the teens tomorrow....