I recently celebrated a birthday, which is an awesome thing when you consider that I’ve survived hauling hay, digging thousands of postholes, picking hundreds of bushels of butterbeans, coaching high school football and working 36 years in education. If you throw in a couple of kidney transplants, it’s easy to see what I mean. Wonders never cease.

As for which birthday this one was I will tell you that in round numbers it’s just a stone’s throw from being eligible for Medicaid, another scintillating milestone in one’s life. Nonetheless it was an enjoyable day highlighted by a family gathering. We all met up in Conyers where dinner and a movie was on tap.

And oh, by the way, a couple of games of bowling as a sort of appetizer.

How we arrived at going bowling is still somewhat of a mystery. It certainly was not my idea. I hadn’t been to a bowling alley since the time when little boys, hidden in the bowels of those lanes, reset your pins after each throw. As I discovered, things have changed along those lines, and the pins are automatically reset by a machine. I  guess those little boys are out of a job.

As previously noted I’d not been bowling since Buck was a calf and so had no idea how to keep score. I soon discovered that another machine actually keeps up with your score and posts it for all to see on a big board, which I found, to my chagrin, can be quite embarrassing. I’m now of the opinion that bowling is not a real sport partly because I’m pretty good at most sports but quickly discovered that I’m pretty bad at bowling.

I think that’s mostly because the balls are much heavier than I remembered.

I can also report to you that modern-day bowling alleys have some quirks.  First of all they won’t let you use your own tennis shoes, but rather one must rent some really ugly ones from the proprietor. Mine had stripes.  I’ve never publicly worn shoes with stripes on them. Highly embarrassing for a man of my age and distinction. The other odd thing is that they don’t have any balls that weigh less than a bale of hay. I suppose they just don’t cater to the Medicaid crowd.

Nonetheless I chose one of those hay bales and prepared myself for battle. On my first attempt eight pins went down, and on my second throw the last two went tumbling for what is known as a spare and is considered quite acceptable for the amateur so I was well-pleased and ready to rock and roll.

But on my second turn disaster struck.

When I reared back to hurl that heavy-as-a-hay-bale ball down the lane I felt a hot pain shoot through my cheek, and I’m not talking about the cheek on my face. That particular shot found what is commonly known as the gutter, and of course the scoreboard lit up a big fat goose-egg for all to see. That goose-egg and my striped shoes notwithstanding, the pain in my cheek throbbed mightily, and thus the former college basketball star had to suffer through the humiliation of being the only person in the history of bowling to experience a pulled cheek muscle.

Oh the agony.

I’d not suffered an injury that severe in approximately 40 years. The last time I’d been hurt that badly was when a giant basketball player named Cornbread Maxwell (of Boston Celtic fame) blocked my shot into the stands, put four stitches in my head, and then stepped on my back with his size 14 feet for good measure.

Injured though I was there was no way I was going to tell anyone. Pride would not allow me to admit that I’d injured myself in a stupid game of bowling. However, the injury did hamper my ability to throw the ball accurately (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). I ended up with a score of 101, which is akin to shooting 120 in golf, batting .185 in baseball, or shooting 25 percent from the field in a basketball game. In other words, an embarrassing total that was bested by virtually everyone who was at the bowling alley that day.

Thankfully supper was excellent, the movie was interesting, and overall a good time was had by nearly everyone. When we got home I limped into the house and my wife, noticing I was hobbled, asked what was wrong. I told her that I caught a cramp while sitting in those little chairs at the movie and it was still sore (that’s my story and I’m still sticking to it). I did, however, learn a valuable lesson that day and here it is: Always warm up thoroughly before throwing a hay bale down a bowling alley lest you pull a cheek muscle.

So happy birthday to me and bring on Medicaid.

Email your bowling tips to dar8589@bellsouth.net.