My best night bowling was not my highest scoring. After my injury I was on bed rest for a month. My idea of bed rest meant having my head face down so the retina would heal. It worked and allowed my to go places, like the bowling alley, so I wasn't always alone. Anyway, the whole month I couldn't wait to bowl and finally I did...and it was awful that first night, three games in the 120s. That was my first night allowed to do some things and bowling was the only exercise the doctors approved. I practiced all week, blind as a bat. Then Monday came and I went to league. My wife laughed when she dropped me off. I asked someone to change our line-up. No reason letting a blind man that couldn't possibly hit his average bowl anchor. The other teams anchor didn't realize that was why I was wearing the big, black, blind people's glasses inside and started talking trash. Even his own teammates were telling him to shut up but he didn't hear them or listen. The macho in me kicked in and I bowled anchor. First game was a real adjustment. Not for me but for my teammates. I needed to be walked to the approach, my ball handed to me and told where I was lined up, where my ball went, what was left and of course me asking how the ball went through each phase. Shot a 181. Lost my point and was pissed about that. What I didn't know at the time was I gained the respect of the other 59 league members. The next two games went much better. I even converted a split, the 6,7,10 the second game and went clean for a 237. What was shocking to me was how easy I went from a pre-injury stroker to a post-injury cranker. I knew I would need all the margin of error I could get. Game three was real nice. 289. Left a ringing ten, I'm told, on the second ball of the tenth frame. Once I was confident during practice that week that I wouldn't go over the foul line, fall and get hurt, I was good to go. I had some good nights that way and some bad games. It was funny how many splits I all of the sudden was getting. One other thing; it was during this time that I converted my first 7-10 split.
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