The Machines

When I was twelve years old my parents got divorced.

Part of the settlement was that my father and his new family would keep the house overlooking the town, and dad would build a new house for us a few thousand yards away on newly created building lots at the foot of the hill. At the time of moving, the new house was not yet ready to live in so my mother, sister and I had to move to a temporary rented house. My mother found it very difficult to find a rental for such a short period which meant all we could find was a run-down shared house in the cheaper part of town. Living on the other side of the tracks was an interesting experience for this young boy.

Not far from where we lived was a bowling alley. Always in need of extra money, I discovered that they hired kids to set the pins.  I had just turned thirteen, which was probably the minimum age, so this was a great opportunity. This was in the days before the infamous AMF and Brunswick automatic pin setters, and the setting was done by hand; well, not entirely by hand, we used a semi-automated machine called a Brunswick B-10 which held the pins at an angle in a rack suspended above the alley. By pulling a cord, the machine would swing down, tip the pins up and set them down on their correct spots. It was also capable of picking up the pins missed by the first ball, so that the operators (us kids) could use the machine to lift the standing pins out of the way and crawl under to collect the ball and fallen pins. These pins would then be slung into the raised rack where the design was such that they easily found their places and the ball was then lifted onto a sloping track where it rolled back to the bowler at the other end of the alley.

It was possible but a hell of a lot of work, to set two alleys at a time, jumping from one to the other, then jumping out of the way onto the bench which ran the whole length of the alley at the back. In theory this raised bench gave protection to the pin-boy from the heavy ball and pins crashing violently into the back of the alley. That was the theory, but every once and a while, a rogue pin would jump out of the alley and strike home. Usually on the legs or arms but smack dab in the forehead happened to me at least once.

The pay for all of this was 10 cents a line with occasional tips from the bowlers. A line, for the non-bowlers among you, is a full game for one person, 10 frames, or up to 21 balls depending on the skill of the bowler. A typical shift probably encompassed 30 or 40 lines setting two lanes at a time. Sixty plus years later I can’t really remember how many lines we did in a day, but 10 cents each wasn’t a lot. The day’s pay would probably be only three or four dollars, with perhaps a bit extra in tips. Obviously there has been much inflation since then, but it was still a pittance. Even so, it provided a bit of spare cash for us kids who had very few ways of earning pocket money in those days.

My first day was quite hard work, and I was not used to it. I was setting only one lane, but it was still a back breaking procedure. It involved constantly jumping down, stooping over or crawling under to collect the pins and throw them in the rack, bending over again to collect the heavy ball and send it down the track, then hopping back up on the bench to safety. – repeat – repeat – –

On the morning of the next day, I woke up and could barely move. Being unused to hard work, every muscle in my body ached. Getting out of bed didn’t seem possible so I didn’t even try. I asked my mother to phone the bowling alley and explain that I was ill and couldn’t come to work that day. The alley manager was not amused. He insisted I get out of bed and get down there for my shift. The best treatment for my aches and pains, he explained, was to “get back on the horse” as Montanans often say, and work that stiffness out by doing the same job again.

It turned out that he was right. I dragged myself out of bed and staggered down to the alley. After a slow start my muscles began to loosen up, and by the time I had set a line or two I was more or less back to normal. I worked this job for several months and my fitness level improved markedly. I was probably in better shape than ever before in my young life.

The basement

To get from the front of the bowling alley to the back where the machines and pins were, required going downstairs into the basement under the alley. It was a long, low and untidy room with crates of soft drink and snacks stacked here and there. There was also a table, a few cheap chairs, and as I recall, a pool table, for the use of the employees on their breaks. This was usually occupied by the off-duty pin-boys sitting around drinking Coke-a-cola, shooting pool and smoking cigarettes; very sleazy I thought – my mother would never approve.

Most of us were my age or a year or two older, but there was one guy who was much older; probably in his late twenties. He only had one arm, the other severed just below the elbow, but he was highly skilled as a pin setter. He could hook a pin (they are larger than you think) in the little elbow joint he still had, while holding two or even three of them in his good hand. He could set three alleys at a time with ease, unheard of by us mere mortals. Best of all, he often told us detailed ribald stories that made my eyes pop and my trousers swell. He was my hero and for a while I wanted to be just like him, but with two arms of course.

There was also an older kid there who seemed to be the crew boss to all of us younger kids. His name was Georgie, and as circumstance would have it, I knew him somewhat. He lived in a small town to the south of Missoula called Florence, and his mother Fran had done cleaning, and I guess de facto kid sitting for my mother a year or two earlier when mom was working in my dad’s office. From time-to-time Fran would bring Georgie with her when she came to our house to clean. As I remember; Georgie, being at least three or four years older, was something of a bully, and our “play time” together was often unpleasant. I didn’t really like him much at the time, but here at work he was reasonably nice to me and all the rest of us pin-boys for that matter. He kept us under his wing and looked after us with the senior management.

The Initiation

The fact that we were friends of a sort didn’t spare me from the “initiation” however. This ceremony was, on the face of it, nothing more than instructing me to set pins for him one day. The announcement, on a quiet afternoon in the basement, that I was to set up an alley for Georgie, drew the attention of all present in the room.  They grabbed their drinks, put down their pool cues and trooped excitedly upstairs on mass to watch from the front, while I scaled the back stairs to turn on the machine in alley 9.

As I have said before, it was possible, though fairly rare, to get hit by heavy pins flying out of the alley when struck with a particularly high speed ball. Georgie had been working in this bowling alley for some years and was a pretty good bowler. He was also very strong and capable of hurling a ball down the alley with more force than anyone I knew. The scene was thus set, and it was eagerly anticipated that I should get hit smartly on the shins or elbows as many times as possible. I don’t remember what his final tally was, but Georgie did indeed manage to achieve his goal. Fortunately, no real damage was done, and I successfully completed the initiation.

Inevitably we got on even better after that although we never became real friends. I didn’t know much about Georgie’s home life. I think he lived with his mother in Florence and that his father was out of the picture somehow, but I never knew the details. Not long after the initiation incident, our new house on the other side of town was finished, school started again, and it became impractical for me to continue my little job. I left the bowling alley and lost contact with Georgie. A few weeks later I heard that he had put a shotgun under his chin and blown the top of his head off. It was a very big shock. I never understood anything about why or how something like that could happen. I’m not sure I understand it even today.

A few weeks later I went past the bowling alley, and the place had been completely remodelled. Gone were the manually operated apparatuses and in their places were gleaming, fully automatic Brunswick Model A pin setters. Very clever devices they were too, as I learned when I had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and watch one in action a few weeks later. They were one of the first mass produced machines to completely displace manual workers. Displace…? Did I say displace…? Rescue might be a better word because, let’s face it, setting pins was a pretty crap job. I hope you, the reader agree, the world is a better place now that the job of pin-boy no longer exists. Having said that, even after all these years, I still feel a bit of nostalgia for those days.

I may not have been the very last pin-setter, but I wasn’t far off..

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