  bakground: my dad, who will henceforth be known as padre, has been bowling for many years. he taught me how to roll, he taught my brother, my sisters, small villages ... basically any creature with an opposable thumb and an ear has learned something about bowling from padre. unfortunately, he has never thrown a 300. nor, to my surprise, has he ever won a league. me and league titles go together like spic and span, but never for padre. going into tonight, we were 1 game ahead of second place and in control of our own fate. we had just played this team 2 weeks ago and taken 4 of 4 from them. we decimated them. they had every reason to want to permanently damage both our families and friends. additional bakground: padre had been having what he might consider an 'average year'. padre's average this year is a 208. only to padre would this be an average year.
he had been showing signs of breaking out a few weeks before, but then just last week his neck was bothering him, and he just wasn't himself. it was tough to watch padre not be his superhuman self, but i learned that that was all part of the show. when padre absolutely unearthed all 10 in the first frame tonight, you could tell something was up. i then proceeded to watch what could only be described as a herculean display of 10 pin annihilation. ball after ball eviscerated the pocket leaving nothing behind. there were no lucky breaks, no cheap ones, no jersey, nothing. every time i saw his ball zip toward the pocket i had to protect my eyes to make sure that no pin shrapnel jettisoned into them.
pins on other lanes started falling, and to top it off, another local bowling alley had to cancel its league night due to unexplained pinfall. what was i to do but try to keep up with him? i was only playing john henry to his steel driving machine, only in this version the steel driving machine wins, and then turns john henry into a railroad tie. padre threw the first 9 strikes in the first game, then decided that bowling was a trivial sport and went 9 spare, strike, for a 279. i could only stand by and watch and strike.
i rolled the first 9 as well, but finished short with a 278. our team won by about 50. after an effort like that, you always joke and say, 'guess you'll have to get them all next game. ' then padre, the smoothest motherfu**ker in the whole joint, went out and tried to do just that. i tried reasoning with him. i tried showing him pictures of the families of the pins that he was mercilessly slaughtering, but there was no reaching him. he continued to plunder the pocket to the tune of 10 strikes in a row, finishing with a 289. i wasn't even close, posting only a 245. at this point, we had completely wrapped up the second half championship. we won the second game by 200 pins. when dad and i talked about this week following the previous week of bowling we both said something like, 'we're going to have to bring it all next week. ' then padre did. no, f that, not only did he bring it all, he asked for everyone else's and brought that. then he just mashed the pins for about 2 and a half hours. at the end of the night, some sort of kryptonic force caught up to him and held him to a 203, thus capping his night at 771. i was in awe.
i have never seen anyone so locked in. i'm pretty sure i've been that locked in, but when you're doing it, you can't see it happening. it just is. i rolled a 769, and while the scores may look close, it really wasn't. the last game didn't count for anything, except a potential 800 series, so padre i think finally showed some mercy. padre will tell people that i'm better, and if you add and divide, that may be true. but in the clutchest week of the entire year, to come out and throw 19 of 24 possible strikes, i'd have to say that's pretty f'ing good. damn padre. damn 
