The sound of pins falling moved across the building like a rolling echo, occasionally punctuated by hand claps or shouts of delight.
Every alley was full, as men and women dressed in short-sleeve sport shirts, their names stitched over their left breast, approached the line, eyes focused on the goal at the end of the lane.
That this was a Sunday morning at Preston Forest Bowling Alley in Preston Hollow in the 1960s (or the 1970s or early 1980s, for that matter) would not have struck anyone as unusual.
Why should it?
This is what neighborhood residents in the know did on Sunday mornings or Tuesday nights or at lunchtime during the week, just like other people read books or watch football games or collect stamps.
“It was just the place to be,” says Chuck Lande, today a dot.com entrepreneur and in the late 1970s a student at Hillcrest High School who would cut algebra and ride his bike over to bowl a few frames and pick up a few bucks hustling businessmen taking the afternoon off.
“Everybody would be there. It was all very friendly — just like a big family.”
Preston Forest has been gone 17 years, but time hasn’t helped anyone forget. In the quarter-century the 32-lane bowling alley was
open on the southeast corner of Preston Road
and Forest Lane (today the building houses a
Corner Bakery), it was a nerve center of
neighborhood social life, a place where mothers brought their children on weekday mornings, where the boys from Jesuit eyed the
girls from Hockaday Friday nights after football
games, and where everyone seemed to either be in a league or know someone who
was.
“What I liked about it was that almost everyone lived in the neighborhood,” says long-time Preston Hollow resident Joe Freed, who spent much of the time working on his and the extra money alcohol brought. In addition, not having alcohol meant the bowling center didn’t host many commercial leagues, the financial backbone of many centers because the attraction is beer as well as bowling.
In addition, Preston Forest allowed four-person teams, which made it possible to host a popular husband-and-wife league each summer, but which also meant revenue might be as much as 20 percent less than centers that required five-member teams.
“There just wasn’t any payback,” says Mixon, who figures it cost about $2 a line to bowl at Preston Forest in the early 1980s, a sum whose annual total generated just one-fifth to one-quarter of the rent a high-class retail tenant
such as the Container Store eventually paid for the space. In addition, the bowling center didn’t have automatic scoring, which was just coming into popularity, and much of the equipment was outdated and needed to be
replaced. All told, the changes would have cost more than one-half million dollars.
Adding alcohol, says Mixon, might have improved cash flow, but would have been more trouble than it was worth in those days before Unicards and less restrictive interpretations of the city’s private club ordinance.
“I look back, and I try never to second guess myself, but I miss it,” says Mixon with a sigh. “I made a lot of friends through bowling, and
through Preston Forest.”
Fond memories / Mixon isn’t the only one who feels that way. Talk to anyone who spent any time at Preston Forest, and it’s the people they
remember.
“It was like bowling against good friends,” says Sam Seltzer, a steel distributor who was a regular in the Tuesday night league sponsored by the B’Nai B’rith that featured 30 men’s and 12 women’s teams each week for some 20 years.
“The atmosphere was just so good. It was a camaraderie type of thing.”
It wasn’t unusual for families such as the Freeds to come as a group, the children spending time in the day care center (though it was called a nursery then, Mixon says) while Joe and wife Eileen bowled. Or, if they didn’t bowl, neighborhood residents would come to watch, even if it was just an ordinary league night, and that meant starting at 8:30 p.m. and staying for 2 1/2 hours.
“Tuesday night was our night,” Seltzer says. “Everyone looked forward to it, because you knew you were going to see your friends.”
Afterward, perhaps they had something to eat in the snack bar, which Lande’s parents ran from 1978-1982, while their kids played one of the pinball machines.
“It was our hangout for 10 years,” says Lande, whose game was good enough to earn five regional pro titles after he graduated from Hillcrest.
“I can remember when video games were just getting big, and we’d be up there playing Pac Man and Asteroid.”
The names that made Preston Forest famous still roll off everyone’s tongue. Eddie Katz, who ramrodded the B’Nai B’rith league and helped stage tournaments that drew bowlers from across the southwest. Mildred Rainey and
Josephine Schramm, who managed the center. Maxyne Kammack, the Hillcrest algebra teacher who coached the school’s bowling team. Future pro stars such as Del Ballard and Chris Warren, who spent much of their formative years polishing their skills at Preston Forest. Local legends such as Mike Watt and
Randy Finkelstein, the guys everyone measured their games against.
Those two, and especially Watt, were not above teaching a bowling lesson or two. Seltzer remembers his son Howard skipping class to bowl so he could try his hand against the best, and Watt then emptying the younger Seltzer’s pockets in the process.
“But that was OK,” Seltzer says. “No matter what day of the week it was, I knew where he was, and I knew he wasn’t getting into trouble other than losing a couple of dollars. It really was good wholesome fun.”
Nothing but memories / Today, almost nothing remains of Preston Forest but stories and faded photographs. The equipment, including the lanes, was sold to other bowling centers when the Mixons closed shop. Many of the leagues moved elsewhere, and time and distance eventually broke them up. The building was gutted and divided into several retail spaces, and an entire Preston Hollow
generation has grown up not knowing the alley was there, or what they missed.
“The people really loved to bowl there,” Mixon says, “and I think that’s because we ran a good operation. They were loyal about staying with you, and that’s not always the case with bowling. We always seemed to be outside the
loop, when it came to leagues switching centers. And we were always pleased they thought that much of us.”
That loyalty is one thing time has not eroded.
“Those of us who spent a lot of time there took it hard when it closed,” Lande says. “It was like a second home to a lot us. And I think I took it a little harder than everyone else did. I spent so much time there.”
And why not? It was what everyone did, even on Sunday morning.
