A Story I Should Have Written

Been doing a lot of contemplating lately. I'm writing this piece on Steve Garvey, and it amazed me to realize that when he was going through his serial relationship stage in 1988-89, he was my age. At the time, he was quoted as saying something to the effect of "most people have a mid-life crisis; I had a mid-life catastrophe."

So, I've been mentally looking back at my career. I've been fortunate. There are so many things I've done, people I've met and places I've seen that never would have been possible without the job. I've written some good stuff, but not all of it. I've missed some stories, too.

One of those happened when I was the newspaper's bowling writer in the early '90s. There was this guy, Noel Bostick, who taught bowling classes at a center in Tampa. After he lost his IT job, he started hanging around the alley during the day. He noticed a high school class one day and saw a big, linebacker type fire an eight-pound ball down the lane -- with predictable results.

So, old Noel wandered over and said, "Want some help?" By the end of the day, he'd helped every kid in the class. The manager hired him to teach that day.

Noel's teaching technique was pretty cool; he was an accomplished trick bowler, and as he'd stand holding a ball facing the group with his back to the lane, in mid-sentence he would flip the ball (without looking back) between his legs and roll a strike. So, he was a bit of a showoff, but the method was effective; it got kids interested in the game.

One day, I went out to the center to talk to Noel about his teaching methods. I got a nice, little column out of it, and he agreed to provide weekly bowling tips based on his classes. But I missed the real story, and it still bothers me 15 years later.

When I was done with the interview that day, Noel insisted on walking me out to the parking lot. He wanted to show me something, something very important to him. His whole demeanor changed as he left the dark interior of the center and walked into the sunlight toward a huge, beat-up, mid-'70s station wagon. His car.

He opened the hatch and pulled aside a blanket, revealing a big wooden board hand-painted on both sides with the words: My Daughter Was Killed By A Drunk Driver. Noel pulled it out and showed me how it attached to the top of his car. On weekend nights, he said, after the bowling alley closed down he would attach the sign to the top of his car and drive, slowly, up and down Dale Mabry Highway in the vicinity of bars and restaurants. It was his way, he said, of warning people what could happen if they weren't responsible. It was his way, he said, of honoring his daughter's memory.

Missed that one. Should have written it then. I think he'd make a good character in a short story, though. Maybe it's just as well I never wrote it for the newspaper. Maybe I'll do it better now.