As I approached the man I was to interview in the smoky bowling alley I kept wondering just why he had been bowling every night for 50 years. Surely he had a grandiose plan, a passion for the sport, or a touching personal narrative.
“I hear you’ve been bowling every night for 50 years,” I said, after our initial introductions.
“Yeah,” he said. “You think that’s interesting?”
“Interesting enough for the paper,” I responded.
“Well, if you think that’s interesting – I’ve been making coffee for twenty years. For free!” he said, and excused himself to finish his game.
I sat behind the lanes, taken aback that he did not find his story as interesting as I did.
I noticed everything I could about him. His name on the bowling screen read Ford Fairlane 57. He was dressed as a biker – replete with a leather vest over a work shirt with rolled up sleeves, a large, shiny belt buckle of the Ford logo, leather bracelets and a doorag emblazoned with an eagle and an American flag.
All of these details were scrawled in my notebook along with “coffins??” – which I had heard, mistakenly, instead of “coffee”. He had finished his game.
“So, what is this about coffins?” I asked.
“Coffins? No no! Coffee! Like you drink!” he responded, “I make it for free at 7-11 to help them out. People will joke, ‘Are you making that pot for yourself?’ and I’ll say ‘No I’m making it for you’ because I don’t drink coffee. I make it but I don’t drink coffee. Put that in there.”
I did.
I asked where he got his name and why he bowled so prolifically. I incidentally got his life story, which was much more interesting than bowling.
Samuel
Hutchinson lived on a farm in
In those days Leesburg had two attractions, Tally Ho and the bowling alley.
“I went to
the movies every night before the bowling alley opened,”
Suddenly I realized why a man could bowl every night for 50 years – because he could.
When the bowling alley opened he bowled every night for two years before switching to pool for 20.
“We’d be taking turns at pool, pinball and bowling at the same time,” he said.
Asked again just why he had done this for 50 years, he replied nonchalantly. “There was nothing else to do back then,” he said, “That’s where it was happening.”
Thus Ford Fairlane was born. He named himself after his favorite car, the 1957 Ford Fairlane, which he owns in addition to his 16 other classic cars and 8 trucks – the newest being a 1973 Lincoln Continental.
“I wish it were my real name,” he said, “It has a nice ring to it.”
When asked about the affects his bowling has had on his life, he smiles and shrugs.
“My ex-wife gave me a devil about it,” he said, “I wanted her to go bowling, but she wanted to go to dances and things.”
His
family’s farm was sold in 1991 and each brother retains 50 acres. Retired,
“If you lay around you don’t last too long,” he said.
He quit smoking when he found out he had emphysema six years ago. He has also become an avid churchgoer in his retirement years.
“My mom wanted me to go and every week. I’d make up excuses, [but now] I can’t wait ‘til Sunday. I wish I had started when she was still alive,” he said, his statement punctuated by a reflective pause.
He still bowls every night (he told me that if he showed up even a few minutes after his regular time of 9pm, people would wonder where he was). All in all, retirement has been very good to Ford Fairlane.
“I’m enjoying life right now,” he said, his blue eyes aglow. “I think a man ought to do whatever he wants to do,” he smiles, “I’ve been real lucky.”