Not long ago, one of the young editors at a major newspaper called me and asked what I meant when talking about "pin boys" in my bowling column.
While we were talking, it suddenly dawned on me that anyone born after the Second World War probably never heard the word "spoon" used in reference to golf, "cinders" used when discussing track, or "pin boys" when talking about bowling.
Sports has lost some of its golden nostalgia if avid golfers don't know the "spoon" is what they use to call the three-wood, track fans don't recall that "cinders" once replaced grass as the favorite running surface, and that "pin boys" did just that—set up pins in bowling centers.
The three greatest bowlers in history—Don Carter, Dick Weber, and Earl Anthony—all set up pins as youngsters.
So did thousands of other young Americans. In those days of tough economic times, young boys made money by using their bikes to deliver papers seven days a week or their muscles to set up pins for league and open bowlers.
In the beginning, Weber and Anthony set up pins for the money—five to 10 cents a game. Carter was more interested in setting up pins so he could practice free.
"I started setting pins back in Indianapolis in 1939 at age 9 for five cents a game," Weber said.
"Believe it or not," recalled Anthony of his pin boy days in California, "you could make $5 to $6 for a long day, and I would leave the bowling center feeling rich."
"I rarely set pins for money back in St. Louis," Carter said. "I did it because I could bowl free if I set up pins. We didn't have enough money in our family for me to just go out and bowl."
In the old days, pin boys would sit on the divider between two lanes. They would clear fallen pins off the lanes following strike attempts and reset the pins on their spots after spare shots.
It was a thankless and sometimes hazardous job.
"A pin boy, he actually was about 50 years old, once got killed on the lanes adjacent to me," Anthony recalled. "The pin caromed off my lane and cracked his skull. I was stick to my stomach a long time after that happened."
That was a freak accident, but bruises and even fractures were common among pin boys.
"I've seen guys get hit in the head and legs by flying pins," Weber said. "A couple guys suffered broken legs. I was lucky. I only was bruised when hit in the legs and chest by flying pins."
If that were not dangerous enough, sometimes the pin boys had to dodge the bowling balls themselves.
A former pin boy, Gary Culton, recalls, "Some guys, especially when they were drinking, seem to delight in trying to hit the pin boys with the bowling balls."
Carter said pin boys had a solution to sadistic bowlers in St. Louis.
"They kept a can of grease and if anyone tried to hit them on purpose, they would rub a little grease into the ball's thumb hole. That way, the bowler would drop the ball or throw it backward when trying to kill a pin boy."
Despite all the danger and the poor pay, Weber found bowling an exciting game.
"Bowling was exciting to me back then," Weber said. "When the place was empty, I got to set up pins for myself. I would set up the pins on all 12 lanes, put two or three balls on each rack and then I would go across the house learning how to bowl ... and I got to do that free.
"Later when I was older, I became a good bowler and would substitute in all the leagues. My father called me a 'bowling alley bum.'"
That "bowling alley bum" went on to become the game's greatest goodwill ambassador.
And bowling has gone on to become probably one of the most modernized of all modern-day games.
AMF introduced the revolutionary automatic pinspotter in 1946, which eliminated the need for pin boys, although there are still a few isolated small centers across the world that still depend on them. The last I looked, they still used pin boys to set up pins in two old bowling lanes located in the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame in St. Louis.
Later, bowling became even more modernized by introducing automatic foul lights and automatic scoring machines. Those automatic machines are great, but you would be surprised to learn that many young bowlers don't know how to keep score manually.
No question about it, bowling has come a long way in the past 50 years and so have former pin boys Dick Weber, Earl Anthony, and Don Carter.
Dick Evans is a member of the ABC and PBA Halls of Fame.