Royal Order of the Water Buffaloes

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Since 1996, I have been in a bowling league on Thursday nights that started with those of us in advertising in the Atlanta Area. It started with 6 teams, and my first team was called Great Balls of Fire!  The league now has a full 24 teams - taking up the full bowling alley. I had the distinct honor of developing the logo for the league back in the day. Over the years, my team members changed, our name became 'Bowlus Interruptus' and is now the 'Glory Bowl'.  As you can imagine, the league has awesome team names like "Don't Give a Split", "Ermagerd, Berling", "Get off my Lawn" and "Pho King All Day and Pho King All Night"

 I was the worst bowler in the league. Still am. So as a distraction, I developed the "turkey dance" which was something that started with a bowler on the league getting a 3-strike turkey. Then, I would proceed to gobble like a turkey, and do a running dive roll onto the lanes, breakdance and then end up in a pose. Eventually, the turkey dance was banned as being too distracting for a bowling league that shared the lanes with us that was waaaaaay more serious. Like hand truck, two bags serious. That was a sad night for me, and for league members - they broke the news to me by sitting me down and giving me a gin and tonic to numb the news.

In 23 years my average has never improved. But since the banning of the turkey dance, Katie Murphy and I created the titty High Ten for our team - any time someone gets a strike, you get a mid air chest bump. A spare gets a titty High-Five. What has impacted me most about this league is that we have FUN. Sure, there are competitors, but we mostly enjoy the camaraderie with team mates who we've known the entire time. We have a trophy that gets passed to the winning teams (mine has been on the trophy 3X - no help from me) and we have an annual MVP award which is the "hat". The recipient of the hat is voted upon by others who have won the hat. I was the first recipient of the hat - the award for the league member that embodies the spirit of fun that the league wishes to promote. Only one other league member has been on the league the entire time with me - and this is the great commissioner GARY GEE - the founder of the league. This league has been a huge part of my life for the last 23 years, and has been the only sports league I was able to participate on in my life!!! (I got cut from all others I tried out for except Track - and they accepted everyone!) I love you WATER BUFFALOES!!!

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