The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 1

I imagined the old bowling alley back in its heyday. Maybe some goofball character straight out of a movie, sliding his T-top Firebird 360 degrees into a parking spot, music blaring announcing his arrival. Lights reflecting in his aviator shades, giant moustache with an half finished cigarette hanging out his mouth. Bowling bag in one hand as the legend in his own mind walks to the bowling alley entrance.

Now I imagined that same guy with a the same car barely running. These days probably some accountant or other boring occupation that might leave person wanting an outlet for excitement. A nobody in normal life, now still a legend at the bowling alley. How did I get sucked into the nonsense of a bowling alley? I blame the Coen brothers. My buddies watched their damn movie about "The Dude" and starting bowling one day, often quoting the movie during the games. I guess I'm the modern version of the T-Top driving, self important individual. Just like the mental picture I had lost my way, or even meaning. From working sixty to eighty hours a week to having plenty of spare time for bowling. Like all people that get sucked into this strange world of indoor activities it starts out thinking how easy bowling is with the lucky game every once in a while. The thought that in a couple weeks or months someone can just pick up a house ball and bowl a 300, or perfect, game.

It has probably happened somewhere but for most people it takes a lot of practice. I would like to say I was Dude-like, but the truth is I'm bull-headed and can be difficult to get along with. The last job I had was growing cannabis for a legal operation in Washington State. Introduced through a mutual friend I worked for some of the California boys we would call them. People who had moved here from Northern California who were going to show real farmers how to grow something less difficult to grow than crops we already grew. These California boys who had rub their farm into the ground were determined to teach someone already known nationwide and beyond for growing. It was like a fast food worker who had just figured out the grill teaching a master chef how to cook.

I love cannabis, so against my better judgement I took on the challenge. I grew about 85 different strains and help them go from 85 lbs to over 2000 in a season. That life seemed like a distant memory. Born to be a gardener, or so it seems, it is hard not to cultivate anything that will grow. Now I'm in my mid 30s, and had started growing around the age of 15. I could recognize a strain of cannabis like an old friend I'd been wondering about. What was important now was bowling.

Before bowling my friends and myself would take dabs. Dabs, if you don't know, is BHO or Butane Hash Oil usually, but it can be made with other solvents. Even though it's only become popular in recent years, how to make it was in the Anarchist Cook Book, which is a rare find these days. In some dusty old box in a storage building that thing resides, waiting for a future rebellious generation to unleash mischief.

Anyhow I'll describe the process. It felt like a different version of "Breaking Bad" when I first learned to make it. The best dab starts with the best trim. What gets blasted by myself or friends in the inner circle is better than 90 per cent of anything world wide on any market. Everything is grown to absolute perfection and then cured for around 56 days hanging upside down in a dark room.

The leaves without crystals are trimmed off first to prevent any hay-like smell or wet taste. At first the plants, when wet, start drying with a 40 per cent humidity level. After most of the moisture is gone the humidity is allowed to rise to about 50 degrees F. If done right the smell should have a full flavor. The bud itself should be completely dry but pliable and sticky at the same time.

Once the consistency is correct a second trim is done to remove the crystalline leaves around the buds. The buds are kept but the leaves that most people leave on there is what we use for the BHO. Next this byproduct is stuffed into a glass tube with a small end the size of a butane bottle tip and the large end and 1 1/4" inside diameter. After putting a fines screen and a coffee filter on the end of the tube the butane gas is forced through the tube usually into a Pyrex dish.

Important to note that special mats are used to discharge static electricity. This can also be done with a fabric softener. (Butane gas is highly flammable.) After the butane is blasted through the tube - about one 12 oz. can of butane per every 25 grams of material - the Pyrex dish is set on a heating surface below 120 degrees F so that flavor, cannibinoids, and the terpins that affect flavor are not lost. After the initial purge the remaining sticky substance is scraped up and than put in a vacuum pure set below 120 degrees F under vacuum pressure for 48 hours. This removes the remainder of the light gasses left by the butane.

After this wild process it is smoked in a device called a 'dab bong'. It is like taking the innocent pot of the 60s and finding a way to make it look like harder drugs. This powerful product can ruin a beginner, creating anxiety attacks. Anyhow myself and my friends are pretty heavy-duty so we might take a dab first thing in the morning. So after a smoke session that could slow down Tommy Chong we head red-eyed in our altered state to the alternate universe called the bowling alley. Bowling, like everything else, just became something to learn about and figure out. It turns out that just grabbing a ball off the shelf and expecting to bowl a perfect game in a few weeks is not reasonable.

What happens is people go in thinking they will get better. Pretty soon they learn about the Pro Shop and the equipment available. The idea of bowling is to get a ball to cut across at the end of a lane and hit the pins at a perfect 30°angle. There are what is called 'reactive' or 'particle' balls that have spin to accomplish this goal. It takes some weird stance and awkward fingering position in combination with unnatural movements. According to my friends the professionals get a little deeper, knowing the individual lanes across the country. They know which ball to use and what type of spin it needs. The pro lanes also use a different oil pattern to make it more difficult. Rumour has it that they keep lanes hidden from the professionals so they can't become familiar. The bowling alley is just a blast from the past that lets a person like myself forget about all the troubles.

Politics and opinions take a back seat and all that is important is that next throw. So far I have proven to be a terrible bowler. Often I am just looking at the activity in the bowling alley trying to determine the net profit of a place like that. That is just how my mind works; it is always taking everything apart to see how it works.

Alex was just another lost soul looking for his place in a changing world. The Bowling Vortex was just the latest rabbit hole he had wondered into.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 2

Does your life consist of one bad decision after another? Too much of the wrong kind of excitement. The drug-fuelled adventures that started by cliff-diving on windowpane acid and ended in a local jail. All these old memories came flowing back after a cousin of a friend had reminded him of that distant life. Now his friend had been deported to Mexico and is not allowed to return.

It turned out he was born in Mexico. It turns out when a person gets in trouble and puts their ankle monitor on a cat and takes off to Mexico it gets hard to get back in. It was a relief to know the friend was still left in Mexico. This is a person to whom the laws of karma don't apply. The friend was a thief who had robbed everyone blind. An opportunistic kleptomaniac with no remorse.

You would think that things would turn out poorly for a person like this but apparently this type of life leads to being the coach of a bikini football team in a beach town in Mexico. Seeing his cousin brought back memories of a different time and a different path. Through the estranged friend is how he made some of his connections. Normally Alex had better judgement but there was something exciting about not knowing what would happen. Getting in a vehicle with the friend was usually a brush with death or the aftermath of a situation gone wrong.

The cousin he had ran into was the polar opposite. Mexican people put family first, even with cousins like that. The cousin had taken a different path going to school, becoming a mechanic, and eventually buying his own shop. Alex had been real careful to put distance between himself and the old friend. There were often two other people involved in all of the misadventures before Alex became more reclusive.

One was a half Native American and the other half from the Philippines and the other a another crazy Caucasian who had moved to the Pacific Northwest from Georgia. Memories of that old life came back like a familiar smell that brings back old memories. The bowling alley was in this way the same. It reminded him of the old days. The last time he talked to his friend, ironically, they were supposed to meet at a bowling alley.

Another cousin who may or may not be related to the cartels picked him up that day. He had hardly known him. The other cousin showed up in a blue 1990 Cadillac with four doors. It was winter, he remembered, the window being rolled down. Upon further inspection he saw the car had one of the small spare tires on the rear. The cousin had brought one of his younger brothers along for the ride; he was riding shotgun. After a few miles down the road Alex noticed that the window didn't roll up because it was broken. He also noticed the ignition was broken.

When Alex asked about it the cousin came up with a story that seemed reasonable at the time. The cousin had spotted a police car and took off for no reason. After about an hour of a high speed chase that exceeded 130mph on a spare tire Alex decided his only option was to jump out. The entire chase Alex had his hands in the air. Once the cousin slowed down to about 30mph to take a corner Alex jumped out on a lawn of a corner house. The entire police force of a small town, as well as some Sheriffs and State Patrol, had been trying run him off the road or stop him.

When Alex jumped out a couple cars stopped off and arrested him. After about 6 hours of explaining that he barely knew the cousin, that was the truth he didn't even know his last name. Later on the younger brother had jumped out and eventually the driver wrecked into a trailer at a trailer park. Alex had somehow talked his way out of bigger charges and ended up with a $66 seat belt ticket. He started arguing that he had to take his seat belt off to jump out and realized he had better just shut up and take the ticket. It was about an 8 mile walk home. The only other excitement that night was being chased by wild dogs.

Apparently after being arrested the cousin had given them a fake last name of an in law that was an illegal immigrant. He was deported to Mexico. His dad apparently was a cartel guy. Anyhow the cousin got deported the dad went down to get him and they partied for two weeks in Mexico before coming home. They likely used the trip to bring more drugs back with them. Even the old cartel guys who heard the story would laugh at Alex. What a blast from the past, a brief revisiting of the glory days.

How things have changed. In Eastern Washington it started in school with brown bricks of weed full of seeds and stems. At that time it was $400 per lb or 448 grams. A quarter or 7 grams would sell for $25 at first but after a while just ounces were sold to a middle person to increase volume and reduce risk. It was going well until a trip North close to the Canadian border below Vancouver B.C.

Our connections there were through our Native American friend. We found a much higher grade of cannabis being sold for $20 per gram. This was actually grown in that area by the old hippies. After that the majority of the market came from Vancouver B.C. Before that September 11th smuggling from B.C. was just a matter of loading up a back pack and walking across the border. After the border shut down the growers moved here to Washington. Some of the best weed, still to this day, was grown outdoors in Eastern Washington. It was bred generation after generation outdoor in the area for more than 30 years.

Now pot is kind of boring; anyone over 21 can just go into a store and choose between hundreds of varieties. Not many people can say they grew over 2,500 plants in a season before any of the medical cannabis laws. It used to be exciting having either a trunk full of pot or piles of cash. Now it is mom-and-pop type operations. The quality has actually gone down since it became more legal. There is still the few and far between that can meet the same quality standards.

After the friend had ran off to Mexico Alex started learning more about the production end. He had been raised on a farm and had helped with the home garden his entire life. An girlfriend had given him his first seeds. Who knows where they came from it was long before seed banks. It was called Crown Royal Pink Hair Big Bud Kush. The pot turned out purple with pink hairs; it looked amazing. At that time a method was used that is similar to super cropping. Fishing weights were used to get the plants to grow along the ground instead of vertically. It looks like hundreds of smaller plants at the end of the year.

Over time Alex had grown thousands of strains and had bred several hundred of his own. The same obsession with learning a process would be applied. Japanese auto-makers use the term Kai Zhen developed by ancient sword makers, that means "constant improvement". We often pat ourselves on the back for how smart we are. We often forget that plants were smart enough to make themselves appealing to animals. It is no coincidence that cannabis is part of our lives.

It has the same cannibinoids that are found in our brains. Like other plants it has chosen us to aid its propagation. It is just one of many symbiotic relationships between plants and animals. A great example of this is certain plants that are being attacked release chemicals that attract beneficial insects, such as parasitic wasps.

The concept of talking to plants is not as far fetched as it seems. If someone is familiar enough with plants it is almost as if they are telling you how they want to be taken care of. Anyone can grow a pot plant with very little experience. Not a lot of people can grow to perfection. A perfect plant almost looks fake. The leaves will be dark green and have an almost wax like coat on the leaves. This same obsession foe plants was currently being focused on a game with unnatural movements. Learning that perfect stroke seemed to take the place of the obsession with growing plants. This was new even though it was a reminder from the past.

That smell of the lanes brought him back to the younger days. Bowling alleys and wood floored skating rinks seem to have a familiar smell. Hopefully his past wouldn't come out of the woodwork and cause that old reckless lust for that feeling of not being in control. He had escaped death several times over. The most recent brush was getting hit by a tanker truck and rolling a Toyota 4 runner across the highway. It was like watching a movie in slow motion. How he walked away without a scratch defied logic. He had never planned on living this long, and wasn't sure what to do next. All he knew was it was his turn to bowl. Looking back in time or planning a future would need set to the side. He couldn't hide out there forever but maybe time was just an illusion.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 3

Like baseball, bowling is all about averages. During league play they usually play three games. The average of the three games is your score. Usually leagues are based on a 220 average. The master's league is what is called scratch bowling. There is no handicap. In order to get into the local master's league an average of 170 or higher is required. It seems there are more than one type of bowler.

Outside of individual style it seems like no matter how many years a certain type of person bowls they will never get much better. They are content with just the fun of the game. Then there is what I would refer to as the sport bowler. They are focused on getting better. They are constantly working on their form and trying to achieve consistent averages.

A professional bowler might have an average of 220, but on any surface their average will be the same. On a regular lane prepped for recreational bowlers there are about 4 boards on either side that could lead to a strike. On a pro pattern it is basically 1 or 2 boards that need to be kept on to get a strike. The professionals hit an area about the width of a fifty cent coin over and over.

Alex could relate to this because growing weed has much the same principles. According to Alex in order for a grower to reach a master level they need to start from seeds. Most commercial farms start from clones. If you don't know much about cannabis it is similar to sweet corn in breeding methods. There are male and female plants. Corn was started from a grass seed initially. The Mayan people undertook a thousand years of forced breeding to get the grass to what we called maize. Cannabis has only been force bred since the 1960's. Force breeding means we decide which plants get bred together rather than leaving it up to nature. All mammals have 23,000 to 26,000 lines of DNA and RNA coding. Plants have well over 100,000. This means plants are more capable of adapting to an environment or acclimatization. It is not recommended that someone take on a task like breeding cannabis until they have a pretty good grasp on the fertilizer and pH matrix.

Coming up with new strains is also all about averages. Most cannabis seeds available are the result of several years of forced breeding. Here is where it may become tricky. As an example imagine crossing a male plant called Kush with a female plant called Bubblegum. The result of this is what is called an F1 hybrid. It is considered stable. Stable means it is not prone to being a hermaphrodite and the structure of the plants on average are about the same. This is very important especially for indoor growers. Keeping the canopy area or top of plants relatively the same height keeps the plants the same distance from the bulb and doesn't crowd out smaller plants. It is the same science that most Americans learn in about the 8th grade; at least in a rural farming community.

So if strain A is crossed with strain B there are 4 basic phenotypes: AA, BB, AB, and BA. Here is where a breeder decides where to go with the plants. If the F1 plants are crossed into themselves recessive genes might start to show up. Say a male Kush is crossed with a female Bubblegum. Kush is a short plant that originated from the Hindu Kush mountain regions of Eurasia. Kush is a smaller plant known for potency. There are a couple stories about the origins of Bubblegum cannabis. The most common story is that it was a result of a study from an Indiana University. Bubblegum is often a taller more stretchy plant.

(Just for reference, there are 3 basic categories of Cannabis. Indica is a plant often found in mountain and Northern regions, the plants are often small and have rigid leaves. Plants develop ridges on their leaves when bred in regions with a shorter and less rainy flowering season. Ruterrallis is from Russia and countries in that region. These plants have auto flowering properties meaning they flower out regardless of light change. Sativas are plants that originated in equatorial regions. They are often tall with narrow pointy leaves that lack ridges. A lot of plants in tropical regions do not have ridges because of abundant sunlight and rainfall. Indica and Sativa are both photo periodic or start to flower when light hours are below 14 hours. Sativas grow tall because of the 12 hours of sunlight and daylight in equatorial regions. They grow as they flower. Most modern strains are hybrids crossing Indica and Sativa together. Automatic flowering seeds are often bred with the Russian Ruterrallis.)

Kush is Indica dominant while Bubblegum is Sativa dominant. So once the male and female plants are selected and bred together the more seeds which are able to be cultivated will increase the odds of finding the phenotypes with desired attributes. So let's imagine that our goal is to create a plant with the Kush structure and the Bubblegum flavour. We would pick the AB phenotype or plant that had dominant Indica Kush structure with Bubblegum flavour. This hybrid of course is 75% Kush and 25% Bubblegum. In order to make a stable strain from here some inbreeding is required. We want to achieve a 50/50 cross.

The next step is to take the original parent male and cross it into F1 hybrid created. This becomes an F2 and often recessive genes start showing up. So basically whatever strains it took to make the Bubblegum or Kush in the first place may show up. The same process is repeated, the very best phenotypes are selected from F2. This process is repeated 2 more times until what is called an F4 is achieved. F4 plants are often stable. The F4 may be bred into itself by selecting a male and female from the F4 generation and breeding them together. Most breeders try to achieve an F6 to achieve a more stable product.

At this point seeds can be planted and uniforms results can be expected. Another note is feminized seeds can be achieved by interrupting flowering light cycle or letting female plants grow out long after their ideal harvest time. Interrupting the light cycle can cause Hermaphrodite plants meaning they have both male and female reproduction parts. These are considered unstable. The better method is to take a female and flower it out ahead of time and pollinate with female flowers. The flowers on a female plant start sticking out like a banana usually late in the flowering cycle. It can be confusing and it is likely the reason that most growers do not go to this extreme. The advantage of breeding is to get plants immune to problems and to acclimate them to conditions in area. Something that has been growing in a region for more than 30 years without introducing new genetics is called a heirloom.

Alex had repeated this process hundreds maybe thousands of times. Just like bowling what was important is increasing averages. People often asked him how he grew such a great product. Alex often told them it was the same as being a good mechanic or welder. Attention to detail, hard work, and constant improvement are the keys to being good at anything. How could he improve his bowling game? Alex would need to start from the beginning and develop a method for getting better.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 4

On the last game the focus was not so much on the score bit the finishing stroke. When bowlers drop the ball they give it a last little flick to give the ball its spin, and then follow through, dropping the ball and the arm follows through, coming up like a handshake. When a professional or just good bowler does it well it looks easy.

This is where attention to detail would pay off. Keeping the wrist in the perfect position during the back swing and releasing with the finishing touches would produce the perfect stroke. It was doubtful that in the little amount of time he had been bowling that he would ever become a master of that task. No, for him it was just to fill the void of time, it would remain a game.

He had made a similar decision in regard to music. Playing a guitar seemed to ruin the mystic appeal of music. He did not want to break it down and figure it out because it was more enjoyable to be the listener. Maybe in the next life he would take music from a pleasurable experience to a tedious task. Bowling was fun but it was just a temporary obsession for Alex. He could not focus on the task of bowling, his mind wandered away. It was good this was the last game some wannabe gangsters had taken a lane next to theirs.

Alex sized them up just in case his buddy, who took life a little more serious, found something he didn't like about them. Things could get out of hand in a hurry. Luckily he was having a good game and didn't take too much notice. Alex never understood gangs in rural areas. If three or four of them worked at McDonald's instead and started an investment group they would have way more money without the risk of getting raped in prison.

He wondered how the term gangster was now being applied to a group of kids playing dress up and writing their gang names in public bathrooms. Lil such and such. On the other hand, someone had to keep the everyone-gets-a-trophy Uber generation honest. We can't all live in safety bubbles. Finishing touches have always been important to Alex. It was like dragging fingers down a chalkboard, watching someone take short cuts at the end. In the Cannabis world the finishing process is the most important part. This was often the difference between really good and just average. If someone is going to waste 3 to 6 months of their life growing a plant they might as well spend a little extra time curing the product correctly.

A proper cure is achieved by removing all of the leaves without crystals from the plant. They can produce a hay like smell from the chlorophyll in the bigger leaves. Those leaves are giving off their final energy to convert plant proteins into sugars. In the case of Cannabis those sticky crystals covering the buds. In order to make a plant taste as good as it smells it requires a cure. After the leaves without crystals are removed the plants are chopped at the base and hung upside down in a dark room. Not on its side on a screen or in a paper bag.

Flowers and other herbs can be cured in the same way. It is good to note if a flower such as a rose in hung upside down in a dark room it will be preserved. If it is cured other ways it basically rots. In order for cannabis to taste correctly the best cure is at 40% humidity until most of the moisture is gone and then the humidity can be up to 50%. Alex liked to cure for 56 days another two months beyond harvest. This was the right amount of time to let the plants cure through oxidation. Basically the acidity is being cured out. Things like THCA become THC. The A just means acid.

All cannibinoids oxidize form an acidic version. This effects terpins or the flavor profile. Terpins often effect how cannabis effects a person. For example a lemon flavor is a terpin called Liminol and the effects are often a clear more energetic high. Something with a berry flavor or floral flavor will more likely make a person sleepy. To get something to full flavor requires the correct amount of oxidation and maybe different depending on temperature and humidity. The preferred temperature for curing is about 55° F to 60° F as long as the humidity is below 40%. A longer slower cure will make the bud have a sticky and pliable feel. Drying to fast will cause the buds to go bone dry and burn up to fast. They call the good stuff sticky icky for a reason. After the 56 day cure the bud was put into air tight containers and checked on. It might require a little burping sealed containers if it tries to moisten up.

Maybe Alex would never become the best bowler but it was because it was not his goal to be the best bowler. Dan and Jeff sat talking about their old friend Alex and what he had told them about his methods. Who knows where he went. He had left the bowling alley that day and must have decided to move. He always wanted to dissappear and start fresh somewhere else. Who knows he could just as easily drift back in. Dan and Jeff finished their burgers and got ready for league play.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 5

Nobody ever knew what Jeff was talking about. Another super rant with almost a point to it. At least this one wasn't about what piece of crap humans have been doing. It paid to be a good listener. Every rant, story, or life lesson had a bowling or a pot-growing theme it seemed.

The week before at League he was going on about how mining for gold was like bowling. Maybe he was just mad about the pot stores having higher prices and lower quality products. The new guy was suppose to show up. Some other dude Jeff knows, however Jeff meets these people. According to Jeff he could bowl an average of 170 or higher straight bowling.

This is the style most people use, but according to the professionals you got to have the spin to get averages 240 and higher. The perfect 300 game has to have that finishing touch, like the guy was saying. Who knows what kind of lost soul was about to enter the world of bowling and who knows how long they will stay? This was just the start of League play. It was the first year for Jeff on the league but he was out to win it all. With only six months of bowling he wanted to defy the odds and show the people who have been at it for years that if you dedicate yourself to something, no matter how ridiculous the effort will pay off.

There's not enough time to become a master of everything. Maybe there was some sort of underlying message or maybe not. The old Jim Croce song "Working at the Car Wash Blues" came on the Jukebox and reminded Dan of the whole thing. The new guy had just arrived. Dave from a couple towns down the road.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 6

After a stop at a country store near a small town in the heart of Oregon's Blue Mountains. A bumper sticker reading "Where were the flashbacks I was promised" reminded him of home. The little town served as his own little witness protection program. He wasn't hiding out from criminals or the law he was mostly just paranoid because I legal status of the past. It was time for the adventures I'm stupidity to continue. The bowling alley was that temporary return to adolescent careless thinking. A strange little world of misfits was waiting for those who have been sucked in to return. The bumper sticker reminded him of the end of what he referred to as the acid adventures.

Now at a bowling alley where everyone might have a little misadventure of a rebellious past the story would just be in a long list of similar tales. The acid days probably only lasted a month or two. Hallucinogenic drugs have a limited profitability for a station market. It is usually an every once in a while thing. The way to make money would either to be a chemist or on the retail end traveling with festivals would likely be the most productive. Most people don't like things that get them beyond a controlled high for the better part of a day. It just isn't practical in most people's lives. During the acid days Alex was more likely to interpret the intent of an abstract artist than pay attention to more serious aspects of life. This resulted in forgetting to show up for court. One morning Alex and one of his friends stopped by the planned parenthood clinic and filled their coat pockets with free condoms from the counter. They would hand them out to all their friends who might have been too bashful to go in on their own. Alex had ended up cruising around aimlessly with a car full of friend after giving them all acid. He had taken a few hits himself also. The car was pulled over for something or other and Alex learned of his missed court date. He was taken to the local jail but was to be transferred to another small town to the west.

The police searched him and found the coat pockets full of condoms and other trinkets picked up on acid adventures. He probably had five lighters an a host of odd trinkets. Alex starred at the arresting officer with intensity while being booked into jail. The officer acted nervous bordering on fear. Alex wasn't trying to be intense but he had to focus to answer questions without drifting off. Alex was especially concerned because their was a quarter sheet or 25 hits of acid folded up in his wallet. It was some kind of picture that looked like a business card. The officer inspected it and put it back in the wallet after cataloging it with other clothing and personal items. Alex was then transferred to the other jail which was larger and held ten inmates per cell. The guards had an office in the center where they could easily monitor the inmates. After the degrading strip and cavity search Alex was issued his standard Bob Barker prison apparel and sandals. Bob Barker seems to make everything for some jails. After the search Alex was allowed to look through his personal items to make sure nothing was missing. He removed the quarter sheet of acid and put it in the elastic part of the prison pants. He talked to some of the inmates curious of what he was in for and invited to play a game of spades. Spades is a card game most commonly played in American jails and prisons. Later in the evening after getting to know some of the inmates he revealed to the guy who seemed most in charge as far as inmates go about the acid. In hindsight he probably should have just flushed it. He gave the other nine inmates inside the cell a hit and took three himself and then flushed the rest. Alex went to sleep he had become immune to the effects. The other inmates were up all night behaving oddly. One of them was straight out of Mexico and didn't think a piece of paper would have such an effect.

During the inmates trip he had began to believe that Alex was the devil and had plotted to kill him. The other inmates stopped him and explained that Alex had told them exactly what the drug could do. Alex was unaware of this until the next day. The odd behavior lead to a search of the cells the next day. Perhaps that was his moment of clarity as far as pushing the envelope. He knew he had an addictive personality and would limit his excesses to cannabis and coffee. Everything else was just a little too much. This is what drove Alex to hideout every once in a while. The thought of being captured and having his life ran for him was a good way of staying out of trouble. It was in his nature to be a rebel. He figured growing cannabis allowed him to be a rebel while being able to control the risks. Some of the other trades like cocaine were much higher risk with mote dangerous consequences and clients. Frued and other respected people in medical fields did not consider cocaine addictive. They believed it cured the addiction to the more potent opium based drugs. They often treated addiction with it strangely enough. Alex was going to make a stop at a bowling alley in a small town in Oregon just before crossing the Columbia River into Washington State. He just wanted to play a couple of games and see what type of rust he was dealing with. The first throw was a gutter ball. The lane was well used and his two fingered style with a house ball had too much spin. He switched to a more traditional three fingered grip keeping the wrist bent for mild spin. Some old school enthusiast had made their way to the jukebox and put on Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love". He had gotten cabin fever trying to escape cabin fever. Maybe that's why he thought of that strange time. Telling someone straight laced a drug story like that might cause them to perceive an individual differently but it was just another chuckle to the misfits of the bowling alley. There was what appeared to be the aftermath of a Mexican food flowering into the bowling alley. Mexican weddings are a lot of fun especially with live bands. They really go all out. It reminded him of a joking expression of a friend "Busier than a set of jumper cables at a Mexican wedding". The underlying truth behind the stereotype could bring a smile to anyone's face. Alex finished up his three games averaging 130 after a very ruff start. He was where he left off. He would just shoe up on Sunday as if he had always been there.

The bowling alley was always just about the same with the occasional long overdue upgrade. A blast from the past just like himself. He wondered if his friends were still gossiping about him telling their version of shared adventures. Maybe this time Alex would put in some more practice time by joining a league during the week. His anti conformist attitude often kept him from taking part in organized activities. He wanted to get back to his old life. He tried to get out but that old plant had drug him back in. This year he would break out the more rare strains that were often avoided because of overwhelming smell. People would know what type of couch lock they were in for before removing it from his pocket.

The Bowling Vortex - by Ben Smith - Part 7

Just one of those days where driving like a race car driver around the valley seemed like the right thing to do. It was almost a shame to go inside but it was Sunday time for bowling. It was back to what had become the home bowling alley. Just a place that never moved on like the rest of the world. No matter how long you were gone you just walk back in as if nothing had ever happened in the first place. Alex may have had some misplaced notions influenced by the paranoid conspiracy theories of the past.

He had been convinced that the California boys were some kind of agents. They were out of place and seemed like they had just read something out of a book but got some of the details wrong. Not the ruff handed hands on gardeners he was used to anyway. Alex was a blast from the past just like the bowling alley having trouble adjusting to the new world. He had always been well known for having the absolute best products and still was holding on but eventually the freight train of the legal industry would put the old secret gardeners out of business. He wasn't like his friends with their jobs, kids, and responsibilities. He had been told that kids were worse than their parents and calculated the potential jail costs he would be liable for until adulthood. It never seemed like a good idea at anytime for anyone. There wasn't a whole lot of jobs where you get to do what you want and complain about it. He wasn't about to destroy people's lives with harder substances. It wasn't time for any soul searching or over thinking everything it was time for bowling. The bowling alley reminded him of when people didn't post every thought they ever had. The digital world isn't as personal making it easier to say or write things normally kept private. Life should be like an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard full of adventures in reckless driving and behavior. Alex new going in that it was one of those days where he couldn't miss a spare if he tried. Jeff was on some kind of super rant with Dan and some unfamiliar bowlers that Jeff had sucked into his stories. He had made himself at home and had his own little following.

The place was busy there must of not been any major sporting events. Jeff's super rant had shifted to YouTube documentaries which meant some eye rolling by eavesdroppers. Jeff was plenty loud and his voice carried. His loud laugh embarrassed some people but seemed to draw people in and prepare them for good times. Definitely a bold personality with no real filter or thought of appropriate conversations. Not for the bubble person with comfort zones. Alex has managed to bowl over 200 two out of three games. He felt like one of those tropical birds out there strutting his stuff for the lady birds affection. Jeff congratulated him on a good game with a kind of jealous competitive undertone. Jeff liked to win but that is what competitive people do. After three games Alex got a burger. A bacon infused delicious piece of cholesterol causing a greasy sweating feeling in it's aftermath. As Jeff was going on about Free Masons or aliens the bowling alley legend walked in. He was the leader in the master's league. He was no stranger to the 300 everyone wished they could throw without trying. As he bowled they all watched. Even without looking the perfect sound of a strike crashed through the pins.

For someone who didn't seem like a person who could be a professional athlete this man was giving a how it's done lesson. Who knows what he did outside of the bowling alley he was king for a day on the lanes. Alex was a little less impressed with his own score but gave himself the used a house ball scapegoat. He didn't think his average was good enough to invest in a ball. The old bowling alley would probably die out someday but for now it was going strong. He thought maybe some diva would turn bowling into a fashion show with a bowling line of apparel for the fashionable. Bowling would become more of a look at me social event about how good you could look throwing a ball. Alex just laughed at the thought and the vision of the event. It was far removed from the 80'same peak of the bowling industry. Maybe autonomous vehicles would bring fun back to social events. It was always nice to have a good time without having to end up stuck somewhere waiting to be legally able to drive. The cars were going to drive themselves leaving the more important eating, texting, and other activities that normally distract us. The closest thing back in the day was a buddy had gotten out of his car on to the hood and was driving outside the car with no thought of what might happen if he couldn't get to the breaks on time. That or a horse was about as close to autonomous vehicles anyone had ever gotten in the hay days of bowling. The bowling alley hero even seemed to have an Ora that deserved some kind of slow motion double pistol finger point suggesting he is the man of the hour. Alex had the urge to get on some kind of snowmobile, ATV, or race car and give it all it has until the line between control and chaos was reached followed by a primate's chest pounding ritual.

As the Macho Man used to say "Oh Yeah!" before snapping into Jerky. This is why people like Alex shouldn't have a lot of money. If it were up to him he would get sky hooked after bowling and skydive onto a beach with sand dunes and awaiting ATV's all without spilling a frosty mug of beer. That old interesting guy would just have to leave a message about not always drinking beer. It was good to be back and it was starting to seem like he had never left it was just a day dream. He tried to get out but the bowling vortex had sucked him right back in. He listened to Jeff talk about watching documentaries on his smart phone about the government and hackers watching us through our smart phones.