By Dan Aceto

Staff Writer

Candlepin bowling may have started in the 1890s, but the sport is alive and well in the year 2010.

This Saturday the Big 20 will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its opening on Nov. 30, 1950. The center, originally built by Mike Anton, has been a Route 1 fixture for years and is one of 11 remaining candlepin bowling alleys in the world.

So what’s kept the Big 20 in business after all these years?

For Rick Jones, current manager of the center, it comes down to respect.

“I know it’s cliché, but I always say that we’re the ‘Cheers’ of bowling. We know everyone on a first-name basis and we consider everybody family,” Jones said.

Over the years, that family has grown to include quite a few members.

“From the youngest player at 4 years old, to a 91-year-old that still plays every Friday, anyone can do this. You just need to be able to hold the ball and swing your arm to enjoy,” Jones said.
  For many, that joy has never left.

Dot Petty is an inductee into the Candlepin Bowling Hall of Fame and has won both state and world championship titles during her more than 20-year career professionally playing the game. Although she has since retired, nothing stops her from getting together every Thursday morning to bowl in one of the center’s many competitive leagues.

“It’s one of those lifetime sports, like golf and skiing,” Petty said. “I got into sports in high school and just figured if you could do well in one sport you could do well in others.”

Petty, who holds records at the center to this day, said she’s seen interest in the sport rise and fall throughout the years, but Big 20 has always managed to keep people coming back year after year.

“When television first came in, it survived that, and when new things like computers came in, it survived that too. People always came back to the alley,” Petty said.

Though Petty’s bowling career has taken her to many different places, she always looks forward to returning to her family at Big 20. 

“I loved every minute of it. I met a lot of nice people and there is no finer establishment … and I’ve been to many of them!” she said. 

Petty isn’t the only female player to make a name for herself.

Peggy Furbush, who has bowled at the alley since the early 1950s, helped found one of the first women’s leagues at the center, the St. John’s Ladies in 1952. 

“We used to be young and foolish and would dress up and things like that,” Furbush said. “I’m just glad we’re here today, still bowling at the alley and having fun every Monday.”

It may be fun, but the game is still difficult.
“It’s way tougher than 10 pin, I mean you might as well be tossing a barrel in that game. When you throw a 4-ounce ball down there, you better know what you’re doing,” said Don Patchell. 

And Patchell certainly does. Patchell, who also is an inductee into the hall of fame, won the world championship in 1967 and 1968, and grew up working in Congress Square Lanes in Portland, where he bowled upward of 100 games a day. 

“When I started being able to knock down some pins, I traveled,” Patchell said.

Although Patchell gave up the sport in 1972 to pursue another passion, horse racing at Scarborough Downs, he continues to frequent the center.

Jones, whose own professional career began at the center in 1982, said many people appreciate the “retro feel” the center provides and like walking into a building that brings back memories of a certain time and place.

“People like the charm of the place, the ’50s and ’60s theme,” Jones said.

Although the aesthetic appeal of Big 20 hasn’t changed much over the years, the center itself has seen its share of developments.

Before the advent of automatic pin setters, the alley relied on “pin boys” in the first four years it operated, Jones said. The boys, assigned to sit atop boards directly above where the balls landed, hopped down from their perch every time a bowler completed throws and reset the pins by hand. 

Bowlers pitched nickels down the alley at them to pick up after a game to show their appreciation for the boys’ hard work and diligence, Jones said.

Although it would be six years until the center became fully automated, it would be another 20 years before the pins came to be what bowlers recognize today.

Jones said pins were made of hard maple wood since the sport began in the 1890s. As years passed, the wood proved ineffective and pins often broke under high impact, Jones said. 

That is until a company by the name of Garland came to Saco. 

Garland, still a manufacturer of plastics, answered the call of pin-makers everywhere and helped design the first plastic shells to be fit over existing wood pins, Jones said.

 The pins were first tested at Big 20 in the early 1950s and, after an initial positive response, the idea was refined until today’s modern design was established in the late 1970s, Jones said. Today the company is the sole manufacturer of candlepins in the world.

If there is one person Jones and other regular members of the Big 20 cite as an integral part of the center’s development, it would be Chris Anton. 

“The alley really is a tribute to Chris’ perseverance,” Jones said.

Anton, who took over the alley after his father retired in 1977, owned and operated the building until his passing in 2007 at age 79.

Jane Anton, Chris’ widow, said the center meant everything to Chris and that he always took into consideration what the alley meant to the community.

 Jane Anton said Chris was approached in 2003 by someone who wanted to buy the center and possibly redevelop the land. After a lengthy deliberation, Chris finally decided he couldn’t do it, Jane Anton said.

“It wasn’t just this center he loved, it was the whole industry,” she said. “He wanted to promote candlepin and for him to sell out was not an option.”

Mike Walker, assistant manager of the center, said he has been bowling at the center since he was 5 years old and always looked up to Chris.

“Chris was one of the best bowlers I knew and I always tried to learn from him, both from a bowling aspect and career wise,” Walker said. “I’d always wanted to work here and I never wanted to see the place go away. It’s been my home away from home.”

For Jones, the center has always strived to provide a family atmosphere where people can relax and enjoy themselves, and he expects this weekend will be no different.

“The center is just as much a social activity for people as it is a competitive one,” Jones said.

After 60 years, what may have started as a social activity for some has blossomed into lifelong friendships and memories for others. 

Jones, a bowler since age 5, has a simple answer why customers keep coming back after six decades: 

 “Once a bowler, always a bowler.”