My parents survived many marital crises and the village because they were members of a bowling club for over 25 years. Or rather, in a club separately by gender and together in a mixed club. If the skat was played afterwards, the mother had to stay until the end and drive the father home in the Mercedes. There was something else going on too, once, after a carnival event, there was suddenly a strange pawing in the bedroom: Two cone brothers had put a hedgehog next to their mother’s bed.
Kegel boom (in East and West) from the 1960s, and every year they went on a bowling tour. Bamberg, Prague, Munich. The latter trip became legendary: Before the return trip, we had a beer in the station bar (in the morning), then the train was gone. Some women were scolded. Not my mother.
The men’s club was an illustrious company in its own way. Few farmers were there, even though 95 percent were farmers in the village. With the master carpenter, the mayor, an innkeeper (without a bowling alley, otherwise you would have had to go bowling with him), a policeman, two “eternal bachelors” (employees) and later newcomers who had to integrate: the stonemason who worked in the old school lived with his emancipated-looking wife, a retired judge. And then my father, the cattle dealer.
Every second Friday the housewives bowled, it was their “safe space”. Not every man liked to see that. These women were also scolded about Munich. My mother took bowling seriously, she often became a proud bowling master. It proved that there was more to her than just being a housewife and taking care of us, the cattle, the fields, the grandparents. There was emancipatory potential, a legend: the unauthorized sale of four calves for a fabulous price.
The bowling club was the social village in the village, community, society with differences. Everyday friendships were cultivated here. These weren’t matters of the heart, they got along well. Maintained a distance that was missing at home. But that man needs. This tradition has been dying for a few decades now. There is a lack of offspring, less beer is drunk, nobody wants to commit themselves anymore, bowling lacks the “pop culture lifestyle component” (HE DOES). Even the last innkeepers cannot find a successor, which is why the pub is dying. And the village. My parents’ village is not the future. The ARD documentation is currently well worth seeing on the subject We all. The village about a “solidarity, intercultural, ecological” village project in Wendland. If you will, that’s the progressive variant of club dairy. Only: at the end of the day, visions, who’s surprised, collide with capital and people who prefer to go to the doctor because of visions.
In the pandemic, social structures continue to dwindle. This also applies to other rituals that create a connection in everyday life, where you can meet people who please live somewhere else than you are. Different from you. Now in the fifth season, whoever likes it could, under strict rules, Example in Cologne slip into a different role again. At least that. Indian doesn’t work, of course. And it could be that you won’t see the otherwise notoriously popular nurse and the male-dominated surgical gown with stethoscope that often. It’s not funny right now. Although the medical profession has become more female, it has not recently become more attractive. Chief physician, I read recently, nobody really wants to be anymore. Sad. On the other hand: even more so now? Go bowling again, on November 11th, with a stupid wig on your head? I would like it. Good wood, Alaaf.
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