On Not Upsetting the Society

Here's a poem I read today on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac ( http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/ ). What really struck me was the line I highlighted below in green. I love to play games - cards, Scrabble, dice, bowling - and I love to win. But I don't like to beat someone so badly that they are demoralized. Sometimes I will ease up to avoid doing that very thing. I always saw this as a character flaw but after reading this poem, I think I understand now that there are unwritten rules, maybe just among women (?), that allow us to enjoy the game but not upset the society. Hmmmm... Diamond Lake Bowling by Tim Nolan In the seventh frame projected on an overhead screen, my father, Pat N., has a 180 working on a spare. My mother, Marge N., is just ahead of Gladys P. and far ahead of Yvonne K., who sings in the church choir and doesn't take this game too seriously. My mother, Marge N., doesn't take the game too seriously, but she has a 158 working on a strike, which is fine, and seems to be enough to beat Gladys P. and Yvonne K. My mother wants to beat them by a narrow margin— enough to win—but not upset their society, which matters among them most of all. The men—Bill P., Jack K., and my father, Pat N., are serious bowlers. They each release the ball in their own ways, with controlled madness. Then they wait for a lacquered thunder to come crashing down like museum skulls. What a mess! The women approach the line with quick, tentative steps, as if they were naked, covering themselves, then letting go. Yvonne K. sings "Ave Maria" at funerals. Makes everyone weep. Here, she is without talent and gets no action from the pins—which slowly fall in soft and mid-age stupor. My heart echoes in a memory cavern as I gaze at the blue and broad Hollywood curtain along the sidewall. My parents turn to me across the way. Dear lively eyes of them. My first faces. Always surprised to see me. How can I explain this sense, become serious, that we are picking up speed, rolling in upon ourselves, and falling alone down this noisy, inevitable lane? "Diamond Lake Bowling" by Tim Nolan, from The Sound of It. © New Rivers Press, 2008.