Bowling strikes a chord with kids

The old 10-pin smash'em-up is making a comeback in schools across the USA, with varsity bowling teams booming and students flocking to freshly polished maple lanes.

"I'll be doing this the rest of my life," Pennsylvania bowling aficionado Lindsey Bitler, 16, told the Associated Press. "I love it that much."

The AP trend piece that anoints bowling as a coming kingpin of school sports even goes so far as to call bowling "cool," although the "in-school bowling kits with plastic balls, pins and 20-foot long carpet that have arrows for aiming points, just like real lanes" described in the story (and foisted upon gym teachers by the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America) sound about as brilliant as those hokey late-night "astro bowl" schemes with black lights and fluorescent-painted pins.

No matter the modern mutations, it's good to see bowling on the rebound. Unfortunately, the pin monkey is still an endangered species everywhere but the fabulous Koz's Mini Bowl in Milwaukee.