St John Cantius Fraternal Aid Society

Great management in bowling alley!
9 years ago (14-12-2017)

My five star rating comes from a unique perspective. This was our Disneyland. This place was a Neverland that we had full reign over as kids. My cousin's Grandparent's were the caretakers there in the 70's-80's. When it was closed to the public us kids ran amok around that place like we owned it. Bowling, Pac-Man, Bingo in the big hall on the mic even with the big floaty dancing ball machine on a huge stage and everything. Playing bartender, ordering and making beer from a concoction of coke root beer orange and 7-Up on ice with a dashes of maraschino cherries. Skating slipping sliding cracking a skull all over the dance floor because we doused it with powder. The building was huge with multiple banquet halls, kitchen, bar lounge and 8 lane bowling alley! Hide and seek tag monster games running up and down the aisles, stairwells, balconies and bathrooms for hours. Piling pillows up and jumping from the lounge down a full flight of stairs to the ground floor. It was only possible if you started as far as possible and got a full speed running start a hundred feet down the aisle. There was unlimited arcade style Centipede, Dig-Dug, Pac-Man table style, Invaders, etc. The first remote control TV I ever saw and used. A 20" color antenna TV set 12 feet up on the fridge (you could barely see it - thats's how we watched TV sometimes in the old days). The remote's three on/off, channel up, channel down buttons took two hands to push and made a big Kachungk! Kachungk! action sound. Oh and Shuffleboard! They had one of the nicest shuffleboards you ever saw. My close cousins went to school across the street. So they were there everyday after school. Not to mention, my Grampa played there often and our families and friends had countless events there. Wedding socials, Reunions, Christmas for 100 kids with gifts for all from Santa, Rehearsal dinners and wakes. Our parents' generation all played there in family polka bands. Gramps on sax and clarinet, mom on trumpet, dad on accordion, Uncles, aunts, all kinds of different sides of families joined in. Sometimes we even got to hang out to watch and dance when the bar was open and gramps was playing a gig. That's when he would get hot. With Roli on guitar and Smitty and the drummer guy and... The dance floor spinning with perfume and big boobed old ladies singing and shrieking sweating swinging you around while the music heated up the already hot air. It was a real warm fuzzy place full of good times. A place where our families met and drank and loved and laughed, fought, cried, fell in fell out of love, cooked cleaned danced and sang, celebrated through blizzards and balmy days.
12 years ago (29-08-2014)