VAN NUYS BOWLER, 97, KEEPS ROLLING PAST 100.Byline: Dennis McCarthy Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
Flo Scorpio walks into a bowling alley the way Frank Sinatra used to walk onto a stage or Babe Babe Paul Bunyan’s blue ox; straightens roads by pulling them. [Am. Lit.: Fisher, 270] See : Strength Ruth onto a baseball field. Like she owns the place. She picks up her bowling ball, shakes her arms a little to get loose, lines up her shot, takes a three-step approach to the foul line foul line n. 1. Baseball Either of two straight lines extending from the rear of home plate to the outer edge of the playing field and indicating the area in which a fair ball can be hit. 2. and lets the ball go. She stands there watching it roll slowly toward the pins, curving in at the last moment to slip snugly snug 1 adj. snug·ger, snug·gest 1. Comfortably sheltered; cozy. 2. Small but well arranged: a snug apartment. See Synonyms at comfortable. 3. a. into the one-three pocket. All the pins go flying except one. The ten pin. If looks could kill, the ten pin would be dead. ``Should've been a strike,'' 97-year-old Flo Scorpio tells the bowling gods. She settles for a spare. Behind her, the other members of the Sharpshooters women's bowling team out of Bowlerland in Van Nuys smile and shake their heads. It isn't hard to read the look in their eyes. They all want to be standing where Flo Scorpio is standing now, if and when they reach 97. ``I look at Flo and think to myself: Heck heck interj. Used as a mild oath. n. Slang Used as an intensive: had a heck of a lot of money; was crowded as heck. [Alteration of hell. , I've got another 25 years of bowling left,'' said Liz Rogers, president of the 4,000-member San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. Women's Bowling Association. ``She's an inspiration to all of us.'' Flo Scorpio of Van Nuys is the oldest woman league bowler in the state. Rogers checked with the association's state office to confirm it. Rogers watches Flo warm up by hitting the pocket dead on again, daring the teetering ten pin not to fall this time. It finally does. Flo smiles and sits down. It's going to be a good day, says the matriarch of women bowlers in California. OK, let's get it out of the way right now - this age thing. A 97-year-old woman isn't supposed to be carrying a 106 bowling average Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket. A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowler divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. in league play. If anything, she should be in a rocking chair watching reruns of ``Bowling for Dollars Bowling for Dollars was a 1970s-era TV game show on which ordinary people could try their hand at the sport of bowling. Contestants won cash and sometimes prizes based on how well they bowled. .'' But Flo Scorpio doesn't seem to play by the same rules the rest of us follow. She prowls the lanes a couple of days a week when she isn't at her dance and exercise classes. Forget about how old that birth certificate says you are, Flo advises. Just keep moving. That's the key. Stop, and that nasty old man carrying the scythe scythe carried by the personification of death, used to cut life short. [Art.: Hall, 276] See : Death might get lucky and catch up to you. ``I took up bowling at 75 and had my best game at 80,'' she said, taking a break and sneaking a look around to see if anyone was listening. She's kind of embarrassed to mention her high score because it was a fluke fluke, parasitic flatworm of the trematoda class, related to the tapeworm. Instead of the cilia, external sense organs, and epidermis of the free-living flatworms, adult flukes have sucking disks with which they cling to their hosts and an external cuticle that , she said. One of those days bowlers have maybe once or twice in their lives when all the pins seem to fall no matter where you throw the ball. ``It was a 225,'' Flo whispered. ``Never came close to it again.'' Scorpio is her second husband's last name. She previously was married almost 44 years to Bob Murchland, who worked for the Studebaker car company before he died. ``I was widowed for six years before I married James Scorpio and later took up bowling,'' she said. ``We were married almost 20 years before he died, too.'' So now there are just Flo and her only child, Keith Murchland. A great-grandfather himself, he drives his mother to the bowling alley once in a while. Until about three weeks ago, just before her 97th birthday, Flo drove herself most of the time, but she decided to give Father Time a nod, if not a bow. She gave up her driver's license Noun 1. driver's license - a license authorizing the bearer to drive a motor vehicle driver's licence, driving licence, driving license license, permit, licence - a legal document giving official permission to do something . Elayne Klein, one of the Sharpshooters, drove Flo to the alley Thursday. Don't let the little-old-lady looks fool you, Klein said. Flo has the heart of a lion. ``She's very competitive and minds very much when she misses a spare.'' Klein watched Flo throw a strike and walk back to the bench smiling. For the record, it was an OK day on the lanes Thursday for the state's oldest woman bowler. She bowled a 98. Below her average, but above her age. Right in line with her goals. When she hits 100, Flo Scorpio says, she wants to bowl it. CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Florence ``Flo'' Scorpio, 97, a member of the Bowlerland Sharpshooters women's team in Van Nuys, still bowls for a league average higher than her age. (2) Flo Scorpio, 97, California's oldest woman league bowler, aims for the pocket. Evan Yee/Staff Photographer |
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