When yours truly looked up and saw the lineup Palo Alto brought to the party on Sunday, I knew it would be a real contest. I mean, these guys are good! But, we had the green in shape thanks to extra effort from the greenskeeper; it was mowed, rolled and just dry enough to play well. The morning refreshments provided by Nikki, Susan, and the Mackey’s were tasty. When Howard Mackey called us to assemble, it was still a little chilly but assemble we did.

And, lawn bowling really is for all ages. In the photo below, 11 year old Matt Burnowski is with 86 year old Howard Mackey. Matt played vice for his dad, Tom.

It didn’t take long for it to heat up. In the first game, I saw at least four ends with Palo Alto right on the jack and, when we returned the favor, the opposing skip sent the jack two rinks to the left to burn the end. When that game ended, my team fell short by four points. Several other Berkeley teams hadn’t fared much better. We broke for lunch well behind in the game.

After lunch, the weather and our bowling perked up. By the end of the second round, we had pulled into the lead. Only five games remained to be played. As that last game was about two thirds done, someone came up to say that it wasn’t going well and I really needed to pull out a win. Good Grief- I’m bowling against Bud Birkenseer! No pressure. Well, we managed to pull it off. When Bud moved the jack to take five points, we countered by drawing to the jack to take it back.

When Bud and I started the game, he said, “Let’s have some fun!” I don’t think we could have had a better game; good bowling, good weather and we got to finish it all off with Drumstiks ice cream.

So, at the end of the day, BLBC’s Geoff Chandler held onto the Meat Axe Trophy while Palo Alto’s Ginger Harris prepared the “We Lost” version for a trip back to Palo Alto. Palo Alto will be ready for us when we travel to Palo Alto next summer. But, for now, the Meat Axe will hang in the Berkeley clubhouse for another year.