By Abigail Ham

Copyright keenesentinel

When Yankee Lanes opened on Park Avenue in Keene in 1961, Dick Baker was one of the first people through the door. He was 21, and had been bowling since high school.

Baker, who graduated from Thayer High School in Winchester in 1958 and now lives in Swanzey, took a job at the lanes the year they opened, and joined the first bowling leagues that formed there in 1962.

“I was in leagues from that time on,” he said.

No one could have predicted in those first years, when he was bowling in candlepin and 10-pin leagues, how profoundly the bowling alley would shape his life, nor what a pillar of local bowling he would go on to become.

For 62 years, Baker never missed a season in the bowling leagues at Yankee Lanes. He served as president of various leagues over the years, and as an officer in the Monadnock Bowling Association. He met his wife, Jan, in bowling shoes and formed many lasting friendships.

He also became an example for his daughter, granddaughters and great-grandchildren, who all grew up around the lanes, as well as many other people.

Baker consistently bowled above 190 into the early 2000s, when he was in his 60s. (A 300 is a perfect game.)

According to Clinton Hall, who has been bowling in the Yankee Lanes leagues since the ’90s, Baker was a talented spare converter, meaning he was good at cleaning up remaining pins on a second swing.

“Any good bowler will tell you spare conversions are just as important as strikes,” Hall, of Keene, said.

But, Hall said, people don’t just look up to Baker’s bowling prowess, although he remained a competitor into his 80s; it’s his goodness they admire.

“Everyone that knew Dick knew what a gentleman he was. He was as kind as they come,” Hall said.

Baker’s wife, Jan, said he was always in it to have fun, never too competitive, and encouraged others to be that way, too.

Seated in the empty bar at the bowling alley for an interview, Baker agreed. “I just like the game,” he said.

Baker looked at home in the alley, with the deep amber-colored ball he last used on the table in front of him.

It’s nothing like the black rubber balls he got started with in the ’60s, he said.

The world has changed dramatically since then, and so has the game. Over the years, there was often new technology coming on the scene, from more advanced ball design to new lane oils to innovative swings.

“You change with the game,” Baker said.

He was never one to chase all the latest trends, though, according to Jan. He and his one ball kept up just fine with people experimenting with using different balls for different situations and other innovations.

Jan and Dick met at the bowling alley, where she liked to bowl with a group of friends in the early ’60s. He was working there, and Jan was trying to set him up with one of her friends.

That didn’t work out, but Jan and Dick did.

They bowled together for decades after that, under different alley managers, in various leagues, and through many seasons of life.

“It’s been a large part of our family,” Jan said.

A bowling league connection got Dick a job as a roofer after his Yankee Lanes gig. The league also led to a momentous occurrence in Jan’s life.

Coming home from a travel league game in Claremont, Dick spotted a pizza truck by the road and insisted they pull over.

Jan, as it turned out, had never tried pizza until that night. Although hesitant at first, she was sold, and hasn’t looked back since.

Time’s changed, life changed, even the game changed — but one thing stayed the same. When leagues formed at the end of summer, Baker’s name was on the list.

For 62 years (that’s 12 presidents and six “Batman” remakes) that’s how it always was.

The game can be “addicting,” Hall said. Chasing the perfect game, or even a perfect trio of games, can be a lifelong adventure.

It was part of the rhythm of life, Baker’s daughter Michelle Snelling recalled. She grew up bowling with her parents, and later met her husband at Yankee Lanes, the same way her parents met.

The family tradition has continued down the generations. Michelle’s daughter worked at Yankee Lanes, and even held her baby shower there. Michelle’s grandsons both had bowling-themed 18th birthday parties.

Bowling leagues aren’t as popular with today’s young people, Hall said. The cost and time commitment sometimes prove prohibitive, he noted, but local high schools’ bowling teams have become feeders for some new faces in the adult leagues.

Baker said it can be a good way to get to know people and meet friends.

“It’s amazing the people we’ve been friends with over the years,” he recalled.

That’s what he missed most last year when, for the first time in more than six decades, he wasn’t able to bowl.

At 85, he no longer has the agility the game demands, but he still speaks of it with a kind of reverence. Yankee Lanes, after all, isn’t just where he bowled. It’s where he lived.