they keep on rollin’
While the creation of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community
Center will mark the first time the community in
our region has come together in its own space, lesbian and gay
people have been getting together in the Valley in less formal
fashion for many years. One of the longest-lasting s
uch groups
does not even a have a formal name, but, improbably – and not-withstanding many changes in personnel and venue – a cadre
of gay and lesbian bowlers has been continually throwing
strikes and spares, not to mention the all-too-frequent gutter
ball, for more than two decades in Dutchess County.
According to Fran Quinn and Phillis Simone of Poughkeepsie, it all started around 1985 at the Holiday Lanes in Wappingers Falls, as the brainchild of the late Jerry Losecco of the Poughkeepsie Gay and Lesbian Association (GALA). “The group was mostly IBMers,” Simone recalls, “and we would take up four lanes, maybe six. Sometimes there would be more than 20 bowlers.”
The group continued at the Holiday Lanes for several years; then, in the early 1990s, it migrated to the Taft Lanes (now the MardiBob) in Poughkeepsie. There it acquired the informal name of GABLE, which is believed to be short for “Gay Bowling League,” although in fact the group has never been officially affiliated with any formal league, gay or otherwise.
The group was still taking up as many as six to eight lanes in the early ’90s — but then came the downsizing of IBM, a huge blow to the area that impacted lesbian and gay people, too. “The collapse of IBM affected the group,” says Quinn. “It’s never been as large since. But there’s always been someone to carry on.”
And indeed, there has. The parent group of Poughkeepsie GALA is gone, but the bowlers just keep rolling. Within the past year, the group has migrated again, to the Ro-Lin Lanes between Red Hook and Rhinebeck. There, on most Sundays at 4 p.m., a small but devoted group of LGBTQ bowlers, lately numbering between four and seven players, continues the tradition that started more than two decades ago.
As has always been the case with the group, all are welcome, regardless of skill level, and although everyone tries his or her best, the atmosphere is more one of cheerleading for each other than of competition (except, sometimes, among members of a couple!). That said, the group does have an official score keeper and was represented by Lance Ringel at the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney. This summer Lance was joined by his other half, Chuck Muckle at the Chicago Gay Games, where they won a bronze medal in team bowling, and at the Montreal OutGames where the pair won a gold medal in the same event.
The Hudson Valley’s LGBTQ bowling group heartily welcomes any and all new members. For information and to confirm bowling dates & times, e-mail vin_dicks@hotmail.com. Δ