Maui bowlers share 10 lanes, good memories
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
WAILUKU, Maui — If the name of the place was not painted on a plywood sheet covering a window next to the front door, you'd never know that the unremarkable building on Vineyard Street in Wailuku town is home to what is likely the state's oldest bowling alley.
Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser
The wood and corrugated tin structure, with its sagging canopy, started as a furniture store. But in 1948 its owners decided they could make better money by converting the business into a 10-lane bowling alley.
Maui High bowling team members turn up for practice at the Maui Bowling Center in Wailuku. With its 10 lanes, it is the only alley on the Valley Isle.
Today, the Maui Bowling Center is the only bowling alley on the island. Even Kaua'i, with a population half that of Maui's, has a bowling alley with 28 lanes.
Alvin Kushiyama, 65, is manager and president of Maui Bowling Center, which is owned by a group of "shareholders" comprising members of about a half-dozen local families. As a young teenager, Kushiyama was a pinsetter at the alley for 10 cents a "line," or game.
The funky little bowling center may be the only game in town, Kushiyama said, but it has earned its devoted following.
"It's relaxing and it's family-oriented. And, it's the only bowling alley where you can bring your coolers," he said. "The people who come here are all friendly. There are very few rotten ones."
Shigenobu "Shiek" Shi-bano, 78, is one of the shareholders and still bowls once a week. He has been working there part time since 1960, and talks story with old-timers like Mitzie Loio, 77, who drops by to enjoy the air-conditioning when it gets too hot outside.
Loio, a retired state juvenile detention worker, bowls a couple times a week. She said bowling remains popular on Maui despite the shortage of lanes.
"It's recreation. You don't just want to sit around. You want to do something and there's not too much old people like me can do. You just enjoy yourself whether you bowl good or you bowl junk," she said.
Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser
Bowling was popular entertainment for the servicemen who were stationed on Maui. In the 1940s, Shibano and Loio said, there were two- or four-lane alleys in Pu'unene, Kahului, Lahaina and Wailuku.
As a young teenager, Maui Bowling Center manager Alvin Kushiyama used to set pits for 10 cents a game. The alley opened in 1948.
The more modern Aloha Bowling Center in Wailuku saw a series of owners over the past 15 years who couldn't make it work. The place is boarded up, leaving the Maui Bowling Center as the lone survivor.
The bowling center has league play seven nights a week, and afternoons are reserved for high school practices and matches. Open play Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is $2 a game; shoe rentals are 50 cents.
Bowling ace Ronald Kimura, 37, plays in leagues two nights a week and comes in on his own during the day to practice. Kimura has six 300 games under his belt, but is more proud of a three-game 800 series, which he said is even more difficult than a perfect game.
He likes the bowling alley's local-style atmosphere and said the lanes are challenging. Some bowling alleys oil their lanes in such a way to aid bowlers, he explained, resulting in higher scores. Not at the Maui Bowling Center.
"You need to do it all yourself in order to strike. Luck is not a factor in this house," Kimura said.
No one apparently has researched the history of bowling in Hawai'i, so it's difficult to confirm Kushiyama's claim that the Maui Bowling Center is the oldest bowling alley in Hawai'i, but it's probably true. University Bowl, formerly Stadium Bowl O Drome, in Honolulu opened around 1955, and the Pali Lanes and Hilo Lanes in the 1960s.
Kushiyama believes the business has been able to last this long because it welcomes disabled and Special Olympics bowlers. "We treat them right. To me, this brings us good luck," he said.
Reach Christie Wilson at 808-244-4880, or e-mail at cwilson@honoluluadertiser.com.
