The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-09

~ No matter what score you
make, the alleys are right. There
aren't any dents in them. They are
level, and they are finished right.
Personally, I wouldn't know about
this if hadn't talked to William
Slaughter, Chicago, who put them
in. He's been in that business for
the last % years.
MIR. SLAUGHTER is a heavy
Ava man, and seems to be always
smiling. Nothing ever goes wrong,
least Of all bowling alleys. And
bowling alleys are composed of more
single pieces of wood than a ship
ment of jack straws games.
The alleys themselves are made
of maple and southern pine. The
maple is at head and foot of the
runway and pine is in the center.
Pine takes a curve better than
maple.
The alleys are leveled with me-
chanical sanders with 44-inch drums
that cover the entire width at once.
They are covered with a japanese
shellac that comes at $1.80 a gallon.
The cutters, built for the booster
teams, are made of fir.
= y
THE lumber altogether costs
Il about 10 cents a running foot,
which is good deal because there
are a lot of running feet-about 40
miles if it were all laid end to end.
Pin boys follow the tournament
year after year and make z cents a
game, which is good wages. Each
team gets a new set of pins, costing
SO set. There wasn't any special
problem installing the alleys in the
Coliseum, Mr.. Slaughter said.
Il Il
MO matter how bad things get,
L Y don't ever turn into postofice
pen. Things would be worse then.
That's what Fred r. Long says, and
he ought to know. He's uniformed
Waterman in the main corridor at.
the central postof1ce, and he min
listers to the pens.
Mr.. Long, who has had the job
16 years and thinks people in cor
rldorS are interesting, says that
folks steal pens-about five a day.
II they don't steal them, he says,
they jab the points in wood. If they
don't do that, they splatter ink on
the marble wall.
And if they don't ruin the pen,
they stand for hours drawing pic
lures on money order application
slips. One man, he said, walked
briskly to desk the other day, fig
ured on money order slips for about
an hour, and left. Mr.. Long went
over and found complete financial
statement-looked like one for
company, he said.
Some folks come in regularly and
fill their fountain pens from the ink
wells. While he personally wouldn't
recommend that kind of ink fer
fountain pens, Mr.. Long doesn't OBJ
ject. He said he asked a couple of
them why they preferred the ink.
They told him that it was govern
ment ink and ought to be better
than they could buy.
"THERE was a man." he said,
i who was writing a card on
one of the desks here and had his
umbrella hanging at his side on the
desk. When: he got through it was
gone. He came up to me and said:
"'Well, my umbrellas gone"
"I told him that if some one
turned it in he would find it at the
lost and found department, but that
if it had been stolen he probably
never would see it again.
"He told me he lost lots of them;
never could keep them. He said he
thought the street cars got more,
though, than corridors.
"NNCE in a while we get some
~ one who gets high strung
when he finds that the stamp SELL
ing window is closed. He always
takes it out on assays he will see
to it that it is opened for longer
hours. Important like, you know"
what do you do with them?" I
asked.
"We treat all customers the
same" he said solenlnly.
|. y 4
"THEN there was another man
l. who used to come in with his
overcoat pockets filed with news
papers," he added. Seemed like he
read them all the time.
"He would walk up the entire
length of the corridor and then
back again. Then he would ask for
mail at the general delivery window.
He would always ask for mail but
never got very much. Wrote lot of
cards, too. never could under
stand it.
"He didn't have an overcoat this
winter"