Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 09/01) - Charlie Walsh doesn't bowl, which is odd considering he spends eight hours a day, five days a week at the Polar Bowl.

Walsh maintains the lanes and fixes the electric pin setter when it breaks down.

He's also the guy who takes your money and hands out the shoes.

"I'd rather look after the lanes than bowl," says Walsh.

Walsh moved to Yellowknife from Newfoundland in 1994. As a kid, he lived too far away from St. John's to go bowling.

"We couldn't afford it," he says.

He's been the jack-of-all-trades at the bowling alley for seven years.

"I've been here so long, I probably know everyone's shoe sizes," he says.

Once in a while, a customer comes in with really big feet -- too big for the shoes the Polar Bowl keeps in stock.

"We let them bowl in their stockings," he says. "There's not much we can do other than that."

One pair of shoes at Polar Bowl is utilized by many different pairs of feet. Walsh sprays all the shoes with disinfectant, even though the newfangled bowling shoes out these days aren't supposed to need it.

He meets a lot of nice folks working at the bowling alley. Teenagers get a bit rowdy sometimes, but not very often.

Once, a teenager slipped, his bowling ball hit the ceiling, knocking down a piece of wood. "He came back and apologized," says Walsh. "He didn't mean to do it, and was very embarrassed."