Rick Stuart says it's hard to remember exactly how long he's been at Thompson Lanes: it's either since wheels were square or made of stone, he jokes.
But now that the pins have fallen for the last time and crews have started tearing out the bowling equipment, Stuart says it's difficult to describe how he feels, knowing that after July 1, when the lounge shuts down, Thompson Lanes will be just a memory.
"It's hard to put in words," he said May 21, as the bowling alley hosted an open house to mark its final weekend of bowling after 45 years in operation - 40 of them under Stuart family ownership. "It's been my life. It's just mixed emotions right now. I know I'm going to miss it very much and miss the people most of all."
Still, it's not like he's reconsidering. A bowling alley employee since the age of eight, when he started working as a pinsetter at his family's lanes in Minnedosa, and the owner and operator of the Thompson Lanes for the last 11 years, Stuart said the time had come to put the 16-hour days behind him and "do normal things that normal people do" - go on trips, go golfing, have a family life, enjoy a backyard barbecue without having to run off to work.
Rick's parents Peter and Winnie Stuart took over Thompson Lanes in 1970. Fifteen years later, in August 1985, it became the first bowling alley in Manitoba with a licensed lounge. it was also the first business in Thompson with an outdoor patio. For Rick, the memories that stick out include the first wedding held in a bowling centre, when a couple who had met in a bowling alley exchanged their vows on Lane 6, and the five-year stretch, from 1976-1981, when Thompson Lanes had the largest youth bowling membership in the country, with over 800 youth bowlers and the lanes open 24 hours a day.
"I made a lot of good friends in Thompson having the business," said Rick, who plans to continue living in the city for another 10 years, though he's not certain exactly what he will be doing.
"I have nothing right now," he says. "We're not too sure what I'm going to do."
Before he begins his next career, however, Rick plans to have a brief mental vacation, a week or two without working. But it won't last long.
"I love work," he says, a trait that served him well through his years at Thompson Lanes. "I wouldn't have done it if I didn't love it."
