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A lifetime at the Ten Pin
By MIKE BRASSFIELD SOUTH PASADENA -- Otis Cameron knows his way around a bowling alley. When the pins won't come down or the ball won't return, he can tell what's wrong just by cocking an ear and listening. For 50 years now, Cameron has worked literally behind the scenes at Ten Pin Lanes in South Pasadena. If one of the AMF pinsetters jams, bowlers might catch a glimpse of Cameron tinkering with the machine at the end of the alley. They're probably looking at the oldest bowling lane mechanic in the world. "I don't mind working," Cameron said in his gravelly voice. "I don't want anybody to give me anything. I don't want to be beholden to anybody." This from a man who turned 85 last month. "If I get to where I can't do it, I'll let them know." Cameron started at Ten Pin Lanes as a "pin boy" in 1952, setting pins by hand for a dime per game, back when black people weren't allowed to bowl with whites. Half a century later, the fruits of his labor are a paid-off house, a thriving family and a sense of satisfaction. Does he like the job? "I guess I do," he said with a deep laugh. He has a shock of white hair, bright eyes and a well-worn, dignified face. His hands shake a little, but he can poke his fingers into the guts of a broken machine and get the motor purring to life. "You don't see that kind of work ethic anymore," said Bobbie Stealy, who has owned Ten Pin Lanes since 1976. "Otey's a great guy. He'll be on the payroll as long as he wants." Talking to Otis Cameron is like talking to a living history book. He arrived in St. Petersburg in October 1937, a 20-year-old with 10 cents in his pocket, not knowing a soul. "They said the train turned around in St. Petersburg. I said, 'Well, I want to see that.' " He got off the train on a Sunday evening and found downtown shut down. He wandered for blocks and blocks before he came upon a stranger. "Pardon me," Cameron said to him. "Can you tell me where the colored neighborhood is?" He rented a room and found work at a concrete company, then held a series of jobs over the next decade. He fixed railroad tracks for a while, then baked bread for a few years. Then he got his job at Ten Pin Lanes, which was built in 1950 in an out-of-the-way place called Coreytown. It was mostly mangroves and alligators out there, with a handful of bait shacks and rowdy bars that sold booze around the clock. Coreytown grew up to be South Pasadena, land of retirees in high-rise condos, the most densely populated place in Pinellas County. At first, Cameron's job was to drive his big Chevy station wagon through St. Petersburg's black neighborhoods around 5 p.m., recruiting youths to work as pin boys for the night. "You'd stand between two lanes. They'd bowl, and you'd send the ball back, and you'd set up the pins," Cameron recalled. "While you're doing that, they're bowling on the other lane. You had to be on your p's and q's, or you could get hit by a ball or a pin." Before long, Ten Pin Lanes installed automatic pinsetters. It was the first bowling center in Florida to get them, and the fourth in the nation. Cameron cleaned the lanes until the mechanic suddenly quit and the owner asked whether Cameron wanted the job. It paid better. With no formal training, Cameron read manuals and studied the machines at night after the lanes had closed. "I got to where I could build one if I had to," he said. In the intervening decades, he has worked for several Ten Pin owners and has mastered three generations of AMF pinsetting machines. He and his late wife, Alma, raised six children, who have produced 18 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Now beginning his sixth decade on the job, he only clocks in on Fridays. He drives his Buick Roadmaster to work, exchanges warm greetings with everyone, and stations himself in his room in the rear, surrounded by hammers and wrenches and oddly shaped metal parts. In back, where the mechanic works, the crashing of pins and balls creates a deafening racket. The row of 20 pinsetting machines looks and sounds like a factory. Someday, these machines will be replaced with new ones. Computerized ones. That's when Otis Cameron will probably hang it up. "I don't need to get into that, not at my age," he said with a rueful smile. "I don't need any more gray hair."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
