AUBURN #- For nearly 60 years, one way or the other, Lou Chomyk has been involved in Auburn bowling, a career that began almost accidentally.

“I was 15 or so,” Chomyk said. “I was hanging around the Polish Home waiting for some of the guys to get done and the owner asked me if I wanted to spot pins. I told him I didn't know anything about it and he told me there would be someone there to show me what to do, and that was what first really got me into bowling.”

Chomyk spent several years at the Polish Home setting pins and working his way up to head pin boy, keeping up the alleys and oiling the lanes and even participating in some practices that have long since fallen by the wayside.

“We'd save house balls for people,” Chomyk said. “There were guys who wanted a certain ball and we'd save it for them. But for open bowling they used to use wooden pins and they would get chipped and cracked, they wouldn't use those for league, but after they got broken I'd be in the basement squaring them off. When you were down in the pits you'd notice that they were all even, from the alleys you couldn't really tell. Of course they don't do any of that now, but that was how it was back then.”

All the while Chomyk was using every opportunity he got to hit the lanes himself.

“We could all use the alleys,” Chomyk said. “So that was how I got started. We'd go in the side door and bowl a few games before we were spotting pins or at the end of the day.”

Throughout his career Chomyk stayed very active bowling not only locally, but also in various travel leagues and making his way to various national tournaments.

“I liked the competition and all the friends,” Chomyk said. “It was always a very friendly game, and I still talk to a lot of the guys that I bowled with to this day, so for me that was the best part of it, all the people I got to know.”

During his active years, Chomyk served in every position within the Auburn Bowling Association and for a few years along with Dick Chapman, ran the Masters Tournament.

“We ran it for a few years,” Chomyk said. “I had fun with all of it. I was always doing something in bowling.”

For all his service and dedication Chomyk was one of three inducted into the Auburn Bowling Hall of Fame in 1980.

“That was a great feeling,” Chomyk said. “They only had three people a year then, so it was a really big honor.”

In the years since he has retired from his job and active bowling, Chomyk has stayed busy, becoming something of a historian of Auburn Bowling.

“After my wife and I both retired we got interested in collecting postcards,” Chomyk said. “I'm sort of a history buff about Auburn. We collected all this information and we'd go and do presentations at places like nursing homes and talk to people and learn more information we didn't have. That was always interesting and from that I started collecting more and more about bowling in Auburn. I guess you could say that I'm a real fan of the history of bowling in Auburn.”

Stacked up in his home, Chomyk has numerous scrap books, with newspaper articles, old photos and post cards depicting alleys that are now long gone.

“There used to be a lot of places,” Chomyk said. “Places like the Imperial, that was about where Wegman's is now and the Roman Club that was on Clark Street, that is probably part of the arterial now. But there used to be a lot of places around here, some of them like the Polish Home building is still there and the UNC club and Sicz Lanes, but there used to be a lot more around here than there is now.”

Chomyk also has numerous documents and programs outlining some of the great accomplishments in Auburn bowling history.

“In 1935, when the association started there weren't too many 300s,” Chomyk pointed out. “I think I had one of the first and until about 1960 there were only about 13 (games of) 300. Bob Anderson had the last one, before things started to change and the technology started to change. Now there are probably seven or eight 300s a week at least, and 700s and 800s, those are things that we never really had and now they are getting more common. The game has changed a lot.”

While much of Chomyk's collection chronicles a bygone era, he is always happy to share his scrap books and the unique history they hold with anyone.

“I show this to anyone interested,” Chomyk said. “Now a lot of the people who would be are gone or somewhere else. But to me it is interesting to collect these things and it is something that I've stayed with for about 10 years now. I really like collecting the history of bowling in Auburn. I guess that makes me a historian of sorts and I've had a lot of fun doing it.”