First Posted: 2/4/2015
PITTSTON — Frank Onda leaned over the shuffleboard table at the Pittston Senior Center. He gritted his teeth, grabbed the metal disc and with a flick of his wrist, sent it gently down the long board. The disc glided to a spot just near the end of the board.
“That’s three,” the 89-year-old said with a satisfied grin. He admits to having “a little practice,” from the 50 years that he owned a bar in Exeter.
He got cheers from the men sitting at tables near the shuffleboard. He heard booing from the ladies.
And competition at the weekly Wednesday shuffleboard tournament intensified. It’s Team Ladies vs. Team Men every week.
The athletes range in age from 65 to 90. Any stretches that go on before a competition consist of getting out of a chair and walking across the room. That is, if the player isn’t already sitting near the shuffleboard table and heckling the other team.
And the trash talk is as tough as the competition.
“They’re pretty good,” said Amelia Alpaugh, ace shuffleboarder from Pittston. “But we’re better.”
She added, “We let ‘em win once in a while. After all, we feel sorry for ‘em. We don’t want them to cry.”
When it’s Alpaugh’s turn at the shuffleboard table, she studies the scene, checking out placement of the opponents’ discs. And she holds her non-shooting hand behind her back – “for leverage.”
It’s competition full of the same intensity as Olympic curling or backyard bocce. Place that disc where it can score the most points. Then hope your opponents don’t find a way to knock it off that spot, maybe even off the playing surface.
Many of the players got their playing skills as youngsters, sometimes while they were in high school, some even in neighborhood bars.
Once in a while, husband and wife play against each other in the same match.
“If he wins, maybe I won’t serve him supper that night,” Alpaugh said.
“Oh, yeah,” countered her husband, Thompson. “Well, I’ll go to Agolino’s. And without you.”
Few miss their turns, either. Octogenarian Esther Jumper, of Pittston, has to get to the table on crutches. And right now, she’s playing with a bandage on her shooting hand that’s protecting more than a dozen stitches from a serious cut. And she’s got some serious accuracy going on, bandage and all.
And it all goes on to hoots and hollers, shouts and cheers – “C’mon, you can do it!” “Don’t show off now. You’re not that good.” And sometimes the odd boo.
Few feel they can take credit for excellence at the board, said Juanita Herrick, of Pittston.
“We all have our days,” she said. “Sometimes you can just do well. Some days nothing works. But it keeps me going and I don’t have time to get old.”
Bob Willson, a self-proclaimed rookie at 72, leaned on the edge of the table, waving his hands as a way to “encourage” his disc to hang on the edge of the board for four points. The body English didn’t work. The disc dropped off the side.
“Maybe I think I’m bowling,” he grinned.
Maybe it was the ladies sitting nearby who wiggled their fingers to put the whammy on the disc.
Nobody needs a referee, either. These athletes play fair to win.
“We ladies don’t cheat. We win fair and square,” said Audrey Kurz, who makes the trip across the river from West Pittston every Wednesday. “It’s all chance. Depends on the wax on the board, the weather. Some days you’re good, some days you’re not.”
Helen Shannon, of Exeter, keeps everything in order. They call her “The Captain,” and she does the commissioner duties, keeping records, setting up the matches.
She’s done the job for a long time, she said.
“There was a while when we had a travel team,” she said. “We’d go to other senior centers, even up to Tunkhannock.”
Shannon has a system. She’s got a small notebook where she keeps notes and writes down the schedule. She’s got a stack of paper slips with numbers.
Among the center’s myriad activities – ceramics, crochet and bingo, Wii bowling, pinochle, Hawaiian poker, and, of course, lunch – the shuffleboard tournament brings most of the people together and is the most rowdy, said center director Connie Andrews.
And there’s no external reason, like trophies, an awards banquet or a Hall of Fame, to spur the competition.
“It’s just fun every Wednesday,” said Lois Nolan, of Pittston. “And when we’re beating the guys, that makes it better.”
