Cheap Dates: Time-travel back to your teenage years

Kay Stephens
Tue, 01/01/2013 - 10:30am
Oakland Lanes in Rockport, a Cheap Date of thrills. (photo: Kay Stephens)
Oakland Lanes bowling, cheap dates
Just think, these could be on YOUR feet for $3.00. (photo: Kay Stephens
Oakland Lanes bowling, cheap dates
Built in 1959, this bowling alley is still the same as it was the day it opened. (photo: Kay Stephens)
Oakland Lanes bowling, cheap dates
Round out your evening with a game of vintage Pac-Man. (photo: Kay Stephens)

    Remember when it only cost five bucks to fill up your gas tank? Remember when five bucks was the extent of your teenage budget for an evening? This doesn't count the "creative math" you did sneaking a fiver out of your mom's purse. (Editor: Not everyone is as larcenous as you. Kay: Valid point.) This Cheap Date is for the Boomers and Gen-Xers who only have to time-travel back to their teenage years (and budget) for a good time.

    All you have is $10 to spend. First stop, French and Brawn to get the half-size Coca-Cola bottles, 50 cents each for you and your date.

    Next, hit Oakland Park Bowling Lanes on a Friday night when things are slow if you really want the lanes to yourself (or just want as few people to know how badly you suck at candlepin bowling) or on a Saturday night when the place is popping. Classic moments will abound when you ponder what it would be like to actually join a bowling league, and relive scenes from The Big Lebowski, (a film, which my mom recently made me turn off the TV because there were too many "F" words. And yes, I'm in my 40s.)

    Renting shoes comes to a total of $3 and two strings of bowling costs $5.50. So, all told, you're up to $9.50 out of your total budget so far. What to DO with only 50 cents left?

    Two words homes: Pac-Man. Yes, Oakland Lanes owns a first-generation Pac-Man arcade game that takes a couple of quarters. There you go. No evening is complete without a few rounds of sweating anxiously to avoid the ghosts from stalking and eating Pac-Man. (Fun fact: In Japan, the sound effect for eating is “Pac Pac”.)

    Oakland Parks also serves food and beer and has a wild array of arcade games, a pool table, and air hockey, as well as Dance Dance Revolution, if your date feels like pitching in a couple of clams to extend the evening's entertainment. If you go, send us a photo of your time traveling evening and happy dating!

    Cheap Dates is a new series dedicated to scrounging the most amount of fun out of the Midcoast on the fewest dollars.

    Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com

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