ELLSWORTH, Maine — Autumn Mowery was seven or eight years old when she started going to the candlepin bowling alley in Ellsworth, about a 20-minute drive from where she grew up.
"This was really the only entertainment place around here," Mowery said. "So this was definitely the spot to go."
A decade later, when she was 17, Autumn started working the front desk at the bowling alley. It was around the time the pandemic began, and in no time at all—
—Wait a minute. Pardon the interruption, but we’re taking a detour here. This is an unusual story, and you know what? It would be so much better if you watched rather than read. Trust me, you don’t want the spoilers that would be inevitable if the reading came first.
Thanks for your understanding. Now, settle back and watch. We hope you like it.
The world would be a far less interesting place without its regional quirks and eccentricities. One of Maine’s, for example, is its fondness for Allen’s Coffee Brandy, which has been the most popular liquor in the state for most of the past 40 years.
You don’t have to travel far west before you can’t even find Allen’s. According to the Allen’s website, there is no store or bar or restaurant within 100 miles of Philadelphia—not one—where you can buy Allen’s.
Another of Maine’s quirks is its tradition of candlepin bowling, which is very different from the far more popular 10-pin.
Ten-pin bowling features large balls that weigh as much as 16 pounds. Candlepin balls—which, unlike 10-pin balls, don’t have finger holes—weigh less than two and a half pounds. Candlepins are straight with no curves, hence the name.
Candlepin bowling has been around since the late 1880s, and it’s played mainly in New England and eastern Canada. There are more than a dozen bowling alleys in Maine that offer candlepin but, to get back to where we started, the one in Ellsworth has a story that sets it apart from all the others. It’s the kind of place that gives Maine its distinctive character.