Rocky Springs Entertainment Center

Prologue

I promised the girls we would go do something special together this weekend, and we settled on glow bowling. I ended up getting a mild stomach virus on Friday and spent the evening curled up in the fetal position on the couch with cramps. I had booked a lane for Saturday evening and knew they would be really disappointed if we didn't go. So I felt mostly better Saturday afternoon and decided to chance it. I packed a trusty box of Immodium and got through the evening feeling relieved that if I crapped my pants, at least the place was dark, and I could slink out of there without anyone knowing. I'm happy to report that I walked out with clean clothes and a memory of a fun night unmarred by the stomach bug's vengeance.

Turning Pages

Rocky Springs is located in Lancaster on Millport Road. In addition to bowling lanes, they have laser tag and an arcade. They also have a restaurant and bar called Red Pin Bar & Grill. I had drinks there before with friends but didn't try the food. It's a nice, small restaurant and much nicer than what you would normally expect for a bowling alley.

As per the website's recommendation, I called ahead to reserve a lane. You have to pay in full when reserving, and it's nonrefundable (another reason why I couldn't let the stomach bug win). They charge per hour instead of by game which was kind of a bummer. We played two games but then didn't finish the last frame of the last game before it shut off. I didn't want to pay for another hour just to finish that one person's turn. I understand why they do this though. If it gets really busy and a group is slow to finish, then it blocks up a lane for someone coming in new. When we checked in, they couldn't find my reservation because the person I spoke with accidentally reserved us for Sunday instead of Saturday. It all worked out fine in the end because they had plenty of open lanes.

They have glow bowling every weekend evening from 4pm to close.  The girls loved the atmosphere. They have giant TV screens with music videos playing and loud music thumping through the building. My youngest was baffled by the big hair in the 80s music videos. You can have food delivered directly to your lane, but we didn't get anything this time. This place is clean and had a steady stream of people coming in to enjoy a fun night out. This is a perfect family fun night or a different kind of place to hang with friends for some drinks and laughs.

Rocky Springs website

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I can't think of anything glowing without immediately thinking of both the historical fiction YA book, Glow, and the nonfiction Radium Girls that follows below. I enjoyed both of these books so much and couldn't stop thinking about the brave women who worked for these companies who cared nothing for their well-being. Company owners were presented with evidence time and time again of the harm that radium was causing their employees, and they choose to do nothing except cover it up and continue to deceive their workers and the public. It's a shameful time in history but one full of lessons and the courageous bravery of so many women who stood up to save those that followed in their footsteps.

Glow by Megan E. Bryant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Glow made me so interested to learn more about the Radium Girls who were exposed to toxic amounts of radium while painting watch dials in a factory. The horrific ways these women died and the disgusting, shameful way the radium companies tried to hide the dangers by blaming the women’s health problems on syphillis is incredibly sad. This historical fiction book did exactly what it set it to do by sucking me in and making me want to learn more. I appreciated the author’s note at the end as well.

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The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The horrifying story of the women who worked in the radium dial factories captivated me from page one. These women were told that everything was safe. They continued painting watch dials with radium paint, twirling the bristles in their mouths, and went home each night with the luminous material shining in their hair and on their clothing and bodies. They were repeatedly lied to and the dangers of radium were concealed as more and more women complained of aches and pains, loose teeth, and rotting jawbones. Even as doctors, dentists, and lawyers began to fight for these women, the radium companies still did not admit their wrongs or ever offer help as a sense of humane obligation. The radium girls lived in constant agony - miscarriages, tumors, amputations, etc. - but still they fought the companies and the radium eating holes in their bones. Many women died with no knowledge of what caused their gruesome suffering, and families were told it was caused by STDs or women's hysteria. Just as a reader, I was endlessly frustrated with the years of litigation and legal technicalities so I can't even begin to imagine what these families suffered as they watched their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters wither away with no one taking responsibility for their poisoning. Highly recommend.

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