Kathleen Hoffmann could have been a ghost.

As the 87-year-old toed the foul line of her team’s lane at Solms Bowling Club, there wasn’t much around her to separate this moment, in 2023,­ from 1983, when Hoffmann was a fairly new member at Solms; or from 1933, shortly after the club moved to this spot from its original location across the street; or even from 1903, when Solms was only five years old. Bowlers still scrawled their scores on chalkboards, teens still scrambled to set up pins at the back of the lanes, and club members still watched the action from wooden benches—the same ones where their grandparents once sat. Small advances had been made over the decades: there were eight lanes now, instead of two; indoor smoking had been banned a few years ago; and the pinsetters earned $50 t

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