Barry Wright
Laura Paquette walks confidently up to the line at Marcin Bowl, reaches back and proceeds to throw a strike.
Nothing unusual about that, perhaps, except Paquette is
93 years old.
Each Tuesday she meets up with friends at the Point Edward bowling lanes for a session lasting up to two-and-a-half hours.
“I enjoy the interaction and the friends,” she said. “The people are great, and of course I love the bowling.”
Paquette was born into a family of 12 children in Quebec in August of 1921. She and her husband lived in northern Ontario before moving to Sarnia in 1973 at the urging of her husband's brother.
She took up the sport of bowling at the age of 67. And not five-pin bowling, the version with the small balls. She tried that and switched to ten-pin almost immediately.
“I was using a ten-pound ball but it got too heavy,” she says. “So now I'm using a ball that's eight pounds.”
Paquette’s average is hovering around 130, which is considered a pretty good score in a social bowling league.
She downplays the significance of her age, noting two family members on her mother's side lived to be 104 and 101.
“I'm lucky. I feel as a good as I did 15 years ago,” she said. “I hope I can still do it again next year.”
Rod Honke, of the Lambton County Tenpin Bowling Association, said Paquette gives all bowlers hope they’ll be able to play well into later life.
“Laura is an inspiration,” he said.