The league bowlers at Bowlero San Jose were not having a good night Thursday, and it had nothing to do with their scores. Like others for the past week or so, they were saying goodbye to Judy Kusche, the waitress who served their beers, cocktails and snacks.
It’s a job she loved and one she’d been doing there in one form or another for the past 42 years until she retired at the end of Thursday night’s shift.
“Just every customer is wonderful,” said Kusche, 79, dressed in her regular uniform of black jeans and a black Bowlero t-shirt featuring a bowling ball with antlers. “They’re my favorite memories, I guess.”
The feeling is mutual. On a recent Monday night, one of the leagues presented her with a giant farewell card. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, there were lots of hugs from longtime regulars who said they’ll miss her.
“She is amazing,” said Maria Nieto, who has been coming to Bowlero San Jose for three or four years. “Thursday nights won’t be the same without her. She took care of us, and always checked to see everyone had what they needed.”
Susie Liston, another regular, agreed that Kusche makes all of her customers feel special. “She’s adorable, she’s kind and she tries to be helpful to everyone,” she said. “I’m going to miss her a lot, and I don’t think it’s going to be the same down here without her. She just has a beautiful heart.”
When Kusche started working at the South San Jose bowling alley, it was called Oakridge Lanes and was one of several in the Santa Clara Valley. Nearly all of them — Alma Bowl, Cambrian Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Moonlite Lanes and more — are gone now. But Oakridge continued on, undergoing a couple of renovations and changes of names, first to 300 San Jose and, more recently, to Bowlero San Jose.
Back then, scores were tallied by hand and the most high-tech equipment in the joint was the overhead projector that displayed the scores. Today, everything is computerized and instead of 1970s wood paneling, the decor is all neon lights, with a blinking game arcade and big screen TVs at the end of every lane showing sports or music videos. Bottles of Budweiser have given way to craft beers and the 123-ounce shareable Dunk Tank cocktail.
“There’s been a lot of changes, but I think they’re for the better,” Kusche said, talking above the sounds of crashing pins puncutated by cheers. “We have more people bowling on the weekends now.”
But regardless of how the place has changed, Kusche has been a mainstay for more than a generation — and always has been a favorite with customers.
Dottie Allen, who worked alongside Kusche for 34 years, said back when the bowling alley had two bars, people would flock to the one Kusche was bartending at. “That’s what they called it, Judy’s Bar,” she said.
Amazingly, this isn’t the first long-term job she’s held at a San Jose institution. She was a waitress for 18 years at the 5 Spot, the legendary grill on South First Street, and was offered the job at Oakridge Lanes while she was bowling as a substitute on her sister Cheryl Raich’s team. “I wasn’t a very good bowler then, either,” she said with a laugh.
Kusche is also a self-taught artist, and she gained some local fame in the late 1970s for a large graduation-style painting of the San Jose Symphony orchestra members standing on stage at the Center for the Performing Arts. The painting, which took her three years to finish, was the subject of a Mercury News article and was displayed at Bowlero San Jose on Thursday night.
Kusche says the only reason she’s quitting — as she puts it — is because she and her sister are moving to Elk Grove at the end of the month. They’ll have more space there than in San Jose, and Kusche said she’s considering trading in her drink cart for some oil paints and taking up painting again.
How did she plan to spend her first day of retirement on Friday? She went bowling.
FAMILY TIES: Palo Alto and Bloomington, Ind., are now the nation’s first Sibling Cities after a virtual signing ceremony held Tuesday over a Zoom call, which was a nice 2022 touch.
Sibling Cities USA was founded last year by Palo Alto attorney Vicki Veenker in an effort to promote understanding between U.S. cities in different regions the way Sister Cities work internationally. “The beauty of Sibling Cities is that anyone can do it,” Veenker said during the signing ceremony. “You just do what you’re already doing … and you simply do it with people in the other city to get to know them.”
“Today we’re celebrating this new relationship with a focus on increasing bonds within the United States, connecting on our shared interests — culture, art, business, sustainability — and most of all having some fun doing it,” said Palo Alto Council member Tom DuBois, who was mayor when the Sibling Cities agreement was signed last year.
Current Mayor Pat Burt echoed DuBois’ comments. “I’m really excited about not just the relationship with Bloomington, which is a great city with a great university and a great history,” Burt said, adding that it could serve as a “foundation for a broader initiative that will bring more parts of America together…”
The ceremony also included comments by Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton, Harvard Professor Cornell William Brooks, Stanford basketball coach Tara VanDerveer (an Indiana University alumna herself) and two sets of siblings — brothers Scott and Brad Fulton and sisters Kendyl and Katie Smith — with one sibling in each of the two cities. We’ll see how strong this relationship is if No. 2 Stanford and No. 5 Indiana meet in the NCAA Women’s Final Four this year.
NAME THAT PARK: San Jose is looking for a name for a planned park on a 1.3-acre lot at the corner of Keyes and Third streets, which has been home to a long string of used car lots and body shops over the years. Anyone who knows the Spartan-Keyes neighborhood south of downtown knows that it is in desperate need of more open space as it transitions from an industrial and commercial area to a more residential one.
City rules requires that the name reflect at least one of a few criteria including its geographic location, a historical event or deceased individual who has made significant contributions to the city, state, United States or the world. And to make the process open to more residents, the nomination form is available in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Nominations are being accepted until Feb. 25, and you can suggest a name by going to http://bit.ly/3KTaDQU.
Source: www.mercurynews.com