On This Day In American History: The White House Bowling Alley Opened

With the five living U.S. Presidents and Zombie Taft currently breaking in the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University, where legend has it that Craig James was quite the ladies man, I added some presidential history to my morning reading. Among the things that I learned, it turns out that James K. Polk did not, in fact, coin the phrase “itty bitty titty committee” and today is the 66th anniversary of the opening of the White House Bowling Alley.

According to PBS, this isn’t anything special, but it was actually a nice gesture from President Harry “Man Meat” Truman to the White House’s underappreciated staff.

Although Truman did not play much (he was more into poker), he helped start the White House Bowling League. The bowlers included Secret Service agents and groundskeepers. Unfortunately, the alley was closed in 1955, but a new one was built in the Eisenhower Building.

I researched some of Truman’s history as a poker player, and it seems that he is responsible for approximately 10% of the national deficit, because of his love of chasing straights to the river. F*cking amateur hour.

But as for the bowling thing, I did my own research that goes far beyond anything that PBS and the national Archives have ever done and I recovered an actual photo of the scores from the first game that was ever played by Truman and some of his cabinet members on April 25, 1947. This is absolutely amazing.

Truman was POOP. He had a huge fecal fetish. It was kind of gross.

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