WAYNE, Mich.— As we go across the country, we’ve been asking people we meet the same question: What stories will you tell your grandkids about the recession? But it’s already apparent people don’t like sticking to the question. So, consider this freeform from here on out. Our latest pull quotes are below:

“My own son-in-law works for Fords and he’s off and on and off and on. And like two of the girls in our office, their husbands work for Chryslers, and one is fired and one is laid off. Yeah there are a lot of them here. But my husband works at Kroger’s and me, well, it’s not as desperate as that. And I try to do what I can to bring in more business.

We’ve done a lot of things to counteract (the economic downturn). Well, we offer our summer rates, okay, where a lot of businesses don’t, we tailor them to fit the economy, and we’ve scaled the price down, then we give them a free pass that’s good for three free games of bowling that’s good for the rest summer. So, you pay the fee once a week, but you’re gonna bowl all week, with three free games, so for a family, it’s the cheapest way to spend.

(Are you less profitable?) Definitely, because it’s free bowling. But we also offer like this one right here. We did this because of the economy, 21 and older gets to come in on Wednesday night after 9 p.m. and there’s no catch. We’re just trying to bring them in. I mean if they come, fine, but we’re trying to offer them something. I mean it’s bad enough to be out of work and not having an income, so we try and offer them a place to come and do something.

We always have to fight for the customers. Like we give them passes when they come in, we call them “bounce-back passes,” so that when they leave we give them one free one, like buy-one-get-one-free so…anything we can do to make it easier for them.

You can visit the website of Sandy's employer, Wayne Bowl, here.

(Photo of Sandy at Wayne Bowl by David Backer)