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Sallie Yamada / At 95, still rolling with it

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BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Arm tingling, fingers numb and not quite right, Sallie Yamada's first thought was, "Oh well, I've had a stroke and I guess I'll be pretty well immobilized."

Her second thought? "I better go bowling."

The stroke was on a Tuesday. Come Sunday, 94-year-old Yamada tied on her size-5 Brunswick bowling shoes at Imperial Lanes in the Rainier Valley.

Her first few frames, she says, "the ball went this way and that way, all over the place. So I had to modify."

Instead of smoothly sliding her hand into the grip, Yamada maneuvered two fingers, stiff as chopsticks, into the holes, then her thumb. Instead of addressing the head pin from the center, she migrated to the lane's left side, then delivered to the outside right, her ball eventually veering toward center.

A century of living has taught Yamada to adapt.

During World War II, when she was the mother of three children under the age of 5, the U.S. forced Yamada's family and 120,000 other people of Japanese ancestry into internment camps. Of that experience, Yamada says simply, "I didn't do anything else. I was just taking care of my children."

After the war, Yamada and her husband worked multiple jobs each, and they bowled. "There was a lot of prejudice against Japanese; they weren't allowed on the golf course," says Yamada's daughter, Marcia Almassy, "so they just stuck with bowling." The lanes, then known as Main Bowl, were owned by a Japanese-American. The couple would drive to the bowling alley every Sunday morning to compete in a potluck league, and now, six years after her husband's death, the rumble of balls and clatter of tumbling pins make Yamada think of him.

She continues to bowl on Thursday nights with the Stardusters, a women's league that includes her daughter and many friends. Yamada is now 95. Macular degeneration mars her vision; a leather brace supports her wrist. She now uses a 10-pound ball for better control, though she prefers the momentum of a 16-pounder.

Tonight she holds her ball in both hands like a Milky Way marble, then launches toward the sweet spot. As her ball swirls toward the head pin, she takes tiny steps back, as if watching a wave recede into the sea.

Crash! Another spare! Final score, without handicap, is 177, the highest of all ladies in the surrounding lanes that night.

"Oh, yes. Pretty good, pretty good!" she says. 'Til next week.