Airway Lanes - The Best People Bowl at Airway Lanes

The 1980's were the "Roaring 80's" for Airway Lanes, and Waterford Township.  You could look at the traffic on M-59, both east & west, between 9:00pm and 2:00am, and be astounded at the amount of traffic present.
Airway had it's Wednesday Night Mug Night.  People would stand in line, out to the light poles, until 1:00am, for a chance to get in. Once the Lounge reached capacity, no one could come in until someone left, on a one to one basis.  They could go on the decks, and down to the court areas, but not in the bar.
Other nights of the week had Cafe Max's "reggae night" on Thursdays, Peppi's "Ladies Night" on Tuesdays, with Sunday and Monday generally a quiet night.  On the week ends, entertainment traffic was huge in Waterford,  People would make a circuit from Firebird Lanes, to Peppi's, to Jaggerz, to Club Rio Day, then Airway Lounge, Cafe Max and finally, the Jukebox Cafe.  Then do it all over again until they could get in to a place. -- All of those people were buying gas, stopping at party and grocery stores, eating at local restuarants - generally spending money all over the Township.  Unfortunately, big crowds attract even bigger jerks - and they ended up ruining it for everyone.  Of all those places, only Airway and Peppi's (now CJ's) are still around.  As for the entertainement scene in Waterford -- it is just a shadow of it's former self, but will hopefully return soon.

Volleyball happened because of "serendipity".  I was looking for something to keep the place busy in the summertime.  The initial plan was to build the decks that are presently off of the lounge.  Decks were new then, and were really the rage in the area.  It took me almost 3 years to get those decks approved, and they only got approved after I added the two volleyball courts outside.   I added the cement patio, and three horseshoe lanes at the same time.

About the patio -- originally, I had installed a basketball net on the cement block wall.  It was a lot of fun, except some people had to show off by stuffing the ball then hanging on the net.  That would lead to the whole backboard assembly being torn off of the wall.  After two years of reinforcing the mounts to fight this, I finally gave up when someone actually snapped the basket off of the board.  The whole thing was taken down and has been down ever since.

Regarding the volleyball courts themselves - knowing nothing at all about volleyball, I envisioned 12 people on a side, having  a great time playing, drinking and eating before during and afterwards.  I could just open the doors and the place would fill up after a little promotion!  HAH! Did I ever get disabused of that notion in a hurry.  During my research on how to build a professional level beach volleyball court, I learned all of the mechanics of how to do it.  I hired the right people, had the correct materials brought in, and had them built.  The first day, about sunset time, I got a complaint.  The people on the east side were looking directly into the setting sun.  I got the same complaints the next 3 days.  That weekend, I had the courts reoriented north/south, and had the lights moved.  That is why the courts are where they sit right now.

Our first ever day of play, I had just finished raking the courts, and was just sitting back and admiring my creation with pride.  The first person to show up was from the Men's Competitive 4's (I was taught about 4's and 6's during the promotions I was doing to fill the courts).  He stood looking at the courts, then walked up to one of the nets, and reached his hand straight up and pronounced that "The nets too high".  I said no way, I got the measurments from a rule book and they were right at 8' - where they belonged.  I was dumbfounded when he informed me that beach volleyball nets were supposed to be 7' 11 5/8" high.  Like I said, dumbfounded.  I told him to step back, then kicked sand in the spot he had just measured from.  I then told him to retake the measurment.  It was his turn to be dumbfounded.  After that, it was 7' 11 5/8" on a raked court -- I could not promise more after play started.

As I said above, I expected to get people on the courts, then go do my own thing.  What I learned running volleyball, is that the players are every bit competitive as bowlers, and the rules are just as structured.  My problem was that bowling ran to the end of April, but volleyball started in mid-April.  Then bowling would start back up the day after Labor Day, but volleyball ran into October sometimes.  Before volleyball, I usually was able to get a summer break.  Once volleyball started, I found that besides doing the year end payoffs and Champion of Champions Tournament, and promoting and starting spring bowling leagues, I also was promoting and starting volleyball leagues.  Besides that, the bar was also rocking and I closed the center4 - 6 nights a week.  Summer is also when we do a lot of our repairs and improvements, and I am usually pretty hands on with that.

Running 16 to 20 vball teams a night, 4 nights a week, on top of all the other duties, I found myself exhausted after two seasons without a break.  I came upon the idea of leasing the volleyball business and let someone else deal with all of that.  The man that leased volleyball was from my Tuesday Competitive Men's league.  He also played a lot at the Cafe Max courts (they opened up after my leagues took off).  I did not know that he was pretty tight with the people there.  I found that out after the business dropped quite a bit as he tried to move teams there from Airway.
The lease was not renewed, and for management, I turned to my son, Frank, and his girlfriend.  They ran it for two years, and even though they were successful, had to give it up.  Next, I spoke to my daughter, Nikki, who, at the tender age of 18, took over the operation.  She still runs up to 20 teams in a night, plus does at least one tournament a month on the weekends.  During this time she earned her degree to teach Chemistry & Physics at OU.  She also got married to Brian, has had two children and earned her Masters - a first in our family.  Volleyball is still going strong.