Book excerpt: For Peter Fox, being a bowling alley proprietor was a calling. Right from the beginning, the Upstate New York village of Koopersville embraced Peter's glistening new bowling alley with its modern automatic pinsetters, and Koopersville Bowl quickly became the heart and soul of the village. Peter's dream business opened in 1962, and year after year, the bowling alley was the place where the trials and tribulations of growing up in a small New England town were transformed into the dreams and hopes of the future. Anything was possible at Koopersville Bowl. But one day Peter Fox died, and the village stopped breathing. The moral fabric of the entire community broke, yet Peter's extended family tried to adjust to their loss. As Peter's eldest son, Paul Fox knew it was his duty to help his mother carry on; what's more, it was what his father would have wanted. And that's exactly what he did. Even so, sometimes unexpected things do happen. In the game of bowling there is only one way to salvage your score, and that is to throw strikes. Perfect games are hard to come by. But in life, as Paul soon finds out, there are always new beginnings, new games to be played, and old memories that can never be taken away.