It was a few years back and we were traveling along Cohawkin Road in the Gloucester County town of Clarksboro when first caught our first glimpse of what has come to be known as the “Bowling Ball House.”
We pulled into the driveway of Stanley Szymansky, who’s property is lined from front yard to back with shiny multicolored bowling balls mounted on metal stakes.
This is not the first bowling ball house we’ve come across here at Weird NJ over the past 25 years. The property has a similar appearance the former home of the late Richie Zorzi in Kendall Park, as both houses are not only adorned with bowling balls, but also rocking horses. We fear this rocking horse/bowling ball combination may be a trend, or maybe just a coincidence. It’s time to find out.
“I’ve been wondering when Weird NJ was going to show up!” Szymansky told us. It was about 10 years ago that Szymansky, then a spry 80-year-old, started his display with about a dozen bowling balls he had in his collection, placing them outside on his property.
“The neighbors didn’t like them,” Szymansky remembers, “so they called the township on me. The township came down and told me I had to get rid of them, and I told them I ain’t getting rid of them, and if you want to talk to me again, you can talk to me through my lawyer!”
The town never called on Szymansky again, but soon more and more bowling balls started showing up on his property. (A similar story was related to us by Zorzi, as bowling balls were mysteriously deposited on his property in the middle of the night.)
“One morning I looked out, and there was a pile of four over there, three over in that direction, and 27 of them in my driveway!” said Szymansky. “And it has just continued since then. The last dropoff was three days ago.”
We asked Szymansky if he had heard about the Bowling Ball House of Kendall Park, but he said he didn’t recall anyone ever telling him about it. We asked if the rocking horses were dropoffs also, but he said no, they were all bought at garage sales and flea markets. A strange similarity, we thought.
“I have a little over 300 bowling balls on the property. I used to have about 400, but a lot of them split or got cracked, so I’m slowly replacing them. I like them. If I see one at a garage sale, I pick it up. If I see a rocking horse in the trash, I’ll take that also.”
Szymansky has no plans to stop his bowling ball fetish. We asked him if he plans on making a bowling ball tombstone when his time comes and he gave us a surprising reply.
“I bought a grave around the corner here at the cemetery," he said. "I had the stone made up and had them put a bowling ball on it. If you take a ride through you can see my stone with a bowling ball.”
Szymansky also tells us he has no connection to bowling as a sport.
“Why do bowling balls have three holes and I have five fingers?” he asked.
Since more and more bowling balls keep showing up on Szymansky’s property, we asked him if the neighbors gets more angry about Szymansky’s mounting collection of the spheres.
“No. We’re fine now. They’re both dead.”
The preceding article is an excerpt from Weird NJ magazine, “Your Travel Guide to New Jersey’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets,” which is available on newsstands throughout the state and on the web at www.WeirdNJ.com.