Finding a cache of bowling balls at the site where a new aquatic recreation center will be constructed likely wasn’t on the 2025 bingo card for South Whidbey Parks and Rec.

Last week, the contractor for the pool project uncovered over 30 bowling balls while digging up the ground at the Maxwelton Road address.

“We were able to salvage a few of them,” Executive Director Brian Tomisser said in an email to The Record. “Our recreation supervisor had a vision for using some in a program.”

He believes the final count to be 33. Just 10 were able to be kept; the rest have been discarded by the contractor.

A post on the South Whidbey Parks and Recreation District’s Facebook page caused many jokesters to emerge in the comment section.

“You’ve disturbed the Tomb of the Ancient Bowler, you will be haunted and only be able to score an 85 in bowling until they are returned,” one person said.

Another commented, “Guess you’ll have to add a bowling alley to the new aquatic center.”

In addition to the wisecracks, the post generated much speculation on how the bowling balls came to be there in the first place. Tomisser noted that people did live on the site for years with a trailer located where the pool will soon be built. Some of the commenters theorized that someone associated with a now-shuttered bowling alley lived there.

According to a previous story in The Record, the South End’s last bowling alley, Freeland Lanes, closed in 2008 after 50 years in business.