By Nick Hurwitch
For The State News
Their techniques are generations apart, but their goal is the same: Knock down all the pins.
Wilson Akujobi bounds toward the TV and swings with all his 12-year-old might. On the screen, his character duplicates his motion and hurls the ball down the bowling alley, sending one pin into another and picking up the spare.
"Oh man, that was some sure stuff," Everett Ketchum said. Ketchum, 92, has set his mahogany cane to the side of his chair and waits for his turn in comfort. He follows Akujobi's spare with a gutter ball, but everyone in the room is encouraging.
Ketchum is playing his first video game.
"It just takes a little practice. You're getting it," Social work senior Lindsay Bacon said. She is the program planner for the Legacy Project, an intergenerational program she helped develop last fall for Hannah Community Center, 818 Abbott Road.
Bacon won the 2007 Student Leadership and Diversity Award from the Michigan chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. The money from the award had to go toward her senior project, so she purchased a Nintendo Wii, a new video game console, for the teen and senior centers.
The Wii stands apart from other video game consoles because of its unique controller. The motion of a player's arm is picked up by a sensor placed by the TV and translates into on-screen action.
"It's a lot simpler. There are only two buttons I really need to teach," Bacon said. "When I played video games with my older brother, I always had a hard time keeping all the buttons straight."
Along with their actions, the seniors show up on-screen as well. Players can create video game versions of themselves called "Miis." Bacon created some gray-haired Miis for the seniors to choose from.
Nintendo's advertising campaign has made it a point to show a wide variety of people playing Wii. Video games are typically geared toward 10- to 25-year-olds, but Wii ignores a target demographic boundary.
At a public luncheon with the seniors last month, Bacon was without a guest speaker, so she pulled out the console.
"They got really into it," Bacon said. "They were helping each other out and telling each other, 'Hold it like this, swing it like this.'"
Even though the game requires motion, how physical a player gets is up to them. They can get a running start like Akujobi, or if they're tired or have mobility issues, they can stay seated like Ketchum.
And, people don't have to be geniuses to do it, either, Bacon said.
Bacon plans to have Wii hours from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays at the senior center. To make sure it stays intergenerational, young people have to play with at least one senior to participate.
Friday, Akujobi got to play with Ketchum.
Ketchum has lived in East Lansing since 1950 and has been part of the seniors program for 17 years. He used to be an alternate for bowling teams in Flint and East Lansing, but has not bowled since his daughters beat him in a game years ago.
"I'm too old," he said. "I wasn't much of a bowler then, and I'm so far behind now in this stuff."
"But coming here keeps you up with the times," Bacon told him. "We always have the newest, coolest stuff."
"Oh, absolutely," Ketchum said, while winding up for his next roll.
He swings, and the ball makes its way down the alley. He knocks down seven pins and smiles.
"You won't have any trouble getting players for this."
