Lola Neilson, 85 and legally blind, recently bowled a 244 game. Her husband, James, also 85, is an avid golfer and a veteran of World War II. The Neilsons have lived in Pahrump since the 1960s. Photo by John Gurzinski.

PAHRUMP

Lola Neilson turns around on the approach of the bowling lane, shrugs her shoulders and gets ready for the bad news.

"Didn't sound too good," she says before a teammate confirms she left a split with her first ball.

Her husband, James, marvels that his bride of 68 years continues to bowl despite becoming legally blind two years ago from macular degeneration.

On the other hand, she marvels at how well he plays golf, consistently shooting in the low 40s on short, nine-hole "iron" courses.

"My goal is to shoot my age on a long course," James says. "A year or so ago I tried it and I was in the 90s."

At the rate these Lincoln County natives are going -- each 85, but looking and living much younger -- almost any athletic goal is achievable.

The Neilsons, residents of Pahrump since the early 1960s, always have loved participating in recreational sports. James has ridden horses most of his life but has settled into golf as his sport of choice; Lola was an avid softball player in her younger days, but for the past 30 or 40 years she has made bowling her athletic outlet.

James recalls the first time he saw the woman who would become his wife in 1938. It was on May 13 -- a Friday the 13th.

"She was a pretty good ballplayer," he says of first watching Lola play softball some 70 years ago.

Today, the 85-year-olds still excel in sports.

The spotlight this year has been on Lola, who rolled a 244 game earlier this month in the Monday Christmas Club League at the Nugget Bowling Center in Pahrump. Lola finished the season a week ago with a 148 average using an 8-pound ball, making her accomplishments that much more impressive.

"I just told them they were all mistakes," Lola says of the seven strikes in her 244 game.

Few octogenarian couples are as active and proficient in sports as the Neilsons. But many couples of the Neilsons' age know how significant today -- Memorial Day -- is and how reflective the holiday should be.

Memorial Day is an annual reminder for the Neilsons that the best performance of James' life came on a spring night in 1945, a night that would lead him to receive the most important award he's ever earned: the Bronze Star.

James was honored with the medal for his role 61 years ago in the Battle of Okinawa, a key fight in the Pacific Rim of World War II that raged from April through June 1945. The battle claimed 7,373 American lives on land and wounded 32,056 others.

That toll certainly would have been greater if not for the night when James and another U.S. Army soldier volunteered to locate a Japanese heavy artillery battery that was shelling their position.

"We were able to help take out three big (105 mm) guns and each one was at the mouth of a tunnel," James says, explaining the difficulty of finding the guns.

It wasn't long after that significant battle was won that World War II ended. It meant James could return home to his wife and four children in Lincoln County, hopping rides on several U.S. ships to complete a 10-day journey that covered 10,000 miles.

Recalling those days tended to make James steal a few extra glances toward his wife while she and their oldest daughter, LaBerta, now 67, bowled May 22 at the Nugget. He arrived at the bowling lanes after completing 18 holes of golf. They then were joined for lunch at the Nugget by 63-year-old son Melvin, a Vietnam War veteran.

Life is good for the Neilsons. You can see it in the smiles on their faces.

Along with daughters Janet Roberts, 65, and Linda Hager, 61, the Neilson clan includes 18 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and 14 great-great-grandchildren.

It's a family portrait James never envisioned on many lonely nights in a foxhole on Okinawa as artillery rained down.

"On Okinawa, I never would have given a plug penny to even be there the next day," he says. "That's all any of us hoped for ... just to be there tomorrow.

"I got to be a pretty good foxhole digger. I could dig a hole so fast it could make your head swim," he adds with a laugh.

After returning from World War II, James, who grew up working on a farm near Panaca in Lincoln County, shifted to mining because "it's always fairly cool underground."

He then moved his family to Tennessee where he worked in mines, but he returned to Nevada to work at the Test Site as a project manager, a job he held for more than 30 years and from which he retired some 20 years ago.

At the Test Site, located near Indian Springs, James saw "about as many (atomic) bombs go off as I have fingers," he jokes, referring to three fingers on one hand and four on the other. James lost two fingers as a youngster while working on a farm and another in a mining accident in Tennessee.

On a leisurely weekday afternoon at the bowling center, James talks about military experiences and how he's lost about 60 yards off of his drives over the past 10 years. But his focus is on Lola.

"When she first lost her eyesight I thought 'Uh, oh,' " he says, glancing over at his wife to be certain she was out of earshot. "But it hasn't changed her one bit. I haven't caught her feeling sorry for herself one time."

Lola explains her eyesight "just went all of a sudden. I'm not one to give up. It's just determination."

Lola's only athletic shortcoming, her husband says, was a brief foray into golf.

"A couple years ago, she said if I bought her golf clubs we could play together," James recalls.

So he went out and bought her a set, but when they began playing he was reminded of, well ... how good she was at softball.

"I knew her when she was a ball-playin' fool," he explains. "Problem was she swung at a golf ball the same way she swung a bat, especially when she missed the (golf) ball. She gave the clubs to one of our daughters, I think."

That's nothing new.

James and Lola Neilson have been giving whatever they had to family, friends and country since before he realized how quickly he could dig a foxhole.