ADAMS TWP - The motto at Mars Lanes reads: Where Every Martian Counts.

They have to. No automated machine is there to do it for them.

This 10-lane bowling house, built in 1959 by Bob and Carolyn Logan and bought by Gary and Ruth Geller in 2001, still uses the wooden lanes that were installed when the facility first opened.

It is one of few houses left in this region with wooden lanes. It is one of still fewer with wooden lanes and paper scoring sheets.

"If people don't know how to keep score, we teach them," Ruth Geller said. "We get a lot of that with open bowling - people come in here and just figure the automated (scoring) machines are going to be there.

"Most people, once they learn how to keep score, enjoy doing it."

Some of the Mars Lanes' clientele know no other way.

Margaret Cook, 80, of Mars has had two knee replacements and has never bowled anywhere else. She bowls with a seniors group at Mars Lanes every Monday.

"I've been bowling since I was a teenager and I've never seen the automated machines," Cook said. "I used to bowl at North Lanes in Gibsonia when they had duck pins.

"I love small-town, slower-paced people, and that's what bowling is like here. They've kept it old-fashioned and it's nice."

The Gellers are the only employees in the house and they keep their eyes on everything.

Ruth Geller said they make it a point to teach the youth bowlers how to keep score.

"They may never do it later on, but we just think they should know how," she said.

Joe Tommaney of Mars says he keeps score all of the time when he's bowling.

"It's part of the game and it keeps me in the game," he said.

Floyd Shute of Callery knows all about old-time bowling. He was a pin boy when he was in high school, back in the years preceding pin racks and ball returns.

"After each game, bowlers would each roll a dime down the lane to the pin boys," Shute said. "That's how we got paid.

"I have no problem with automated machines, but it does feel good to experience bowling the way it used to be, and you can do that here."

Mars Lanes hasn't gone as far as having pin boys, but Gary Geller acquired some old bowling lanes from a closed house two years ago and installed them in the seating area behind the approaches.

This construction eliminated the step-up bowlers formerly had to take to get on the approaches.

The old lanes were acquired from Klein's, a closed bowling house in Wilkinsburg. Arrows and markings for pin placement are still on the wood, which now serves as part of the floor behind the lanes.

"That was a mammoth project that we couldn't have done without the volunteer help of a lot of our bowlers," Gary Geller said. "We never asked for anyone's help, but people saw what we were doing and just stepped forward."

Approximately 30 people - all league bowlers at Mars Lanes - donated time and/or equipment to finish the project.

"They wanted to take care of their place," Ruth Geller said. "This bowling alley is like its own little town. Everybody knows each other here.

"We get bowlers from as far away as Clarion to come down here. They come from Freedom, Gibsonia - they're not all from Mars."

The seats bowlers use while waiting to bowl are from the old Mars movie theatre.

"There's a lot of nostalgia here," Ruth Geller said.

Bowling etiquette is taught at Mars Lanes and on rainy or snowy days, incoming bowlers leave their street shoes by the door.

"Everybody's friendly to each other here," said Margie Roberts of Mars, a 20-year league bowler. "You can enjoy the game, enjoy the fellowship and just have a good time."

And experience bowling the way it used to be.

"We've had grandparents bring their grandkids here, just to show them what bowling was like when they were younger," Ruth that's special and we're trying to hold on to that."