A recent paper by Robert Putnam, professor of international relations at Harvard University, has caught the attention of President Clinton, who consulted with him at Camp David and again at the White House as he prepared his State of the Union speech.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Putnam's scholarly work has brought him " ...an improbable burst of popularity among a broad range of opinion-makers from conservative George Will to card-carrying liberal Hillary Rodham Clinton...."

Putnam has put his finger on a potent symbol that represents America's decline in voting rates, literacy, church suppers, newspaper readership, PTA membership, and even Girl Scout cookie sales for all I know.

What is this symbol?

The sport of bowling.

Putnam's "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," published in the Journal of Democracy, apparently makes the case that the decline in bowling leagues (down 40% since 1980) is indicative of an overall loss of community in the United States.

Once the American landscape teemed with proud Kiwanis members in bowling shirts. Pairs of bowling shoes in bright team colors were stacked up in racks that reached halfway to the moon. Bright alleys gleamed on every corner. A working class joe could unwind after a hard day's work with a cold one, a stogie, and the finesse to turn a split into a spare, winning the tournament for his buddies. A lowly pinboy could grow up to become president.

But no longer does the station wagon pull up, cigar smoke pouring from its windows like the contrails of an F-16. No longer does Joe Six Pack swagger to its passenger side, a bowling ball under one arm, a gallon of whiskey under the other, as his wife and children watch fearfully from the picture window.

Ralph Kramden days may be gone, but just because league bowling has declined, does that mean modern Americans bowl furtively, in shame?

If the trend were real, it would truly be worthy of a special report: "The twilight world of the solitary bowler: tonight on 20/20." Bowling alleys would be rundown and decrepit, neon lights broken. They'd be run by sullen Mafiosi who would hand you your shoes with a sneer. The shoes would have mysterious stains, gaping holes.

As you stepped up to your mark, you'd notice huge craters in the lane. Several pins would be missing. If you knocked one over, you'd have to go set it back up yourself. There'd be a hole in the roof, steady drips falling through it into a bucket set in the middle of Lane Three. Only one other person would be in the alley with you, weeping openly as he compulsively rolled gutter ball after gutter ball. You would be shaking so badly you could barely lift your own ball. Oh, how you'd want to quit this nasty lonely sport! But you wouldn't have the will. You'd be reduced to robbing gas stations to support your habit.

If all of this were true, wouldn't we see suspicious characters hanging out on street corners, trying to hide bowling balls under their coats? Bowling shoes would become a big ticket item on the black market. Street sales of athlete's foot ointments would skyrocket.

Sorry, I just don't buy it.

As it happens, I've done a bit of bowling lately. I can tell you this: the alleys are packed. Why? Slick marketing. Showmanship.

I bowled in one alley that showed music videos above the pins. The Los Angeles Times reported a bowling alley that features karaoke, line-dancing, and a buffet; another has glow-in-the-dark bowling with fluorescent pins and balls, not to mention disco music, mirror balls, and a fog machine.

Wading fearlessly into the bowling controversy, Newsweek reported that Brunswick Cedar Creek Lanes in Marietta, Ga. has incorporated many of the above innovations into a spectacle it calls Cosmic Bowling, complete with rap music and black lights. While membership in traditional leagues such as Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, or Rotary may indeed be declining, we're seeing brave new leagues spring up: gay bowling leagues, Muslim and Greek Orthodox leagues, Filipinos, Chinese and Thai.... Bowling may succeed where politicians have failed, to create a league of nations, a melting pot of polyglot cultures united at last by a fervent desire to knock things over with heavy sphere-shaped objects.

Even young people are taking up the sport! Sullen young people with strange shiny objects dangling from one earlobe! They've learned how to bowl ironically.

Even though pin boys have been replaced by machinery that returns balls automatically, more people bowl today than vote. If we handed out bowling shoes at the polls, who knows what could happen! Bowling is not only not dead, it's flourishing. It's not only flourishing, it's suddenly hip.

So Professor Putnam is wrong. Bowling is bringing us together as a people, not apart. We will bowl as one, average 150 or better, glow in the dark, eat Thai food, sing bad songs from the seventies, as one!

So come on everybody, smile on your brother. We can teach the world to sing. We can feed the world. Walk on through the storm! Walk on through the night! You'll never bowl alone. No. You'll never bowl alone.

Unless this miniature golf thing catches on, of course. If that happens we're all doomed.