I know I have posted this picture of our farm house before but today my story goes with it. Ahead of the car and a bit to the right is where the tee was for my golf course. After I ramble a bit I will add the story that I wrote for my last non-fiction writing class which ended last night.
Terry and I are in for some excitement in the days ahead. Daughter Kim and three of her children, ages 11,13,15, are coming in tomorrow morning. They will stay with us for a few days. I think it has been 4 or 5 years since they have come down from Preachtree City GA. Then on Sunday Aaron/Amy and kids, 2,4, will fly in. We will pick them up at the airport and drive them to where Amy's parents are staying for the month. I think we will get to see them Tuesday and maybe Thursday or Friday.
My wood project is getting near completion. Well actually I will not be able to put the trim on it until next fall as I do not have the tools to make the trim here but I intend to have it in the kitchen by tonight. Can we use it then, not really as there will be no cushions yet. Anyway it has been fun and challenging to make it. I think when all is finished I would give myself a B or maybe a B+ on the work.
A by product of my woodworking is a swollen thumb which I think has a tiny bit of metal in it. I will have to work on that today after my morning glue job and tennis play at 10:30.
Terry has been under the weather the last 24 hours. We have a lunch date with a friend but will cancel that this morning. We kind of hosted a get together of people around here yesterday evening. It was held at the pool and just finger food and bring your own drinks. Hosting it is perhaps over stated but Terry did come up with the idea, we made the flyer and handed them out and then went early to set up. It seemed like people really had a good time. Man those spicy wings were delicious.
Now my story.
My North Dakota Golf Course
In the spring of 59, I was a skinny, shirtless, shoeless twelve year old at the time, my older brother Ronald handed me a beat up black plastic golf bag with a wooden driver, a three wood, a nine iron, a seven iron, a few real balls, some plastic practice balls and—no putter. I was excited as anything my older brother gave me seemed to be almost from God himself. I wasn’t sure why he gave them to me as the nearest course was 50 miles away but for the next several years I found ways to entertain myself with them. In fact they took me to places I could only dream of and transformed me into people who were my heroes.
I examined the clubs that day and then set the bag in the corner of our rickety shed. I was careful to set them in a place where rain would not get them wet or birds would not do their thing on them. Most of the buildings on our farm were in need of much repair and the old shed where the Ford tractor sat was no exception.
Most of my time was spent on the tractor but frequently I could talk my dad out of working. On those days I spent my time with a fishing pole at the nearby lake, making wooden guns or playing Lone Ranger with the ones I had made, practicing my pocket knife skills, playing ball or listening to the radio if there was a baseball game. During these years I found ways to have fun alone and with almost no resources.
The clubs, they sat in the corner of the shed for some time gathering dirt and dust until one day, with nothing to do, I decided I could have fun using them. As I look back now my creative mind took over and the next weeks all of my spare time was spent making a one hole golf course out of our yard. The distance from our house to the the road was 90 yards, which was a decent 9 iron for me. I put a stake in the center of the ditch and with a rope traced out a circle as large as possible, about 12 feet in diameter. Next I dug the circle down about 3 inches. When that was finished I attached the bucket to the back of the Ford tractor and made several trips to the lake to get sand. When the circle was filled with sand I took 5 gallons of used oil and mixed it into the sand. I knew that would prevent weeds from growing. For the cup I took an old Folgers coffee can and dug it down in the center of the sand. At that time mom and dad were drinking the real coffee. When they grew into their elder years they drank the instant coffee that came in a jar and formed foam on top which made it look like a steaming cup of hot beer. For the final ingredent mom gave me an old mop handle to which I nailed a red triangular piece of worn underwear to the top and there was my golf flag. After making a square tee off place near the front door of our house I was ready to golf. I now had my own private golf course.
Wait a minute. I needed something to smooth the sand down so I could putt. I found an old iron cylinder; it had to be heavy, and attached a wood handle to it. That allowed me to smooth out a wide path from the ball to the hole before each putt.
Now I could golf but I still had no putter. Here is where I experienced more pain than any time in my life. Because my course was only 90 yards long I did not need my wooden driver so I converted it to a putter. I decided to cut the handle off and attach it at a right angle to the top of the wooden head. To do this I used our antique drill press. As I held the drill press cylinder with my left hand my right hand slipped off the chuck and like a missile it sped upwards toward the cylinder which had my thumb underneath. Instantly it felt like someone had hit my thumb nail as hard as they could with a hammer. Stars appeared in the dingy light of the shed and then pain ripped through my thumb as if it had been cut off. Construction was instantly halted. In an effort to subdue the throbbing that night I tried to sleep with my thumb tied to the bed post above my head. Eventually the pain subsided but not that night. Several days later the thumb nail came off and it was still several more days before my putter conversion resumed. Finally the handle was glued in the hole drilled on top of the old wooden driver head. As time went on I found the best way to putt was to hold the putter in front of me and stand like Bob Pettit would stand for his two handed free throws when he stared for the St. Louis Hawks. I think I actually got pretty good.
But I found I had a problem. The width of my fairway was only 50 feet. To the left was mom’s garden and an occasional hook left me among the tomatoes, beans or worse the flowers. Carefully I would pick up the ball and take a free lie outside the garden, I never counted any penalty. However what I usually did was slice the ball to my right, well beyond the fairway. There the balls would land in uncut grass that tended to get taller and taller as the summer went on. My ball supply consisted of only a few and I could easily lose them all on a Sunday afternoon. After spending much of one Sunday hunting for balls instead of golfing I came up with a great idea. When I had lost the last ball I would go to the dilapidated granary, get an empty 55 gallon barrel and roll it back and forth. With each bump I would stoop down and pick up the ball. I think I had the best ball finder on any golf course anywhere.
I quickly realized that just hitting balls got old so I invented games. The game I would play the most was Arnold Palmer vs. Jack Nicklaus vs. Gary Player. I would hit three balls and then play them against each other. I made sure Arnold Palmer won most of the time. I found I could use that cylinder to make kind of a line from the ball to the cup if Arnold Palmer was putting. Of course I was by myself so in addition to being a golfer I could also play the part of a golf analysis and radio announcer. In my mind I became famous.
After high school I left home and started college where my brother Dave attended. He and I would play golf several times a year. I was always best with my short game, about 90 yards and closer! To this day I am terrible with my driver. After all who practices with their driver on a 90 yard hole?
Sometimes I find myself reflecting back on those lazy summer Sunday afternoons. After our Sunday lunch of egg sandwichs with homemade dill pickles mom would tend to her flowers or knit while dad took his afternoon nap but I would be transformed into Arnie Palmer and win championship after championship on my tiny private North Dakota golf course.
