Playing cow pasture pool again

I arrived at the driving range on Belle Isle Monday night a little after 7 p.m. I opened my trunk, pulled out my golf bag and tried to unzip one of the pockets. The zipper was frozen and would not budge. I tried another pocket and encountered a similar result.

I guess I should pull my clubs out more than once every 11 or so years. But the last time I played, I played with Gumpy the summer before his heart valve replacement and pancreatic cancer diagnosis and a part of me couldn't see enjoying cow pasture pool without him. 

My clubs have made at least five moves with me since I last played with him. Each time, I think I should just sell the clubs instead of lug them to another location and each time, I decide against it. They've collected dust for the past two years in our basement. 

They saw the light of day because a few colleagues were playing in a best-ball tournament and needed someone else to fill out the foursome (the foursome was never filled, by the way). I decided that I should try again and if I really didn't enjoy myself, the next time my clubs would see daylight would be at our neighborhood yard sale. 

The first few swings were rough. My muscle memory was gone. I couldn't find my stance but I'd bought a large bucket of balls to hit and I hate wasting money, so I pressed on. Eventually, I remembered a few things and the swing started coming back. I would hit a ball well and smile, knowing that Gumpy would have been encouraging me. I would shank the next one, and I would smile knowing that Gumpy would have told me what I needed to do differently on the next swing. When I walked off the driving range, I was sore and on a mission to find a new bag.

Today, armed with new golf shoes, a new bag and 36 new golf balls, I hit the links for the PRSA Open. It took a few holes, but I finally started to hit the ball pretty well all things considered. I can't muscle the ball the way I used to, which is probably why I was able to hit the ball pretty straight when I did make good contact, a fact that would have amused Gumpy to no end. When I had a bad shot, I didn't dwell on it like I used to, which would have made Gumpy proud. I was able to enjoy Gumpy's favorite game him physically there with me, even though I felt closer to him than I have in years. 

All the good memories I have of playing golf with Gumpy came dripping back to me, hole after hole. I'm glad I pulled the clubs out of the basement and I promise, it won't be another 11 years before I bring them out again.   

Golfing with Gumpy on Father's Day

My favorite memory of Gumpy on Father's Day was the year my grandparents took us to Idaho to visit my Uncle Jim and his family.  It had been only a few weeks since my dad declared that he wasn't going to be living with us any longer, which was the beginning of my tumultuous teenage existence.  I was angry, confused, hurt and generally unpleasant at best to deal with.

We arrived in Lewiston a few days before Father's Day with the fifth-wheel in tow, which gave us plenty of room for two sets of golf clubs, mine and Gumpy's.  I am not sure of the exact sequence of events, but somehow we decided to play in a father-son golf tournament at Bryden Canyon Golf Course.  The course was on top of a bluff overlooking the subdivision Jim lived in, which was the most remarkable thing about the course.  It played fairly easily with little water to contend with, which was well suited to my game.

It was overcast and occasionally drizzly the day of the tournament, which I suppose is a rarity given that the course still boasts it only receives nine inches of rain each year.  Jim teamed up with his step-son Reid and Gumpy teamed up with me.  Since Gumpy nor I knew our handicap, that was determined by the score of our first two holes.  Luckily, those happened to be my worst two holes of the day.  

The format of the tournament had the "father-son" combination rotate shots, so I would take every other shot regardless of how well I was playing.  I remember stroking a few worm-burners (the term Gumpy preferred for shots that never made it off the ground) and missing a few easy putts those first two holes.  Gumpy played his steady, straight as a string game.  He never hit the ball hard but usually struck the ball pretty straight which helped him keep his scores reasonably low.  We ended up having a pretty decent score, good enough to avoid humiliation.

We usually walked the golf course, so this tournament was a bit of a treat for me because we rented a cart to ride in.  This was also the first time I was allowed to drive a golf cart, so Gumpy spent the entire day coaching me on how to accelerate and stop properly.  We avoided mud puddles and he was very adamant about me not spinning the wheels in the mud.  The only reason I remember that is he watched Reid do it and knew I probably wanted to follow his path, so he put the kibosh on me pretty quickly. 

On the surface, this memory seems pretty unremarkable and I really do not want to give it weight than it deserves.  Gumpy and I played hundreds of rounds of golf together, this certainly was not our first nor our last.  We had already signed the best buddy contract and I was just beginning to understand that my dad wasn't coming home.  

What makes it remarkable to me is that this is the first Father's Day I didn't spend with my dad and Gumpy just stepped in.  There were no grand speeches, no proclamations, just his calming presence that I came to rely on.  This is my second Father's Day without him, I have no idea how I would have gotten here without his presence.  Thanks Gump, I miss you.  

How to Win at Golf

By the time I was in college, my golfing routine with Gumpy had changed.  I went to the farm once a week during the summer, so I only had the chance to work on my golf game once a week.  Gumpy, however, practiced almost everyday.  While I had the strength and size advantage, he countered with superior knowledge of the course and cunning.

That cunning manifested itself in the form of big chores for me.

One morning, Gumpy decided that the tree on the edge of Shaytown Road on the old fence row next to the chicken coop needed to be chopped down.  It wasn't much of a tree and it was too close to the field for Gumpy's comfort.  We quickly got to work with his old Stihl chainsaw.  The tree came down pretty easily and the branches were trimmed off quickly, so we decided to head to the golf course.  Gumpy won pretty easily because my arms were shaking so much I couldn't properly grip the club.  

Having not learned my lesson, a the next summer we decided to break up the concrete floor in one of the barns before our golf game.  He wanted a new cement slab to park his truck on while my grandparents wintered in Florida, and to accomplish this, the old floor needed to go.  Woodchucks and raccoons had compromised the old floor by tunneling underneath it, so breaking the old floor apart sounded like a pretty easy job.  All it required was a jackhammer.  

By this time in Gumpy's life, he wasn't much good for heavy lifting.  In his words, he was too heavy for light work and too light for heavy work.  So I hoisted the rented electric jackhammer into the back of the truck and we drove back to the farm.  

The actual breaking of the concrete floor didn't take as long as either of us had estimated.  Once I figured out a rhythm, the jackhammer worked slicker than the hair on a schoolmarms leg.  A project we both figured would take at least four hours was done in one hour.  It opened up plenty of time for a quick nine holes of cow pasture pool.

Feeling pretty strong, I was confident I could take the old boy, so I agreed to go to Mulberry Fore in Nashville, MI with him.  It was our secondary course.  We both loved Centenial Acres in Sunfield but we decided on Mulberry Fore to avoid the golf leagues.  Playing on the new nine at Mulberry, our first hole was a nice 350 yarder.  Nice and straight with open grass on the left and a tree line on the right.  Gumpy stepped up and stroked his trademark straight-as-a-string 180 yard tee shot.

I confidently approached my tee shot.  I knew if I killed it, I would be able to drive close enough for a nice chip shot onto the green and a shot at a birdie.  I wound up and took a hefty swing.  When the club hit the ball, I yelped in pain and almost lost my grip of the club.  My forearms were so tight and sore from controlling the jackhammer that I could barely stand the pain.  Needless to say, my approach to the game was much different that day!

I think I beat Gumpy in golf once or twice in my life.  We played a lot of golf together but he always seemed to be a little sharper in the short game than me, or a little more prepared than me.  But most of the time he won because he was just a little too clever for me.  

    

Gumpy Misses the Syrup Festival

Last weekend marked the first Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival since Gumpy passed away last May.  He looked forward to the festival every year during their retirement, as did the rest of the family because it was the first time each year we all came together as a family.  After a long winter away from home, he would meet us at the Vermontville fire station, where the Maple Valley Schools band boosters were serving pancake breakfast.  Being able to treat the family to breakfast always brought a smile to his face.

He rarely missed the festival.  In fact, the one time I remember him missing was the first time I had to come to grips with Gumpy's mortality.

The Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival is always on the last full weekend of April.  I was finishing my last paper for my last class of my last year at Oakland University.  Graduation was a few weeks away and I was really itching to get my stuff out of the dorm room and be done with college.  I enjoyed the experience but I naively could not wait to get my life started.  The day before my final paper was due, I got the call that Gumpy was in the hospital.

That year, Gumpy decided he wanted to golf with a few friends from Nashville, MI on his way home from Floriday.  Ema left him in North Carolina for a few days of cow pasture pool on her way back to Vermontville.  During his first day on the lynx, he felt a little tightness in his chest but thought little of it. The second day, the pain was impossible to ignore.  He refused to go to a hospital near the town they were in, he wanted to come home.  So Dave Mace packed up the car and drove the eight or so hours back to Vermontville.

This pain did not go away, despite every one's best efforts.  Ema decided he needed to get to the hospital quickly, so she called the ambulance.  One quirk with a volunteer fire and  EMS department is that it can take seemingly forever for them to arrive.  Everyone has to drop whatever they are doing, drive into town, suit up and get the rig going.  Since it was taking so long, Ema decided to grab a few lawn chairs and my grandparents sat waiting for the amublance at the end of their driveway.

Gumpy coded at least three times that Thursday night in Sparrow Hospital.  He was immediately put on the schedule for a quadruple bypass for the following Monday.  In the meantime, he was pretty heavily medicated and watched to make sure his heart could make it until he made it to surgery.

Since it was Syrup Festival weekend, we were all planning on making it to the fire barn Saturday morning for breakfast per family tradition.  In addition to breakfast, Ema usually volunteered to help with the chicken dinners at the Methodist church.  The house was generally full with visitors too, so there were always demands at the house.  Mary and I went to visit the old boy that afternoon, giving Ema a break and giving us some peace of mind.

That weekend marked the first time I had been truly concerned about how I would live without Gumpy.  He was so active and vibrant that it never occurred to me to be concerned, even after his procedure a few years earlier to clear out an arterial blockage.  I remember that weekend in 1998 as the first time I cried at the thought of losing my best buddy.    

The Man of a Thousand Caps

When Ema started clearning the house of Gumpy's clothes after his memorial service, I had some mixed feelings.  I thought she was jumping into it a little early but that was more because I was not quite ready for the process.  She needed to do it to start the healing process, so after every visit to the farm the family undertook, we always left with some article of clothing.  We finally got down to his baseball caps.  That is when I realized just how extensive his collection had become.

There were caps from the Waldron Telephone Company.  Four of them to be exact.  There were Detroit Tigers caps, Texas Rangers caps, several Centennial Acres caps and one lone Bryden Canyon cap.  Some had funny illustrations while others were fairly plain.  Instead of count, I just stood admiring the vast collection before selecting a few that would leave me with the best memories of Gumpy.

As I put them in my car, I remembered the seminal moment of Gumpy's cap collection.  At least I like to think I was present for the beginning of this impressive collection!

It was a fairly cloudy mid-summer day about 22 years ago.  Ema had gone up town for something, leaving Gumpy and I to fend for ourselves.  Meaning that we needed to play some golf before we grabbed lunch.  Since it was cloudy, Gumpy decided to leave the cap at home because he certainly would not need it to shade his eyes.  My job was to load the golf clubs in the truck, which I did with great care.  Then when Gumpy started walking to out to the truck, he felt a raindrop land on his head.

At least he thought it was a raindrop.  He asked me if I felt the rain, which I did not.  He reached up to the top of his head and felt where he thought the raindrop had landed.  Except it was bird poop.  A nice big chuck of it right on his bald spot he tried hiding with his signature comb over.

I howled with laughter as he cussed a blue streak on his way into the house.  He washed his hair, put on a cap and we finally left for a few holes of cow pasture pool.  The cap fixation was officially on!  

Buckeye Bob

Gumpy had a number of colorful friends over the years.  He had a knack for making friends quickly that he  honed as a kid.  It was an ability that never left him, although sometimes the choices in friends did cause some consternation within the family.  His mother always seemed to be particularly concerned, although he never hung out with a dangerous crowd.  Gumpy's friends just tended to be mischievous.

One such friend was Buckeye Bob.  They met when my grandparents decided to start spending winters in Port Charlotte, FL after retirement.  The park Ema and Gumpy found was a little isolated, sandwiched between  Port Charlotte to the east and Englewood to the west.  It reminded them a little of Vermontville with little traffic, a relatively short drive to shopping and at least a two hour drive to a major metropolitan center.  It was also filled with Midwesterners.

Bob and Gumpy hit it off immediately because they had Toledo in common.  Bob lived in the Toledo suburb of Sylvania for most of his life.  Gumpy's home town of Waldron was only an hour away, so they both had many memories of Toledo to share.  They were also both consumate bullshitters.

After Ema and Gumpy's first few winters in Port Charlotte, Buckeye Bob's wife passed away.  After what he felt was an appropriate time, he started dating again.  Which brings me to my favorite Buckeye Bob story, one that will make Ema blanch with embarrassment when she realizes I've told the story.

Every few years my grandparents would pay for me to come visit them for a week in Port Charlotte, which is how I came to know many of their friends.  As was our custom, Gumpy and I would get out for at least one round of golf at a local links when I visited.  We usually ended up with a few foursomes of friends in tow, all eager to have someone's grandson in town to have a beer or two with.  On the way back from playing at a local par 3, Buckeye Bob began spinning tales.

It seems that Buckeye Bob got a little sweet on a clerk at the 7-11 store back in Toledo and decided to finally ask her out on a date.  To his delight, she accepted.  He picked her up, took her out to dinner and they had a fantastic time.  This is the part in my humble story where I would like to point out that Buckeye Bob was quite unhealthy himself.  He was quite undertall for his weight, loved to drink, ate whatever he could and had a bad ticker.  His wife normally kept those things in check but left to his own devises, Buckeye Bob's health became a little more tenuous.  

Now this date of Buckeye Bob's was a pretty young thing, at least in her mid-60's.  Dinner went swimmingly.  Both of them unattached and they ended up  doing the unthinkable.  They went back to Buckeye Bob's for a nightcap.  Things progressed well when they got back to his house, so well that Buckeye Bob excused himself to the bathroom for a little self pep talk.

In the pre-Viagra world, your options for making sure you would be up for the job of impressing your newfound girlfriend were limited to either still having the ability to do so or prayer.  Buckeye Bob decided a threat to himself might work a little better.

"So I got in the bathroom, opened up my shorts and said, 'Look.  You had better work or I'll shoot you.'  Needless to say, I pee a little funny now!" Buckeye Bob exclaimed.  

Buckeye Bob passed away soon after that visit.  Even in death, he managed to regularly entertain Gumpy and I.  We both missed him.

Knocking Down the Shed

My grandparents had 80 acres of the original farm when I was a kid and we lived on the back 40. Tucked away in the woods was our little trailer that we called home for years. Having no basement or garage for storage, we kept a steel shed along the fence row that was used to keep the horses on the property.

After my dad left, mom decided to do a few things to improve the look of our home. The summer I was 14, she bought a new aluminum shed, complete with a roof that did not leak. Our task was to cut apart the steel shed so it could be easily hauled off. Hacksaw in hand, I began to slowly reduce our shed to easily disposable pieces.

This usually was an activity I undertook when I was bored. I guess the matter was not urgent at all but was probably more of a make work project devised by my mom to keep me from getting in more trouble. Whatever it's origins, one Saturday left me with a scar on my knee still visible 30 years later.

I was cutting apart one of the support beams for the roof. I am afraid this sounds more impressive than it really it, the shed itself was maybe 20' by 20' with a roof that was 6' high. As I cut throughout the final piece of steel, the beam gave way and the sharp edge I had just exposed slashed down my knee, leaving a nasty looking gash. Luckily, the cut was not deep and was fairly clean. A little self-administered first aid was in order because I had a golf game scheduled with Gumpy.

As soon as Gumpy pulled up, he saw my leg and I knew I had made a mistake. I should have worn jeans even though it was pretty hot out. He took one look at the gauze wrapped around my knee and panicked. I learned a few things about my Grandfather that day. One is that he would move heaven and earth to help me if he could. The other is that he was horrible in an emergency.

Immediately his panic set in. My mother went to a shower for the daughter of one of her friends. Ema's whereabouts was unknown. In this land before cell phones, we were unable to reach anyone by phone. This began the frantic run to the neighboring town of Nashville where I thought the shower was. When we could not find Mom, we made the mad dash back to the farm where we waited for Ema to come home. Meanwhile, all I wanted to do was go play golf. I felt fine.

When Ema and my mom finally came home, they determined that my wound was just a flesh wound that did not need urgent medical attention. It was only then, a few hours after he saw my knee for the first time, that Gumpy could relax. I think he really could have used a methignal!

Gumpy's Hole-In-One

Among the many memories I have of playing cow pasture pool (Gumpy's favorite term for golf) with my grandfather, one of the most exciting was the day he hit a hole-in-one.  It was a somewhat cloudy day, just warm enough for shorts but cool enough to keep us moving.  In the early days, we always walked the course so the little exercise we got walking was enough to keep us warm.

We arrived at the ninth hole of the original nine at Centenial Acres in Sunfield, MI.  My memory of the exact time of day this happened is a little fuzzy given it has been over 20 years since he hit the shot heard around Vermontville.  Since the grounds keeper was still mowing the greens, I am assuming it was still fairly early.

The ninth hole was always a little deceptive.  I say was because the course added a third nine several years ago, changing the original links I learned to play on.  It was a par 3, approximately 160 yards to the pin depending on placement.  The green followed the natural contour of the hill that climbed up around the creek that ran through the middle of the course.  The tee box was at the base of the hill, so when Gumpy hit his drive and we lost track of the ball, nothing seemed unusual.

I hit my drive and it did not go far.  Sometimes I would try to muscle the ball up to the hole, instead of taking a nice, relaxed swing which always resulted in frustration.  I aimed for the east side of the green at the top of the hill so my ball might roll toward the hole.  I put the shot a little short of the green, on the surface Gumpy called the frog hair.  He went looking for his ball while I chipped onto the green.

Gumpy could not find the ball anywhere.  After my chip shot, I started to help him look.  It did not make sense that the ball would have gone into the woods because it did not seem like Gumpy hit it hard enough for the ball to make it to the woods.  There was a little sand trap, but the ball was not there either.  The grounds keeper had stopped mowing and was waiting for us to finish up, so Gumpy decided to drop another ball and take the penelty.  I went to pull the flag for his putt.

I do not recall exactly what I said, but what ever I said Gumpy came running.  The grounds keeper came off his mower to congratulate him.  He stayed on the mower because he wanted to see the surprise on our faces.  Trust me, we were both surprised!  After a few minutes of hootin' and hollerin' I putted out and we went to the clubhouse with the grounds keeper to register the hole in one.

Gumpy saved that ball.  It is with the Hole-In-One trophy he recieved to commemorate the occasion.  His picture appeared in the newspaper too.  Gumpy was normally a pretty happy guy, but I do not remember a time where he was quite so jubulant!  

Why I Golf

My grandfather loved golfing.  I think the impetus of his retirement was rooted deeply in the idea that he would have more time to golf more than it was the idea of no longer punching a time clock every day.  He observed that a lot of business was conducted on the golf course, so he encouraged all of us to learn the game.  This observation lead to my mom, her siblings, my grandmother, my sister and I to all learn at least the basics of the game.

For my Aunt Mary, this turned out to be a fairly useful skill while she worked for a law firm in Lansing.  It seems that she was just good enough to be a ringer for some ones winning foursome, earning her prizes at the annual company golf outing.  I ended up winning a few trophies in a youth league and played on the golf team my freshman year of high school.  As a family, our claim to fame was that we never completely embarrassed ourselves on the links.

My golfing education started when I was eight.  Gumpy had a set of clubs cut down for me.  He would take my sister and me to the driving range at Centennial Acres in Sunfield, MI to knock out a bucket of range balls.  Lessons came soon afterward but the game only held a slight interest for me for several more years.

Golf did not really make sense for me until the summer my dad left.  I was 13, confused about why dad left and angry.  I was pissed off at the world to be more accurate.  Gumpy had retired that February and had recognized I needed him to take a big role in my life.  My uncle Jim had moved to Idaho with his family by then, a move that devastated my grandfather.  I refuse to say I filled Jim's shoes, but Gumpy might have needed me just as much as I needed him at that point in our lives together.  That was the summer we started to regularly play golf together.

For the next few summers, he bought me a junior membership at Centennial Acres.  We were excited when they added the second nine holes on the east side of Dow Road because the original nine was in a flood plain.  Having the last few holes flooded out for parts of the season left a little to be desired.  

Gumpy and I played almost every day, Monday through Friday, when school was out of session.  We would play as long as my attitude would allow, with the ultimate goal being to make it through at least nine holes.  His rules were simple, play according to the rules.  If I threw a temper tantrum, he would start walking off the course.  I would follow because I needed the ride home.  The way the second nine holes were laid out left an easy walk back to the car after the second and seventh holes.  I know that well because we often left at those points in our game.  

Those few summers taught me so many things about being a kind, decent, respectful and loving man.  The patience my grandfather showed me every time we walked off the course after just two holes was incredible given his strong love of the game.  On the days we finished nine holes, he would treat to a snack at the clubhouse where I observed just how he treated friends and strangers, along with the good treatment he received in kind.  

To say that I am still a golfer is a bit of a stretch.  My golf clubs are currently sitting across the dining room in my apartment from me and it is probably the most time I have spent in the same general area with them since Gumpy went in for his last heart valve surgery.  I still call myself a golfer though because I know I will pick it up again.  I hope that I will be a dad soon, with a few little ones who will need time with me to learn how a respectful father and husband should act.  I plan to take them to a golf course with me when they are ready so they can learn from my grandfather too.