This afternoon I was watching golf, part of the Olympics in Japan. What I know about golf you could inscribe on the head of a pin. I’m not interested in knowing any more. I watched it with the sound off. It was funny that way.
I had the impression that the wind was blowing in several different directions during the match. Either that or they were listening for something. I have heard about a “hole-in-one”. There wasn’t any in this match. They seemed to hit their balls into the sand traps, or bunkers as they call them. These were expert golfers. It seemed to me that they would have had more control of their balls. Not so.
As I watched this fiasco unfold, I was reminded of a story my dad used to tell when he had had a few too many. Dad felt that any man who didn’t have calloused hands wasn’t a real man. He included golfers in that sissy category.
Dad was a lineman. He helped set the poles and string the wire for telephones in the 1920’s. Remember, there was a time when there were no telephones or electricity. Dad worked on both of them at various times.
The locale of this story was next to a golf course and a private school. Dad was raised Wesleyan Methodist and had little sympathy for anything otherwise. Dad was part of a crew building the steel towers that carry electricity cross country. Local service used wooden poles.
He was working in the top of a steel tower and watching the scene below. A Catholic school nun was shepherding a line of boys across a courtyard. They were stopped occasionally so the sister to reprimand a student for something or other. For instance, a fellow would kick the heel of a shoe of the boy in front of him. That caused a ruckus and the line would stop for the nun to take care of it.
While he was watching this, a couple of golfers came into view. There were no others in sight. Just a couple of guys playing through, so to speak. Dad would wait until the golfer had set his ball, lined up his shot, taken a few practice swings and was ready to sink the ball in the cup. It was too much to ignore. As he started his swing, Dad yelled, “FORE!”
The golfer stopped in mid swing and looked around. No one was in sight. Dad was silently hidden in the top of the tower. The poor soul prepared for his shot again. Again, Dad yelled “FORE!” and silently laughed as the golfer searched for the problem.
Dad knew better than to continue. The company setting the towers would take a dim view of his antics. Dad needed the job. The golfers played on over the hill. The boys and their chaperone entered a school building and the world rolled on a little farther down the line.
I have always had a problem about finding humor in ordinary situations. I must have inherited it from Dad. I do think that watching a grown man chasing a little white ball around a big green mowed field is a silly thing to do., but then I can’t afford a set of clubs.
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