Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 7, 2009
Are We There Yet?
Jay Edwards
Fred called me on Monday to tell me he finally realized why he had been charged $28 for a round of golf at Rebsamen, while the other three of us only paid $25.
“You want to know?” he asked.
“It’s all I’ve thought about,” I said, realizing too late he’d set me up.
“It could only be that they were giving you guys the senior discount.”
(Big sigh)
Our third golf weekend in a row found us at Rebsamen on Sunday morning (after church of course), and we soon found out the low prices came with some bad news.
“Our greens are a little sketchy,” said the young guy behind the counter.
It was a gross understatement. I don’t know how it happened, but I kept expecting to see the greens keeper hanging by his thumbs from one of those balled cypress trees they grow down there in the river bottoms.
The day was humid and the warmth soon became that old familiar Arkansas heat that was so conspicuously absent in July. I kept my red towel from the 2001 Julian Cup close all day. Fred kept his towel from the Washington Regional Psyche Ward close too, when he wasn’t leaving it behind in the fairway.
I hit my worst shot of the day on number nine, when I shanked my wedge into the pond that guards the front of the green. Disgusted (and a little afraid of doing it again), I dropped another ball and hit it straight at the pin, but it stopped about 12 feet short. Made the bogey putt.
While all that misery was happening, Kingbossdaddy Davis was playing the hole perfectly, knocking his three-wood long and straight down the fairway, and leaving his second shot a foot short of the cup — a “don’t even get out of the cart” birdie.
We got to the back nine after hydrating at the turn. I doubled 10 but hit my best drive of the day on 11. When I bladed a nine-iron, Judge Morley told me there seemed to be a problem in my transition. Yes, I had to agree, things were not transitioning very well at all.
But I pressed on, sweating and swearing my way around the old golf holes that link the city to the enlarged brown river below.
We got to number 12 and Fred said that he used to come to that spot in his youth and shoot at the turtles with his single shot .22 — this from the man who today despises all hunters.
Once he heard a deer hunter say he was doing the deer a favor every year by “harvesting” them, so they wouldn’t starve. Fred’s response was, “If that’s really what you’re worried about why don’t you feed them instead of shooting them?” Seemed like a fair question to me.
“So you used to shoot the turtles?” I asked him.
“They didn’t have anything to worry about,” he said.
The golf progressed, with my transition issues not improving. But it was a good day, with lots of laughs and a bit of the ancient game thrown in.
We had actually started the fun the night before when I had them over for some grilled burgers and bratwurst, and of course something cool to wash it all down. And Morley made a killer blueberry
cobbler.
Before they arrived, I had put in the Arkansas-North Carolina basketball game from 1984, and with less than a minute to go, Davis was yelling for the Hogs to foul. He had been at the Pine Bluff game 25 years ago with his good friend Jim Julian, where he says they had better seats than then-Gov. Clinton.
I took a break from the grill to watch with him, knowing the outcome but still wondering if Charlie Balentine, from Newport, Ark., could again steal the game from the number one Tar Heels; and Jordan and Perkins.
Charlie came through as always, but I still winced as Steve Hale’s prayer clanged off the rim at the buzzer.
After cobbler, we sat on the back porch and were entertained by Fred’s stories about being a car salesman in St. Louis.
Listening to him reminded me of my own days as a salesman. I’ve sold stocks, bonds, real estate, long-term care insurance and magazine subscriptions (in the early days).
I’ve never sold cars or vacuum cleaners. Had a Kirby salesman in my house one time though. Thought I was going to have to fight him to get him to leave. At the end he was asking my wife how she could stand “living in this filth.” I guess Zig Ziglar calls that the “Make your customer want to kill you” close.
It didn’t work and he finally left. Like I must do now…until next time.
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