Barry Friedman - The Old Folks At Home: Warehouse Them or Leave Them on the Ice Floe by Barry Friedman Read Free Book Online Page A

hear Christine saying something, probably telling me goodbye. But the only word I heard was “behave.”

Chapter Fourteen
     

 
     
    Before moving to Restful Bowers, Harriet and I lived in a suburb of San Diego where our recreation and social life was golf. Our home was along a fairway of a golf course, and we had joined the golf club.
    Our golf cart was parked in our garage, and at least three days a week, we’d drive it to the clubhouse, about five blocks away, and tee it up.
    Once a week, Harriet played with a group of ladies divided into foursomes, while Wednesday and Friday mornings I had a regular game with a group of other retired men. On weekends, Harriet and I usually made golf dates with another couple. After we’d hacked our way around the course, the four of us would retire to the clubhouse for drinks and dinner.
    Since our home was on the course, sometimes in late afternoon of summer we’d take advantage of the long days, wheel our cart to the tee adjacent to our home and play three or four holes until dusk.
    One of the last things we did as the moving van with our possessions took off for the Bowers, was to gaze longingly at the neatly mowed fairways and greens, knowing we were leaving a most enjoyable part of our lives.
    But not entirely.
    Each Monday morning, we could join a group of fellow golf devotees, take one of the Bowers’ buses to a nearby executive course, and play a round. For “executive” read old men and women. And eight-year-old children. An executive course is less than one-third the length of a regulation eighteen-hole golf course.
    The first time we ventured out, the golfing group consisted of eight men. No ladies other than Harriet. Not that women were excluded, none of the other women residents played golf.
    In the bus, Harriet fidgeted, finally whispered to me, “I’m scared to death. The only woman. The men will either laugh watching me play or resent my horning in on their game.”
    I tried to consol her, but without conviction since I didn’t know anything about the players.
    Until we got to the first tee.
    Harriet was in a foursome with me and two other men. One of the men, Gerry, teed off first. That’s an exaggeration. He took a swing and the ball fell off the tee propelled by the wind his swing generated.
    Without embarrassment, Gerry replaced the ball on the tee and announced, “Mulligan.” The term was invented by some hacker when golf was “golfe” to explain that his failed attempt to send the ball on its way was not his fault, and he was entitled to a second try
    His Mulliganed drive was at least ten times the length as his first, about .twelve feet.
    Harriet’s anxiety started to ease.
    Ted was the second to tee off. His drive went sideways and plunked in a lake set at right angles to the fairway. Not even close.
    I could hear Harriet’s sigh of relief.
    Ted’s Mulligan never got off the ground and bounced about twenty yards down the fairway.
    Harriet had trouble suppressing a guffaw.
    I got off a fairly decent drive, then Harriet stepped up to the Ladies’ tee. She took a few practice swings and lofted the ball in a drive that ended about one-hundred-fifty yards in the middle of the fairway. Gerry and Ted followed the flight of the ball, amazement registering in their faces.
    The four of us reached the green, and Ted, whose ball was farther from the hole than any of the others, stroked his ball off the putting surface. Gerry’s putt grazed the cup and settled about five feet away. He picked up the ball and announced, “In the leather.” This was another term, originally designed to speed up the game, by conceding that the ball was close enough to the hole to consider that another putt was unnecessary. It was safe to assume that it would be holed out. Of course the “leather” referred to the putter’s grip, about eighteen inches long. So Gerry had slightly miscalculated. No big deal.
    Five putts after Ted had sent his first putt sailing, he finally