Memoir

  • Golf balls litter our course like orphaned Easter eggs. There is a bucket of balls sitting on the first tee and I’ve noticed my Dad and Mom and Karen whacking shots from the first tee to points distant. They hit balls with corporate logos, balls beaten into shapes more closely resembling eggs, neon lime balls…

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  • “Golf is a game of considerable passion, either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul.” Bobby Jones I can’t seem to get golf courses out of my head. Golf layouts stick to my brain like gum on the underside of a school desk…out of sight but always there. The…

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  • Neil Armstrong used to tell dry punchless jokes about the moon and then follow them up with, “Ahh…I guess you had to be there.” . Well, I was there…at least I felt deep down in my soul I was there with Neil. It was Sunday evening, July 20, 1969 and I stepped out of the…

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  • My favorite childhood holiday through the wonder years of the Sixties was the 4th of July. I had no precocious notions of patriotism, not one noble sentiment of love for country. I just loved fireworks. Sparklers (Please…don’t plunge them deep into the retina of your sister…yes ma’am, I’ll be careful), lava-flowing glow worms that mutated…

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  • The Sole of My Father

    Before soft comfortable velcro secured shoes I remember my Dad’s brown wingtip leather-sole shoes tied with dark cords and buffed brilliantly with Kiwi shoe polish. I thought of my Dad and how i once watched him polish those shoes, as i wrote this today. Happy Fathers Day Dad The sole of my father Shoe leather…

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  • I left home in the stifling heat of August 1977 at the same time Elvis left the building for good. My destination was Searcy, Arkansas and Harding University. I had no inkling that the friends I made in college would affect my thinking, my life, my politics, my spirituality, my love life and my sense…

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  • One of the most memorable rounds of golf I’ve ever played, I played angry. And it came on the heels of an exchange with a man we called Sweet, even though decorum and his given name, Edward Muir Sweet, demanded we call him, Mr. Sweet. The elimination of the honorary title, Mr., was not an…

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  • The Man from 1933

    I walked through my front door this morning and was startled by the dense mechanical ring of the oak & metal Bell Telephone Company phone mounted on the wall of our living room facing out to the east garden. I had never heard it ring before since it’s only an antique, so my curiosity piqued,…

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  • My wife Karen was born in Trenton, New Jersey and spent most of her childhood in the small town of Tabernacle on the edge of the pine barrens about halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. I first visited her home during our courtship and I remember the drive from the Philly airport with Karen and…

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  • I sat on my hotel bed the night before the opening round and read about notable players including a golfer from Shreveport named Hal Sutton who had already won the Western Amateur that summer. I’m playing with Hal Sutton who would win the PGA in 1983 and was Ryder Cup captain later in his career.…

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