Burpee, Carpenter & Hutchins Funeral Home

THE BIG BALL

Here we go again!   Really?  The stories I have with Dad are crazy.  Yet, if you think about them, the end result was teaching somebody a lesson of how to show respect.   Maybe this was God’s way of using Dad on this earth.  Maybe he was God’s “Hands on Influencer”.    Fun to think about isn’t it?

Anyway, Dad and I are golfing again.  This time we were in Hagerstown Maryland.  What a gorgeous day it was.  Man we were having fun!  Dad was teaching me how to use a sand wedge in various ways and circumstances.  To this day, I still have his gifted wedge and there is not a time when I pick it up that I don’t think of my father and his teachings.

That day we had a young group of four guys following us on the course.  Now, we were not playing slow and messing up the pace, but those boys kept hitting into us.  Not even yelling “Four!”  At one hole, Dad waited for the boys and asked them kindly to stop it.  All was good right?

No!!   Those boys hit into us again!  This time I was standing in the middle of the fairway (really I was in the middle) getting ready to swing when their ball came screaming by my head pathetically close.  Dad was sitting in the cart and saw it.  Holy Moly!  He took off in that cart.   Those boys knew he was coming and he was some kind of mad!  When Dad reached the tee box, all the boys sat down on the ground immediately and waited for their reprimand.  Boy, did they get a verbal reprimand from Dad.   I could hear him screaming at them.  He was telling the BIG BALL HITTER, that he will have to learn patience and wait all his life in this game of golf etc.   Needless to say, their ball never came near us again.

When Dad got back to me he was calm.  Really he was.  As if he could turn his temper on and off with a switch.  Now, Dad did one thing wrong and I made sure I told him.  “Dad, like what the ***, you left your backup behind.”  As if he would ever need a backup. 

Diane

Dad’s Golf Partner