Its Sixth Period, Where Are You Going?

     I have been playing golf now for almost fifty years now. When I first picked up a club at the age of thirteen it wasn't really the sport that a young man took up. A normal young man was playing Babe Ruth Baseball or Pop Warner Football. No, we didn't have Soccer back then in the dark ages but we did have TV. My choices were limited. The truth is my Dad got me into the game even though he never took the sport up.  That is a whole other story that I will share another time.
     During junior high when most kids were going to baseball practice, it was off to my golf lesson for me. You can't imaging the teasing I took for that. Things were said by my buddies and acquaintances that I can't share here, this being a family blog and all. It was pretty bad, to say the least. All I could do is look back at those who were tormenting and just know that someday things will change. I guess the fact that I was a bit of a nerd and a bit overweight back then didn't help matters.  The ribbing made a better man out of me, because I knew something they didn't. I was a golfer, and I could take a lot of pride in that.
      I tried baseball, but wasn't good at it.  I could hit but I was slow. You have three guesses which position I played.  I tried out for second base, but I wound up where else but Right field. As the song goes, I play right field--you can be awkward, you can be slow so that's why I'm here in right field watching the dandelions grow. Thank you Peter, Paul and Mary for those astute observations and that summation of my baseball career.
      Then came high school. In high school it is every young man's dream to play football. I never was a very big guy and if you thought I was slow in baseball, it is a bit unsettling when your coach brings out a calendar to time you in the forty yard dash.
      People hit you in football, and hard.  They run into you and you feel it even though you have pads on. It hurts. And this was just practice. It became clear that I was not enjoying this so it was time to consider the old adage of discretion being the better part of valor. I never got into a game, but I think my liver is a milimicron to the left of where it should be from all the hits. Football was not for me. So, I decided to try out for the golf team and I made it.
      I had great success on my golf team and knew this was where I was supposed to be. Life was fun again, especially when you got to get out of the last two boring periods of the day. It was also a lot of fun walking out of class and the football players in the class asking where I was going.  When I told them I was going to a golf match and had to leave early, they were very envious.
       I remember the comments from on of my football buddies as I left the classroom one day. "Where you going?" he asked.
       "Oh, I have a match today and I have to leave early for the golf course." I calmly replied.
       "Rallis, you...Only old men and sissys play that stupid game. You will never catch me playing that stupid game. You woman."
        You have to remember that in 1971, calling someone a woman was the ultimate slander and you have to put his comment in historical perspective. I just looked back at him sort of knowingly and thought about the fact that I was leaving class and he wasn't. My ultimate destination was the golf course to play a game that I truly love and he was stuck at school for a couple more hours.
       Things have a way of taking care of themselves though. I was vindicated. One of my activities that i have done over the years is to serve as a course marshal. One Saturday afternoon about thirty years after we had graduated from high school, I was driving up a par 5 and spotted what looked to be a familiar form coming up the fairway. No, it couldn't be but it was. It was the football player that gave me such a hard time in high school about playing golf.
      He tried to hide as he recognized me. That is pretty impossible as he stands six feet five and weighs close to three hundred pounds. I went up to him and only said, "Hi Joe, is that you? It has been a while, hasn't it?"
       His reply was very simple, "Don't you say a word."
      I left it at that, though we did briefly catch up on what each other was doing and had done over the
years. I see him a lot on other golf courses and it seems he has fallen in love with the game. What can I say.  Golf is for everyone.

Golf is more fun than school.