My Other Love is Golfing

One of my other favorite things to do is golf. There is a problem because if the overlapping seasons of golf and fishing. If it gets to hot to fish you can always golf.

I especially like scrambles and usually play several with my Brother and his two sons. We are the fearsome foursome on the golf course. We had our best 18 hole round in a scramble of 16 under par. We had four Pars, twelve Birdies and two Eagles. We won first place in the scramble that year. The kids are big hitters, well over 300 yards at times. The old men are steady down the middle at 250 yards on the drives. I have been know to hit a 3 wood 250 yards off the fairway.
Note the matching drivers, we are a team.
Here are the kids. They played us in a lot of rounds of golf and haven't beat us yet. They tied us once. They say when we reach 70 they ought to be coming into their prime. I think their Dad intimidates them. He does play really well. The old guys resting. Note Fishing Guys wears a knee brace so the arthritis doesn't bother him so much. The next day it's always a sore knee day from the torque you put into your swing.
This was a special short club hole and Jeff sunk the birdie.
This is for readers of my blog. Junior also comes to the same outing with his sons so its like old home week from the neighborhood. Junior also had Prostate Cancer and is now retired and spends the Winters in Florida. He comes back to PA in the Summer.
This was a picture from another outing but I thought Gina would enjoy that I have a Tasmanian Devil golf shirt.

The Summer Cabin

One year Jr and I decided on a summer project. I think we were about 12 at the time. You now how sometimes kids build tree houses. We decided that we wanted to build a cabin in the field next to Jr house. I don't know how to explain the field but it was completely cleared of trees. Maybe someone was going to build in the field at one time and ran out of money. There was a big hole in the center of the field. It could be the people had dug the hole in the field to put in a basement. I'm not sure but that is the only way I can explain the hole. The field was completely covered with a tall grass so we used to play army in the field and use the hole as a bunker to hide in. We had our pretend guns and would have running battles in the field. If you laid down and crawled no one could see you.

One day we decided to build a cabin in the hole. Jr's grandfather had wood behind the garage and we got permission to use the wood. We had 4x4's for the corner and 2x4's for the bracing. We set the 4x4's at the corners and the 2x4's to do the cross bracing. We used 1x6 boards to cover the sides and top. The cabin was 8' x 8' with one really special feature. We had a secrete hatch on the roof of the cabin for entry into it. We had a disguised built in ladder on the cabin side to get up to the roof. The newspaper boy found the cabin but couldn't find a way into it.

The cabin was pretty fancy with a desk and chairs and bunk that we had built. It was pretty elaborate for two youngsters. I had received for Christmas a base unit walkie talkie with a separate talking unit. We were able to have one person on the roof checking the area and reporting to the base unit. It really added onto our Army games.

We really had a fun time in the cabin and had stocked it with some of our toys. So now for the sad part of the story. The field where the cabin was located caught on fire and burnt the cabin to the ground. All of our possession we had in the cabin were gone. Jr called me and told me he tried to put the fire out but was not able to stop the fire. He still thinks to this day that the newspaper boy set the fire. Without proof, what could you do. It was a fun summer in the cabin.

We sifted through the ashes and found very little. The head of one hammer was still there but our toys were gone.

Who Knew - Jr Can Cook

Jr grew up in an unusual situation for the 50's. He lived in a male only house. He lived with his Grandfather, Father and Uncle Digger Dave. They all worked during the day so during the summer he was completely on his own. This causes a certain amount of independence for a 10 year old boy. I would think some of you younger people would say what an awful thing for a young boy to be on his own. Can you think of the dangers of that happening today. We grew up in a different age. There weren't people being a predator of children. We felt completely safe as we ran around the country. There were a lot of people who never locked there doors. It was a different age.

Let me start up by saying I loved baloney sandwiches. I took them to school every day. There were no cafetieres at the school. You either brought your lunch or you didn't have anything to eat. A baloney sandwich with mayo and an apple or orange was all I needed. If you got a cookie also it was nice. So one day when Jr and I were playing it got to be lunch time. I was up for it when Jr said "let's go in and have a baloney sandwich". We went into the house and Jr pulled out a frying pan. "What are you doing" I said. He told me "Don't worry you are going to enjoy this" as he proceeded to fry up the baloney. He taught me how to fry the baloney and then put it on bread with some mustard. I tried it and now my favorite hot sandwich was a fried baloney sandwich. It's hard to believe that anyone that young would know how to cook, but he grew up with all men so he knew more about those type things.

You see a fried baloney sandwich on a menu in a restaurant every now and then and it always reminds me of that first time. Thanks a lot, Jr.

Some More Activities From My Youth

Shark Girl's comments reminded me I had only hit on a part of the places Jr and I had played. We did have the advantage of living on the outer edge of a medium size city. You see we had the city advantage of having a city playground with swings, sliding boards, ball field, see-saws and a play area with board games. This is where I was introduced to 'Shoots and Ladders'. A game similar to my business life where you can get ahead by climbing a ladder and fall behind because of a shoot that makes you go backward. Isn't life so much like that?

We also had woods where we played, a larger sandbank area that was higher then our baseball area and woods to play in and a lot of hills to climb. Another one of my best friends Winchie was a big boy although only a year older. He had a Buckeye Tree in his front yard and a Black Cherry Tree in his back yard. I loved both those trees and they were mature trees both at least 4 foot at there base. That Buckeye Tree was the reason I planted a Buckeye tree in our front yard. I still love the taste of Black Cherries. I was the one who ended up climbing the Black Cherry Tree for the fruit.
Jr house was about a mile from my house. I would either walk there or ride my bike. We ran all over the country. We would sleep out on the porch glider at night.

In the winter we would sled ride. The hills on the road made for a fun ride. We could slide two blocks off the hill before we reached the main highway. We loved the really icy snow because you could go a long ways. We had a pond out by Jr house that we used to go skating on once it froze. We also had a manmade skating rink a short walk away over a hill.

We really had a lot of free things to do when we were young.

My Best Friend Junior (Jr)

I think everyone has a BFF while growing up. Junior was my best friend while growing up in the 50's. We were the same age and must have naturally become best friends. Things weren't easy but we did have some special things going for us. As Jr often said we had things that a lot of people never had. We were rich in places to go and play.

We had our own swimming place. It was the Shenango River which was a Sharon Steel Mill river. I often wonder if the Prostate Cancer could be related to the river. The river was polluted for sure. We also fished the river and only caught bullhead catfish. We never ate the fish. There was a tree near the river with a branch which we had a rope tied onto. the bank near the tree was about 4 foot high. This gave us the ability to swing out onto the river and drop into the water. I wonder how much of that river water we swallowed.

There was an underground spring that always was running out of a pipe at about 60 degrees F all year round. This was great on a hot summer day.
We had our own football field. There was a machine shop that had an open field next to it. The field was always cut and made an excellent place to play. The field was 60 yards by 100 yards so was perfect for football. We played tackle football with no padding. I don't remember anyone getting hurt.

We had our own baseball field. It was a bowl where they had dug sand for someones use. The bowl was about 10 foot deep and rounded with a big sandbank on one side. The sandbank gave a perfect backstop and when we were younger. We hardly ever hit the ball out of the bowl. Jr's Uncle, Digger Dave, played with us sometimes. He was about 6 years older then we were. He was able to hit the ball out of the bowl. There were woods around the bowl so sometimes we had to work hard to find the ball if you hit it out. The loss of the ball sometimes ended the game.

We were rich in places to be a child. Jr and I were together all through the summer dats as we were growing up. What a wonderful time to look back to find how your life has developed.