I stood, golf club in hand, tentatively testing out my balky back, as the range balls stared up at me. After a few minutes, enough was enough. Half a bucket still remained to be struck with precision.
My wife and I were married 46 years ago today. How long ago is that? I actually had most of a head of hair back then and a peanut farmer was running the country.
One of my best memories of those first days of marriage was of the times my young bride and I spent together on the golf course. She was an athlete and even though the game was foreign to her, she was soon able to play at a pretty decent level. "Am I lined up right" seemingly her favorite phrase.
We used to wander out to the course after we finished work, playing out of a single bag, a few clubs all either of us required for our undertaking. Often, there were scarcely any others out there. It was peaceful (except for my occasional tantrum at an errant swipe) and wonderful.
As the years passed, these moments together did as well. For golf did not hold her attention as it did mine. And so, our late afternoon strolls chasing a ball into the edge of darkness stopped. Yet a new tradition emerged.
Each year, on our anniversary, we joined forces on the golf course. One round together every August 6th, with metronomic precision. The decades came and went. Life swirled around us. But there was always one constant. Our annual 18 holes together.
Several years ago there was, in relative terms, a disaster. On the morning of our anniversary, I contacted a local course for a tee time. No openings. I expanded my search, but after maybe a half dozen attempts, all with the same result, my efforts ended. A tradition had been broken. We did play the following day, but still...
The past few years we abandoned this joint undertaking. It seemed, well into our fifth decade together, this was no longer an anniversary mandate.
So yesterday, when my wife accompanied me to the driving range, it was not, at least in my mind, in contemplation of renewing, in an altered state and a day too early, an old tradition.
But there we were, and there were still those remaining golf balls begging to be hit. And so she choked up on my driver and took a walk back in time to 1977.
After but a few attempts, muscle memory kicked in and the balls began to fly true and straight. Once an athlete, always an athlete.
And while we will not be playing today, my back still barking a little and other plans already having been made, maybe next year, on this day, you will be at a local course late in the afternoon and spot an older couple, walking down the fairway, playing out of a single bag. And if you go up and wish them a happy anniversary who knows but that you might receive a little smile in return. In silent recognition of a present that brings much joy.
As long as I am not then stewing over a particularly ugly drive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPlqLHcphyw
Happy Anniversary!--RE