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A CONVERTED YANKEE PRO
"One day a foursome approached the 16th tee. The straight hole ran parallel to a roadway on the left and was fenced off and out of bounds. The first man to tee off hit a big hook towards the fence and roadway. The ball bounced through the fence and went bouncing down the roadway and hit the tire of a passing bus, which knocked it back through the fence and back into the fairway. They all stood amazed, and finally one man asked,. ”How in the work did you do that?” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “You have to know the bus schedule”
I was raised and schooled in Connecticut, and that is about as Yankee as you can get. I have been in Alabama for quite a number of years, and that is about as Southern as you can get.
The north was fine while I was young and the changing seasons would present a variety of activities. In the summer, it was the golf course every day, while in the winter months it was school, girls, and outdoor sports. Skating was the only thing I missed most when I left the north. In the winter months we used to skate at night at the Ice Pond. We would build a fire on the little island and roast marshmallows, and then skate out into the darkness with our latest girl friend.
I kissed my first girl on a bitter cold night on the old Ice pond. It took all of the nerve I had to do this, and when I wanted to try it again, she said, “No.” She didn‘t know it at the time, but she was the safest girl on the pond. My first kiss could have been put in the same classification as kissing my mother.
One night we had a Halloween party with a bunch of us teen-agers. We started playing that racy game of the time, “Spin the Bottle.” There was one girl there; we shall call Lucy Belle who had made quite a few trips to the dark room to kiss boys. Every time one of the boys came out of that room with her had a shocked look on his face. When I went in for my turn I found out why. She almost swallowed me. It was gross. The boys all got together later and compared notes. I don’t know where she learned how to do that, but she was definitely before her time in our small town.
It is a good thing I didn’t know how to kiss that way that night on the Ice pond. As cold as it was that night, our lips would have been frozen together until spring. Her parents finally were forced to send Lucy Belle out to visit Aunt Mary in California for a year. Apparently she missed something in her education. I don’t know how I got carried away with this subject, but that is one of the advantages of getting older, you can rerun the past.
To get back to the subject I started on. I became involved in the golf business at a very early age in Connecticut at summer resort clubs. The season at most of those clubs slowed down drastically after Labor Day and the majority closed for the season in mid-October. This meant the pros had to find some other means to make it through the winter. Some kept their hands in golf by opening golf schools in metropolitan areas. They would put in a couple of driving nets, and a little putting area, and a little pro shop. Many businessmen would spend their spare time there hitting balls, or just getting away from the office.
Many others, who like me, would head South and try to get a job of some sort just to get away from the cold, and hopefully keep involved with golf. This kind of life was strictly for a single man. Unless you had a connection for a winter job in the South, finding one in the golf business was extremely difficult. The clubs that were open all year around had their staffs, while many of the large northern Clubs had affiliations with clubs in Florida. They would usually bring their staffs with them for the winter. For example, Boca Raton was one. They maintained the courses all summer and had them in great shape when they opened for the winter. I almost starved to death at trying to find a job at times. I caddied just so I could eat, and finally I became a bellhop in a hotel one winter. In the spring I would head back north for my summer job. It was fun, but it did not give you enough security, and if you ever intended to get married, it was not the way to go.
The answer at that time was to get permanently established in the South, and that is what I endeavored to do.
My plans to move south permanently were interrupted by the war. I spent four years in what was then known as, the Army Air Corps. The first summer out of the service was back at a Club in Connecticut. I finally stated moving to jobs in the South. Richmond, Virginia was my first stop. The first winter I was there we had more snow than we had in Connecticut, so further South was my next move. I finally ended up in the Deep South.
Nearly all of my buddies were from Southern states. The Civil War and World War I were just other dates I had to remember in History Classes, but many true Southerners still put a lot of importance on the Civil War. One day I was playing with three of them and I made some derogatory remark about the South. One of them reminded me that I was playing with three of them. I said, "That is about the right odds.” At that moment we were walking over a narrow bridge over a bayou. It is a good thing the tide was out and the water shallow, or they might have tossed me over the side and left me there.
When I finally made it to Virginia, I wrote them and told them that I was deserting the north, was going to join the South. They came up to visit me and gave me an indoctrination course necessary to become a good Southerner. I.e. While eating Southern fried chicken you use your hands and not a knife and fork.
While I lived in Richmond, I had to travel down Monument Ave. every day and I was instructed by the locals to take off my cap when I went by the statue of Robert E. Lee. I have learned to walk slower because there is no fear of freezing to death. I talk slower, but when I have visited up north, they say I have a Southern accent, but down here they say I still sound like a Yankee. If you want to find a golf pro, come South, they are all here.