Golf Balls

Shopping

Cheryl and I were walking through our local Target store yesterday, and we passed a display case with bunch of golf balls. I commented that I missed collecting those, and we both flew back in time to when we first met in Omaha, and my introduction to her father, Mike.

Mike, or Milan as he was formally named, was living in California when I first met Cheryl, and I was living in an apartment in La Vista, NE, a suburb of Omaha. I had just retired from the USAF, and had just ended a short period of time working in the Omaha City Hall in the IT Department as the number two person in charge (another story! The moral of which is stay away from politicians if you can!).

Anyway, I was running my own consulting business, and had just landed a client who needed someone to install a bunch of computers and get them networked. That client was the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. I could do that job! So, 75 Gateway machines later, I managed to get them online and on the Internet for the first time. It was quite a lot of fun working in that environment, but it was a lot of work.

Cheryl was the Controller of the museum. In that capacity, she was responsible for paying my bills! That included my personal charges, and bills for the equipment I needed for them to buy to complete the project. We spent a lot of time together, and (as luck would have it) eventually started dating.

Meeting Mike

Mike was visiting Cheryl when I started hanging around in her home, with her college student son, Scott. As I got to know him, I found out Mike was a WWII veteran, who entered the Army at age 20 and campaigned through the Pacific Theater as a heavy vehicle driver in the 120th Ordnance Company. I have met many such veterans, many in the Pentagon where my mother worked as I grew up. Mike would not talk much about the war. Many of his generation were so affected by their experiences, it was hard for them to talk about them, and have to remember all of that! I had long ago learned to respect their wishes, but since I was a veteran as well, I think we hit it off! We both knew what it meant to serve our country!

Mike was living in a mobile home in California, near Cheryl's sister, Linda. In his spare time, he played golf, and worked in a local hospital. Cheryl would get packages from him containing worn out hospital towels that were "still good for cleaning". He was also a source for other not-quite worn other things as well: extension cords, old tools, whatever.

He was living a simple life, and seemed to be doing fine.

After his visit, I had an idea on how to give him a gift.

Running and Golf Courses

My apartment in La Vista was about a block away from a local golf course. In my daily running, I started out by running down the road that went along the side of that course.

One day, while my mind was on other things, I heard (and felt) something zing past my head as I was running. I saw the offending object sail through the air down the road where it bounced a few times and came to rest in the gutter. It was a stray golf ball some silly fool had misfired way out of its intended flight path! It came so close to clobbering me in the head, I was shaken a bit just thinking how that would have felt.

Anyway, as I passed the ball, I picked it up. I had no intention of taking it back. I have no idea what they cost, but if that golfer could not keep the silly thing on the course, that is his problem. I had a souvenir!

I also had a new game when running!

Collecting Stray Balls

As I ran down that road on future runs, about a mile or so, I started noticing other golf balls on the side of the road. They were laying in the grass, or in the weeds, occasionally in the road. It appeared that many golfers at that course had problems keeping the balls on the course, and no one seemed interested in retrieving then when they flew off the course. Maybe they had no idea where they went! I never found out.

What I did do was collect them as I ran. A good day might turn up three or four stray balls, often only one. Seldom did I not see a single ball!

I had an idea that eventually I might put them all in a bag and take them back.

That was before I met Mike.

Retraining

I decided the golf balls were at fault, not the golfers. They had gotten the idea to flee from their captors, and head for the hills. Their attempt should not result in their recapture. They had earned their freedom!

Except their real job was to fly from the tee to the hole, and they needed to learn that job!

So, after I met mike, Cheryl and I decided to retrain the stray golf balls by sending them to Mike, who would do the training!

That was great. Mike did not have a lot of money, so buying golf supplies was tough. We would collect a week's worth of balls, package them in an egg carton, and mail them to him where he would do the retraining!

I have no idea how many packages we sent him, but it was a bunch! We never got any of them back, though. Perhaps his training failed and they escaped again. Who knows!

It was fun while it lasted.