No. 165 - Golf, Gunsmoke, and Juicy Fruit

There used to be a driving range north of Atlanta that, by all accounts, was a certifiable dump.

The mats were beat to hell from years of thrift-store clubs plowing into ‘em. Rubber tees were of various heights—no two alike—but they managed to hold a golf ball.

Garbage cans overflowed with beer cans, and the ashtrays on top were cesspools of murky rainwater and cigarette butts.

A blind man could’ve offered a better reading over the yardage markers, and the pin flags—what was left of them—were as threadbare as an old man’s underwear.

About 150 yards out sat a Volkswagen Bug with more dimples than the war-torn golf balls used to hit it.

The clubhouse was drab but had a fridge full of beer. In lieu of a fireplace, a couple of hand-me-down wingbacks stood gallantly around boxes of golf shoes no one was ever going to buy.

The television usually had the Golf Channel on, but depending on who was minding the till—and what time of day it was—you might find The Price Is Right or reruns of Gunsmoke.

The snack selection was limited: hot dogs on a roller (that hadn’t been cleaned in a decade), bags of M&M’s, and twenty-five-cent packs of Juicy Fruit.

Like I said, it was a junkyard—but it was my junkyard.

I miss the sound of balls rattling through the old machine that housed them. Rarely did you get a bucket without a few balls still caked in mud, so you’d pour a little Budweiser over them and give it a good shake—problem solved.

My routine was simple: buy a bucket, crack open a beer, light a cigarette, and swing away. If the top bay was open, I’d take it—I was usually the only guy up there.

To go back to the days when a bucket of balls and a few beers was all that was on the docket ... it’d be nice.

Add in the thud of a range ball hitting a Bug—that was the life—and I didn’t even know it.

*Composed, Edited, and Published in Atlanta, GA