“Hey, Jake, let’s you and me go out to the golf course and see if we can caddy today. I could use a little spendin’ money.”
It was summer, not much to do, so what better than try to raise a couple of bucks to support our other habits, such as buying sodas, candy, comic books, and going to the movies?
As Jake and I walked to the country club about a mile away, we each dreamed of what we could do with a little cash. Of course, it hardly occurred to us that saving a portion of it would be a good thing too. Life is too fleeting to consider such mundane things.
Arriving at the country club, we took seats near the clubhouse, under the shade of a large maple tree, and waited for some willing golfers to show up who needed a caddy to haul around their bags.
It was in the days before bag carts were common, and it was also not unusual for a couple of 10-year-olds to be toting a golf bag around the course, despite the fact that a bag with four woods, six or seven irons, a putter and a stash of balls was a pretty hefty load for one so young.
Of course, we were not expected to offer advice on distance or which club to use, but we were expected to clean the balls periodically through the game at wash stations posted around the course and to keep an eye on where the balls landed. Especially since the local hackers had a tendency to whack balls into the rough with some regularity.
After a short wait, a group of willing golfers showed up, and two happy youngsters headed off to the fairways with their loads and the prospect of a warm summer morning earning some hard cash with only a modicum of effort.
Fortunately, with the duffers that most novice golfers are, Jake and I got frequent breaks as the troop stopped to create another divot in the course and bang their balls on toward a beckoning hole or search the tall grass bordering the fairways.
Some caddies had a habit of “stomping” the balls of their employers, an act of surreptitiously hiding a ball so it could be taken later to the clubhouse and sold for another golfer to purchase. But neither Jake nor I were part of that group.
Somewhere along the line, I managed to lose the glove for one of the woods that I was carrying. This wasn’t noticed until the game was finished, and we were back at the clubhouse.
My employer asked that I try to re-trace our path through the course to see if I could find the errant glove.
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With Jake in tow, he and I quickly walked the course again but couldn’t find the glove.
Reporting back to the clubhouse, I informed the lady for whom I had been carrying clubs that we were unsuccessful and offered my apologies.
I fully expected to forego any payment for the morning’s work, to pay for replacing the glove, but was pleasantly surprised when she simply expressed her disappointment but handed over three dollars for my morning’s efforts.
I was certainly grateful for the generosity of the lady golfer as it somewhat eased the ache of my shoulders and the slight sunburn I had acquired. I was pretty lucky, though. Jake, being more fair-haired than me, had gotten a good deal more sun. I kidded him all the way home, telling him he looked a lot like an orange popsicle.
Though Jake and I caddied many times more, I was always highly attentive to making sure that no gloves ever again evaded my attention.
