Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I'll Take the Memories


I don’t know exactly when this picture was taken but the mental pictures of afternoons at the Reynolds Golf Course are forever imprinted in my mind. This newspaper photo emailed to me today by my friend Don Lane in Chicago had a caption (which I cropped to make room here) that reads as follows:

The Reynolds Golf Course is the center of entertainment for the residents of the city. The nine-hole course is a “tricky” course which is leased and kept up by the local Kiwanis Club. Left to right: Ed Goddard, Barry Bell and Wade Lane are all tied up on the second hole. The Reynolds City Limits sign is a clue that you are about to enter one of the “cleanest and friendliest” small towns in Georgia.

When I was growing up as a boy in Reynolds, GA my mama didn’t have to spend a minute worrying about by whereabouts when I was not at home. I was either at work, church, school, the baseball field or the golf course. I spent many hours at those five places.

Since there was no such thing as video games, computers, Cable TV, DVD’s and Movies on Demand, I didn’t spend much of my leisure time in the house either.

And I am better off for it.

As I grew older, I spent more and more time at the golf course. Although I enjoyed the golf, I’m glad I did not know I was as good as I would ever get when I was 14 years old. But as I look back, my time at the golf course was more about fellowship with my dad and his friends and my brothers and our friends than it was about the golf.

I’ve said this before but I will say it again. I am absolutely convinced I was born at exactly the right time in exactly the right place surrounded by exactly the right people. I really don’t know how it could have been better.

If I had a dollar for every round of golf I played at the Reynolds Golf Course I would have more money than I could spend.

But you can have the dollars.

I'll take the memories.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, "I'll take the Memories" too. Growing up in Reynolds,I spent a lot of time at the golf course too, not playing golf but swimming and sunbathing. That's what most of us girls did. We all spent more time there after they hired Howard the cute golf-pro from TN. Those were the days.

Dufer said...

Thanks for sharing your memories. Makes me wish I could have experienced that golf course.

Anonymous said...

A little "heaven on earth" just about sums up the fun and fellowship that we all experienced growing up and around that golf course and swimming pool! I'll take the memories anytime:)
Dixie

Anonymous said...

The COLDEST swimming pool in the world.

March said...

:)