No, this is not about blonde, voluptuous “trophy” girl friends or wifes. It is about excelling at something so well that they award you a medal or a trophy (a sculptured piece of wood with a figurine mounted on top). The trophy goes on a shelf to gather dust and testifies that for one brief moment in time, you were the best.
For those of you that haven’t read son Paul’s blog, he did get to witness his dad getting a hole-in-one on the third hole at Whispering Springs in Fond du lac. There has always been this emptiness in discussions with other golfers that at age 65 I never achieved a hole in one. I had shots that rimmed the cup or stopped just short, but it just never happened.
The emotion of achieving a hole in one is really kind of hollow. You hit the ball, it goes in the hole and then you move on to the next hole. I think Paul got more excited than I did. It was nice to get that blemish off my record. Now I can brag too.
I remember my brother Jack and I did a lot of ice-skating until I was about 14. We had “racer” skates with long blades. My dad would take us to various skating meets and we would compete in different age groups for short sprint races up to one-quarter mile. Jack won a race in Fond du lac. He got a trophy and I didn’t. That trophy sat on top of our bookcase at the City Club for years. The tough part was all the bullshit humiliation that went with the kidding that Jack was the only one to ever have won a trophy. I will say it bugged me.
So wouldn’t you know, it took until I had graduated from college and bowled in the Allis-Chalmers Engineers Bowling League that I finally got a trophy. It was harder earned than Jack’s because it was for bowling 167 average for the year. It was bigger that Jack’s. So for a while, I put that trophy in every prominent place I could find in our house and Shelby kept putting it some place less obtrusive. For “one season in time”, I had achieved a semblence of excellence and I could prove it.
And then over the years I went on to win some 20 golfing trophies for various things. The largest trophy was for some insignificant Company outing. So slowly all my trophies have found boxes in the basement and we fall over the boxes everytime we look for something. Really important trophies, huh?
So this last Christmas, we had a “white elephant” game where everyone brought a gift that they really didn’t want. I was going through boxes in the basement and found that first bowling trophy. It says on the plaque “C. Andrews, 167 Average”. It would be my gift. Well the white elephant game allows multi-exchanges of gifts so that if someone sees a white elephant gift that to them would be special, they can claim it. Grandson Collin claimed my trophy because he is in a bowling league with his dad and wouldn’t you know his first initial is the letter “C”. So on a shelf somewhere in his bedroom, there is a trophy that says “C. Andrews, 167 Average”. How special is that?
My hole-in-one is kind of like that trophy. You always want one because of all the stories you hear and it seems like it would validate your life as a golfer. After you’ve put that “1” on your scorecard there is some kidding and slowly, like that trophy, it gets put in to mothballs and people go on to whatever else there is in life that is more important: which is just about everything.
But for one moment in time, I got a magnificent shot that I will remember for ever. Hot damn! I wonder what box in my brain I will bury that memory.
Thanks Paul for attesting to the occurance.
Love,
Dad