by Ed Nelson
Janet and I danced a lot and had fun. While she allowed me to hold her close it was not too close, if you know what I mean. I guess I had secretly been hoping for more.
It was towards the end of the evening that she broke it to me.
“Ricky, I have had a lot of fun and really appreciate you being my date tonight. I have to let you know that I’m not ready for a boyfriend yet, and my parents won’t allow me to go on real dates until I’m sixteen.”
I’m proud to say I took it calmly, but was crushed and upset inside and was on a slow burn. As she accepted a dance with another boy I thought about it. I had taken her to the country club, I had rented a limo….Oh wait, I did that, she didn’t ask for any of that. All she had wanted was a date. Maybe I better slow down before I say something really stupid.
The more I thought about it as Janet danced was I hadn’t been hunting for a date to homecoming. It was suggested to me that Janet was available if asked. I hadn’t been looking for a girlfriend; I just started assuming she would be because I was taking her to a dance.
Heck I didn’t really know what having a girlfriend meant other than trying to neck. Another point to consider was her parents wouldn’t let her date until she was sixteen.
What was my parent’s position on when I could start dating? Last summer I was given a lot of freedom, so maybe I was making some poor assumptions. I should talk to my parents before I make myself look foolish. In the meantime be nice to Janet, as she had done nothing wrong. Enjoy the evening for what it is, a dance, not a romance.
When the boy who I knew from gym class brought Janet back I smiled at both of them and asked, “Are you going to dance again or do I get a turn?”
Janet gave me a curious look and said, “If you don’t mind I will dance with Roger one more time.”
“Okay, I will ask someone else.”
As a matter of fact I danced with a dozen different girls during the evening and Janet danced with a bunch of different boys. We both were smiling and overly warm when the evening ended.
The limo took us back to Janet’s home; the girls were having a sleep over. So it was three couples that walked to the door. Tom and I got a good night kiss on the cheek from our dates. Nancy laid one on Bill, when they came up for air he told her, “I will call you tomorrow.”
Someone had a really good time!
John Sullivan drove us home and dropped us off at my house, Tom and Bill made their way home on foot. Each was carrying his bag of clothes. I chuckled; they looked like they were ready to go on the road, except they would be hitching in suits.
When I went in the house Mum was waiting up. She wanted to know all about the evening. I shared all of it with her including Janet’s comment about being too young for a boyfriend.
From her face you could tell Mum was happy to hear that.
“Good we have never really discussed when you could start dating for real. Sixteen when you have your driver’s license seems good. You can go to special group events like this, but no dates alone.”
Well that took care of that I thought. Now it was either sneak around or wait. Since there was no one in sight to sneak with I guess no dates.
That night I read about a young farmer fighting stobor. That would be an adventure!
Chapter 29
At six the next morning my alarm went off as usual. After the exercises and morning run I had what to Mum was a real breakfast. This was bacon and two eggs over easy, hash brown potatoes along with wheat toast and orange juice. I was ready for my golf match with Sidney!
I was at our meeting spot at the school front door at nine as Coach had requested. The bus was on time, so we arrived at the country club in short order. My first stop was to see Mr. Hasting’s. I asked how much I owed. It wasn’t too bad, nine fifty. I thanked him, and he said anytime.
If I wanted to come back again I would be allowed to sign now that they had an account set up. It had to be in season though. I told him I doubted that would happen.
“I don’t know Rick; some of those girls were giving you the eye.”
I would love to quiz him on who they were, but I had to get ready to play.
Our team loosened up on the practice tees; then worked on putting to see how the greens would feel today. I was starting to appreciate how much the weather and time of day could influence a putt. This time Bellefontaine won the honors. I waited for John to tee up, everyone just stood there.
“Hey Rick, you were low man last week, you’re up first.”
Wow, from last in the line up to first in one week!
I sent it a country mile in the air, then it rolled and rolled. The ball had to have gone two hundred and seventy five yards up the middle.
One of the guys from Sidney said, “It’s going to be a long day.”
Tim cracked, “Or a short one, depends on how you look at it.”
I set a course record of sixty three. Tim lost his match but we won over all. Tim ended up having a long day as those sand trap demons got even with his smart remark.
When the scores were tallied the word went around the club like wildfire. Men I had never met were shaking my hand. Pictures were taken, golf balls signed. It was amazing.
I had never given it a thought about what would happen if I was good at this game. After everything else I had been through it was easy to bask in the attention without getting carried away.
I had just packed my clubs away when the inevitable happened. There stood George Weaver and a photographer.
George shook his head and said, “I told your parents they should keep you home.”
So now my picture would be in the Examiner again. At least I hadn’t killed anyone.
After George had asked questions like, “How does it feel to set a course record?”
Of course my answer was Mr. Weaver, “It feels great but I couldn’t have done it without the training Coach Stone has provided and the support of my team mates.”
You could have knocked Mr. Weaver and Coach Stone over with a feather when I said that.
“Where did you learn to give answers like that,” Mr. Weaver inquired?
“How soon we forget. I have won three rodeos including a National title, plus have hung around with John Wayne and Elvis while they were interviewed,” I replied with a straight face.
Both Coach and Mr. Weaver looked at each other and shook their heads.
“Precocious,” said Coach.
“No that’s my sister Mary.”
At that Mr. Weaver let out a great laugh, “That she is.”
“Does she play golf?” asked Coach.
“Not yet Coach, but any day now.”
After everything settled down and we had shook hands with a demoralized Sidney team, we boarded the bus for the ride back to school.
On the way home I decided to have some fun. When Dad asked how the golf match went.
I replied, “our team won but I didn’t do as well as I hoped.”
“Well there is always next week, unless they decide to drop you from the team.”
“Dad, I didn’t do that bad.”
“I know you scoundrel. George Weaver called and wanted to know how we felt about you setting a course record.”
Note to self; self you can’t do anything in this town without your parents finding out immediately.
I kicked around with Denny and Eddie the rest of the afternoon. They were now passing a football back and forth. Both were better than me.
Dinner was spaghetti, a family favorite. Mary ended up red faced. Not embarrassed, sauced! I shared that funny remark and was surprised at my parent’s silence.
Dad finally said, “When you said sauced I thought you meant drunk.”
“Oh no Dad, I meant sauce all over her face.”
“This is a good time to tell you, I have been going to AA for three months now and haven’t had a drop to drink.”
“Dad that is great, I’m happy for you and Mum”
It was awkward until Mum suggested a family gam
e of Monopoly after dinner. We all played, Mary and me a team, Mum and Dad a team, with Denny and Eddie each on his own.
For a change no one threw a tantrum or the board, so we had a good time. Mary and I were the winners. I suspect it was because Mum and Dad seemed more interested in each other, than the game.
Sunday I helped Dad with the Detroit Street house. It was almost ready to rent. He had steamed all the wall paper off the living room walls. He counted fourteen different layers of paper in the last sixty years. He had to replace some of the laths and put up new plaster. I helped him paste on the last of the paper.
While he cleaned up the mess I used the push mower we had brought with us. Tapp Realty was ready to rent the house out; ads would run all next week in the Examiner.
In bed that night I reflected on the past week. It had been so busy with so much happening; I just hoped next week would be calmer.
That night I started a book about a Russian family during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It didn’t take me long to go to sleep.
Chapter 30
Monday, I crawled out of bed feeling a little groggy. Last week had been a busy week, and I didn’t feel rested even after a good night’s sleep. By the time I had performed my morning exercises and finished my run, I was ready for the day. Since the mornings were now cooler, Mum had switched breakfast over to porridge.
The round box said, “Quaker Oats, oatmeal.”
If Mum wanted it to be porridge it was porridge. No matter what you called it, it was warm and filling. Put enough brown sugar on it and it even tasted good.
As usual Tom and Bill were coming down the walk as I came out the door. The conversation all the way was about the dinner and dance. Bill bragged about the way Nancy kissed him. He made some other comments about what they had done that hadn’t any relation to reality.
Tom and I both tried to tell him to tone it down. If he spread that sort of stuff the girls wouldn’t go out with him. Bill didn’t seem to get it, as his story just got bigger.
Classes were back to normal after the hectic homecoming week. While classes may have been back to normal the rumor mill was working overtime discussing who broke up over the weekend, and what new couples had emerged. The limo was considered the neatest item of the weekend. Already girls were talking about a limo for Prom.
What interested me; was that Janet was getting credit for dinner and the limo. She had managed her date well.
As far as I was concerned the best thing about all the conversation was that my name didn’t come up alone. Even when talking about the limo; Tom and Bill would get equal billing with me.
I got a few, “Go Bellefontaine’s” for beating Sidney in golf but nothing was said about a course record. That would appear in the Monday edition of the Examiner. There wasn’t a paper on Sunday, so the record wouldn’t be common knowledge until Tuesday.
Going from Algebra to Latin I met Janet in the hallway. She gave me a cheerful, “Hi,” but didn’t stop. I returned the greeting and kept moving. This established that we were now friends and nothing more.
Lunch was more of the same; one of the seniors did stop at our table.
“Hey guys, I saw you at the country club with your dates and then getting out of that limo at the dance. You are making it hard on us normal people.”
Since this was said with a smile, we took it as a compliment.
Bill had to add, “It was worth it for how the girls treated us,” he leered as he said it.
Tom and I just shook our heads.
Tom added, “Well, how some of us thought we were treated.”
When the senior left Bill took Tom to task.
“I’m trying to build up the gang’s reputation. All the girls want to be with real men.”
Bill found out how much his reputation was built up immediately after lunch. As we left the school to take a walk a very irate Nancy Sparks caught up with us. She started to berate Bill for all the lies he was telling about her. Tom and I looked at each other and took off walking leaving Bill to his fate.
Golf practice was different. All the other guys could talk about was the course record. They had to replay every stroke. They did this while we practiced putting. Coach Stone had us putting more and more. He also would add in some little tricks, like how to hit the ball around a tree.
To do that he had us point the club face where we wanted to hit the ball. We would then line our body up with where we wanted the ball to start. Then we would swing along our body line.
The ball would then curve around the tree and end up where we had aimed the club face. The same principal would work to draw the ball right or fade it left around a dogleg. These were gentle curves not a sharp turn.
Practice went well. Various members of the club stopped to congratulate me on the new record. Doctor Costin was there, and after is congratulations gave me an update on the Suttons.
They were expected to recover.
Dr. Costin surprised me, “I know that your club membership only extends for the school golf season, if you want to join the club I would be proud to sponsor you.”
I replied, “Thank you Doctor, it’s kind of expensive, how old do you have to be?”
“Hmm, good question Rick. I don’t know and I’m on the Board of Directors. I will look into that.”
I had a small surprise when I got home. My industrial dryer had arrived. A special mail truck dropped it off at the house. I had never seen a one dollar stamp on a package before. I understood why when I picked it up from the front step; it must have weighed forty pounds.
I took it into the garage and opened the package on the work bench, Dad and Uncle Jim had moved from the Detroit Street house. As I opened the package I realized that it wouldn’t work like I thought.
The motor and heater were in a unit that weighed thirty pounds. The handheld dryer portion was connected by a heavy rubber hose and weighed over ten pounds. That was just too much weight to handle comfortably.
I found an extension cord and plugged the dryer in. The air on the one speed unit was too hot and too fast. I would either burn myself up or blow away. What a waste of money.
At dinner I related how the unit wasn’t as I thought it would be.
My brother Denny asked, “Well if it is too hot and too much air, can’t you make a smaller one that works?”
“I don’t know, Denny.”
Dad spoke up, “What do you need to know to make it work?”
“How hot the air should be and how fast the air should blow. From that I could determine what size of motor and heater I would need. From there I could tell if it could be made light enough to use.”
“There you go then.”
Mum spoke up, “You could ask Sharon Bailey about her hair dryers.”
Sharon Bailey owned a local hair solon.
Thanks Mum, “I will do that after school one day soon.”
I continued my slog through the Russian novel that night. Before it was over I was cheering for Napoleon, though I knew he wouldn’t win.
At breakfast I told Mum I would try to see Mrs. Bailey after golf practice today. Mum told me she would call her about expecting me with questions on her hairdryers.
Chapter 31
Tuesday at school, a minor topic was my setting a course record at the country club. Most of the kids could care less about golf and golfers.
As Tom Humphrey put it, “Since you can’t play a real man’s sport like football, I’m glad there is something you can do.”
I let that one go, ignoring Humphrey’s comment. During an earlier golf practice Tim and Gary had talked about how the Ex-Mayor couldn’t find a sponsor to join the country club.
No one liked him since he had a street in front of a competitors barber shop zoned no parking on both sides. This hurt the man’s business terribly.
Ex-Mayor Humphrey claimed there was too much traffic and that people were endangered by walking between cars to cross the street from one business to another. The warehouse across the street had b
een empty for the last twenty years, so that argument didn’t go down well.
Our class was given a paper to write in World History. It was to be ten pages long on any discussion question at the back of the next week’s chapter. There were all sorts of moans in class.
I had continued my habit of writing essays on every question in the back of each chapter. Since I was running a week ahead on these, I was able to pick and choose from two I had already done that actually exceeded the ten page assignment.
Mr. MacMillan said we could turn them in as soon as they were completed. I couldn’t resist it. I turned my paper in at the end of the class. It was on why the Holy Roman Empire, wasn’t Holy, Roman or an Empire.
Mr. MacMillan’s only comment, “I’ve heard about you.”
I wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.
Golf practice was playing the back nine. Coach gave me a physical handicap. I wasn’t allowed to use any numbered club lower than a five iron. He claimed I needed to work with different distances.
So instead of a driver and a nine iron to get to the green I would use a five iron twice. I didn’t see how that would help. I made the mistake of saying that out loud. I was told that tomorrow it would be the six irons or higher, I would get used to odd distances!
Coach also passed out a sheet of paper with the dates of the Ohio State boy’s golf tournament. The first event, the Sectional was October 18-19, the District was October 25-26, and the State Championship October 31-November 1.
We would arrive on the Thursday night so we could get in a practice round on Friday before the tournament. I asked where they were being played.
“The Northwest section, Sectional matches are at Stone Ridge golf course at Bowling Green, Ohio, the District matches are held at the Red Hawk course in Findlay, and the championship at the Ohio State Scarlet and Gray course.”
“Will we drive back and forth to Bowling Green,” I asked?
“No, we will be staying in dorm rooms at BG University.”
“How much will that cost?”
