Earlham Echo

July 2, 2024

After a long layoff from golf, I re-booted my game about 10 years ago, using my dad’s old clubs that he had given me many years before that. I eventually got a set of my own, and then another set—the clubs that I currently use.

As a family, we have collected a wide variety of things that serve no constructive purpose. Our garage, attic—and even a storage unit—are mostly filled with items of only sentimental value. We inspect these areas every once in a while, performing yet another valuation of these pieces of history, and always come to the same inevitable conclusion; “Well, we can’t get rid of that!”

My dad’s old clubs fall into that category, collecting dust in the garage—but still in a prominent position. I see them every time I pull the car in or out.

Two of those clubs got a promotion to the house at some point: a 6 iron and a 5 wood. The 6 iron has a small chunk missing from the bottom of the blade near the toe. My dad told me that happened one day when he was hitting out of a terrible lie in some heavy rough. He took a mighty lash and contacted the ball, but at the same time, hit a large, unseen rock that damaged the club and sent a wave of pain through his body that he never forgot.

The 5 wood is a beautiful work of art. It’s a ‘Walter Hagen.’ The legendary pro started designing clubs for Wilson Sports in the 1920s. My club is not an antique, per se, but it was probably made in the 70s. The shiny, black head has a gold, metal plate screwed to the bottom. The face has a separate piece of brown wood with distinct grain, while the ‘sweet spot’ is another piece of presumably harder wood, painted red—both fastened to the head with five small screws.

The bathroom on the lower level of our house is also known as the boys’ room. Jennifer gave me free rein many years ago to re-model that area and decorate it in a sports theme as I saw I saw fit—because she rarely went in there, anyway. The 6 iron and the 5 wood serve as toilet paper holders there. That might seem like an indignity, considering my attachment to them, but I get to see these reminders of my dad every day—and they do serve an indispensable role, one might say.

Around 4 a.m. one morning a couple of weeks ago, I needed the 5 wood for a purpose for which it is not currently prescribed. On our home’s second level, I woke from a dream—a little startled—and hovered in the gray area between consciousness and sleep for a few minutes, trying to get my bearings. I heard an unusual sound, which I diagnosed as some wind-blown papers that were secured on my desk but had been rustling in the breeze most of the previous day. I listened a while longer to make sure, then changed my opinion—it was claws on a hardwood floor. Our intrepid guard dog Apollo, a 15-year-old miniature Schnauzer, makes frequent downstairs patrols during the night from his bed to his dog door that leads to his outdoor veranda. I assumed that the sound was Apollo on duty. “Good boy,” I thought.

I got out of bed, walked to bathroom, flipped on the light, and glanced into what we call the newsroom. I was disturbed that the claws I heard were not Apollo’s. The light illuminated a long tail and fuzzy rear end of something that scurried into the corner of the room. I slammed the door and uttered a long, loud string of profanities that surely had my sweet, church-going grandmothers looking down at me from Heaven in disgust. They were probably embarrassed for me, as well. Either one of them would have waltzed in the room, grabbed the creature with their bare hands, and taken it out of the house without any agitation, lickety-split.

Jennifer was awakened by my discourse—and this wasn’t the first such occasion in the past couple of years. We had a bit of a bat problem a while back. Bats are interesting creatures, really, but not when they are flying by my head in the middle of a dark night in my home. I reacted similarly then as to when I noticed whatever was hiding now behind my record cabinet.

She was calm and I was still cursing when she asked me what the problem was. I told her I thought I had a rat trapped in the newsroom. Bats are bad enough, but a rat in the house had implications that are appalling enough in a completely conscious state, let alone in my still semi-lucid condition.

I needed something to kill this SOB. I went downstairs and got the 5 wood. I also grabbed a push broom. I rushed back upstairs and Jennifer gave me a bit of a ‘really?’ look. I would have loved to have had a better plan, but neither of us came up with one at the time. I would go in the room, flush the beast out of its hiding place, then pulverize it with the Hagen. If it made past me, Jennifer would foil its escape and broom it back into the room. Check. Go time.

I went in and prodded with the club, moved the cabinet on its casters, and took a peek behind it. Nothing. Jennifer, thankfully, came up with plan B.

“Why don’t we get a box and trap it?”

Brilliant, I thought. If I started wildly swinging the 5 wood around in that small room, I probably would have smashed everything but our invader. Plus, I could have damaged the treasured club. As I started to go get a suitable trap, our guest showed itself.

“There he is!” shouted Jennifer.

I turned quickly and saw not a rat, but a baby possum—and I was relieved. I felt like a well thought out catch and release was possible now. With a rat, I was not convinced that would work. People under 50 probably haven’t seen the movies Willard or Ben, but both of those creepy flicks filled with man-eating vermin had been going through my mind since I saw what I thought I saw originally.

I found an empty, clear plastic tub with a lid, placed it on its side at one end of the record cabinet, and then we blocked off any other possible means of escape for the possum. Jennifer flushed the fella out with a yard stick, sliding it underneath the cabinet. I botched the first attempt at capture, but it eventually crawled into the container, and I slapped the lid on tight. As I carried it downstairs, the creature was calm and seemed to be looking at me with gratitude that I was saving it from its predicament. I took it behind our garage, about 100 feet from our house, removed the lid, and put the container on its side. I shouldn’t have been surprised when it played possum—it just laid there. I lightly kicked the box and the possum scurried off into the night, perhaps to reunite with its mother—just not too close to our house, I hoped.

With the problem solved, we still needed to figure out how it got inside. We have an old house, but surely there aren’t any holes big enough for a possum, we thought. But—there is one: the dog door. This has been a topic of discussion in our family for as long as we’ve had that door: what’s to keep a wild animal, or even another dog, from just walking in, just like Apollo does? There was never a good answer to this question, and one that was always best not to consider for too long. I always thought that if something did get in the house, surely our guard dog would discover it and announce its presence to us. Obviously, that did not happen in this case.

After the incident, there was no way I was going back to sleep. I was bumping around the kitchen when Apollo walked in, curious as to why I was up so early. I had to give him a piece of my mind. He received a mild scolding for, literally, sleeping on the job. He walked off, sulking a bit. Later, when I went out to our auxiliary refrigerator, Apollo was laying on a rug by the dog door. He hardly spends any time on that rug, but he kept a vigil there for about an hour. Too little, too late, but I was pleased, nonetheless.

As for the 5 wood, I decided to give it another promotion. I put it in my golf bag. It will serve a similar role that it had for the possum incident—it’s not the right tool for the job and I probably won’t ever have to use it, but it will be nice to have around—just in case.