TREENA MIELKE/On The Other Side
My golf clubs were dirty and covered with sawdust.
I stared at them disdainfully. How could I ever have a stellar game with these disgusting things?
I closed my mind to the fact it was 7 a.m. and hoped that no neighbors could hear the noise as I pulled out the shop vac. I vacuumed and I dusted and I shook the bag, hoping to eradicate several months of grime, dust, and the aforementioned sawdust.
Apparently, some people use their garages for their vehicles.
We don’t. My husband uses it to make sawdust, most of which it seems has gathered on my golf clubs.
I blow on the clubs in a useless attempt to remove the last of the sawdust, throw the bag in my backseat and am off.
Golfing. First game of the season. Finally!
The best thing, the thing that makes the day all shiny, bright and happy, kind of like a new penny yet to be spent, is the fact that I am golfing with my son, in beautiful Kananaskis. It was his birthday gift to me.
Golfing, which is an activity I love, even when it teaches me over and over again, about losing, humility and 101 ways not to hit a golf ball, pales in comparison to the fact that I get to spend the whole, entire day with my son.
Years ago, he used to beg me to play catch with him, to watch a movie with him, to play a game with him. In fact, he wanted to hang out with me lots.
But, one day when I was too busy doing adult stuff, and didn’t have time to be with him, he grew up. And when I turned around to look for him, that little boy was gone, and in his place, a grown up man.
So now on the rare occasion when he wants to spend time with me, I’m in!
My son, somehow as he became older, got quite knowledgeable about what club to use to get on the green, but not over, and who got the most goals in the NHL in the last decade.
I am less so, but still we are amiable and discover we still have some things in common.
We both want Boston to win the Stanley Cup, why, I’m not sure. For me it is because they were part of the Original Six and when I was growing up they taught me what the word ‘cellar’ meant because that’s where they always were.
My son doesn’t know this bit of trivia and simply tells me he doesn’t like Vancouver that much.
We head to the first tee box at Kananaskis, me feeling extremely important and proud to be here with my son riding on this golf cart with my clubs and his clubs tucked safely in the back my some kid wearing a Kananaskis staff T-shirt.
“You actually did surpass your sisters in getting me the best birthday gift ever,” I tell him confidentially as our cart rolls up to the first tee box. This is a wonderful gift.”
He agrees!
We golf and the game goes as golf games do. Good shots, bad shots, and some really, really bad shots.
My son tells me I need to get a new driver or the other ladies will always and forever outdrive me. He also tells me I need to quit using my five-iron the fairway because I will never get any distance.
I tell him I’m comfortable with what I’m using. He tells me I need to get less comfortable.
And as we banter back and forth, and keep hitting and moving around the course, the sun spreads across the sky in magnificent splendor and, in that moment, for me at least, everything else seems trivial.
It was a good day, a stellar day. As for the golf game, I had a few good shots.
Maybe next time I will try another club on the fairway.
Who knows? It might work, but I’d hate to prove my son right. On the other hand, maybe I’ll risk it.