Chapter 41

Sunday, Dick and I had agreed to sleep in so we didn’t do our run until seven o’clock. After that Janice fixed us what she called a brunch. Since it was still early I had no intention of giving up my lunch. After that, I returned home and finished off my weekly letter. I also decided to make my call as it would be late Ohio time when I finished my golf round. If I waited too long Mary would be asleep.

As it turns out I missed her anyway. She was playing outside with a neighborhood friend. They were building a snowman. I had forgotten that it was still winter. Here I was about to play golf and they were playing in the snow. I had to give living here full time some serious thought.

Denny and Eddie were fine. They wanted to know if I had been to Disney yet. I told them I had been too busy. I was told to get my priorities straight. Dad updated me on Jackson Housing, we now owned twenty units in Bellefontaine and he was now looking to expand to Urbana to the south.

After that, he was already thinking of Kenton, Marysville, and Wapakoneta. We also discussed Russell Point, but both agreed that we didn’t want to get into the vacation rental business, at least yet.

He informed me that I had a package coming in the mail. It contained my first ten hair dryers. The prototype molds were finished so Don Thompson and Paul Samson had assembled the first dryers for my review. They had left them on for one hundred hours each and they hadn’t melted, caught on fire or electrocuted them so they thought they were safe to start using.

I left for the golf course and arrived at twelve. My name was at the gate so I was allowed to drive on in. I unloaded my clubs at the caddy shack. Then I proceeded to eat my lunch, it was too many hours since my brunch! From there I checked that my tee time was still two o’clock. A caddy took my clubs to the driving range for me. This was the level of service I had never had before.

I started out on the range slowly with the smaller irons. As I limbered up I was able to put more into them. After a half-hour, I was up to my driver and hammering them out to almost three hundred yards. This got me some looks on the practice tee but no one commented.

The putting green kept me occupied until my tee time. These greens were faster than anything I had ever played on. I had heard the term, slick, used about a green. Now I knew what it meant. This course would be all about putting.

At two o’clock I was in place at the first tee box. The starter introduced me to my foursome. They were three elderly gentlemen. They must have been in their sixties. After my loss of names at dinner last night I paid attention today. When I shook hands with them, I made it a point of making polite.

“It is nice to meet you Mr. Simpson, Mr. Acton, and Mr. Williams.”

“Well at least he has manners,” one of them said.

“Can he play golf?” another asked as if I wasn’t standing right there.