Snow, Golf and Growing up Near the Klan

Monday was one of those cold Michigan days where nothing was moving in the neighborhood because the snowplows hadn’t been down the side streets yet. We got eight inches of snow over the weekend and I managed to shovel my sidewalk from the driveway to the front door because Amazon was due to delivery that day and few things keeps them from their appointed rounds---or is that the U.S. Postal Service? I have to admit I’m loving their two day delivery service with Prime. When I got the free introductory month with my new Kindle Fire I didn’t think I would keep the plan but now I’m on the fence about it. If you could see the stack of Amazon boxes in the garage waiting to go to recycling, you’d know I’ve been making good use of the service. 

Can you believe it, I played a game of golf this week! Well, not exactly. It was a game of miniature golf at a new indoor place that uses glow-in-dark balls and probably saves themselves a ton of money on electricity by not having to light up the place. It was fun but the psychedelic colors outlining the course, the busy wall murals that glowed in the dark and the god-awful black carpeting with patches that looked like neon barf gave me a headache and reminded me of bad parties in the ‘70s. It was a senior hall event and I tied for second place in my foursome plus I got to brush up on my billiards geometry doing it. Prior to the game, five of us Gathering Girls had lunch together at a popular café near-by that’s known for their good food. We were laughing so much it’s a wonder we didn’t get kicked out. 

I hate regular golf and, trust me, I tried hard to like the game. My dad was a life-long golfer, started out as a caddie before he hit his teens, even taught the game to high schoolers at one point in time and in retirement he played nearly every day, sometimes twice. My brother, niece and various others in the family play and a guy I dated back in my 20's golfed. I was highly motivated to learn. The boyfriend and I even took lessons offered at a golf course and all I learned was that I REALLY hated golf. If I want to take a nice walk I don't need to chase a little ball I can barely see as it flies down the fairway, assuming I’m lucky enough to hit it straight. 

Still, some of my best memories of my father revolve around the game. I don’t remember if we ever golfed together but my best ever movie experience was taking my dad to see Tin Cup with Kevin Costner and Don Johnson playing the lead characters. There was a scene in the film where Costner's character was in the woods and had an opportunity to cheat, but he didn’t do it even though his caddie was encouraging him to shave some shots off his score. According to Dad no real golfer would ever do that. “It’s a game of honor,” he said. “But wouldn’t the temptation be overpowering,” I asked, “when he could have won the tournament?” “He would know,” my dad answered, “he would know in his heart that he didn’t win fair and square and a hollow victory is no victory at all.” He saw the game of golf as a metaphor for life, a game you play against yourself for self-improvement---facing the challenges, knowing how you handled them are the true lessons and pay-off in a game where there's always room for improvement.

Fast forward to a time when Dad was dying of cancer and Tiger Woods had broken the color barrier in professional golf to go on to win the 1999 PGA Championship. Dad loved Tiger. In his last months, I read him every single magazine article I could find about the young golfer. My father was so proud that he had lived long enough to see America’s race relations change that much over his lifetime and we had many deep conversations about what is now labeled ‘White Privilege.’ Dad grew up in a town in Southern Illinois where grown black men would step off the sidewalk whenever a white adult or child like him passed by. He once hid in the woods watching the KKK hang a black guy and when a storekeeper in town died Dad saw him all decked out in his Klan outfit while lying in his coffin which, according to dad, was the only time Klan members revealed themselves.

My dad saw both sides of prejudism growing up. His father, an immigrant from Italy who worked in the coal mines, was paid less than whites but more than blacks and Irishmen even though they all worked side-by-side doing the same thing. In a museum of racial memorabilia I actually saw a sign like the one my dad described seeing at a coal miners' office. It listed the step-down wages paid to six different nationalities and "Niggers." The push-back against immigrants in this country is nothing new.

It might not seem like it when we’re knee-deep in our struggles to make the world a better place for our descendants but when we view the progress made by the generations that came before us it's easier to see that we are creeping closer and closer to a par game in racial equality. And that game is a game of honor, one where we know in our hearts when we’re not playing fair. ©