Mastering the Past

I react differently than most when I see that little yellow logo with the flag. You see, I’m not one fucking bit impressed. It’s not what it used to be, and if there’s one thing in this world I’m nostalgic for, it’s what the tournament was, once upon a time in the 20th century.

There weren’t so many hotels back then. Hell, the principal of my high school retired to open one on Washington Road, about halfway between Westside and the course. Legend is that the year he opened it, all the seniors got a free room on prom night. That’s when 18 year olds were adults who could buy booze and book hotel rooms in addition to being able to vote, get drafted, and pay taxes.

People would get rooms in Aiken and Columbia and drive in. There were no Golf Traffic signs. It was before Tiger, before the National began buying all of the surrounding property (remind me to tell you about my real estate win), before suburban malls were ghost towns.

My dad’s side of the family came to visit, from Chicago, Columbia, south Georgia (one year, my cousin told me I was a yankee, living way up north in Augusta), and North Carolina. When my grandparents were in Tanglewood, the parties were fantastic. Charcoal grill, cold beer in the backyard, cocktails in crystal glasses with ice tinkling in bubbles in the living room, playing hide and seek in the enormous camellias, running to the park, and laughing, always laughing with this part of my family. Fantastic, hilarious stories with more punchlines than holes in a golf course.

Azaleas, dogwoods, magnolias, irises, camellias, pine trees, creeks, all tributaries of Raes, which flows down into the Savannah, where the gators are now north of I-20. I’m glad I had my river time there while they were still below the lock and dam. So many sunsplashed days just drifting among the cypress. One spectacular thunderstorm out on the shoals in the middle—rolled in so fast it was safer to stay put than take chances in the water. We lay down on our backs, flat against the sun-warm shale, rain on our faces with lightning flashing in the sky.

Driving over the Butts Bridge, the one with the lions, on 15th street, is one of the best thrills in life if you know how to do it, which lane to be in, what’s on the other side, the traffic light pattern. It’s the closest you’ll get to flying away from Daniel or Bush Field.

I wasn’t supposed to cross the other two—13th and 5th streets. My daddy said he didn’t own any property in South Carolina (not true if you count the Hilton Head condo, but he didn’t have it then), and if I got in any trouble over there, in trouble I would stay. That I was to keep my ass on this side of the river.

I figured being in the river didn’t count one way or the other. I was that girl. My first love’s mother (later my best friend) forbade him to see me when I was a 15 year old sophomore who wrote steamy letters to her son when we were both sick with mono (told you I was that girl). I went anywhere with anyone I thought might be fun, hung out with people from every school, loved to jump in the car and take a road trip. Hop on someone’s boat and make an ass of myself after being talked into skis three beers later.

Everyone could always get some acid tomorrow. Always tomorrow. But oh, that green Felix. The river, the lake, then all of us to Applebee’s, Jon to work, the rest of us to fill his section, he was still tripping hard. He and I rolled a joint at the lake. We were in the water at Lake Springs, up against the deck. You wouldn’t believe how proud of ourselves we were. When Brian started bitching about us digging into his bag, we chorused back, “We didn’t get anything wet!!” Almost up there with my James Bond moment (that was in Atlanta with me behind the wheel of a brand new Jaguar with my husband’s friend’s wife, for her to score some blow on a one way street down a hill. I was an utter badass—she said her bag looked light [yeah, I know], then suggested I turn around. I looked her dead in the eye, said, “Fuck turn around,” popped that Jag in reverse and hauled ass up that hill.).

You see, my daddy wouldn’t let me drive forward until I could drive a 1953 Mercury down a timber road on my mother’s property in reverse for a mile without swerving. I was twelve when I learned to drive, thirteen when I was allowed to drive forward. My daddy didn’t fuck around when it came to teaching skills.

My daddy also pulled a shotgun on my first love one night when he came to a window that wasn’t mine. I wasn’t there anyway, off somewhere for the weekend.

It was years before I even knew about it, maybe after the train trestle, not sure. That was a time divider for me, the trestle and my life afterward, up in Hendersonville. He was jumping out of airplanes in Iraq less than a year later.

Westlake and Forest Hills were the courses we all snuck onto in high school, driving golf carts and lying down together on the greens, gazing at stars in skies and eyes, drunk on beer and youth, absolute fools in love with summer nights, pay-to-play by day fairways stretching to the moon.

The King George was another thing altogether, but you probably don’t even remember The Green Jacket or Tanner’s, so there’s really no point in continuing, unless you want to talk about the night I climbed the fountain at the amphitheater.