short run and joe mc niff memory

let's start with joe, who passed away three years ago today. i was practicing my chipping on the side green at hilltop late on a friday afternoon when joe walked up and said "show me what you you're doing". i hit a few chips and he said it looked pretty good and to stay with it. i mentioned he looked pretty tired and maybe he ought to go home and get some rest. he told me he had just played in a tournament at ft belvoir. i kiddingly said that course would tire out most people. but he still looked like he needed a rest. he was going home he said and maybe we could play the following week with dave at greendale. sounded good to me. i went back to chipping and joe walked to his corvette. he turned and waved as he got in the car and smiled.
that would be the last time i would see him alive and the next day i got an email from dave telling me that joe had died the night before.

golf for me has truly not been the same since that day. i do love the game and it does drive me crazy and i still have great friends to play with, but something has been missing for 3 years now. and i won't bother anyone by rambling on about it. i just miss the guy and his friendship and help and playing with him and being taught by him. what can i say? i did have my first eagle playing with joe and for a couple of weeks he called me eagle man. was nice coming from him. i also remember winning a wed. senior league game one week when i played just so far over my head and joe had shot a 73 and came in second by way of my high handicap help. i mentioned to him that the system hardly seemed fair when i could shoot 6 strokes higher and win. he said that was why they the handicap system-so we could all compete against each other evenly. said he would get me next time and to buy him a drink.

can't help feeling he and my dad would have been best friends. they were so alike in far too many ways and i understood some of what his son was saying at the funeral though i know, and so did many others, that it didn't sound like he was talking about the joe we knew. but i could relate. so would have my dad.

rest in peace joe. i put a little buddha statute in my back garden right next to my practice chipping pad and i call him joe so he can still watch me. when i take the club back on the outside i think to myself that joe would have not liked that and smacked me with his shaft only club. and when my balance was bad i can hear him yell -you cannot be a good golfer if you don't have good balance.

so i did my little short effort today on mostly tired legs despite my morning heart rate of 45. the heart is still ahead of the legs. it was a pretty day and i just kept going until i was done. gail had a good run also. was just nice to be out without any rain. the river was mud brown today beth, in case you read this. very high and very brown.

we spent the morning running errands, even standing in the post office line for 40 minutes to pay our council taxes. and eventually i went up to the range and hit balls and i hit pretty well today, even hitting some five irons onto the green about 170 or so away. nice for a change. my 3 irons still wanted to go straight or right, but i will work on that. a good day and something to build on.

gail goes to france tomorrow and i go to the states on friday so we were busy getting ready for that travel in between things. also throwing things out and getting an early start on getting ready to go home.

gotta go- back tomorrow.