Marbles In My Pocket ~ The Official Blog of Charles L. Mashburn ~ Poems, Short Stories, and random thoughts from the author of "Be Still… and know that I am God"

I play golf a lot, and many times I play alone. Back in the day, most courses didn’t allow players to play alone. I stumbled upon such a course yesterday, and they put me with another group of three. Two of them I’d never seen before, but the other one was quite recognizable.

He told me I could take pictures, but asked me not to put them on Facebook. But… hey, he’ll never see it, ’cause he doesn’t know who I am!

“Hey, Matt,” I said, shaking hands with him. “What’re you doing in this neck of the woods?”

He grinned, then turned to put his clubs on the cart. “Got a couple cousins over here,” he said, nodding at the two loading their clubs on another cart. “Hey, Josh and Dan! Come over here and meet…” he looked at me for a name. “Charlie,” I said. “Come over here and meet, Charlie.” They came over, we all shook hands, then they went back to the cart. “They’re not very sociable,” he said. He grinned then sauntered over to the driver’s side of the cart. As I slid into the other side, I grinned back at him and said, “That’s okay. I ain’t either.” He grinned again and said, “Right, right, right.”

At the first tee, Josh and Dan were not happy about their respective hook and slice. Looking to cheer them up, I said, “Okay boys, I only have one rule; get back to the house without hurting anyone.” Josh and Dan looked at me like they thought I wasn’t funny, but Matt laughed and punched my shoulder. “Gonna be a good day,” he said.

And it was. We had a good time all day, listening to Dan and Josh grumble and cuss as we tried to help them find their golf balls. The trees and brush lining the fairways were thick, and those boys seemed to like to play anywhere but the fairway.

As we were heading from number seventeen green over to the last tee, Matt looked over and said, “Pops (that’s what he’d decided to call me), I enjoyed the heck outta playing golf with you today.” I said, “Well, the feeling is mutual, son. You’re an okay fella.”

As we climbed out of the cart at the eighteenth tee, he met me around back of the cart and said, “You treat me like a normal guy. I like that.”

“Well… Matt…” I said. “You are fairly normal.” I was grinning, but before I continued, I put on a serious face. “And besides, you’re not the most famous actor I’ve ever met.”

He looked at me with a hurt expression and said, “Right, right, right. And who was this famous actor you met before me?”

I pulled my driver from my bag and said, “Jimmy Caan.”

“Who?” He said, with a confused look on his face.

We both got a laugh out of that and were still chuckling as we watched Josh hook his drive into the number ten fairway. He blamed us, saying we’d been messing up his game all day with our constant chatter and giggling. That got us to laughing out loud, which didn’t help Dan’s slice a bit.

The glare he gave us after his ball vanished into the pines led me to believe we might not make it back to the house without somebody getting hurt.