Revisiting Tanglewood

Yesterday my parents came up to our neck of the woods for some appointments and we took advantage of that opportunity to spend some time with them. My son and I, along with my brother Charles and his son Chaz, went to the driving range with my Dad, who's greatest personal passion has always been golf.

We cherish days like this as my father has been struggling with Parkinsons... he has good days and bad days. Yesterday was a very good day. We originally were going to use a driving range near my brother's house, but it closed at noon, so we drove to one of my father's old golf stomping grounds, Mangrove Bay.

The Mangrove Bay Golf Course is located near where I grew up, in between my elementary school and my middle school. Before the links were built there, that location was the Spring Training facility for the St. Louis Cardinals. I have fond memories of riding my bike up there during spring training watching them play. I got Lou Brock's autograph, Reggie Smith, Keith Hernandez, Ted Sizemore and many others. I remember riding up there with my friend Johnny Guess... we saw a lot of people getting autographs from this non-sports guy with a really big, bald head. We didn't know who he was, but he seemed important. It wasn't until high school when I recognized his autograph... Joe Garagiolal.

At the driving range we got a big bucket of balls and did our best to fight the strong wind and dropping temperatures. After a few strong breezes almost knocked over my father and tipped over the golf bags, we called it quits. Instead of going home, we decided to continue our drive down memory lane.

It was neat to show my son where I went to school, where I lived... giving some locations to back up our tall tales. We pulled up to our old house on Tanglewood Drive and got out... I showed my son the light pole under which we played Kick The Can, the bushes we crawled under playing German On The Light, the large oak tree that we planted as a twig, the place where our neighbor's car burst into flames, where we played football, jumped bikes and swam across our canal to a shallow river and played army in "Guadal Canal."

It was amazing how many things I had forgotten suddenly came streaming back into my head. I couldn't process them all quickly enough.

We remembered the nicknames of all of our neighborhood kids... Jungle Rot, Wallop Head, Concrete Legs, Pickle Juice, Fumble King and Scaggly Legs. Looking back those are awful names... but kids don't always grasp such things.

The nicest surprise was visiting with our neighbor, Mr. Pearson. He remembered us and told us his son, Paul, managed his own construction company in Panama City and his daughter, Debbie, was living locally, was married and had a child.

What started out as a simple day to spend some time with my father hitting golf balls turned into a very special day with my father and as a father to my son, sharing my childhood memories and places with him.

It turned out to be a very cool day... strong breeze and all.