FORE!

Recently my sister grabbed her husband by his overalls, pulled him off the farm, and they came out for a long-awaited and much anticipated visit. I'd planned a few activities designed to awe and amaze them. Such as ...

a coal mine tour...

And Dave thought his combine was big!

and crawling up...





walking on...







and crawling down

Yes, it's really as high as it looks.

Independence Rock.

However, I'm convinced the activity they enjoyed most was when we allowed them

to cook for us.

Surprisingly, my sister announced that she had her own activity planned. They had brought their very own golf clubs with their very own special fuzzy golf club covers and they wanted to golf with us. Say what? ... you want to ... with us? ... at a real golf course? ... uh ... okay.

Off to the city golf course we went. Some of us went with excitement and anticipation; some of us with fear and trepidation. Shelly called ahead to make sure we didn't need special golfing shirts with collars (uh, nooooooo, this is the municipal golf course) however it turned out sharing golf clubs is frowned upon, even at the muni.



So Dean and I rented golf clubs. Our clubs didn't come with those fancy, fuzzy golf club covers. Mine did come in a dirty, scratched beautiful pink bag though, which made up for their absence.

It turns out Dean apparently has some inherent golfing ability and a nice swing. That's what I kept hearing anyway. "nice swing", "you're a natural", "you should take up golf". Whereas directed at me was, "just put that chunk of dirt and grass back in the hole and step on it", "good job...you hit the ball" after my ball hit the tree, bounced off and rolled back to me,"yeah, hit it again ... no, the person furthest hits first ... yup, you again ...again ..."



In the end I concluded it was a successful first outing since I didn't hit an antelope or any of my fellow golfers.



I used to think that Fore! meant "Watch me hit the ball because I'm really good." But now I know that Fore! really means "DUCK! a golf ball is careening through the trees from another fairway and it's going to land about a foot away from where you are getting ready to swing". I gloated a bit believing that somebody else out there was worse than me. Geez, even I kept my ball in my own fairway. But then it occurred to me that if their ball was winging its way toward us, it meant they not only could hit it further than a ten-foot grounder but they could hit it in the air. But on the bright side, I can only get better. Right?◦

FORE!