you’re saying.”
“It’s simple. The pro says he’ll pay us a dime a ball for every ball we can find to sell him. Listening to my uncle, who is an average golfer, I calculated that every golfer loses at least one ball per round, usually in an area near the golf course named—correctly—the rough. There are no
exact
figures but let’s assume that on a givenweekend three hundred people play golf. That’s three hundred balls lost per weekend and even if we assume a recovery factor on the order of fifty percent—balls found by other golfers, caddies, maintenance people—that means there are still close to a hundred and fifty balls a weekend lost out here.” He smiled. “Think of it—thousands of balls lost and we get a dime for every one we find.…”
Of course it didn’t work that way
exactly
, but it was amazing how close he came.
At first we didn’t hunt for balls. After all the other boys had caddy jobs Harold’s uncle showed up with a friend and they hired both of us to caddy—at, of course, fifty cents for nine holes.
But our fortunes changed on the sixth hole. This was a two-hundred-yard straight shot across the river, which was about forty yards wide at this point, moving by sluggishly and gray brown.
We watched Harold’s uncle put three straight balls into the water, close to the far side but well out into the river, before he got one across. As we started across I heard him swear and say, “That must be thirty balls I’ve dropped in there this year alone.”
Even I knew what that meant and I turned to see Harold smiling and nodding, his mental calculator obviously clicking away: If the average golfer put thirty balls a year in the river, how many golfers would it take to buy a car?
“Harold, where are you?”
“Over here, by the bank, wait—eeeaaah! Something’s got me, something’s got me!”
“Where
are
you?”
“Oh, never mind. It was a stick poking me about two centimeters below my … in a bad place. It’s all right. I’m all right now.”
I gave up and went back to work. It was close to midnight and we were in the river by the bank where Harold’s uncle had dropped those three balls in the water. We would have come to dive for balls in the afternoon, but the golf course had, as Harold put it, “some silly regulation about diving naked on the sixth green.”
We were not doing well. The water was about five feet deep and moved around the curve just fast enough to make it difficult to stand. The bottom was hard-packed, fairly dense mud and I had evolved a method that seemed to at least partially work. I would feel around with my toesand when I discovered something that felt round I would swap ends and dive down and grope with my hands. So far I had three balls, four beer bottles and an old driver somebody had thrown away.
Hardly enough to buy a car.
Harold was doing worse. He could swim, just, but everything else was difficult for him. The problem was he knew too much and knowledge can sometimes be a very frightening thing.
“Did you know there are large snapping turtles in this river?” he had asked while we were sitting on the bank undressing in the moonlight. “They can bring their jaws together with over four hundred foot-pounds of compressed energy at the point of bite. Do you have any idea what four hundred foot-pounds of energy would do to my—”
“Turtles don’t snap that way, Harold. Only if you attack them—then they bite in self-defense. Don’t worry.”
“They have a brain the size of a pea,” he said. “How do they know
exactly
what constitutes an attack? Maybe my toe touching their nose purely by accident in the dark water would make them think they’re being attacked. Maybe I wouldn’t have time to apologize.”
“Don’t
worry
. If you like I’ll do all the diving.”
Of course that got him. He could no more let me go alone than he could apologize to a snapping turtle. In a bit we slid into the water.
“I think this is where the
“It’s simple. The pro says he’ll pay us a dime a ball for every ball we can find to sell him. Listening to my uncle, who is an average golfer, I calculated that every golfer loses at least one ball per round, usually in an area near the golf course named—correctly—the rough. There are no
exact
figures but let’s assume that on a givenweekend three hundred people play golf. That’s three hundred balls lost per weekend and even if we assume a recovery factor on the order of fifty percent—balls found by other golfers, caddies, maintenance people—that means there are still close to a hundred and fifty balls a weekend lost out here.” He smiled. “Think of it—thousands of balls lost and we get a dime for every one we find.…”
Of course it didn’t work that way
exactly
, but it was amazing how close he came.
At first we didn’t hunt for balls. After all the other boys had caddy jobs Harold’s uncle showed up with a friend and they hired both of us to caddy—at, of course, fifty cents for nine holes.
But our fortunes changed on the sixth hole. This was a two-hundred-yard straight shot across the river, which was about forty yards wide at this point, moving by sluggishly and gray brown.
We watched Harold’s uncle put three straight balls into the water, close to the far side but well out into the river, before he got one across. As we started across I heard him swear and say, “That must be thirty balls I’ve dropped in there this year alone.”
Even I knew what that meant and I turned to see Harold smiling and nodding, his mental calculator obviously clicking away: If the average golfer put thirty balls a year in the river, how many golfers would it take to buy a car?
“Harold, where are you?”
“Over here, by the bank, wait—eeeaaah! Something’s got me, something’s got me!”
“Where
are
you?”
“Oh, never mind. It was a stick poking me about two centimeters below my … in a bad place. It’s all right. I’m all right now.”
I gave up and went back to work. It was close to midnight and we were in the river by the bank where Harold’s uncle had dropped those three balls in the water. We would have come to dive for balls in the afternoon, but the golf course had, as Harold put it, “some silly regulation about diving naked on the sixth green.”
We were not doing well. The water was about five feet deep and moved around the curve just fast enough to make it difficult to stand. The bottom was hard-packed, fairly dense mud and I had evolved a method that seemed to at least partially work. I would feel around with my toesand when I discovered something that felt round I would swap ends and dive down and grope with my hands. So far I had three balls, four beer bottles and an old driver somebody had thrown away.
Hardly enough to buy a car.
Harold was doing worse. He could swim, just, but everything else was difficult for him. The problem was he knew too much and knowledge can sometimes be a very frightening thing.
“Did you know there are large snapping turtles in this river?” he had asked while we were sitting on the bank undressing in the moonlight. “They can bring their jaws together with over four hundred foot-pounds of compressed energy at the point of bite. Do you have any idea what four hundred foot-pounds of energy would do to my—”
“Turtles don’t snap that way, Harold. Only if you attack them—then they bite in self-defense. Don’t worry.”
“They have a brain the size of a pea,” he said. “How do they know
exactly
what constitutes an attack? Maybe my toe touching their nose purely by accident in the dark water would make them think they’re being attacked. Maybe I wouldn’t have time to apologize.”
“Don’t
worry
. If you like I’ll do all the diving.”
Of course that got him. He could no more let me go alone than he could apologize to a snapping turtle. In a bit we slid into the water.
“I think this is where the
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