My son and I have been back from our golf/nostalgia trip to Iowa since about 5:30 Monday evening. I've been wanting to turn around and head back since 5:31.
We arrived in Carroll at a little after 10:00 AM, pulling into the Municapal Golf Course around 10:30, hoping to get a round in. The annual Men's Club Tournament was going on, so we had to wait until about 11:15.
We had a bite to eat in the clubhouse, where I told my son his mother worked in the summer of 1997. I also told him the story of how I actually played in the Men's Club Tournament, also in '97. It was memorable because after an extremely disappointing opening 9 of 42 on the easier, par-35 side, I started the turn birdie-birdie-birdie-par-birdie, which remains the only time I've ever made three straight birdies. I parred the rest until 18, where I bogeyed, for a three-under-par "in" nine of 33. It gave me a 75, to barely qualify me for the Championship Flight on the following day.
Yeah, he was as excited to hear that story as you are to read it, no doubt.
The Carroll Muni, although still a bunker-less, hacker-friendly course with a rating of sixty-something, and a slope of 108 or so, is a much improved course from when I used to play it.
They did two things to make it so: 1) They started irrigating the fairways, and 2) they dug some trenches to create holding ponds, so that parts of the course susceptible to flooding would drain after heavy rainfalls.
I exaggerate very little when I say that had I known they were going to do this, I probably would not have left Carroll. Not that I wish I
didn't leave...I'm just sayin'. They also remodeled the clubhouse, and added GPS to their carts - icing on the cake.
I finished with 75, the same score I shot that day in '97. Lowlights were a couple missed tap-ins. Highlights were my son birdying #2, and leading me by two shots after two holes, and my eagle on #8 after driving the par-four green.
Afterward, we checked into our Super 8, and headed over to the Carroll Country Club, a private course for the locals, but out-of-towners are welcome to pay daily greens fees. Highlights were a nice up-and-down birdie on #2, and meeting a nice young man who turned out to be the former pro at the Muni back in '97, and who, as a three-year-old, can be seen in a picture of my then-one-year-old daughter's birthday party at the Muni Clubhouse. I told him to say hi to his dad from me, but didn't remember the birthday party photo until later.
After the second round of golf, I caught up with my former radio station program director, who had just finished calling one of the local high school's girls' softball team's games, a lopsided playoff win. We chatted and he invited me to the station, where he was heading back to return the "Marti," which is the piece of equipment used to transmit the broadcast back to the station.
Seeing the new studios and equipment was cool. Seeing enough had not changed so that it felt like home was very cool, including the old, autographed
Shelley Fabares picture (not THAT old - it was from her "Coach" days, not her "Johnny Angel" days).
Day two, I let my son drive the 110-or-so miles to Marshalltown. We were pretty hungry by the time we arrived, so I took him to a lunch I knew he'd never before experienced, and may not again for many years to come. I took him to Taylor's
Maid Rite.
The loose meat sandwiches were as yummy as I recalled, and the malts, which were new to me there, were a nice surprise. My son enjoyed them too, much to my delight, not unlike a father first sharing a White Castle with his son, hoping his son would, to, learn to love the sliders.
As we did in Carroll, we then drove around to see the places we lived while there. It was the first year of his life, so he wouldn't remember, but he seemed interested in some of the story-telling.
Our first place of residence was humble, largely because I had driven into town after his mom and were just married, to find a place to move into quickly and that would allow pets. So humble was it, that when I pointed out the house to him, he said, "We lived in THAT?!?"
"No," I said, "That is the house our neighbors lived in. The house behind it, which was once-upon-a-time the neighbors' guest house, is where we lived. See that "203 1/2" on it? It doesn't even have a whole number for its address!" Some young woman was unloading stuff from her car, and I thought to myself of the dreams she must have about someday moving up.
We then checked into the Marshalltown Super 8, which was, curiously, about $20 cheaper. I suppose because it was Sunday. From there, I called the pro shop of the number one public golf course in Iowa, The Harvester. Harvester is located near Rhodes, which is just down the road from Carroll.
I exaggerate very little when I say that had I known they were going to build that course, I would not have left Marshalltown. OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit more this time. It's a great course to live nearby, but it's high-end price ($79 for twilight rates is what we paid, which included range balls and carts), probably would have kept me from playing it more than a couple times a year, especially on a small-town disc jockey's pay.
The course lived up to its billing. If I played it enough to learn it a little better, it could become my favorite. Highlights of the round were parring the 530-yard, par-four 16th (that is not a typo), and parring the par-five 18th after hitting my second shot into the water from 221 yards (I dropped, hit the next shot to about 10 feet, and made the putt. Dang, coulda been an eagle!) Lowlights were our scores on some of the other holes, and my forgetting to bring my SkyCaddie to the course.
We came back into town, drove around a bit, grabbed some KFC, and went back to our motel room. It was a strange evening in that the power in the motel went off about three times, each time being restarted quickly. The evening would become stranger.
I was awoken at about 4:25 by the most intense electrical storm of which I have ever been in the middle. For a solid half hour it was steady flashes of light, rumbling thunder, and whistling howling wind. Oddly, the power was still on throughout much of it, until finally it went out again, not to come back on until after we left the next day, and this time it was the whole town's power. Below is a screen capture I took of the storm on
weather.com, just after the worst of it was over, and just before the power went out for good.
We toured the town Monday, finding at a minimum fallen branches and leaves on ever street, and at a maximum large limbs and even uprooted trees. One house I remembered from long ago, not far from the old guest-house/shack, had a tree fall right into its roof and its neighbor's roofs, causing large holes in both.
I had driven by it only out of curiosity because I remembered it was a nice, little house in a mostly-modest neighborhood, and was for sale in 1995 for $97,000, very high for a house of its size in that neighborhood back then. I was told that it was because of the immaculate condition and amount of wood in the interior that made it worth every penny. I only knew from the brief time my then-wife and I were looking at houses in Marshalltown, prior to our move to Carroll. I found it a little strange that I was so saddened to see it damaged like that, more so than I was at any of the other houses.
I could go on for much longer about every little detail, for every little detail that I can remember will be remembered with absolute fondness. But I'll just wrap up by stating the obvious: it was a terrific extended weekend of father-son bonding, and went much, much too fast. Next time I visit either or both towns (I hate when people use "either" to mean "both"), I hope to visit more of the people with whom I used to work, as many of them still work at the radio stations.
Who knows? I recently joked with my former P.D. that I hope to "retire" in about ten years, working only enough to get by, and in a job I truly love, so I might be looking for a part-time gig with him someday. It's been fourteen years since I've been in my last dream job. Perhaps it's only ten more years away.
