Okay, thanks to my parents, I started playing golf in the 5th grade at the old Country Club in Aberdeen SD. I played through high school, mostly with my best friends, Ken Koch and Don Walters. To put it simply, I SUCKED at golf. I should have taken lessons from Dean Shortridge, the club Pro.Meanwhile, my friendsRich Vining, Doug Deibert, Guy Walkingstick and Rick Davies, all Shortridge disciples, were scoring in the 70's, I was scoring in the 90's (editor's comment: 90's, Likely in the 100's).
Remember golfing in "The Gloaming" where the mosquitoes literally lifted our golf clubs out of our hands. I remember hitting a golf ball out of the rough and nailing a pheasant on the fly. It was hot and humid and I was sweating like Al Sharpton at a Klan rally. The best golfing comment I ever heard was from Doug Deibert who said the 2 best balls he hit all day was when he stepped on a rake in a sand bunker.
The Old Aberdeen Country Club Clubhouse
Public Golf Course Aberdeen SD
FYI, we described the oldAberdeen Country Club and Lee Park courses as goat ranches. I'm not saying, but you know what I'm saying, just saying.
Fearsome Foursome: L-R, Curly, Moe, Larry, David
In
searching for knowledge and understanding about the game of golf, I turned to
three close friends of mine, from whom I have received the guidance and direction that has made me the player I am today. Incidentally, we happen to share the same sense of wit, humor, wisdom and esprit de corps. Soitenly!
Golf
Defined
Golf can best be
defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle.
"I wish I
could play my normal game....just once."
If you do find
that you do not mind playing golf in the rain, the snow, even during a
hurricane, here's a valuable tip: Your life is in trouble.
The term
"mulligan" is really a contraction of the phrase
"maul-it-again."
A
"gimme" can best be defined as an agreement between two
golfers...neither of whom can putt very well.
An interesting
thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play, it is always
possible to get worse.
Golf's a hard
game to figure. One day you'll go out and slice it and shank it, hit into
all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no
reason at all you really stink.
If your best
shots are the practice swing and the "gimme putt", you might
want to reconsider this game.
Golf is like
marriage: If you take yourself too seriously it won't work....and both are
expensive.
To some golfers,
the greatest handicap is the ability to add correctly.
In golf, some
people tend to get confused with all the numbers...they shoot a
"six", yell "fore" and write "five".
Golf! You hit
down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The
lowest score wins. And on top of that, the winner buys the drinks. I'm not saying, but you know what I'm saying, just saying.
The Moccasin Creek bisected Aberdeen diagonally from NE
where it eventually dumps into the James River. It has to be the worst creek in
the USA. Skinny, stagnant and stinky is how most of us remember it. Couldn't
swim or fish in it. Ah, but come winter time it would freeze over (just like
everything else in
Auto Skating, Aberdeen Style, on the Mog
Aberdeen). In grade school my sister Jan (class of '67) and
I would carry our skates for 4 blocks (we lived on Harrison St. by Henry Neil)
in the dark by ourselves (mind you we were only 8 & 9 years old). But there
was a warming hut to put on our skates. The skating was rough because the creek
had large ice knots on it. Wasn't pretty.
At least all we had to worry about were other skaters. Back then we were not driving our cars on the
ice unless we were drunk.
Fast forward to 2016. I have 3 adult sons who have played
hockey for most of their lives. The 2 oldest play on 3 teams and they've all
grown up in So. Cal. Go figure.
As I remind my sons, “If you are forced to walk to school
uphill both ways you are not from Aberdeen South Dakota. Everybody knows there
are no hills in Aberdeen”.
We from
Eastern South Dakota take pheasants for granted. They were brought over from
China in 1898 some say but I don't think the Chinese could locate
Ring Necked Pheasant
our state
with a Google map. Others say they came over in 1908 but I believe that A.E.
Cooper and E.L. Ebbert released 250 pairs of pheasants into Beadle and Spinks
counties in 1911. Question is where did these S.D. farmers get their hands on
500 pheasants? Anyway the pheasant (Phasiannus colchicus) aka the ring necked
pheasant named after the brightly colored cock (easy now). The hen on the other
hand is a frumpy brown. They thrive on grain, worms and even mice. The pheasant
was named our state bird in 1943 5 years before any of us drew a breath.
My
experience with our state bird started in grade school when my family moved to
Lincoln street just south of Melgaard Road on the edge of town. We routinely
saw pheasants in our back yard and one hen actually laid an egg on our swing
set. We found a nest of eggs just beyond our back fence and we tried to
incubate them to no avail. I once hit a pheasant with a golf shot out of the
rough while the pheasant was in flight at the old country club. One-time Ken
Koch and I went pheasant hunting during our lunch hour at CHS. Got stuck in the
ditch trying to hang a U turn on a narrow county road. Had to get a tow truck
to pull us out. Went hunting with dad and my 20-gauge shotgun several times but
only killed a few pheasants. They thanked me for that. Remember eating pheasant
for dinner and spitting out buckshot. None of my friends in Southern California
can relate to this but my fellow Aberdonians can.
To have a sense of humor and make people laugh is an invaluable gift. CHS’s Class of ’66 has been most fortunate probably since elementary school and certainly high school to have David Liem within our midst. David had us rolling with laughter in assembly hall aisles at old Central High in Aberdeen with his innovative sense of wit, humor and intelligence. Our reunions have been blessed on many occasions with his hilarious anecdotes, and our 50th reunion on June 11, 2016 was probably as good as it gets. We now present David’s bit entitled, “12 Reasons You know you just might be from Aberdeen South Dakota, IF.........…….” So, please enjoy this video on our YouTube, Blogger or Facebook sites.
