Fore!

Forecast: Lousy. Outcome: Perfect.

I grew up in a two-story home with a basement. Basements were needed back then to store coal, which was used to heat homes. This was in northeastern Pennsylvania—the heart of Anthracite coal country. Attached to the coal bin was a large furnace. The floor of the coal bin was angled, ever so slightly, as to allow gravity to feed coal into the back of the furnace.

The rooms on the first and second floors had baseboard heating. From the first cool day in the fall until the spring thaws, when the heat from the furnace kicked in, and you needed to blow your nose, what came out of it could best be called “snoot.” (Black snot.)

So much for “clean” coal.

The rest of the basement was a hodgepodge. Its unfinished walls, floor, and low ceiling were home to cabinets for storage, the washer and dryer, bikes, garden hoses, and all sorts of unrelated chazerei. Imagine your kitchen junk drawer, only splayed out in a large room.

The pièce de résistance was the ping pong table, scene of competition—friendly and sometimes not.

My Dad was a terrific ping pong player. He was also a college champion fencer—quite the Renaissance man. (I wrote about him on Father’s Day last year, and rereading it still makes me smile.) The English he could put on a tiny white ball was amazing. He would serve with his right hand, hold his left hand up and to his left, and sure enough, I’d hit the ball directly into his hand. Next serve, he’d bring his left hand high and to the right, and as if on cue, it’s where my next shot would go.

Occasionally, Dad would place objects on the table—maybe a glass, a small pot, or anything else smallish and interesting. Sometimes clothes hung on a line strung over the table. If your shot hit any of these, no matter—the ball was still in play. The ball would ricochet anywhere, making the games slightly more even, if not much more fun. Clearly more memorable.

Yesterday, my daughter Emily dropped off her son (14) to spend the night. EJ was all psyched because he’s recently fallen in love with golf. He brought his clubs and was looking forward to hitting the range and playing nine with Poppo (that’s what I go by to Emily and her family).

Unfortunately, the weather was miserable when he arrived—cold, windy, and rainy. The rain was forecast to last for several days. EJ was happy to be here, but I could also see the disappointment at the prospect of no golf. But he had come prepared with a portable putting cup—green flag and all. So we decided to play golf indoors. We grabbed our putters, a few balls, the cup, and went upstairs. The hall is not only carpeted but also turns sharply at each end: at one end it leads from the landing at the top of the stairs, and at the other to another bedroom and a study. And the carpet in the hall is a far cry from a putting green, yet something about playing felt familiar to me.

There are moments in life when you want to just stop and take a picture. Smooth it over, preserve the moment, and put it in your back pocket—to muse upon some other time. Not to necessarily share with others, but to hold onto for a day that’s more rainy on the inside than out.

This was one of them.

EJ beat me on the 18th hole with a dramatic hole-in-one. His ball traveled from its tee on the elevated hardwood landing, down one step, onto the hall carpeting, onto Jensen’s tile bathroom floor, kissed the bathmat outside her tub, and dropped into the hole.

With a “yesss” and a high five, EJ had won.

And so did I.

Standing in the hallway, putter in hand, I realized the game in the basement had merely moved upstairs. No coal dust, no snoot—just a beautiful memory of my Dad and my childhood. And maybe a new memory made for my grandson.

TL;DR: The coal dust is gone and the basement is long behind me, but somehow the game keeps finding its way back.

Want more Curmudg between Wednesdays?
Check out Notes—random musings, timely observations, and the occasional revisit of an older column that still feels uncomfortably relevant.