I'll share another story of my life and times with my soul-friend Cynthia. For those newcomers, we were the best of friends in 5th and 6th grade. The kind of friend that you didn't even need words to communicate with. We would take one look at each other and laugh hysterically. We got ourselves into so much trouble together! She was a foster child and I felt like one, so we understood each other's pain and need for escape.
Maybe some people remember a time that we as kids discovered if you cracked open a golf ball, you could have loads of fun unwinding all the rubber string for what seemed like forever until finally you reach the treasure in the center...a fantastic SUPER-BALL! Then we would have loads of fun bouncing these super-balls all over town and as high into the sky as possible.
We burnt through all our fathers' imperfect balls that they were willing to part with, so Cynthia had a marvelous idea of going to look on the outskirts of the golf course. It was only a few minutes walk from our house. So we walked over and searched in the tall grasses all around the back nine area. We found one, but needed at least two (to be fair). I think we were slow to figure out the treasure trove that others had already realized. Moments later our prayers were answered. A beautiful white ball sitting right on the green of the 12th hole. We didn't see anyone even close to the area so Cynthia said to grab it and go. Perhaps they quit playing? She grabbed the ball and we began walking home.
Stupidly we chose to cut across the golf course. Really should have gone the long way around, because it wasn't long after that we had a cart full of men yelling and zooming towards us. We did what we always do....we ran!!! We were very fast runners because we used to have races with the boys around the track. Cynthia was taller and thinner than me and she was like lightening! I could run pretty fast too. I always beat Tom and Paul when we raced. They were scrawny like me.
Anyway, it did feel like we were running for twenty minutes and we decided to split up, but eventually the golf cart caught Cynthia and since she was caught I just stopped running. The men in the cart picked me up too and they brought us back to the club house to be scolded by the golf ball police. The worst was that they called our parents and both of us would get into serious trouble for this. This was definitely going to be a belt lashing punishment.
Cynthia's parents were called and so were mine, but mine never answered the phone...so Cynthia's agreed to drive me home too. They dumped me off at the curb and I went into my house to find both my parents out in the yard working in the garden with a very loud rototiller. They never heard the phone and there were no such thing as message machines back then. I was then faced with wondering "Would Cynthia's parent ever tell mine?" They never said "boo" to each other otherwise, so I just let it go. I certainly didn't tell. I did feel terrible for my friend though. Since I wasn't on restriction I was then free to sneak goodies to her through her window. She didn't want me to get in trouble, so all was good with our world again about two weeks.
