Edisto - Padgett Powell (19 page)

I will say one thing: I’ve had some luck. There’s
not a baseball diamond on the island. I take a tennis lesson on
Tuesday, a golf lesson on Thursday, and my new bar is a joint called
the 19th Hole. I chat regular with the pro golfer, a real PGA dude.
They serve me lemonade. The lessons, the fees, club sandwiches,
everything goes on little register tabs I sign and Daddy picks up. We
will be in father-son tournaments before long. "You never heard
of Sam Snead?" the golf pro says, already looking around to tell
somebody I haven’t.

"This young fella never heard of Slammin’
Sammy Snead," he tells them, and I’m a curiosity all over
again. Then they tell me about the beautiful, glorious, gone past of
golfing greats who were not kids off scholarship college golf teams
but gentlemen who honed themselves on the grindstone of caddying for
two bits a round. You never see these guys fold their arms and smoke
and look for hours at a wall, knowing they don’t know the whole
alphabet of success, have all the pieces. They know the whole
alphabet of worldly maneuver.

And how, I have to find out, did they ever come to
think they know that?