Joseph Long was and still is a very special person to me. I have shared a lot of first times and great memories with him. Kind of like this one time when Joseph, my cousin, and I won first place at a golf tournament.
Joseph and I walk up to the County Club pro shop to sign up for the golf tournament. We stare down the ballet curiously wondering who we will be possibly be paired up with. There are a few tough competitors but there is not anyone that we shouldn’t be able to defeat.
“Now” says Joseph “we must practice.”
Joseph and I have exactly two weeks to prepare for the game known as “Golf”. I prefer not to call it golf, I call it “The Game Of Physical and Mental Mind Abuse” for two very important reasons. One, all the walking and swinging causes your shoulder and knees to hurt and two, if you make a bad shot, you get pissed and your head starts to hurt. The next two weeks fly by and today is the big day! I received an email earlier that I am paired up with Mark Goodfellow and Joseph is with Matt Goodfellow. They are twins and they are pretty good at golf but they are nothing that the two of us couldn’t handle. The two of us play the whole match battling back and fourth and here comes the last hole. It is tied and I get the news that Joseph made par so it is all up to me. I smash a monstrous drive right down the center of the fairway. I have a huge smile on my face as I approach my gorgeous shot. But “You drive for show and put for doe” so I need to finish out the hole like I did my first shot. I pull out my eight iron just as any knight would pull out his sword. I hit the ball so high that I lost sight of it but then I hear that lovely sound that every golfer dreams of, the sound of the thud that the ball makes when it hits the green. Now I am putting for the championship, for everything. My mind is racing. What if I miss this put? What will Joseph think? I take one last breath as I tap the ball towards the hole. It bounces and flies right across the green and drops right into the hole. We won.
I smell the sweet smell of pine tar. I feel the rough grip on my bat. As I remove my bat from its resting place preparing my self for a hard day at work. As I walk out my back door I see a baseball players dream office, the batting cage. My buddy Joseph and I hit in the cage almost every day and that is what makes us the best in the business. The stainless steel L-screen and the jet-black net go perfect together just like peanut butter and jelly. We are having fun when my dad walks up with an unfamiliar face trailing behind him. Then it hits me! It is the baseball coach from Conway, here, at my house, talking to me. We sit and we watch the videos my dad put on YouTube of my hitting. He gives me his number, winks at me and tells me to keep in touch with him. I watch him drive away still sitting in the same spot, paralyzed from the utter shock that the Coach drove down just to talk to me.
We run outside and hop in my dad’s truck and he drives to the main attraction at Meadowbrook Country Club. As I open the gate I immediately smell the 50spf sunscreen and the massive amount of chlorine in the water. Joseph and I go to the pool every Thursday ready for a great day of fun. We apply out layers of U-V ray protection and race toward the water, completely ignoring the no running rule. Then I see my dad, playing golf with his buddies just and Joseph and I would. Then I start to wonder. Will Joseph and I be friends forever? Will he ever leave me? I sure hope not because he is my other half. Without Joseph I wouldn’t be where I am today. It seemed that time froze during those thoughts and we were off to splashing back in the water with a huge smile on my face.
