Golf Ball Diving - Chapter 06
Besides mowing yards and collecting soft drink bottles for deposit money, there weren't a lot of ways for high school kids to earn money in the early sixties at the beach. Tommy Veal, Chris Searcy, and I went once in the afternoon at Ponte Vedra. They were both good swimmers and found 10 or 20 balls to my 1. Tommy later got bitten by an alligator our senior year at Fletcher and missed a football game or two. He was the starting quarterback. Coach Taylor put a stop to that for Tommy. Pat Parks and I went once or twice at Ponte Vedra and I did a little better. The only other time I remember was diving at night at the Jax Beach course with my brother George, and one or two other guys. The security guard drove by and shined his lights in our direction. We lay down as low as we could in the shallow water by the bank. He didn't see us, but as I looked at George, I saw a water moccasin stick his head up nearby. That was the end of our diving that night and thereafter. I sold a bucket of balls to our doctor up the street for a dollar apiece. He tried to talk me down, but I held out. He had fondled me during an examination once, and I knew he would pay full price. I was about 14 at this time. I never felt like the fondling incident scarred me, I didn't like it and was emabarassed and confused initially, but it was just something that happened.
We made a pole vault pit and bar in David McMann's back yard next door. I think the initial inspiration was that we found a ten foot bamboo pole that was sturdy enough to pole vault with. It was probably left over from a roll of carpet. That one wore out pretty quick so we somehow found another one or two and carried on for a year or so. This would have been around 1960 or so.
November 5, 2011
