Thanks for the encouraging words I’ve received in regard to the upcoming cataract surgery that I am facing. My doctor was encouraging. In a talk that contained phrases like “a piece of cake”, “a walk in the park”, and “nothing to it,” he described the procedure. Well, of course he was encouraging. If he wants to make that last payment on his new boat, he for sure doesn’t want this big one to wriggle through the net and escape. Just kidding, Doc, in case you accidentally read this. I think the operation will be successful, painless, and a big help for me in solving that ‘Magic Eye’ 3-D puzzle that appears in the Argus Leader every Sunday.

I would make a poor reporter. I tend to rely too much on my memory and pretty soon all of the facts that I had stored up there are gone. For instance, last Friday was grandparents day in Crofton, NB, and we got to meet Riley’s teacher. Her name happened to be Mindy Hebbert and she was originally from Scotland. Mindy told us her parent’s names and said her mom would probably read about it if I put something in the paper. Well, I remembered that her dad was Larry, but when it came to mom, all I could think of was “Mork and Mindy”. I finally called a lady from our church, and she said the name I was looking for was “Judy”. So I’m here to report that Mindy is doing well, Riley loves the 4th grade, and my daughter makes a heck of a sack lunch. (That’s what we had to eat during the tour.)

Marianne is death on spiders and I’m finding out that she also is not too fond of those tiny little flies that accompany the stuff from the garden as it comes into the house. So, we have fruit flies. The tomatoes are about done and so are the cukes, so where do they come from? Marianne clears her throat and looks at a container on the floor of the breezeway. In it are a batch of English Walnuts that I found under an abandoned tree. Free walnuts! There is one slight drawback. Between the walnuts on the ground and the walnuts in the brownies’ frosting, there is the small matter of shelling and cleaning up the walnuts. I guess I thought that Marianne would be so excited to have all of those walnuts that she would have taken care of them a long time ago. That was a bad miscalculation on my part and suddenly I have the sinking feeling that this is not going to end well. If memory serves, cleaning and shelling those things can turn into a terrific chore. I am comforted by the thought that the price was right.

I mentioned the fact that there was a hole-in-one just recently by Tom Herges. Many years ago, another gentleman also had a hole in one, and within a week or so, give or take, he bowled a 300 game. The man’s name is Bob Strunk, and the reason I know about this is that Bob is also a newly wed. Bob and Patsy Herrboldt tied the knot in September of this year. After reading about the two perfectas in this column, Patsy asked me if I knew who did it. “Not a clue,” I told her. “It was my husband, Bob,” she said with a smile.

Now if I hadn’t authored the last paragraph, I would not believe all of the information it holds. Just reread it, if you have time. First of all, did I mean to imply that Tom Herges is a gentleman? I most certainly did! He’s the guy whose $1150 haircut went to help the Diedes. Next, Bob and Patsy are newly weds, and that means that Patsy has a new father-in-law and mother-in-law who are both in their mid-nineties. I know Delmer is 96, and I better not say exactly how old his wife Velma is. Finally you top it off with the hole-in-one and 300 game information and it boggles the mind.

I guess it’s about time to clean up the clubs and shut the golf game down for the winter. Well, maybe not just yet. The guys from Menno and the Highlander duffers are going to try and get one more Ryder Cup format tournament in on or around the 9th of October. That should be fun. We play friendly matches with them all year long, and we know there are a bunch of good golfers from Menno. The 9th is a long way off, but it looks like the weather should be pretty good. This week will start out warm, and then cool down pretty good. The pattern repeats itself next week.