CONTEST, Golf, Singing

About the contest: I’ve already gotten some very nice entries. I can tell it’s going to be hard to decide. I wonder if it would be legal to have a tie-breaker? No, probably not, since I didn’t announce one at the start. But some people can be very convincing in only a few words.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, I’m offering a contest, the prize to be about two pounds of quilting fabric, various patterns but all featuring chickens. Realistic, cartoon, artistic, chicks, roosters, hens. Even eggs. And chicken wire. This fabric is left over from a beautiful chicken quilt I had made last year.

So tell me in twenty-five words or less why you think I should award the chicken fabric to you. Go to my web site, Monica-Ferris.com, and contact me via that. I’ll pay postage. Contest ends July 31.

I’m still intrigued by golf. A friend drove all the way from North Dakota to see the Ladies Professional Golf Tournament which took place just a few miles from our apartment. She had two tickets, but the friend who was coming backed out at the last minute, so she asked if I would like to go. Wow! Now, I’m arthritic, so I couldn’t do what my friend wanted to do, which was follow her favorite around the course. So I found a seat in the bleachers set up at the eighteenth green and watched them come in. One thing surprised me: how badly some of them putted! Okay the green was very fast and they were tired, but still. Anyway, it was a lovely setting, the magnificent Interlachen clubhouse in the background, a large pond guarding the second half of the fairway, tall trees and bright flowers and polite applause. It’s a different world. What I was surprised to learn was that I’m not anxious to be a part of that world. I just want to smack the ball hard enough to get to the green in two or three strokes. I don’t need applause or trophies or the rarified air of the private golf club. It might be a futile dream I do have. I played a par-three course on Saturday and it took me eleven strokes to finish the first hole – nine of them just to get to the green!

Oh, and here’s a golf hint for free: If you’re writing a murder mystery and want the weapon to be a golf club, don’t pick a driver. They look formidable, with that huge knob on the end, but they’re not all that heavy. Instead, choose a nine iron. They’re big compared to the other irons, and they’re heavy. Somebody, trying to help me out, went to a garage sale and bought me a whole set of golf clubs, and the bag. Paid five dollars. They are exactly what I need at this stage of my game. The clubs are elderly but good and not damaged. I think the seller went around collecting old clubs, because there were three seven irons, two five irons and two putters in that bag, along with the other clubs. Including that impressive nine iron.

Sunday evening our church put on a little recital. The three Eschweiler children, Ted, Phillip and Emma sang. They are twenty, seventeen, and fifteen years old. They sang some opera, some Broadway songs, and an arrangement of a hymn made just for them. They are so bright, competent, intelligent and level-headed (well, Phillip has a little bit of artistic temperament, but he also has the best voice), that it was another lesson in "not to worry." You know what I mean. My generation (how predictably like previous generations!) is sure the rising generation is going to rack and ruin and will tear down the country, if not the world, about their ears. But now and again I’ll meet young people like the Eschweilers and I know that isn’t true.