Article Date : February 12, 1999  

I was thinking the other day of the late fall work bee we had at our club in which we broadcast several pounds of creeping bent, followed by a layer of top dressing. A lot of work, but at this time of year even wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes and other tools of the turf trade can begin to look good, as long as they give you an excuse to get back out on the court.

We do the lawn maintenance and improvement at our club. The lawn bowlers we share with are getting too old to deal with the aforementioned tools of the turf trade, so the croquet group has taken over. The maintenance part isn’t hard, just constant. The improvement part isn’t constant, just hard.

Then, for reasons you don’t want to know about, I started thinking about funerals. Which led me to think about my own funeral. Which led me to think about my memorial service. Ah hah, I said — an outdoor memorial service on the court, the last hoop, pass the urn under a ceremonial line of crossed mallets, spreading the ashes, that sort of thing.

But it might be January, hideous weather, my life’s partner objected. Wouldn’t bother me a bit, I said.

Warming to the topic, it occurred to me that you could kill two birds with one stone — bad pun — you could add grass seed and fertilizer to the mix and spread it all at once. No point in having the whole work crew turn out and just twiddle their thumbs. Value added and all that.

Stream of consciousness anyone?