We just missed our turnoff to Sand Hills, by the way; and, botching the subsequent U-turn, we sunk our spinning wheels into the sand. "What does this remind you of?" Nack said, as the four of us stood forlornly on the desolate road staring at a windblown horizon. "Oh yeah," he answered his own question. "The crop-dusting scene in 'North by Northwest.' " At which point a remarkably sweet thing happened.
Absolutely everybody on the highway stopped. Nobody just sped by. To a man and woman, they all wanted to help. A worker in a hurry, hauling stone; an elderly couple in a station wagon; a cowboy in denim trousers, checkered shirt and Stetson. The cowboy turned his convertible straight around and zoomed off in the new direction, returning not 10 minutes later in a borrowed truck. "It's my neighbor's," he said. With a chain wrapped around the rear axle, we were yanked out of the sand to cheers all around.
"We're not laughing at you," said several women in the Sand Hills offices. "We're laughing with you. We've all been there." That was another kindness. Before we took one swing at Ben's masterpiece, all four of us were already enchanted by Nebraska.
Back in the RV, as we were about to spend half of our bumper and all of our deductible on the two unfortunate deer, Nack mentioned that Ruffian would soon be a made-for-TV movie starring Sam Shepard.
"Who's playing you?" Kindred wondered.
"A character actor named Frank Whaley," Bill said.
Bud asked, "What's he been in?"
"A lot of things. 'Pulp Fiction.' He was murdered by Samuel Jackson."
"That narrows it down to about 300 people," I said.
Not long afterward, we heard the thud.
Almost completing the circle, we popped in like abject tourists at Mount Rushmore, flabbergasted to discover that the carving of Teddy Roosevelt looked only faintly like TR but exactly like Kindred. Shaw bought everybody golf balls with the monument stamped on it. In the spirit of Mac O'Grady, one of the balls was left on the mountain. Mac once hid a Titleist at the Taj Mahal just in case he ever found himself in Agra without a ball.
When a woman handed over a small camera and asked me to snap a picture of her family against the backdrop of Washington, Jefferson, Kindred and Lincoln, I said, "Better than that, I've got a real photographer here, a hell of a photographer, a pro, a champion. He'll do it." Greenfly took the picture but didn't smile. He still hated me.
Our final round was an unplanned one at Southern Hills off Highway 18 in Hot Springs, S.D., a leafy little course. To settle all the bets, we paced off a 100-foot putt on the 18th green, closest to the hole, winner take all. The one among us least likely to make any kind of putt threw down the first ball and stroked it. The rolling ball broke about four ways, the last time left to right straight into the cup.
Draino.
"Golf is a stupid game," Shaw said.
Isn't it?
- Text Size:
- Small Text
- Medium Text
- Large Text
