The Tale of the Colored Golf Balls

A Love Story

Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl who loved each other very much.

It might seem silly to call them boy and girl—after all, they were in their 50s, had a child, and had been married for over 20 years—but that’s how they felt.

They didn’t feel old. They didn’t act old. They still had a sense of wonder—like children discovering the things of life for the first time.

They felt wonder at the little things. At the geometrically perfect curve of a seashell or the buzz of a bee.

They felt wonder at the big things—like a visit to the Grand Canyon or a bucket-list night spent in an English castle.

They felt wonder at each other. At their still-young faces. At the excitement they still felt in the dimmed light of a candlelit bedroom. At the fact that they loved each other more and more each day.

The boy and girl lived in the North—in a land of lovely, mild summers and crisp, golden autumns…with Octobers so perfect it could almost make you cry.

But it was a land whose winters could also make you cry—for a different reason. A land of howling gales and endless gray skies and more snow in a week than many places see in a year.

One year, the winter was so bad that even the girl’s infectious, sunny optimism—which radiated from her like light dancing on her golden-red hair—could not overcome its endless frigid gray. They decided to get away.

Unlike many of their peers, the boy and the girl were lucky enough to have all four of their parents still alive and well. And they were also lucky that the girl’s parents lived somewhere sunny and warm. In a magical land called Florida.

Their child was a newly minted adult who could take care of himself, and they could do their jobs from anywhere. So they packed up the car and headed South.

The boy drove. They talked, listened to music, and sometimes just sat in silence looking at the scenery. They relished their halfway night in a hotel, and as they continued the next day, they enjoyed their competition to be the first to see a palm tree.

The visit was just what they wanted. They talked with the girl’s parents, went out for dinners, and did their work. Sometimes, the boy sat on the patio watching the squirrels, the crows, and the old folks riding by on golf carts.

Sometimes, they held hands and went for walks. They didn’t interlock fingers—they didn’t like that. Instead, the girl held the boy’s pinky in her closed hand. That’s how they did it.

One sunny day—all the days were sunny, but this one seemed sunnier than the rest—they decided to walk someplace new. They had walked around the cul-de-sac to the north of the girl’s parents’ home several times, but then they became consumed with a thought: what lies beyond the cul-de-sac?

Getting beyond the cul-de-sac did mean walking between two houses, and being the sorts who respect the property of others, they didn’t want to do that. But then they found a house that was empty, with bare windows and an overgrown lawn, and that was good enough. They went through, to what lay beyond. Beyond the cul-de-sac.

The first thing they found was a road. Not a main road or a wide road. More like a service road—something not well-traveled. It went past the backs of the houses, and it was lined on the other side by strange evergreen trees atop a steep embankment. The girl took the boy’s pinky in her small hand, and they headed off down that road.

But soon, they became consumed with another thought: What is on the other side of the embankment? After all, the terrain was generally flat, like most of the magical land of Florida. What could this obviously manmade embankment be hiding?

They decided to find out. The climb would probably have been easier had they been as young as they felt in their hearts—but it wasn’t too bad. And it was worth it for what lay beyond.

A field of green grass covered with hundreds of small colored balls!

They were golf balls, of course, but in such a dazzling array of colors that the boy and the girl just stood for a moment in wonder.

Whoa! Look at that one. The girl pointed to one so brightly scarlet that the boy knew just which one she meant, even from atop the ridge. Let’s go.

With no golfers in sight on this old-folks driving range, they were safe. They trundled down into the open field of colored orbs.

The girl picked up the scarlet ball and handed it to the boy, who marveled at it. But then another caught their eye.

This one was even more scarlet than the first. Or had it gone further ‘round the color wheel—past scarlet, past red, and into pink? It was hard to tell—it was so fluorescent, so incandescently bright, that it seemed to cast its own light.

The boy picked it up and handed it to the girl. She looked and handed it back, and he knew what she was thinking without having to ask: We’re keeping this.

So he stuffed it into his pocket, along with the first scarlet one, which he had still been holding. And so it began.

There were many different colors, and they had to look at them all. There were many white ones too, but that just made the colored ones stand out all the more. They didn’t have to talk about it—they just knew what they had to do.

They had to find one of every color.

They ran from place to place like children on an Easter Egg hunt.

An orange one. Into the pocket it went…followed by an even oranger one.

A brick-red one. Pocketed.

A rare lime-green one. Whoa—I think this is the only one this color!

(It’s a good thing the boy was wearing cargo shorts.)

Then, the boy and the girl went even further into colored-ball fever. It wasn’t enough to just get one of each color—they had to get every shade of each color.

Every shade of yellow. One that was purposely made to be half yellow and half orange, and another that had been faded that way by the sun. One that had clearly once been red, but had sat so long that it had settled into a most subtle shade of pink. And a white one or two, just so they didn’t feel left out.

Suddenly, the boy noticed that a golfer had arrived at the far side of the field—so far away that he could barely be seen. It was time to go, before they got hit in the head with golf balls.

Or worse, before they heard a distant voice yell, Damn kids, get off my driving range.

So they scuttled back up the embankment to safety, and then down onto the long, quiet road, past the empty house, and back to the girl’s parents.

Along the walk back, did they have the obvious grownup thought, What the heck did we just do? And what the heck are we going to do with all these golf balls?

Probably.

But it didn’t matter. They were keeping them.

They would find a place for them somewhere at home. And so they did.

And every time they look at them now, they are reminded of their hunt for colored balls, and of how much they love each other.