This Journey

I have been missing Literally Letty. Her stories have taken backstage to the history research on the old country club. Searching my blog for unfinished stories sometimes helps me create new ones.  Interesting how reflectivity takes one's mind and weaves it through a maze of emotions and moments. 

"This Journey" began in January of 2021, during Covid when I often thought about life. 

I am thankful in my heart every day for the life I lead every day and the grace that God has given me to enjoy it. To my daily regret, my words and actions do not always demonstrate my gratitude and love. Then my thankfulness turns to God and my Higher Power, from which I find faith and understanding.

Such sweetness in this pillow top. 

I keep two books by my side in my studio. A small blue book called One Day at A Time, Al-Anon which guides me with understanding of what I can and cannot do. "Let Go, Let God," is imprinted in my heart as a reminder of what I face.

 "Life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood looking back." 

Looking back is what I do when I write the   Miami, Ok Golf and Country Club History. Oh my, what insights I have gained from this journey back in time. 

The second book, which I keep nearby, is so large it deserves a shelf by itself. The New Oxford Annotated Bible helps me understand the words of God as spoken through his disciples and followers. I bought the Bible about six years ago when our Sunday School class took on a project to study the entire Bible. Thanks to Curtis and Michelynn McKnight we have studied books from the Old Testament, MMLJ, and now Corinthians. 

A curious thing happened to me when I stepped in Mardell's Christian Book Store to buy the Annotated Bible. The man at the bookstore told me they didn't carry The New Oxford Annotated Bible because it contained the Apocrypha. "What!" I explained, "that is exactly why I want this book."  He calmly and monotonously explained to me that Christians did not follow the words of the Apocrypha because they were not in the accepted canon of scripture. 

I love to read "banned books" or "unaccepted books" and that fired me up. I ordered the book online and began reading, you guessed it, passages from the Apocrypha. 

Whether Susanna, or Bel and the Dragon stories are history or fiction matters not. What is important, as we often say, is the "take away." Why write those words or share the stories through oral traditions if no one can understand the reason for the story to exist. 

After reading a few of the stories from the apocrypha, and the story of Ester in the OT,  I smiled. Our lives may be longer and healthier and our daily tasks easier than a hundred or a five thousand years ago, but oppressed people still must be creative, like Brer Rabbit, to teach the world acceptance of all peoples. 

Perhaps this answers another question I have considered over the years, as to why it helped me so much to share, to tell orally with audiences "Folktales." They carry such simple messages of how best to live. 

What I have found along this journey, in the Bible, is how to live by Faith. The Golden Rule helped me understand God when I was a child, when I didn't know about storms and chaos entering my life, but faith I learned is everyday.   

Looking back, this is not all entirely true. Besides the Al-anon book and the Bible, I often go for brisk walks to allow nature to comfort me, or turn to my collection of quotes, that I keep on the "cloud" for quick reference.  When I don't know what to do, what to think, how to feel about this or that I discover through quotes that others have felt and feel the same way that I do. 

Allow me to segue to a moment when I stood in my parents bedroom and my mother handed me a pamphlet by Dale Carnegie on how to get along with people. I cannot imagine what I had said or done, but from that time on she quoted Dale Carnegie to me on a regular basis. 

And so, a thought by an old sage, Dale Carnegie, sent to me through my mother's heart.

Every day do a good deed. That will put a mile of joy on someone's face. 

I am thankful that Salvia will grow in abundance in our clay soil because their blooms attract a kaleidoscope of butterflies. 

 

Golf Gypsy: As Only a Mother Can

My mother, Helen Stapp, died unexpectedly nearly twenty-four years ago, and yet I miss her hugs, smiles, and cryptic words of advice daily. We didn't always agree on life's journey or how to best pursue the future.  In our family Mom and Dad had their hands full with two hundred and fifty Miami Country Club members, and two little girls; one adventurous and daring, the other a quiet observer.  My little sister, Jonya, most closely stayed within their boundaries of comfort.  She was a beauty queen and State Amateur Golf Champion.  We both played on the men's golf team at NEO, and made our parents proud when we completed our college degrees (mine just took 10 years to finish.)

USGA Jr. Am. 1965

My childhood days of golf were intense and emotional.  Winning was not something I experienced.  I often missed qualifying for championship flight because of raw nerves, and lack of focus.  Every summer I asked for tennis lessons, swim lessons, diving lessons, anything new on the horizon.  Dad's words were simple, "Tizzy, you need to focus on one sport at a time.  Developing muscles for swimming or tennis might jeopardize your golf swing."  So, I played golf and practiced hours upon hours.  The solitude of practicing became my escape from pressures.

It was the trips to the Jr. State Amateur I loved the most.  Teeing off #1 at Southern Hills and hitting a straight and true shot down the middle is a memory I will carry for a lifetime.  Shaking the hand of a match play opponent at age 14 will also stick with my gut;  "Good luck," I said sincerely as Rita and I shook hands on the first tee.  "Thanks, you'll need it.!" She won the match on hole 14.  Maybe, Dad knew me better when he nicknamed me Tizzy or tried to explain that my golf game seemed lackadaisical.  Maybe, I overheard so many ugly comments by women in tournaments that I thought no one liked a champion?

It was on mother's shoulders that I cried and sobbed with defeat.  Year after year I lost, and yet she held firm in her belief that I could win.  Dad was the teacher, but mom was the counselor, the healer, and the one who uplifted me and told me over and over that I could win. I finally won a Club Championship once before she died, but I was nearly 40 years old.  My family and friends were proud.

Only recently did I realize how much a mother's love and faith in her children can make a difference for a lifetime of learning and growing.  Over the 50 years since my teenage golfing debut, I've learned that it was confidence that I was lacking, not skill.  But it's not enough to have other people believe in you when you don't believe in yourself.  "Oh, well," is such an easy reply to a disappointment in life, whether it is in a career or sport.

A few weeks ago as I walked to my golf cart, before I teed off at Prairie Dunes for the Hutchinson Women's City Championship, my heart was pounding and my stomach lurched.  It was a match play event, one on one.  Now I needed to win one more match for the championship.  I began to question myself.  Did I care enough to focus?  Did I really just want to win, but not fight through my nerves to win?  Will people still like me IF I win?

Helen Stapp probably giving advice.

Like a cloud passing over I heard a whisper, "Letty, I believe in you and always have. Now go out there and prove to yourself that you can play great golf."

My knees buckled and I looked around with tears in my eyes.  "Mom?" my head whispered.   "I'm watching," she replied, and I heard the pursing of her lips.  When her whispering cloud passed over, my shoulders suddenly lightened and memories were filtered.  I knew that somehow I could win that day, and maybe win again while I'm still young enough to compete.  On my golf ball, that day, I wrote these words, "Almost Heaven."

I only hope and pray that I've been that kind of mother for my daughter, one who believes in her child without a doubt--As only a mother can.

*Letty Stapp Watt
daughter and historian