Bag Worms! Really?

 

This "Old Gold Juniper" shrub grows quite well in our Oklahoma soil, and most commonly referred to as an Evergreen, or in the case of this true story, it is called a "Damnable Bag Worm Bush."

Somewhere in between Independence, Kansas Country club and the Miami Golf and Country club or better yet between the ages of 4 and 10 years old, I found a thrill in picking bag worms off the evergreens bushes at the country club where we lived in Kansas. When we moved to Miami, Ok the bag worms once again greeted me in the early summer months.

How my father ever managed to make it fun is beyond me. My mother did nothing but suggest that her little girl was not the right age to do such dirty work. To which I more than likely said, "I can do it!

In Kansas, the caddies who showed up daily at the club for work were assigned to picking the bag worms, and landscaping jobs if they were not caddying. Since I followed them around everywhere, dad decided to teach me how to take care of the evergreens in our yard, rather than have me "wonder of to the ends of the earth" as my mother often yelled at my father. 

I think the trick or the thrill must have be pulling the sticky bag worms off and dropping them in a Folger's Coffee can filled with one--two inches of gasoline. I learned, by orneriness and observation, how to squeeze them out of the sticky brown bag and squash them flat. (I can't believe I am even writing this or recalling it.)

If I didn't put the bag worms in the coffee can with gasoline then one by one they would crawl out of the can or container and drop to the ground where I watched the brown bag wiggle like a worm before I stepped on it. 

The Miami Country club in the 1950's planted rows and rows of these lovely evergreens along the driveway entrance, and on the golf course near tee boxes. Summer after summer in my childhood years I would help dad pick bag worms. My younger sister, Jonya, joined us in the gross pleasure of picking the bagworms by hand. She especially loved squeezing them.  We were not alone, as the greenskeeper's staff and caddies most often did the job. 

When our coffee cans "runneth over" we dumped them in nearby trash barrels. The greenskeeper would take the barrels out to the shed, away from the golf course, then drop a match into the barrel and watch it go up in flames.  

Occasionally, to my delight and the kids who gathered round (the boys often volunteered to leave the swimming pool to pick nearby bag worms) dad would have us dump the containers with worms and gasoline into a nearby barrel. When everyone from the swimming pool to the upstairs breezeway was watching, dad would drop a lighted match into the barrel and boom. Our screams filled the air. Life on the golf course, as the golf pro's daughter, was never dull.

Somewhere in between my teenage years and my senior adult years I lost interest in picking bag worms. However, Mother Nature seem to dictate what gardeners and gardens must endure. In June of this year, I saw my first bag worm in our back yard. Naturally, it was not ONE bagworm, but one entire side of our glorious "Old Golden Juniper" bush, covered in wiggling brown bags.

It took me several days to build up the nerve to pick the bag worms, one by one. Being rather cautious, I choose not to use gasoline and I certainly did not have a Folger's Coffee can nearby. 

Instead, I dropped each one that didn't stick to my fingers into a plastic cup. I frequently yelped with disgust as the worms stuck to me. Squashing them when they dropped to the ground felt purely disgusting. Where was that five year old child when I needed her. 

This detestable bagworm could be a Star Wars creature in my imagination.

Then I faced a dilemma...what to do with the bagworms, since I could not toss them into a barrel and watch the explosion? Panic set in. I sealed the squiggling brown bags in a container until I could google the answer.

The easiest way to get rid of bagworms is to cut off the bags by hand and destroy them. Lift branches, clip off bagworm egg sacks, and drop them into the buckets of water with dish soap, making sure they are submerged fully. Dump the soaked bagworms into a sealed plastic bag and throw them in your trash. 

Who was to know that Dawn detergent could solve my dilemma? Thanks to the golf pro and Google, I think I can handle anything that Mother Nature sends my way.

Another one of Mother Nature's challenges is shared at:

Hail. Oh! Hail.

 

A Father--Daughter Story

Letty, age 4, captured on 8mm film, practicing on a hot summer day in Independence, Ks. 

As I write on this hot summer day (103 in the shade), I am reminded of my childhood years at Miami Country club teeing off at 2:00 in the heat of the day, after I finished working in the golf shop. I believe we called those days "scorching hot," rather than suffering the effects of the "heat dome." There was no air conditioning downstairs in the golf shop, but we did have a huge wall fan that pulled in the fresh air through the golf shop and kept the downstairs locker rooms cool and dry.  Old Bill and I would take turns, when no one was in the shop, and go stand in front of the blowing air to cool down our bodies. 

Occasionally, on Thursday afternoon's Dad would ask me to join his group of Kenny Richards, Marion Zajic, and Charlie Trussler, Doc Jackson and others. By 1965, after graduating from Miami High school, my handicap stayed in the low single digits. Playing golf with the men and having to hand over a 50 cent piece, if I lost a bet, made me a better competitor. Having a low handicap, also, opened the door for me to play in the USGA Jr. Girls Championship at Hiwan Golf Course in Evergreen, Colorado.  

Dad and I drove through Wichita, Kansas to pick up his sister, Della, and drove on to Evergreen, Colorado that day (without AC in the station wagon). Imagine our delight when we arrived in the cool mountain air. I played one practice round at Hiwan with dad and took copious notes along with the handout from the pro shop.

 

The two days of qualifying were the greatest eye openers of my short life. My tee shot could not reach the fairway. The fairway began 100 yards off the tee box. Dad and I had practiced it and so I knew to use my MacGregor 5 wood to hit out of the rough. Because I had been chipping golf balls in the evenings to clean up the driving range I was, and still am, very good at hitting the golf ball close to the pin.  I one putted many greens in those two days, but often finished the holes with bogies, not  pars.  Even though I did not make the cut line, I met some of the most dynamic young girls from all over the country, including Canada.

 

We played the golf course at 3,544 yards on the front nine, 3,568 yards on the back nine for 7.112 dynamic massive yards.

That last day I watched as my dad allowed tears to trickle down his face when I posted my score. They were tears of pride not disgust. Discovering how proud my father and his sister were of my game of golf and fortitude that day made me feel like I could climb a mountain. I had never won a championship in our Oklahoma Junior events. My dream was to make people at the club proud of me. Attaching dreams to goals is not easy for a teenager. 

On a humorous note, I realize that my short game became my strength because the temperatures in July and August soared to the high 90's and 100's regularly, making it, too, miserable to hit hundreds of golf balls in the afternoon.  Salt tablets and gallons of water from water spigots on the golf course kept us going. Mother learned about serving Tang in the mornings to her active family, and that helped us better survive the heat. 

Golf Gypsy: My Mother's Words explains how much my mother suffered through those growing years with Jonya and me. 

L to R: Rinda Koppitz, Vicki Bell, .., Janice Bell.. 
Letty Stapp On the steps of the Broadmoor
Golf Course and Hotel (1966) 

During the summers of 1966 and 1967 I traveled with friends to Colorado Springs to play in the Broadmoor Ladies Invitational tournament. We never had the money to stay at the hotel, but we did manage quite well in a nearby stucco cottage motel sitting by a fast flowing stream from the mountains. During those summers my game was strong and solid, but the head game didn't develop until I was well into my fifties. I missed qualifying for Championship flight over and over. However, I learned that the other women in "President's Flight" or "A flight" with me were just as discouraged at their plight as I, and so the competition remained strong.

*Instagram: @golfgypsyok 

I found three old 8mm films that my father took at MGCC and elsewhere. I have converted them over the years to VHS, CD, and now a Flash Drive. This last attempt took several hours of viewing to see what we wanted to save. In the process, I discovered these old family videos from the early 1950’s when my father was the pro at Independence CC, Kansas. The blurry attempt came when I paused and took a photo of the picture on the screen, but the moment is captured and I felt proud of that childhood swing…which I would dearly love to have again.