A tale-telling golfing Irishman offers a lesson in honesty

I hadn’t seen my buddy Mike since last fall, so we got together last week to play a quick nine holes of golf and catch up.

Mike is a great teller of tales, so I was anxious to hear what he had to say since we had seen each other last. His father was German, so Mike’s tales are masterpieces of detail and precision. His mother is a flame-haired Irish lass, from whom he inherited the Celtic ability to forge forcefully forward with a tale even if the truth may have taken a left turn at the last bend.

We never keep score when Mike and I play golf, because it’s hard enough to keep characters and plots straight without all that messy math getting in the way. Besides, we’re both convinced that we play better when we don’t keep score, and there’s no way to prove that we don’t.

As we teed up for the first hole, Mike explained that he had traveled to Ireland last Thanksgiving with his wife Sandy, and before they even had time to rent a car or stock up on euros, Mike’s wallet was lifted on a tour bus in Dublin.

It began with an innocent bump from behind, but Sandy was suspicious.

“Mike,” she said, “where’s your wallet?”

Mike’s hand strayed to his empty back pocket, but by then the bus doors had closed and there was no way to give chase. All they caught was a glimpse of the back of the young lady who had bumped Mike from behind.

The tour bus driver noticed their distress, and he asked them what was wrong. They told him what had happened, and the driver called the gardai (police) on his cell phone.

At the station, the gardai asked if they could give a description of the thief, and Sandy did her best, but she hadn’t gotten too good a look at the girl who had lifted Mike’s wallet.

Still, her description was clear enough for the captain to mutter, “Damn gypsy thieves!”

Wary of racial or ethnic profiling, Mike and Sandy offered a weak protest, but the captain was steadfast. “Gypsies, sure as you please,” he insisted.
The gardai helped with the paperwork and phone calls. Within an hour or so the credit cards were canceled, and Mike was given a police report that would allow him to drive a car in Ireland if they decided to rent one.

Despite the rough start to their trip, no real harm was done other than the loss of a hundred American dollars or so. In the end, they had a fine trip.
But Mike’s story didn’t end there. He said they were back home for about a week or so when two envelopes arrived from Ireland.

One was a follow-up police report expressing sorrow that they had encountered the seedy side of life on the streets of Dublin. The police hoped that Mike and Sandy wouldn’t judge the honesty of all Irishmen by that experience.

The other envelope was a bit thicker, and when Mike opened it he found his wallet inside, splayed open and flattened out like a butterflied pork chop. Though the cash was missing, every card lay untouched in the exact slot it had occupied when the wallet was nicked from his pocket. There was no return address or note, but Mike is certain that the wallet must have been stripped of cash and dumped only seconds after Sandy called, “Mike, where’s your wallet?”

Some honest soul had found it on the street, bundled it up, and mailed it off to the address on the driver’s license with no expectation of thanks or reward.

We were just arriving at the fifth tee as Mike finished up his tale of Irish betrayal and renewal. If he had been less German, he might have spared enough details to wrap things up somewhere around the island green of the third hole.

Still, considering that it was Mike’s first tale of the year for me, his Irish blood seemed to be running remarkably Blarney-free.

The fifth hole is short but difficult, thanks to both an elevated tee and green and the grasping oaks that yearn to create a cathedral ceiling over the narrow fairway. Mike reached into his bag and pulled out an old club that looked like a short 6-wood.

“This was my Uncle Bob’s,” he said. “After he was too old to golf, he used it as a cane before it passed on to me.”

Mike teed up his ball and dropped a perfect shot a short putt from the hole.

“Way to go, Uncle Bob!” I said.

“Actually, he was my father’s uncle,” Mike said. “So that would make him my great-uncle. He worked for Clinton Foods, and if it weren’t for him, America would never have gone to space. See, Uncle Bob invented Tang, and…”

We only had four more holes to play, so I’m not sure if I heard all of Uncle Bob’s story.

But that’s OK, because we have plans to play again this week, and this time our buddy Bill will join us. I’m looking forward to hearing Mike tell Bill about his visit to Ireland, because I’m sure he’ll remember several forgotten details about his battle with the band of vicious Irish gypsies, each one brandishing a deadly dagger or a dirk and possibly accompanied by a cave troll.

And I’m dying to hear how many rough drafts Uncle Bob went through before he came up with the “One small step for a man” speech he slipped to Neil Armstrong just before blastoff.

Besides, I can’t wait to tell Bill how Mike and I both broke par last week—all the more amazing considering how many balls we plunked in the drink.

• Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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