Satan Himself

Last spring break, I visited a park in Oakland, California, where I had spent many a beautiful day. I remember now...

...it was a lovely spring afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was walking with my friend Roland back to an old high school hang-out, to re-live old memories. But alas, when we had made our way through the underbrush, we came upon the old-school cut spot and discovered that about ten thousand (no hyperbole!) used golf balls had taken the place of lovely grass and flowers. "What shall we do about this terrible predicament?" we wondered. We felt as if someone had performed a large bowel movement on the altar of our church. After several minutes of contemplation, we realized that there coincidentally was a golf course adjacent to the park we were in. In fact, the Montclair Golf Course was the only golf course within twenty or thirty miles. Suddenly, an idea struck us! Perhaps the owners of the golf course had accidentally left these golf balls in the park on their way to the dump. Since the spot they chose was so well hidden, they had trouble locating the golf balls when they came back to look for them. So, we decided to do our duty as conscientious citizens, and return the lost golf balls to their rightful owners. After stuffing our backpacks and a shopping bag with golf balls (not noticeably decreasing the size of the pile), we trudged the half mile to the office of the golf course and informed them of our discovery. Imagine the look of surprise on the face of the owner when we told him where his golf balls had been misplaced. We had imagined it too, but as it turned out, no one could remember leaving the golf balls there. The owners suggested that perhaps some rowdy kids, looking to play a prank on the golf course, had stolen the golf balls from the dumpster on the course and dumped them in the park. Not a very bright prank, we thought, since it must have taken a motor vehicle to move this massive a quantity of spheroids. Another suggested possibility was that another golf course or perhaps a local golf fanatic, had placed the balls there. While these possibilites were intriguing, my friend and I both agreed that they were far less likely than our hypothesis. And after making this clear, the owners gave us their business card (see above illustration), promised to examine the golf ball pile and make their own evaluation of the situatuon, and asked us to call them if we had any further questions...

The golf ball pile dissappeared three days later, and it has not returned. The whole incident has led Roland and I to the conclusion that golf is an instrument of Satan.

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This picture was created on Gypsy in May 1996 by mattt chisholm.