Old Friends: Revisited

my grandfather, golf, and his lifelong best friend

Ruston Country Club and old friendships came to my mind this week again. My mom called to tell me that my grandfather’s best friend had passed away. “Papa” has been gone for more than 20 years. His best friend died last week at age 99. 

I must have been in 4^th or 5^th grade when my grandmother dropped off 12 unopened boxes of Spalding golf balls. They looked old to me even then; I knew that they had not come from a store. It turns out that they had come from the corner of my grandparents’ laundry room where they had been stored for a decade since arriving  alongside a set of then cutting-edge Ping Eye irons. My grandmother’s brother had brought him clubs and balls just after Papa had given up alcohol.

The only reason that I know what model that the irons were is that I always remember what kind of irons people play, and my uncle (his son-in-law) played those irons for my entire childhood. My uncle who remains a good player in his 70s, played these irons long after most people would have played the original ping eye irons.  My grandfather apparently never hit them.

Papa had been a fair player at the Ruston Country Club at some point, and then after losing in the club championship to someone he considered an inferior opponent, he gave up the game for good.  I never saw this level of stubbornness from my grandfather. I have heard references to it and assume that I have unknowingly seen its genetic manifestations and repercussions in my life and the lives of my family members.

We had meaningful face-to-face conversations over the years, but my grandfather only called asking specifically to speak to me on the phone twice in my lifetime. Once it was to ask me and my brothers to go see Saving Private Ryan in the theater (not with him, just to be sure to see it).

My grandfather and his brother Jimmy had both served in the “army air corps” in the Pacific during World War II and (like so many of their peers) both came home carrying unspeakable burdens that would cause most of us to shudder and caused many of them to seek relief in liquid form. It makes me sad that my grandfather would not play golf again, but if his stubbornness there was somehow related to his being able to not drink again, then I am thankful. During the time that I knew him, he drank tea and soft drinks rather than Old Charter with water (or “chottuh’n’wotttuh” as my mom recalls). I was told that “Uncle Jimmy” never could overcome the alcohol dependence.  He died before I knew him. There must have been something in that movie that grandfather wanted us to know that he was not able or willing to tell us.

The other time that he called to speak to me was 2 weeks before I went off to college.

Just before I left for Ole Miss, Papa called to invite me to lunch with him and W.A. Jones, his best friend since childhood. Mr. Jones told me then (as he had before and has since), “When he was at Tech, your grandfather was the conference athlete of the year as a ‘Track Man’ which was as rare then as it would be now, he was fast… a great runner.”

He spoke about my grandfather right there in his presence with a pride and affection that caught me off guard as an 18 year-old. These two men, who at the time seemed so old to me (in their 70s), had once been my age, together. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that the world that they inhabited at age 18 actually existed in color and not in black and white. They had played together as kids, carved their names into an old toy guitar together, and when they were both training as track athletes, they would take long drags off a cigarette which they would leave smoldering on the ground in between quarter mile splits. At around my age then, one went to the Pacific with (what we now know as) the Air Force and the other went from LSU to Tulane as part of a Navy program that would keep him in school.

Mr. Jones was tall and broad and would go on to play and coach professional football¹ and have sons who did the same. When my grandfather passed away, I am glad that I was not the one who named him an “honorary” pall bearer. He may not have addressed the typo verbally with anyone, but he addressed it physically. There was nothing “honorary” about the way that he carried more than his share of the casket.  I can remember him striding fully over a short rock wall that several of us (adult grandsons) had to step on-and-over to maintain our hold on the weight. When we entered the limousine for the cemetery, we saved him a seat by the door, but he walked full stride to the farthest seat while bent at the waste to stay under the ceiling, an impressive feat that I noticed even then.  He was incredibly strong, and I could tell he was incredibly sad. He was carrying a weight of friendship that ran much deeper even than the blood that I shared with my mother’s father.

The few times that I saw Mr. Jones over the years, he would pull me aside and say, “I think about George every single day.” 

Mr. Jones died on Friday. May he rest in peace².

“You can grow up, make new ones, but the truth is there’s nothing like old friends, ‘cause you just can’t make old friends” -Ben Rector

W.A. Dub Jones far left George B Holstead Jr. far right

1. Google Dub Jones football to see lots of great stuff on his career.

2. After 16 years as a pastor and a 3 year seminary degree (which I squeezed into 4 years), I don’t know that I have a confident answer as to how those who have fallen asleep might know or be known to one another, but I know that God is good and that he loves friendship and it seems that He created us in His triune image to have them for eternity.