Volume 7 , Issue 18

Alva Golf & Country Club...

"I have fond childhood memories of the Alva Municipal Golf Course on Flynn Street. I was born in a house across the street from it. The golf course figured in a ten second of Andy Warhol fame moment for me. In 1998 I entered the Favorite Poem Contest sponsored by Robert Pinsky the Poet Laureate of the United States. He asked for folks to write about their favorite poem and if selected, read it on audiotape for inclusion in the archives of the Library of Congress.

The poem I selected was The Mountain Whippoorwill or How Hillbilly Jim Won the Great Fiddlers Prize by Stephen Vincent Benet (later excerpted by Charlie Daniels for his great tune The Devil Went Down to Georgia). I selected it because I had memorized it and recited it at my Alva High School graduation in 1949 (also recited it at the 50th reunion in 1999). The poem had much meaning to me and took on special meaning when I was selected to judge some Fiddlers Contests during the ten years I lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

I was not selected to recite my poem but a reporter from Life Magazine did publish a portion my letter in an article she did on The Favorite Poem Project. It was published in the October 1998 issue of Life. It relates that the first money I ever earned was at the Alva Municipal Golf Course reciting poetry for a golfer (his last name was Bailey).

The article reads as follows: 'First money I ever earned was reciting poetry to a golfer while he was playing,' wrote William M. Barker, born in 1931 in Alva, Okla., now a resident of Summerville, Ga. 'I was eight years old at the time and lived across from the local golf course. He gave me a quarter for reciting Robert Louis Stevenson's The Land of Counterpane. I would like to do something in the later years of my life that I did at the first and still enjoy.'

During my childhood years the golf course was a home away from home. I spent many happy hours roaming it. The main thing I remember was that the greens were not grass but sand and a golfer was allowed to use a roller and make a smooth path from where his ball landed to the hole. Few putts were missed." -- Bill Barker   |  View or Add Comments (2 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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