MOMENTS, MEMORIES and MADNESS with STEVE CAMERON: Golf is good for what ails you — even for a Marine vet paralyzed from the chest down
This is something different.
Most of these memories from sports-related situations — and the tales that have been carried on from them — stretch back to a long time ago.
The events and characters pop up from other times in my journalism career, and it’s really fun to think back and share them.
But today brings us a different story, indeed, because …
It happened just two days ago.
You may know from other things I’ve written that I struggle with an extremely dodgy back — perhaps the result of years running long distances, and pounding my spine into something like a string of ice chips.
I’ve had two surgeries already, and it appears that I need another one to widen the spinal canal — giving those precious nerves room to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do.
There are days when my back just throbs as I try to get out of bed in the morning.
YES, I do a series of stretches handed down by a neurosurgeon — the same gentleman who suggested that instead of avoiding golf, I should play it as much as possible.
Not too much walking, he said, but if you can play while riding in cart …
Well, it turns out that a golf swing is almost the perfect way to exercise the muscles alongside your spine, and relieve the tightness that can cause so much pain.
I’ll admit right up front here that there are times — not so much on the golf course, but trying to do other everyday things — when I start to feel sorry for myself.
Why do I have a bad back, when I’ve been an athlete and diligent about my health for most of my life?
Wah, wah, wah …
The truth is, I’m old enough that EVERY darn thing could go wrong.
So a bad back, eye surgery, what’s the big deal?
Right?
I do try to keep things in perspective, but like most people, it can slide away from me on those bad days, you know?
BUT IT won’t for a while now, believe me.
I’m grateful for every breath and every day … all because I played golf here at Twin Lakes Village on Friday.
OK, not just because I PLAYED — but because of the two gentlemen I joined on the course after starting on No. 1 as a single.
I caught up to them on the fourth hole, and at first, I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing.
One of the players looked like he was driving a little go-kart, or something like that.
Definitely not a regular electric golf cart — it was barely a foot and a half off the ground.
When I drove up, asked if I could play with them and so forth, I learned about that small electric cart.
It was a specialized vehicle for someone who cannot walk.
That person was Joey Lowe, a Marine veteran who was wounded in Iraq, and is paralyzed from the chest down.
And yet he was out there playing with his pal Jeff, a weekend visitor from Utah and, believe it or not, the only help Joey needs on the golf course is somebody to put the ball on a tee for him.
Everything else, he’s got it figured out.
The amazing little cart has a spot for his clubs on the side, a mechanism to raise and lower him, a gadget that allows him to pick up balls off the grass — even a cup holder for a nice cold beer.
IT TOOK no time for all three of us to get in the rhythm of enjoying good shots, yakking away, lecturing ourselves after poor swings, and…
Almost immediately, Joey was just another golfer trying to put a solid strike on the ball.
Yeah, he has to do it with one arm just to maintain his balance, but a shot is a shot.
After one drive on the back nine that sailed way too far to the right, Joey was just a tad frustrated.
He turned to me and said: “I need to get lined up better, because I can’t turn my hips.”
I thought: My God, how many times have I beat myself up over not turning my hips and torso through a golf shot.
What Joey meant was different.
He actually CAN’T turn his hips, or anything else.
The longer we played, and the more Joey was enjoying the golf, the weather, the general BS that goes on among players out for the day …
The more it struck me that Joey may have a better outlook on life than most of us.
HE HAS mixed emotions about his service, and what happened to him.
“I’m proud that I was a Marine,” Joey said. “The bravery of some fellow Marines saved my life. They risked their own lives just to get me on a chopper, even though it seemed like I was gone.
“They were unbelievable people — but I’ll tell you, I would never let any of my kids join the military.”
Joey now also knows the truth about the war in Iraq, and that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. That makes him suspicious of just about anything the government tells us.
“It’s not like we were defending the United States or anything,” he said. “Iraq was all about politics and business.”
Even as he was saying that, though, it’s clear that Joey’s life — and the spirit with which he lives it — is not about politics or anything close to it.
It’s about joy, and finding the best out of every day.
Paralyzed or not, Joey understands that he’s lucky to be alive and playing golf — even with one arm and no balance.
“It’s a miracle that I survived,” he said, and it’s obvious he has no intention of wasting a miracle.
When we’d finished, and I’d made it clear I’d love to hang out with Joey again — he lives just down Highway 53 at Hauser Lake — I realized I felt differently.
I am so lucky to be alive.
And healthy enough to complain about a “sometimes sore” back.
Joey would never say anything about that to me, but if he did…
He’d say: “Don’t waste your miracle.”
I won’t, brother.
Email: scameron@cdapress.com
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. “Moments, Memories and Madness,” his reminiscences from several decades as a sports journalist, runs each Sunday.
Steve also writes Zags Tracker, a commentary on Gonzaga basketball, once per month during the offseason.