Keaton Bowens
Professor Bleyle
English composition 1
12 Feb 2023
Remembering an event essay
When I was younger, maybe seven or eight years old, I lived across the street from a driving range. This is where people, mostly, dads in their mid to late forties go to hit golf balls for fun. You may be thinking of something similar to top golf, where people go to socialize with their friends and try to sink the golf balls into targets hundreds of yards away. You could not be more wrong. In the town I am originally from there is nothing nice, it is one of the poorest towns in the state of North Carolina. This driving range was just a patchy grassed hill where very few people went to hit old golf balls with bent rusty clubs. The worst part of this place was that you had to hit the balls uphill, so even if you hit the ball as hard as you could it didn't even look mildly impressive from a viewing perspective.
This is my opinion now, however, when I was younger all I wanted to do was go to this place. I wouldn't even hit the golf balls, my cousin and I would go play in the creek that ran right behind where people teed off. This was where all of the golf balls went when someone royally messed up. My cousin Nathan only lived a few streets over, and his parents had given our school permission to let him get off the bus at my stop on certain days of the week. We would constantly beg my uncle who lived with me to take us to the driving range and he rarely said no. Looking back now I realize that the only reason that he took us was to practice his Happy Gillmore trickshot. I would be willing to bet that half of the golf balls that ended up in the creek were his.
Nathan had an older brother named Braven, who was roughly fourteen at the time. He would sometimes come to my house and hang out with us, but not often. Even though he didn't often come to my house, the middle and elementary schools shared a bus, so we saw each other every day and were relatively close. Considering he was nearly old enough to have a job and we lived in an extremely small town, he knew of multiple places that were hiring. He told us that the driving range would pay people to go and collect golf balls by the bucket. I don't recall exactly how much he told us they paid per bucket, but it was enough to get my younger self interested.
With this knowledge of how to make money, we began scheming. In my eyes, this was going to be played out somewhat like a prison break. I thought we were going to run down the street, collect a bucket of balls, collect our payment, and run home before my grandmother noticed we were missing. We planned this out for weeks. The plan was to run home after getting off the bus and all three of us were going to do our homework as quickly as possible and then tell my grandmother that we were going to go play in the woods, which was a common thing to do in my town. We would often go and build tree houses or teepees in the woods. We would also hang out with some of the older kids from the next street over, they often had lighters and would start small fires and other stupid things of that nature. The next step after making sure my grandmother wasn't watching was to grab our bikes and go as fast as we could to the end of the neighborhood, and ditch our bikes in the woods at the end of the street. We would sprint across the street, run down the hill to the shack where people would pay for their balls and rent their golf clubs, and grab some empty buckets. We would then start in the creek collecting all of the easy balls, we thought that this alone would fill a few buckets. The next step was to run back across the street and go back to my house and get water and check in with my grandmother so that she didn't have any suspicions of our whereabouts. We would then return to the range and run up the hill into the wooded area and collect all of the balls that were scattered there and then go and collect payment for all our labor. We thought we were going to make hundreds of dollars, and as a young child that means you're rich.
The day came for us to carry out our plan. We decided to do it on a Friday so that we could go try to make money for the remainder of Friday and the entirety of Saturday so in theory we could have more profit. We rushed into my house, grabbed a snack, and rushed through our homework. None of us could have spent more than fifteen minutes doing our homework. After we “finished” our work we started packing up our books and stuff and my grandmother questioned how we finished so quickly, my cousins looked at me nervously and I told her that I didn't have much to do and then they both just said the same thing anxiously. The first part of our plan had come to fruition and now for step two, we told her we were going to play in the woods. She said to be careful and that she was going to take a nap because she was tired. This was perfect, we all giggled running out of the door. We decided to wait like thirty minutes for her to fall asleep before commencing the rest of our plan. After we felt comfortable we grabbed our bikes and pedaled as fast as we could to get out of view of my house. We arrived at the end of the street and ditched our bikes in the bushes on the tree line. Our bikes were out of sight of the passing cars, not that there were many. As soon as we started crossing the street a police car came around the corner. At this moment the only thing going through my mind was oh shit we're done for. From the police officer's point of view, we must have looked like deer in headlights. My older cousin ran back to the street we came from and Nathan and I were frozen in the middle of the street. As the police car approached I ran back to my street with my older cousin and Nathan finished crossing the street to the driving range. My older cousin tried to reassure me that he was just going to pass by, and I decided to believe my cousin because he was older. The police car came within roughly fifty feet and turned on its blue lights. He said on his intercom for us to stay where we were. My heart dropped, and my older cousin for some reason thought it was a good idea to run. He ran into the woods, jumping over a fence that kept the wild animals from entering the neighborhood. My other cousin Nathan was already crying by this point and screaming that he was going to jail. This was one of the most confusing moments in my life.
The officer asked what we were doing playing on the road, and scolded us because it was dangerous. I tried to explain that we were just crossing the street on our way to the driving range. He did not take kindly to being lectured by a child. He asked where the third person went and Nathan gave him up instantly. He then ordered us to get into his car because he was going to take us to the police station. I believe that he was just going to take us to my house because he knew my family because of my last name. To this day nearly every police officer in that town and the surrounding areas knows my last name because nearly all of my blood relatives were criminals. The most notable of all the criminals in my family was my father, he had spent more time in jail than he did in the free world since he was 16. The moment I told the officer my name he became noticeably more angry.
Out of nowhere, my uncle stopped at the end of my street, he noticed the police car with its lights on and us getting put into the car. He jumped out of his car and started approaching the car and asked the officer what was going on. The officer told him the situation and after verifying his id he said that we could go with him. My uncle made us grab our bikes and walk back up the street while he followed us in his car. When we arrived at my house he told my grandmother what had happened and then he left for the grocery store. My grandmother lectured us for what felt like an eternity and then sent Nathan home. She called Nathan and Bravens mother and told her what had happened. She then turned to me and asked where my older cousin went. I told her that he had run from the officer and I wasn't sure where he had gone. A few hours later my cousin's mother called my grandmother and told her that my older cousin had finally come home and that they were going to be grounded for a few months. I was for some reason not punished after the initial lecture. My grandmother didn't talk to me for a few weeks. In my mind at this age that was a far worse punishment than being grounded. When I arrived home every day after school, my uncle told me that she wanted me to do my homework. For that duration of time I fixed my own breakfast and dinner, and on the weekends my lunch as well. Let's just say for those few weeks there was a lot of cereal and sandwiches.
