Early Saturday morning, about 0130hrs, I awoke to the scream of tires on our narrow and treacherous mountain driveway, followed by yelling and then pounding on our door.

I answered the door, wearing not much more than my headlamp, glowing red in the center of my forehead, thinking, "This is why I moved away from Atlanta."

A nervous young man stood staring into my red light, probably wondering what horror movie he had just landed in, then blurted out, "Help!  My truck is about to fall off your road!"

Bodell and I went out into the cold night to find the young fellow had indeed hung his back wheel off into space and was mere inches from watching a 1975 F-150 tumble down the mountain.  (Wouldn't have mattered, it was just 2WD, a Darwinian loser in these hills.)

Using low-range 4WD, a chain and a tow strap, Bodell and I managed to rescue the lad and send him on his way.  The young fellow had been frightfully apologetic, so we held back on the verbal abuse normally reserved for those who wake us in the night.

As the sound of his truck faded into the night, I turned to Bodell and said, "First thing is, the main reason we pulled that off without anybody dying is a direct result of years of golf course work."

"That's right," answered Bodell.  "On a golf course, you learn to adapt and improvise and solve odd problems without a clear precedent.  I've learned a world of stuff from working for Fred Gehrisch."

"Correct," I nodded. "Second thing is, that young fellow didn't argue or even say a word while we figured out how to solve the problem.  He kept his mouth shut and did just what we told him to do."

"Surprised me, too." Bodell began to gather up the tow strap.

"You see, if he had been a member at one of the many clubs I worked," I continued, "he would have issued a never-ending stream of advice, orders and warnings as to how I should rescue him, all while making it seem like it was my fault he was in trouble."

"So you're telling me . . . " Bodell paused for a moment.  "If that fellow had set in telling us what to do, he would still be hanging off the edge over there?"

The moral of our story is, "You learn a lot from working golf course, stuff you would never get in a cubicle."

Oh, and since we're talking about stories, we thought we might run something with a happy ending and a positive message:  "Golf Will Survive"    (In its original form.)