Destroying my childhood... one tee at a time.

I just caught this article in the Burlington County Times... the golf course that I grew up living next to might be sold to developers for housing developments.

I cannot explain how upset this makes me. That golf course holds so many memories for me: KW and I would collect golf balls that were lost in the water hazards and woods and sell them back to the golfers on the 4th tee, in the winter the water hazards would freeze and we would ice skate on them, the strange eel creature that we saw swimming in the streams, sledding down the tee-off hills on the fourth tee, walking across the golf course (just once) to elementary school (we got lost a little), having my first french kiss in the trees near some other tee, running from the Ranger when we were caught on the course.

And that's just the beginning.

When I describe what my childhood was like, and what the kids and my neighborhood were like, the golf course is an integral part of all of those memories. We were mischevious (although I never had the guts to go to the Ranger shack and drive his cart after hours) but never did anything really really bad. It was fun to hide in the woods at the bottom of the 4th tee, and when a golf ball was hit close to the woods - we'd run out and steal it. When we got older, I remember some of the older kids actually learning to golf on the course - something we'd all try a couple of times.

In any case, hearing that this giant playground (I am sure that the Ramblewood County Club managers are thrilled to hear that) is about to be torn out for houses... well it saddens me. The next generation of kids on my old street aren't going to have the opportunity to play and run free on those vast green tracts like we did.

Come to think of it though.. the kids that were the generation after us probably never did play on the golf course. Their parents were probably too afraid of them being kidnapped or molested, and anyway the kids had Playstation and Xbox and the internet to entertain them indoors rather than playing Ghost in the Graveyard or Jailbreak outdoors.

It's a tragedy all around.