Maybe I should have been forewarned. In the morning the delph teapot cracked and I had to make my tea in a cup-with a teabag. When one comes to Canada one must take potluck with the teabags, but in this case the pot had run out of luck.

Next I was late starting for the clubhouse where Wilf was waiting for me to tee off at 1.30. (He's a coffee man, a true Canadian). Taking advantage of the highway speed limits I made it from the apartment in thirty-two minutes-ten minutes overdue.

This was the day I was going to par my first hole, three months to the day after I first took up golf. But the woods from the fairway refused to rise. The irons fared no better, and after a succession of sixes and sevens I was willing to settle for making the green in one on a par three. And I did.

Cheers and jubilation! The ball came to rest ten feet from the pin-a perfect shot. Only one thing was wrong. It was on the second green and we were playing the eighth hole.

Have I forgotten to mention I left my No. 9 iron in a bunker at the third and didn't miss it until the sixth?

That's what comes from using teabags.

But, all fine and dandy. There would be Wednesday next and another chance to make that elusive par.

An hour later, next Wednesday and all the Wednesdays on into eternity, were of no concern.

Driving back to town, pleasantly relaxed, looking forward to a hot tub, a cheese sandwich and a cold beer-and in five seconds I faced death, sharp, dramatic, spectacular, and very, very real.

Pushing sixty to pass a slower car, life and death flirted crazily together.

Abruptly, a car cut out in front.

Hard left to the gravel shoulder. Brakes-stupid.

A skid-another-twice round on the roadway.

Onto the verge-somersault-windshield explodes.

"This is it"-trite last words, but they were the only ones that came.

Hands welded to the wheel-head hits roof-side hits door-golf clubs fly right, left.

Then silence.

Car is back on all four wheels. I push the door open and step out.

The first thing I notice is the grass. It's green. Wild, living, vibrant green. It is real. I am real. It is alive. I am alive.

I've been playing on grass, walking, tramping, joking, putting, hacking, muffing, dubbing, flubbing on grass all afternoon. It's been too long, too short, too thick, too thin, too burned, too fast, too slow-it's been everything wrong, but now in one glorious instant I see it for what it really is-life.

People who have visited my homeland always sounded strange whenever they told me how much they were taken with the green grass of Ireland.

From now on they will sound even stranger.

For the grass in Canada is greener. For the grass in Canada is real. For the grass in Canada is alive. And I have had the luck of the Irish to find my green grass, as they say, "on the other side of the mountain".

(The above was written more than forty years ago. It came to light when going through old files. What better time to publish it than during the silly season. J.W.)

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