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The Hall of Weird Finds
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People hit golf balls into ponds, and that makes sense to me. What I can't explain is everything else. Here is the best of what I've brought up since my first day in the spring of 1996, with the course, the hole and the date. Anything with a name on it, I try to get back to its owner. Anything else, I turn in at the pro shop, and if nobody claims it in ninety days, the manager lets me keep it, which is how our garage came to look the way it does. The ponds are on four public courses near Orlando: Heron Lakes, Pine Hollow Municipal, Live Oak Links and Sandpiper Run. "Pine Hollow 12" means the pond on the twelfth hole at Pine Hollow. You'll be seeing a lot of that one. |
| 1 | A putter, bent nearly into a circle. My very first day, my very first pond, and about the third thing my hand closed on. Somebody had put that putter over his knee and kept going. I took it as a sign that I'd picked the right line of work. It hangs over the garage door. Heron Lakes 3 · Saturday, April 20, 1996 |
| 2 | A whole golf bag. Eleven clubs, a rain suit, two cans of bug spray, a sleeve of brand-new balls, and a scorecard so soaked I couldn't read the score, which might have been the point. The name tag was washed blank. Nobody claimed it. I play with the 7-iron to this day, and I've never hit it into the water. It knows where it's been. Pine Hollow 12 · Saturday, August 10, 1996 |
| 3 | A bowling ball. Blue swirl, fourteen pounds, no name. I thought I'd found the world's biggest Top-Flite. Getting it into the bag was a production. There is no bowling alley anywhere near that course. I've thought about this a lot. Live Oak 9 · Saturday, November 16, 1996 |
| 4 | A golf cart key on a foam float. The kind of float that is supposed to keep your keys from sinking. It had soaked up enough water to give up. I gave the key back to the cart barn, and they'd already had a new one cut. Sandpiper Run 5 · Saturday, March 15, 1997 |
| 5 | A diver's wristwatch, still running. Nine feet down, in the muck, ticking away, and keeping better time than mine. No name on the back. I wear it now when I dive, which seems only fair. Heron Lakes 16 · Saturday, March 29, 1997 |
| 6 | A full set of irons, laid out in a line. A 3-iron at the edge, and then every club down through the pitching wedge, a few feet apart, heading out across the bottom like bread crumbs. Somebody threw them in one at a time, from the long irons to the short, and I'd love to know what the hole was doing to him. Every one of them was in perfect shape. Pine Hollow 7 · Saturday, June 14, 1997 |
| 7 | A snapping turtle. Not something I kept, something I put my hand on. I was sweeping along in zero visibility and felt a big flat rock with a ridge on it, and thought, well, that's odd for a golf pond. Then the rock moved. It went one way, I went the other, and Terry says I came out of that water like a cork. I still have all my fingers. I count them sometimes. Live Oak 9 · Saturday, August 16, 1997 |
| 8 | An empty ring box. Black velvet, hinged, on Valentine's Day of all days. No ring. Debbie and I argued about this all the way home. She thinks she said no and he threw the box. I think she said yes and he was so happy he threw the box. I'm sticking with mine. Live Oak 11 · Saturday, February 14, 1998 |
| 9 | A pink plastic lawn flamingo. That pond backs up to a row of houses. The flamingo stood in our front yard for a year, until the homeowners' association wrote us a letter. Now it's in the back. Sandpiper Run 2 · Saturday, May 16, 1998 |
| 10 | A gold wedding band. Returned! This is my favorite one on the list. A plain gold band, and engraved inside, two sets of initials and a date in June of 1958. I took it to the pro shop and the manager said, I bet I know whose this is. A gentleman named Lester Brochu, who plays there three mornings a week, had pulled off his glove on that hole back in April and the ring went with it. He'd looked for it on the bank for an hour and told his wife it was gone. He cried when I handed it to him, and I'll be honest, so did I. Forty years married that very month. His wife sent us a fruit basket the size of a tire. Live Oak 4 · Saturday, June 27, 1998 |
| 11 | A cellular phone in a leather belt case with the clip still closed. I imagine he bent over to tee up and it slid right out. It did not ring. Heron Lakes 8 · Saturday, August 22, 1998 |
| 12 | A kid's bicycle. Red, with a banana seat and one training wheel. That pond is right by the road. I like to think somebody's little brother finally learned to ride without the training wheels, and the bike got retired with honors. Pine Hollow 1 · Saturday, October 10, 1998 |
| 13 | An artificial Christmas wreath, with a red bow, two weeks before Christmas. Hung it on the truck's grille for the rest of the season. My pool customers loved it. Sandpiper Run 14 · Saturday, December 12, 1998 |
| 14 | A set of false teeth. Top plate only. I have no explanation and I don't want one. I turned them in at the pro shop like everything else. Nobody claimed them. I did not keep them. Heron Lakes 11 · Saturday, January 30, 1999 |
| 15 | A ball retriever. The long telescoping pole with a little cup on the end, extended all the way out. Picture the man reaching, reaching, reaching. I've got four of these now. Live Oak 6 · Saturday, March 13, 1999 |
| 16 | A wallet. Returned! Forty-three dollars, still folded inside, and a Michigan driver's license. I dried the license out, wrote a note, and mailed the whole thing back to the address on it. Three weeks later I got a thank-you card with a twenty in it, and a line saying he'd always heard Florida people were rude. Pine Hollow 12 again. That hole gets everybody. Pine Hollow 12 · Saturday, April 24, 1999 |
| 17 | A folding lawn chair, the aluminum kind with green and white webbing. Same pond as the flamingo. Somebody on that street is having parties in my pond. Sandpiper Run 2 · Saturday, June 5, 1999 |
| 18 | A remote-control toy boat, with the batteries still in it. A little speedboat, white and orange. The remote control was not with it. Somewhere out there is a kid holding a remote, still pushing the lever. Heron Lakes 16 · Saturday, July 17, 1999 |
| 19 | A brand-new driver, one of the big expensive ones, with the store's price sticker still on the shaft. I can only figure it was the first time out, and it didn't go well. Nobody's claimed it yet. I've got 54 days left on the ninety, and I'm trying not to count. Live Oak 18 · Saturday, August 14, 1999 |
| 20 | A high school class ring, class of 1971.  Gold, with a blue stone, from a high school in Pennsylvania, and three initials inside. I've written to the school to see if they can help me find him. If you graduated from a high school in Pennsylvania in 1971 and lost your ring in a golf pond in Florida, e-mail me and tell me the initials and the color of the stone.Pine Hollow 7 · Saturday, September 11, 1999 |
| 21 | Sunglasses. Every pond, every week. I keep them in a three-pound coffee can in the garage, and the can is full, and so is the one next to it. If you lost a pair of sunglasses on a golf course in Central Florida since 1996, I probably have them. Come on by and look. All four courses · every Saturday |