| General Fiction posted August 23, 2023 | Chapters: |
...24 25 -26- 27... 
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The world of adults
A chapter in the book Saving Mr. Calvin
Saving Mr. Calvin - Chapter 21
by Jim Wile
| Background A story about the origin and the future of the game of golf |
See Author Notes for the list of characters and unfamiliar terms.
Recap of the past few chapters: The kids meet their opponents for the final match, and it happens to be the two scoundrels who had attacked Arie at last year’s fair. They are actually nobles named Albert and Diederek. Our heroes get them 2-down through 6 holes, then their opponents cheat by convincing a spectator to kick Rube’s drive into a water hazard. However, there was no rule against this and they end up losing the 7th hole.
More shenanigans cause them to lose the 8th hole as well, and the match is even going into the tricky 9th hole, where Rube comes through with a miraculous shot to win that hole. The scoundrels lose all their balls in the process, but through quick thinking, Arie tricks them into borrowing the smooth ball that Rube had made the previous year that doesn’t fly very far. This causes the villains to lose another hole and our heroes are now 2-up with 2 to play, needing only a tie or win on one of the last two holes to win the championship.
One of the villain’s friends retrieves a ball for Albert and Diederek, and they realize they’ve been duped with the smooth ball. Arie needs a long putt to tie the hole and win the match, but Albert makes one last attempt to stop her. With a little help from nature or the crowd, her ball finds the hole, and it’s over. Kilian and Arie are lifted up by the crowd as the two villains are hauled away and beaten up badly by Fredrik and Gerrit. After Arie’s acceptance speech at the award ceremony, they all head back to Gerrit’s house where they celebrate their victory.
Chapter 21
Buoyed by the success of the competition, evident in the huge crowds we drew, the five of us decided to move to Amsterdam, where we became merchants of our kolf equipment and services. As with the game itself, each of us took on a different role in our new business.
Lotte became our designer of new kolven fields, which we began calling them. Many of the wealthy landowners in the area, who had attended the competition at the fair, sought her services to lay out holes on their properties. With her artist’s eye and keen sense of observation, she was able to visualize holes where none of the rest of us could ever have imagined them. Her kolven fields included an assortment of beautiful, interesting, and challenging holes to play with a great variety of lengths, elevation changes, and hazards. They were always fun to play, and the four of us got to play them often, as we generally had an open invitation from the owners to play when we wanted. Over the years, they would arrange exhibitions and matches for us against local teams that were forming, as the game became more popular.
For the first year after forming our company, all of us would be busy making kolfs and balls, but as time went on, Rube took over the equipment role almost by himself. As the business grew, he eventually hired some young apprentices to help him. He taught the lads to seek out the strongest branches they could find of hickory, beech, ash, and cherry. Hickory became the leading wood used for kolf shafts and heads, as all of our kolfs were one solid piece. He experimented with shaving the shafts thinner and thinner, which enabled him to make the heads of the kolfs larger and the kolfs lighter and whippier overall. He built up a sizable inventory of kolfs and balls, which we were able to sell at the weekly markets in town.
Lars turned out to be a skilled instructor of the game. Along with Lotte’s pictures and his written instructions on how to swing, he made up a number of instruction scrolls for sale and gave lessons as well. He was often hired by the landowners, who had built kolven fields on their properties, to come out and teach them and their neighbors to play the game.
Both Arie and I were the co-managers of the company, overseeing the different operations, including setting up and manning the stall in the weekly market, organizing the annual competitions at the Amsterdam Fair and further promotional trips around the area to continue our efforts to spread the game. Most of this eventually settled on me, as Arie began having babies and spent much of her time at home with them.
Over the next eight years, she gave birth to two boys and, most recently, a girl. Lotte and Lars also had three children—two girls and a boy. We lived next door to each other, which was very near Rube’s equipment shop. Rube lived by himself over the shop, and he became an unofficial oom to all of our children. The children adored their big, jolly Oom Ruben, who loved to play with them, and as they got older, he began teaching them his trade. They would accompany him to the woods, where he taught them about the different trees, and they helped him collect branches for the kolfs and balls.
One day, he met a woman whom he fell in love with and married, but he didn’t have any children of his own yet.
We all live comfortably now as we make a good living from this increasingly popular game, which we are proud to say that we created and spread.
We made a number of trips over the years back home, where we brought the children to visit with their grootouders. One evening in late summer, while visiting with the Papins, Arie and I decided to take a walk with the children and show them the place where we had met. The boys were five and six, and our little daughter was only three. The children all brought a kolf and ball with them so they could hit shots as we walked. We had taught all three to play the game, and little Lieke, our 3-year-old daughter, was especially fond of it. She was the spitting image of her mother, with bright red hair and little freckles on her nose and cheeks.
It was a beautiful summer evening. The day had been warm, but it had cooled off considerably, making for a very pleasant walk. Arie and I held hands and walked behind while the children would hit their balls and run ahead.
“This is nice,” I said. The birds were growing quiet as the crickets began their nightly concert. The wind had stilled, and the shadows of the trees and of us were growing longer now as the evening deepened. I took Arie by the waist as she moved closer and laid her head on my shoulder.
“I’m happy, Kilian. We’ve made a wonderful life for ourselves, and all because of this wonderful game you invented.”
“Well, even if I never had, just meeting you and knowing you and loving you would have been enough to make me a happy man. So let me ask you: If it had been Lars or Ruben being chased that day, would you have called out to either of them to come hide with you in that hole?”
“Neither of them would have fit in there with me. As it was, we were pretty tight together.”
“Yes, and I liked it! You got me very excited, you know.”
“I knew. I could feel you against me. I liked it too.”
I chuckled. “And do you remember the day when we were up on that hill and we got our first idea to create the lifter? You were about to say something, but then you stopped and started blushing. What were you going to say?”
“You know.”
“Well, what made you stop? Why didn’t you just say it?”
“I wanted to hear you say it first. You sure took your time about it.”
“It wasn’t because I didn’t feel it. I think I fell in love with you the moment I pulled you out of that hole. I was just shy.”
“Do you still love me, Kilian?”
“I love you more than ever, Arie. I love our children. I love our life together. I don’t think I could be any happier than I am right now.”
“And I love you too, my dearest, sweet, wonderful man. Let us never part from each other.”
I wrapped both my arms tightly around her, and we kissed for a long time. After a while, we stopped and started walking again with arms around each other. We had been married for eight years, and we were still only 23 and 22 years old. We were little more than kids ourselves, but we felt like adults now with kids of our own and responsibilities.
We watched the children strike their balls. Rube had made shortened kolfs for them so they could swing naturally. He put extra lift on Lieke’s, who couldn’t hit her ball very far yet, but she was still able to get it into the air with the extra lift. If she takes after her mother, she will be a very good kolfer one day. She certainly has the same joy for the game that Arie has.
When we got to the cave, I called the three to come over and join us.
“This is the place where we met, children,” I said. “The first time I saw Mama, I only saw her head as she was peeking out of this hole you see here. This is the entrance to a cave.”
“We know, Papa. We have heard this story many times,” said our eldest son, Pieter. “She called to you to hide you from Oom Lars and Oom Ruben, who were chasing you. Why were they chasing you again? I forget.”
“I said something unkind to Oom Lars, and he took offense to it and vowed to pound me with his fists.”
“But what did you say, Papa?” asked our middle son, Fredrik, named after his opa.
“It’s not important, but it was enough to anger him into a wicked chase.”
“Why did you call to him, Mama?” asked Lieke.
“I could tell he needed my help. Plus, he looked very handsome,” she said as she smiled at me.
“And why did you ask if she was a wood elf, Papa?” Pieter asked.
“Well, it seemed like she had come from the woods to my rescue, and she looked like how I pictured a wood elf would look. She was small and very cute. Not too different from the way she looks now. Her ears weren’t pointed, though, so I should have known better.”
“Where was Papa when you first saw him, Mama?” asked Fredrik.
“He came running out of those woods over there,” she said, pointing to the place. “Let’s go see it.”
The children took another swipe at their balls in the direction of the woods. When we got there, we stopped. Arie and I turned around to face them, and I said, “This is the very spot I came running from.” Right then, I saw a ball zoom past me and into the woods. Little Lieke had struck it.
Arie said, “Lieke, dear. Please be careful where you are aiming. You don’t want to strike someone. Those hard balls can leave a bruise.”
“I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t know where it is now. Did you see it, Papa?”
“I think I can find it for you, schatje. Just be careful from now on.”
“I will.”
“I’ll be back in a moment, then I think we’d better turn around and head back,” I said to the family as I stepped into the woods.
(One more chapter to go in Part 1)
Dutch words
groutouders: grandparents
oom: uncle
opa: grandfather
CHARACTERS - 2032 California
Kevin Parsons: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old mechanical engineer living in Santa Barbara, CA.
Paul Putnam: A good friend of Kevin who is an electrical engineer.
Ernie (Dumbo) Dumbrowski: Another good friend of Kevin who is a computer genius.
Art Calvin: An old, retired golf course architect whom the boys meet one day while golfing.
CHARACTERS - 1247 Holland
Kilian Pauls: A 14-year-old shepherd boy in 1247 Holland. He is the narrator of this part of the story.
Arie Papin: A 13-year-old farmgirl in 1247 Holland.
Lars (Lard) Jansen: A fellow shepherd boy and friend of Kilian.
Ruben (Rube) Meijer: Another shepherd boy and friend of Kilian.
Fredrik Papin (Dhr Papin): Arie's father
Mevr Papin: Arie's mother
Lotte Papin: Arie's younger sister
Frans and Hennie Papin: Arie's little brothers
Oom Gerrit Papin: Arie's uncle (Fredrik's brother)
Pieter, Fredrik, and Lieke Pauls: Kilian and Arie's children
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. groutouders: grandparents
oom: uncle
opa: grandfather
CHARACTERS - 2032 California
Kevin Parsons: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old mechanical engineer living in Santa Barbara, CA.
Paul Putnam: A good friend of Kevin who is an electrical engineer.
Ernie (Dumbo) Dumbrowski: Another good friend of Kevin who is a computer genius.
Art Calvin: An old, retired golf course architect whom the boys meet one day while golfing.
CHARACTERS - 1247 Holland
Kilian Pauls: A 14-year-old shepherd boy in 1247 Holland. He is the narrator of this part of the story.
Arie Papin: A 13-year-old farmgirl in 1247 Holland.
Lars (Lard) Jansen: A fellow shepherd boy and friend of Kilian.
Ruben (Rube) Meijer: Another shepherd boy and friend of Kilian.
Fredrik Papin (Dhr Papin): Arie's father
Mevr Papin: Arie's mother
Lotte Papin: Arie's younger sister
Frans and Hennie Papin: Arie's little brothers
Oom Gerrit Papin: Arie's uncle (Fredrik's brother)
Pieter, Fredrik, and Lieke Pauls: Kilian and Arie's children
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