<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If the statute of limitations for trespassing is six years (and yes, I looked it up for the sake of accuracy), it is probably okay for me to tell this story nearly fifty years after the fact.\u00a0 Sticking with first names will suffice to tell the following tale so nobody will be put on the spot beyond yours truly.\u00a0 Back then, we viewed our actions to be no more than youthful hijinks.\u00a0 We also rationalized\u00a0 we were helping support an under-employed friend, but as you will see, there were benefits to be had for all parties involved.\u00a0 Being the son of a detective, I learned early on that honesty was definitely the best policy as my dad had an uncanny knack for knowing what I was up to, sometimes even before I did anything.\u00a0 There was no use shucking and jiving because a) I never did develop a good poker face, and b) leveling with dad was my main way of learning how the world works without having to find out the hard way.\u00a0 I remember explaining what we were up to at the time and promising we would follow pop\u2019s advice to the letter:\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t get caught,\u201d (more on this later).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Back in our college days, we all did what we could to pay our way through school.\u00a0 One of my summer kitchen worker buddies at the Huron Mountain Club was always looking for ways to add to his cash flow when the summer job was over.\u00a0 John mentioned that he and another friend used to occasionally sneak into the golf club at night and fish balls out of their pond. \u00a0 As the word \u2018sneak\u2019 implies, this was a covert operation mounted well after nightfall.\u00a0 When asked if I wanted to tag along for one of these midnight raids, I even volunteered to drive.\u00a0 Being the new guy in the crew, I followed John\u2019s lead.\u00a0 We parked a few hundred yards down the road from the entrance to the golf course.\u00a0 The pond was located north of the street that separated seven of the original nine holes from the clubhouse on the southside.\u00a0 With our neoprene dive vests, goggles, fins, snorkels, net bags, and a couple of underwater flashlights (I had to borrow one), we walked across two fairways to reach this tear drop shaped lake.\u00a0 The grounds keeper made the rounds setting up the sprinklers on a noisy utility cart so we had plenty of warning when he was coming.\u00a0 We could also track his movements by watching his headlight bobbing along the other fairways.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Snorkeling in the dark is a strange affair to say the least.\u00a0 To prevent the groundskeeper from seeing our lights, we would dive to the bottom before turning them on.\u00a0 When it was time to come up for air, we would turn off the light and break surface as quietly as possible, just in case.\u00a0 There were a couple of times when the guy in the cart would stop at the edge of the pond before driving away, but with only his cart headlights shining over the water, he could not see our heads poking out of the middle of the pond.\u00a0 I had to borrow a black snorkel for the occasion because mine was bright white.\u00a0 We cherry picked the balls sitting on the bottom as they glowed like pearls in our flashlight beam.\u00a0 When we had a little more than half of our net bag filled, we left the same way we came in.\u00a0 There were three of us the first time I participated in a night dive and we collected three hundred or so golf balls.\u00a0 The next day, we met at John\u2019s house to scrub the mud off them with toothbrushes.\u00a0 I do not remember how much the golf club paid for these balls.\u00a0 They may have suspected the source, but never did\u00a0 ask where they came from.\u00a0 Most were destined for their driving range and the nicest ones were put in a basket and priced at a buck a piece.\u00a0 What they paid for the lot, I have no clue –\u00a0 I donated my services the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0John made some cash for his trouble but the golf club did even better.\u00a0 Repeatedly \u2018renting\u2019 these used balls on the driving range and selling the best of the lot was a good deal for them.\u00a0 The next summer, John decided it was time to go big time.\u00a0 As a scuba and snorkel diver, he reasoned there must be a lot more balls in the middle of this 12-15 foot deep water hazzard. He negotiated a deal with the club to let him do a daylight dive in exchange for giving the club an even better deal.\u00a0 John reasoned that with the right equipment, he could make more money by collecting a larger volume of balls without risk of getting caught.\u00a0 The club\u2019s lowball price was no match for John\u2019s plan of action.\u00a0 After recruiting a couple of friends with scuba gear and me armed with my trusyt fins, mask, and snorkel, we arrived in the middle of the day with John\u2019s secret weapon:\u00a0 an inflatable raft!\u00a0 We got a lot of strange looks from the golfers passing by and at least one guy threatened to call the police.\u00a0 We assured him that we were there with the club\u2019s blessing but he wasn\u2019t buying it:\u00a0 \u201cSure you are!\u201d was his parting shot (the police never did arrive).\u00a0 More than one golfer splatted a ball in the pond while we were diving so we had to keep our eyes peeled when we were at the surface.\u00a0 More than one asked if we could find their ball for them.\u00a0 We lied and told them, \u201cThe club told us that we can\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During this daylight dive we realized there was a\u00a0 bonanza of balls located below the easy pickings.\u00a0 Without a flashlight in hand, one could reach into the mud at the bottom and pull out handfuls of balls that had accumulated over the years.\u00a0 When our netbags were full, we would empty them into the raft and go back for more.\u00a0 We were not sure how many balls we would be able to collect in the two hours we were given, but suffice to say we had a hard time pulling the raft over to my truck parked near the road.\u00a0 If memory serves me correctly, we pulled more than 4,000 balls from the pond which John took home and power washed before we started the toothbrush fine cleaning.\u00a0 We all got a piece of the action, but it was John\u2019s baby so we were fine with him getting the biggest cut.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Now that he had a handle on this new business venture, John called the Ishpeming golf club and offered them a similar deal.\u00a0 None of us realized the ponds at the Ishpeming course were not so much ponds a cattail ringed mud holes less than six feet deep.\u00a0 We dove a couple of them near the clubhouse but gave up because these small ponds did not collect balls as well as the much bigger Marquette golf club pond.\u00a0 We thought, \u201cHey, this is great.\u00a0 We can help do this once per summer for pocket change.\u201d\u00a0 The club thought differently and the next time they were approached, they said they were no longer interested in having anyone harvest balls from their pond!\u00a0 We figured perhaps it was farmed out to a relative of a board member.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We were disappointed about the loss of John\u2019s golden goose.\u00a0 Jim remembers we were sitting around a table at The Office in downtown Marquette when we decided we would just have to do one more cloak and dagger raid.\u00a0 We were a little smarter this time as we recruited my brother to drop us off instead of just parking down the road.\u00a0 When my dad found out we were going back for one more night raid, he said it reminded him of poaching deer back during the depression and World War II.\u00a0 Having never heard this story before, I asked him if he was worried about getting caught back then.\u00a0 He said, \u201cNah, everyone was doing it because you had to put meat on the table.\u00a0 Those who enforced the law either looked the other way or gave you tips where to hunt so you wouldn\u2019t get caught.\u201d\u00a0 As an afterthought, he added, \u201cDon\u2019t you get caught.\u00a0 You know you are trespassing, don\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0 Actually, I had never thought of it that way.\u00a0 I shared this bit of advice on the way to our dropzone and got a bit of nervous laughter.\u00a0 John said, \u201cYeah, it would be a shame to get caught the last time we do this.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We had a feeling the club had let the groundskeeper know that we had been turned down in our request to do another day dive.\u00a0 Our extra cautious approach was proved out because there were at least three occasions when the groundskeeper\u2019s little cart came speeding up to the edge of the pond.\u00a0 He would stand gazing over the water for several minutes.\u00a0 We would just sit with as little of our heads sticking out of the water as possible and wait for him to go away.\u00a0 He even did a feint at one point where he started to drive away and spun right back to try an suprise any visitors.\u00a0 I remember this well because I was sitting just below his perch near the shore and there were little fish bumping into my chin while he scanned the surface.\u00a0 As he drove away, an idle thought entered my head:\u00a0 \u201cWhat if he misjudged the edge and drove into the pond.\u00a0 Would we get a reward or a jail term for fishing him out?\u201d \u00a0 We did not make as good a haul on this last trip as we did on the previous summer\u2019s day dive.\u00a0 I am not sure if John was even able to sell this batch to the club, but it was more of a \u2018so there\u2019 gesture on our part anyway.\u00a0 \u201cYou won\u2019t let us do it the legit way?\u00a0 Take that!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jim liked the idea that we were diving with a purpose.\u00a0 He got interested enough to take the scuba diving class.\u00a0 A few summers later, he invited me to come along when he was asked to retrieve a pair of glasses that had been dropped off a boat in the Marina in Marquette\u2019s lower harbor.\u00a0 It was still rather early in the summer and the lake was still a bit cool.\u00a0 Jim donned his wet suit and tank while I just wore my neoprene vest, mask, and snorkel.\u00a0 The glasses were a piece of cake, so as long as we were in water anyway, we took some time to explore the rest of the marina.\u00a0 To say there were a few anchors on the bottom would be an understatement.\u00a0 I wish we had taken an inventory of all the stuff we hauled up and plunked on the marina dock that day.\u00a0 Who knew people could drop that much stuff overboard and not bother to retrieve it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jim said the first time he did a retrieval dive at the same marina, it was in search of a wallet.\u00a0 He donned his wetsuit and lowered himself to the bottom where he actually stepped on the missing billfold.\u00a0 \u201cThis was too easy,\u201d he recalled, \u201cso I sat on the bottom for a while.\u00a0 I dabbed a little mud on my suit and came up looking a little like the creature from the black lagoon.\u00a0 The guy was so happy he gave me a nice reward for my \u2018trouble\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jim and Dan made other dives in the harbor and to this day Jim marvels at the things they found.\u00a0 I asked him recently if he remembered these salvage dives and he sent back the following description of their treasurers:\u00a0 \u201cWe pulled all kinds of stuff out of the lower harbor including a sail bag (with an expensive sail inside), and a small outboard motor.\u00a0 We went down on a couple of Thursday afternoons after the Wednesday regattas.\u201d\u00a0 Interestingly enough, there is a group of divers in the Marquette area who do an annual harbor cleanup these days so maybe Jim and Dan were pioneers.\u00a0 The group doing it now make it a point to get news coverage.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0John had planted the idea of doing a golf ball dive when we were doing a similar search and retrieve mission in the Pine River at the Huron Mountain Club.\u00a0 The Pine River cuts through the heart of the HMC and both banks are lined by cottages and boathouses.\u00a0 John and his boss Stu had been asked to take a snorkel hunt to find something that had been dropped off a dock near the car bridge between the main office and the clubhouse and dining rooms.\u00a0 They asked if I wanted to come and look for stuff.\u00a0 Their secondary goal was to search for old chamber pots and china that had been tossed in the river in years gone by.\u00a0 Chamber pots were not big on my agenda, but it was always fun to watch Stu and John haggle and trade their collected treasures post-dive.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t find anything notable but I did collect two \u2018scares\u2019.\u00a0 John had mentioned that when he had been diving in the Cayman Islands, they were warned to be careful of the circling\u00a0 Barracudas:\u00a0 \u201cThey said if one looks at you with one eye, they are getting ready to attack.\u201d\u00a0 John laughed when he pointed out, \u201cbut when they are swimming around you, they always look at you with one eye.\u00a0 I wonder if Northern Pike also do that?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sure enough, my first pass across the river and I encountered two very large Northerns.\u00a0 They swam warily ahead of me with one eye watching my every move.\u00a0 When they had enough of me following them, they turned and sped upriver passing no more than five feet in front of my nose.\u00a0 I did not think they were in attack mode, but John\u2019s words still popped into my head.\u00a0 A little farther up river, I was rounding a bank of weeds growing in the middle of the river when the biggest snapping turtle I have ever seen stuck its head out of the waving green wall.\u00a0 His head was the size of a softball and I was not about to stick around long enough to see how big his mouth was.\u00a0 I kicked hard and made a right turn while he took off in the other direction..\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t see each other after that as we both were churning up an impressive cloud of silt behind us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It never dawned on me to ask John if there might be snapping turtles in the golf pond during our golf ball capers!\u00a0 On the other hand, It was probably better to have one less thing to worry about besides not getting caught.\u00a0 With the size of the pond and the amount of balls we were able to retrieve in a few hours time, I can only wonder how many thousand of those dimpled little devils are still down there just waiting for the next generation of adventurous pickers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 I am betting you are not terribly familiar with a band called The Arrogant Worms, nor that they have a Golf song . . . .but now you are!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If the statute of limitations for trespassing is six years (and yes, I looked it up for the sake of accuracy), it is probably okay for me to tell this story nearly fifty years after the fact.\u00a0 Sticking with first names will suffice to tell the following tale so nobody will be put on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2323,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions\/2323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}