My dad: A bicycle, Golf and Billiards

My 92 year-old dad isn’t doing so well. He’s more quiet, and confined to a hospital bed in his living room. But when I saw him a few days ago, he remembered who I was and he told me stories about his childhood, his church mission, and even recent events. Some of them might even be true.

I asked whether he ever owned his own bicycle. Growing up in southern Alberta during a time of general economic scarcity he never had his own bicycle. He said, “The bicycle was given to the girls.” He would ride the bicycle on occasion, but he never had one of his own.

My dad loved to golf. I wondered whether he had played golf in the early 1950’s when he labored as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Samoa. My dad created a beautiful story about a tee shot along the shoreline. The day was beautiful and the water was clear and blue as the sky. The trees were green and still, as no wind blew. He hit the ball square and it sailed on a line with a perfect arc as far as the eye could see. My dad said, “It was the perfect shot.”

“Where did you get the clubs?”

I couldn’t imagine that he had traveled all the way to Samoa with his clubs in his luggage. He smiled and laughed.

“Well, maybe it was just a dream. Maybe the one perfect shot I ever hit was just in my mind.”

I said, “Better to have a perfect shot, even if only in your mind, than to never have a shot at all.”

We smiled and laughed.

My dad also taught me much about the art of playing pool. He taught me why my older brothers were destroying me on the billiard table even though I was there and saw what they were doing. Rather than just hitting shots, my brothers understood how to play shape. In billiards it’s always a good idea to make your shot, but it’s even better if you make your shot in a way that leaves the cue ball in the best position to make your next shot. My brothers understood that, but they weren’t about to teach me how to do it. My dad did.

I’m still just an above average pool player. But I have carried two lessons from pool into my daily life. First, when you can plan for multiple opportunities and see beyond your next move, life’s experiences result in increased value and enjoyment. I have also learned that if you focus too much on the shape and not the first shot, you sometimes miss the first shot and never have a chance for the shape shot.

So I try to play the shape shot, but when in doubt I will shoot as straight as an arrow. It’s better to make one shot and leave yourself a difficult second than to make no shot at all.