If we hadn’t taken the golf cart….

If we hadn’t taken the golf cart to Easter services, we would have missed the first song of the thrush. There are several densely wooded pockets on our route, perfect haven for songbirds, and we’ve listened to thrushes there every spring. But if we’d driven the car that glorious morning, we would not have heard those first-of-the-season flute tones.

If we hadn’t taken the golf cart to a meeting at a friend’s house, we wouldn’t have seen a pair of ducks carefully rounding up their youngsters on the pond. There are just a few mallard families this year and not many have fledged. Maybe later in the spring….

If we hadn’t used the golf cart to go to Curves, we’d have missed the yellow swallowtail butterflies “mudding” next to the path. This has been a bumper spring for butterflies – I’ve never seen so many or such vivid coloration. And, no, we don’t know why butterflies like to gather on mud. Experts postulate that they find minerals available in the puddles.

(In case you’re wondering why Dave goes to a ladies’ exercise group with me, there’s a simple explanation. He likes to walk a couple of miles every day, while I prefer the work out. So we take the golf cart to Curves and while I’m toning up, he walks the two miles home, leaving the cart for me.)

If I hadn’t taken the golf cart to choir practice one recent Wednesday evening, I’d have missed the frog chorus in the marshes behind the Church of Christ on Peachtree Parkway. What wonderful deep basses the frogs have in their choir. We could use a couple of them in ours.

If we hadn’t driven the golf cart to the physical therapist who is trying to loosen up Dave’s shoulders, we might have failed to remind each other how really pretty our town is. I interviewed a writer several years ago who lived just outside Peachtree City and was obviously proud of it. She couldn’t bear, she sniffed, to live in a town where they paint the backs of traffic signs brown so they don’t clutter the landscape.

I hadn’t even noticed, but you may be sure that the moment I got out of her place I looked, and by golly she was right. You’ve gotta paint them something, so it might as well be chocolate brown. That way the signs on the other side of the street don’t detract from the leaves and landscape. Thank you, whoever thought of that. I’ll never take traffic signs for granted again.

Oh, I mentioned the leaves. If we hadn’t taken the golf cart to visit friends who had just lost their father, we might not have noticed the way the leaves had unfurled – in one week, mind you. In just seven days, our trees went from bare branches trimmed with tiny leaf-buds to a full-blown cloak wrapping our town in green.

The late columnist  Celestine Sibley, whom I admired beyond words, wrote once of how the new leaves cup sunlight and pour it out all green. She said it better than that, but I love the image. It’s a green beyond description, and needs to be absorbed with nothing, not even glass, to block our view.

Well, as Dave would say, I’ve probably run this homily into the ground. It’s not nearly so prosaic as to say, Gas is expensive, so we’re using the golf cart as much as we can. I admit, I begrudge the time more than anything else. It takes 18 minutes to get to church, 13 to go to Curves, 20 or so to Waffle House. Dave is already thinking of replacing our slow old buggy with a lively new one. And I’m tending to agree. 

They are not good for every use. We can go to a funeral but not to the cemetery, and when it rains, we’d best be prepared. On a recent Sunday that started out balmy, we were dressed for about 60 degrees, and by the time we were heading home from church, the temperature had dropped about 15 degrees. We put on brave faces, brushed off all offers of a ride, and headed on home – nearly frozen.

The medical offices around the hospital are not cart path accessible yet – we can hope – but did you know several tunnels will be built under Georgia Hwy. 74 to connect Peachtree City’s southernmost neighborhoods to the soccer fields, the FAA facility, and Falcon Field?

I’ve never understood folks who brag when they say they’ve lived here 10 years and have gotten along well without a golf cart, thank you just the same. They don’t know what they’re missing. Golf cart travel allows us to connect not only with places but with people, at eye level, “chat level,” if you would, souls who have been indoors all day, outside now to walk their dogs, get a little exercise, greet a neighbor.

And discover that their neighbor may be a box turtle, a bunny, or a mockingbird.

God bless you, Sallie

Submitted by mudcat on Wed, 05/10/2006 - 6:50pm.

There are many good reasons to live in Peachtree City, but you have focused upon one of the most important. We have the ability to enjoy our city at our own pace without a schedule - or even with a schedule, if we choose to use our golf carts to get somewhere.

You are a treasure. Please write more on this subject. I love good news and positive thoughts that validate my reasons for moving here 15 years ago.
meow

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