Inland Luau

Brought to you by the country club.

Once upon a time, the Media family belonged to our local country club. The Media parents and I all belonged to golf leagues; Sister-san was too young. I was never much pleased with an activity that required me to miss cartoons on summer Saturday mornings, especially since I wasn't much good at it. I was no good at being bad at things in those days. I especially dreaded out-of-town tournaments where a girl named Tricia would also be competing. Tricia's dad was a golf pro, so she was a much better golfer than I was. She was also a couple years younger than I was, and I absolutely hated losing to a younger girl.

My parents assured me I'd thank them later for teaching me to golf, as it was a social skill that would be invaluable later in life: a way to bond with my future husband's friends' wives or perhaps even with business colleagues. This is one of the few instances in which they've been proven wrong (so far). I haven't played a round of full-size golf in about 25 years. I'm sure I'd be much better at it now that I've been studying T'ai Chi for a while. If the improved coordination hasn't improved my swing, at least T'ai Chi has done wonders for my attitude. But I'm in no hurry to test that theory.

So I wasn't much of a golfer, but the country club offered other pleasures. There was the swimming pool, of course. It wasn't that much of a draw to me because we lived a block from the city pool, which was bigger, but dipping my toes in new waters was always a welcome novelty. I also liked the driving range, where I could whack ball after ball as badly as I pleased so long as I didn't disturb anyone else.

Also, there were golf carts. Golf carts! A golf cart is like a sports car to a 10-year-old, even one like me who swore she had no ambition to drive a car. (Mother Media is laughing her buns off right now; I've practically lived behind the wheel from the moment I got my license.) My parents let me drive the cart, and it was a blast. I was obviously very, very mature. I'll bet little Tricia didn't get to drive a cart. I'll bet her little feet didn't even reach the pedals, so nyah.

The best part, though, was when Dad decided the cart needed a wash. There was a gas station with self-service wash bays across the road from the cart sheds, so Dad would just drive on over there. He took the golf cart on the highway! Dude! And he let me ride along! That was super exciting stuff, to be riding in an open-sided vehicle on the highway (for about two blocks, max). We must have been going 15, 20 miles an hour. What a rush.

I also recall believing for at least a short time that our family didn't have to pay for meals in the dining room, presumably because my parents were so well liked. After all, I never saw money change hands after the steaks and baked potatoes had been consumed. This was before I understood the concept of running a tab.

Anyway. Every summer, the country club threw a luau. The idea of a luau on the Great Plains is fairly ironic — you can't get much farther from the beach than the geographic center of the nation — but we didn't care. A party's a party, and we looked forward to this one all summer. There were probably grass skirts and coconut bras and tiki lanterns, and swimming under the watchful eyes of some club member's teenager; I don't remember exactly. What I do remember was that the luau was just plain fun.

There were golf competitions like the ball-and-chain tournament, in which married couples competed as teams, and booby prizes whose jokes sailed right over my sun-bleached little head. There was a huge cookout with all the trimmings, including the world's greatest hors d'ouevres: pineapple and banana chunks skewered on toothpicks and rolled in crushed salted peanuts. Oy, so tasty! I've never tried recreating this delicacy on my own, probably because it wouldn't taste as good as the memories do. But it might be worth a try.

There was always a water balloon toss sometime in the evening. I have a better appreciation now for the role alcohol must have played in making it so exciting. One year my Girl Scout troop set up collection bins for aluminum cans and made what passed for a small fortune at the recycling center. We kids spent our share of time at the bar, too, ordering cherry Cokes — real cherry Cokes made with fountain Coke and cherry syrup and garnished with a maraschino or two — and thinking we were the bees' knees. We ran around essentially unsupervised, which was okay as long as we didn't tear up the putting green.

Eventually my parents stopped renewing their club membership, maybe when Dad's back problems made swinging a golf club more pain than pleasure. I didn't miss those Saturday morning rounds of dodge the sprinkler/squint into the sun, but I did miss the annual luau.

I still made it out to the country club every once in a while, though. When I was in high school, I attended at least one after-prom party there. The after-prom party was a casino night put on by parents and local businesses, designed to keep us off the streets and away from beer after the Incredibly Huge Deal that was the prom. The clear message: drinking bad; gambling OK. No, I shouldn't make fun. The party was a good thing, with some pretty decent prizes, and it did indeed keep a lot of us from wandering around in cars when we felt duty-bound to stay up all night.

My date to my senior IHD, a nonboyfriend friend named Monte, won a small white hair dryer at the after-prom party, which he gallantly gave to me. I used it for about 15 years, finally junking it when the heating element started to smell funny. Of the three prom dates I had, Monte was my favorite; he was easily the best dancer of the three, and since we weren't dating at the time, there was no pressure to make out.

Anyway. The last time I was in that country club was for the groom's dinner preceding my wedding nine years ago. Our friends and families didn't mingle much, and the clubhouse carpet was shabbier than I remembered. There was no cart driving, no water balloon toss, no hair dryer. The cherry Coke came out of a can, and I had to keep my shoes on and act grown up. I would have preferred a luau.

Today around the world: June 30 is National Day of Prayer in the Central African Republic.