Jimmie James - Author and Golfer - Encore
The primary focus of this encore podcast episode is an engaging dialogue with Jimmy James, who undertook the remarkable challenge of playing the top 100 golf courses in the United States within a single year. As he recounts his journey, we delve into the motivations that propelled him toward this ambitious goal, particularly his desire to reconnect with his family and experience the diverse golfing landscape of the nation. Furthermore, Jimmy shares insights from his newly authored book, "Playing from the Rough," which chronicles not only his golfing adventure but also the profound reflections on his life that emerged from these experiences. Throughout our conversation, we explore the transformative power of golf as a means of connection and the importance of perseverance and integrity as instilled by his mother. This episode serves as an inspiring testament to the human spirit's capacity for growth and the pursuit of dreams against all odds.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Oregon Crab Commission
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Westin dealerships
- Weston Kia
- KPMG
- Flint Hills National
- Oak Hill Country Club
- Prairie View A and M University
- Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission
- Hammer Stall Knives
- Heritage Cookware
- Birdie Ball
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Grilling at the Green.
Speaker A:Join Jeff Tracy as he explores the golfing lifestyle and tries to keep it in the short grass.
Speaker A:For the hackers, dew sweepers and turf spankers, here's Jeff.
Speaker B:Just open up the door and let's take good times in.
Speaker B:Tomorrow's gonna be better than today.
Speaker C:Hey everybody.
Speaker C:Welcome to Grilling at the Green, proudly part of the Golf News Network.
Speaker C:I'm jt, your host and the big question every week, of course, is how's your.
Speaker C:We want to thank the folks before we get into the show as normal to the Oregon Crab Commission.
Speaker C:From sea to plate, if you've never had Oregon Dungeness crab or Dungeness crab anywhere on the west coast, it's marvelous.
Speaker C:I highly recommend it.
Speaker C:And also our good friends at Painted Hills Natural Beef Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker C:You can go to painted hills.com painted hillsbeef.com Excuse me.
Speaker C:You can actually order online or find out if there's a grocer in your area.
Speaker C:So my question to everybody is, do you think you could play 100 or the 100 top courses in the US in one year?
Speaker C:Now I think that's a pretty big bucket list item.
Speaker C:My guest today, Jimmy James, actually did that.
Speaker C:Jimmy also wrote a book about it and his life and his journey there called Playing from the Rough.
Speaker C:Jimmy, welcome.
Speaker B:Thanks, Jeff, for having me on.
Speaker B:Love the opportunity to talk about my story.
Speaker C:Ah, I love your story.
Speaker C:Okay, so the obvious first question out of the gate is what prompted you to try such a feat?
Speaker C:The top 100 courses according to Golf Digest in one year.
Speaker C:Most golfers don't play that much in three years.
Speaker B:Well, I was getting ready to retire and the reason for retiring at a young age of 58 was a job that had me on the road quite a bit for many years.
Speaker B:And I missed so much of our kids lives and I wanted to spend more time with them before they headed off to college.
Speaker B:So during their high school years.
Speaker B:But I knew I couldn't go from 100 mph executive globe trotting executive job to an idle retirement.
Speaker B:So I needed something to, to, to bridge that gap, to make that transition.
Speaker B:So what I thought about were all the times I used to travel across the country when I was young, didn't have a family early in my career wasn't as demanding just talking with people everywhere I went.
Speaker B:So I thought I'd reconnect with the country during my first year of retirement.
Speaker B:I'd go to all 50 states, play two courses in each state, one with friends, one with strangers.
Speaker B:But before I could develop that plan, my wife gave me a book by John Sabino where he played the hundred best or top courses in the world over his lifetime.
Speaker B:So that was.
Speaker B:It became just a math problem to me.
Speaker B:I said, well, I'm going to play a hundred courses.
Speaker B:Why not just play the hundred best?
Speaker B:Why not see if I can't get access without ever directly asking to the hundred most exclusive and best golf courses in the country and do it all in a year?
Speaker B:I bet no one's done it in a year.
Speaker B:And there wasn't much more thought to it than that.
Speaker B:It wasn't some long time fantasy or a lot of planning and thought put in it beyond that moment.
Speaker C:I think you were wise to not try to transition from 100 miles an hour to 0 miles an hour at home or 30 as you said it.
Speaker C:Not to interject myself in this, but I spent 37 years flying around the world doing in my other job.
Speaker C:And then when I retired from that eight years ago or so, I kind of went wham.
Speaker C:So it will, word to the wise out there, it will hit you, Jimmy, Growing up in East Texas, you didn't have very much, to put it mildly.
Speaker C:Were your dreams and aspirations as a child something like you did with.
Speaker C:With becoming an engineer, working for a world's largest oil company or one of them and then that or what were your dreams as a kid?
Speaker B:I didn't have specific dreams because I didn't know enough about the world to dream specific things like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I lived in a very small corner of the world in the summer quarters after being born in the deep woods of East Texas.
Speaker B:And when you talk about not having much, we probably had to gain quite a bit to get to the level of not having much.
Speaker B:We were.
Speaker B:That was a climb.
Speaker B:That was a climb for us.
Speaker B:So we lived in a shack.
Speaker B:No plumbing or electricity to tin roof shack.
Speaker B:What we ate, we either raised, grew or killed.
Speaker B:Drew water from a well bath water from a pond with the ticklish wiggles of tadpoles.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was spartan, a spartan type of life.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And we love our lives in the sense of we created childhoods out of nothing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I knew that there still had to be something different.
Speaker B:And my occasional forays outside our small world gave me a glimpse of a different life.
Speaker B:And so I didn't know exactly what created that different life for others.
Speaker B:But what I did know is that wasn't.
Speaker B:There wasn't anyone around me who had graduated from high school.
Speaker B:So at five years old I set a goal to graduate from high school not knowing anyone who had done so already.
Speaker B:So what my life has always been marked by is setting ambitious goals.
Speaker B:Later, I had aspirations of what type of career to have, but that came much later in life.
Speaker C:Well, you've come a long way from hitting a plastic doll's head with a sawmill slat.
Speaker C:Were you able to sit back and reflect on where you came from and what you've accomplished during the process of the 100 courses and writing this book?
Speaker B:A part of what really prompted me to write the book was just the contrast and comparisons and thoughts that I had as I found myself in places I never could have imagined or dreamed of as a child.
Speaker B:And it's really the impetus for the book was, wow, what an amazing story.
Speaker B:What an amazing country we live in, where I could go from the type of life I was born into and find myself at these places of privilege.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:That I didn't even know existed when I was a kid and never could have even imagined.
Speaker B:And so thinking about that contrast and thinking about who we are as a country and we're not perfect.
Speaker B:We have a lot of challenges, and it's up to us to make us a more perfect union.
Speaker B:But I can think of nowhere else.
Speaker B:I travel the world as a businessman, and I can think of nowhere else where, if you're confronted by challenges created by the society you live in, that there are so many pathways that are also made available to you to overcome those challenges.
Speaker B:So those thoughts.
Speaker B:And as I went to all these places and the contrast, it was like when I was at Augusta National.
Speaker B:It just.
Speaker B:The thought came into my mind of born into a world that lacked almost everything to find myself standing in a world that lacked almost nothing.
Speaker B:And it's hard for me to grasp that.
Speaker B:It's hard for me to grasp running around dirty and stinky, with bathing only once a week as a kid in the sawmill quarter, playing baseball with a stick or a slat that had drifted down to us from the sawmill up the hill and smacking that doll's head or etching hopscotch squares into the dirt.
Speaker B:Those things we created our world.
Speaker B:And to go from that to the life that I find myself in now, it's just hard to conceive of.
Speaker B:And so I was constantly reminded of that as I went to these places.
Speaker B:And some of the experiences I had would spur additional reflections on my earlier life.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:Well, one thing about growing up with nothing, I think, is you become a creative person in their own right.
Speaker C:Kids do.
Speaker C:Because you didn't you couldn't run down to the sporting goods store and.
Speaker C:And spend 10 bucks in those days or 15 and buy a new Rawlings baseball glove or anything like that.
Speaker C:That wasn't even in the on the table, you know, so you had to create ways to keep yourself entertained.
Speaker C:And I actually think that the people I know that now that I know you too, but people I know where I grew up was not, you know, a really overly wealthy community and we grew up in the country by a crick and we played pirates and did all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker C:You had to.
Speaker C:You had to make your own fun, really.
Speaker B:Yes, you did.
Speaker B:And there are times actually, Jeff, that I get a little nostalgic for the simplicity of it all.
Speaker B:And I do attribute my upbringing to the style of engineer.
Speaker B:I became very practical solutions for problems and thinking my way through what is the most effective, efficient way to address this technical problem we have.
Speaker B:Of course, I gain the understanding of the basic sciences from my professors at Prairie View A and M University when I was an engineering student there.
Speaker B:They also helped me learn how to navigate a world that I hadn't been prepared for by my early life, and that is being a black man in a career that there were few of us that had gone into before and working within the corporate world.
Speaker B:The corporate world had just really started to open up for opportunities for African American engineers when I graduated from college in the early 80s.
Speaker C:Yeah, we're going to take a break.
Speaker C:We're going to be back with Jimmy James, the author of Playing from the Rough, and hear more of his phenomenal story right after this.
Speaker C:Please stay with us.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, JT here.
Speaker D:You know, every week on Grilling at the Green, we bring you a travel tip and that is brought to you by the Westin dealerships.
Speaker D:I've known those guys since I was a kid and they have one way of doing business.
Speaker D:It's called the Weston way.
Speaker D:It's family oriented and there's no better people to deal with.
Speaker D:Check out Weston Kia on Southeast Stark in Gresham, Oregon.
Speaker B:Foreign.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:I'm jt.
Speaker C:We want to thank you for listening here.
Speaker C:This is the part of the show every week and I did give Jimmy a heads up on this where we do a travel tip sponsored by our good friends at Weston Kia here in Portland.
Speaker C:And knowing that Jimmy's flown, I actually figured it out last night.
Speaker C:I think you've flown a million miles more than I have.
Speaker C:Something like that.
Speaker C:I was doing the calculations out of your book and looking at my stuff.
Speaker C:Anyway, there's always a good travel tip, and it doesn't always necessarily have to do with airplanes.
Speaker C:What would yours be after doing this marathon golf outing?
Speaker B:Related to the marathon golf outing is never take the last flight to the city you're going to, because when they leave your bag behind you, there's another flight that can get it to you so that you're using your own clubs the next day.
Speaker B:Always have a plan B if that flight gets canceled.
Speaker B:Now, I'll tell you, my plan B did not comprehend.
Speaker B:Once when I was in Tulsa, I made sure that there was going to be another flight after my flight.
Speaker B:The problem is, my flight took off.
Speaker B:We had engine problems and had to come back to the gate, and that other contingency flight had already taken off.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, Been there, done that.
Speaker C:That's a good travel tip.
Speaker C:And we want to thank the folks at Weston Kia for that.
Speaker C:I can't tell you how many times I told somebody and you've heard this type of little limerick.
Speaker C:I said, yeah, I spent a week once in Cleveland overnight, you know, it was just.
Speaker C:There was no flights.
Speaker C:You were done.
Speaker C:You were.
Speaker C:You were not going home that day.
Speaker C:One of the things I noticed in the book, Jimmy, you seem to make yourself into Jimmy James, super salesman.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And I was impressed with that.
Speaker C:In your teenage and college years, do you think of yourself maybe now in a manner of super salesman, perhaps for golf?
Speaker B:I think that I learned at a very age the importance of being able to sell your ideas.
Speaker B:And when I got ready to make this odyssey across the country, it didn't frighten me that I was going to not only have to sell my idea, but have to also sell myself in a sense.
Speaker B:Because there are, I think, two important elements for being able to accomplish this journey, and that is you have to meet people that have the opportunity and the resources to.
Speaker B:To get you connected to people that will invite you to courses.
Speaker B:Because my objective was to get invited to all of these courses without ever directly asking for an invite, without ever directly asking for help.
Speaker B:And so I had to not only sell the idea of becoming the very first person ever to play all of America's 100 greatest courses in 365 days, then I had to sell myself as someone worthy of that help.
Speaker B:And when I say sell myself, I don't mean project something that's inauthentic.
Speaker B:I mean be the best version of myself that I am.
Speaker B:And people have to like you, basically.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And just be a likable person in my whole life is I Just, you know, people have liked me.
Speaker B:I don't know why I actually say it to my wife.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I really don't know why.
Speaker B:But all I do is I'm just me.
Speaker B:And it was all about just being me.
Speaker B:And people were just kind and generous and they were sucked into my dream and they wanted to help.
Speaker C:Well, that's the reason, though.
Speaker C:You're just you.
Speaker C:You know, that's the basic human premise, I think, where you can get along with somebody, no matter who they are, what they look like, whatever, if they' just real about and they're their own selves, that's.
Speaker C:Not too many people do that anymore.
Speaker C:Jimmy, I'm going to tell you, of course I'm.
Speaker C:You know, I'm.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:I'm.
Speaker C:You and I are only a couple of years apart, and I sometimes I scratch my head and wonder what's happening out there.
Speaker C:But that's a different show for a different topic and a different day.
Speaker C: You completed your quest in: Speaker C:How long was it before you decided to write Playing from the Rough?
Speaker C:And how long did that take you?
Speaker B:I decided during the quest that this seemed like an amazing story.
Speaker B:And what I mean by that is that there were all of these small stories.
Speaker B:And so the question was, were there enough of those stories about my life, about the golf adventure, and could I tell those stories in a compelling way that would get people to turn page after page after page?
Speaker B:So I decided during the quest that I really would like to write a book to tell this story.
Speaker B:And it was really for three reasons.
Speaker B:One, to celebrate my mother, to honor my mother for the principles she instilled in us.
Speaker B:Two, so that my kids would know who we are and where we came from.
Speaker B:And three, for our country.
Speaker B:Actually, as corny as it sounds, meeting people and connecting with them dissipates hate when we can find our common humanity.
Speaker B:And golf is just such a great venue for that.
Speaker B:You spend four hours with people, you really get to know them very well.
Speaker B:They really get to know you very well.
Speaker B:And so it was.
Speaker B:I'd like to write a book where every reader of that book could find a piece of themselves in the stories that I tell and find a way to connect to me and see our common humanity.
Speaker B:And if that could happen for someone whose life is as different from theirs as mine is, perhaps they'd be more open to doing it with other people that they didn't know.
Speaker C:Is there one character?
Speaker C:We got about a minute left before we have to go to break, Jimmy.
Speaker C:So I'll tell you that.
Speaker C:Is there one character, because there's a lot of them that you talk about in the book that you met that really has stuck with you.
Speaker C:I mean, they all stick with you to a degree.
Speaker C:But is there one that you just went, yeah, that's.
Speaker C:That's the guy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Jeff Johnson.
Speaker B:And I've become pretty good for in.
Speaker B:Jeff is the president of Flint Hills National.
Speaker B:And early on I played three courses, counting Flint Hills.
Speaker B:And Jeff just embraced me, introduced me to a lot of people that could help.
Speaker B:He was all in from the first moment.
Speaker B:And Jeff and I remain really good friends.
Speaker B:I joined Flynn Hills.
Speaker B:He invited me to join the club.
Speaker B:And he remained really good friends.
Speaker B:And he helped throughout my quest.
Speaker B:He was the only person that I accepted help from for more than three courses.
Speaker B:My goal was to see if people would, as I said earlier, buy into my dream and offer to help.
Speaker B:I wanted to do that with as many people as possible.
Speaker B:So I limited help to.
Speaker B:To no more than three courses from any one individual.
Speaker B:The exception was Jeff Johnson, or J.J.
Speaker B:as we called him.
Speaker B:Like, you're J.T.
Speaker C:He'S J.J.
Speaker C:there you go.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker C:We're gonna take a break.
Speaker C:I'm gonna be back with Jimmy James, author of Playing from the Rough.
Speaker C:We're going to talk about some more interesting stuff.
Speaker C:Coming right up.
Speaker C:Please stay with us.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, it's jt.
Speaker D:You know, I talk about Painted Hills all the time and we always say beef the way nature intended.
Speaker D:But it's more than that.
Speaker D:Cause each bite of Painted Hills will make your taste buds explode.
Speaker D:Put a big, bright smile on and whoever is at your dinner table will have a big, bright smile on their face.
Speaker D:And you can thank me for that later.
Speaker D:Just go to paintedhillsbeef.com and find out more.
Speaker C:You won't regret it.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:I'm JT along today with Jimmy Johnson.
Speaker C:Jimmy Johnson.
Speaker C:I don't know why I was thinking about football before we came on the air today.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I'm scared.
Speaker B:And then I just put Johnson in your mind.
Speaker C:In my mind, too.
Speaker C:So, Jimmy James, how's that?
Speaker C:Jimmy's the author of Playing from the Rough.
Speaker C:And for those of you listening in Portland and Seattle, I will tell you this, that on June 21st, which is a Friday evening, Jimmy's going to be at the University of Washington in the library, giving a talk and with his books and telling his story right there.
Speaker C:Also on June 21, that morning, he's going to be here in Portland on AM Northwest west.
Speaker C:And then we're going to film a little segment with him afterwards.
Speaker C:Then on June 22, he's coming back from Seattle to see me.
Speaker C:He just can't get enough of me.
Speaker C:He's going to be at Powell's Bookstore at 3pm and I will be there with him.
Speaker C:And then on June 23, he's up at Sahali.
Speaker C:He's playing in the KPMG.
Speaker C:And we don't know his exact D time, but sometime between 7:30 and 9:30 in the morning.
Speaker C:That's a busy weekend for you, my friend.
Speaker B:It's a busy weekend.
Speaker B:Just a couple of things on that.
Speaker B:The, the book talk at the University of Washington will be at their bookstore.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker B:It'll be at that bookstore at 6pm that Friday evening.
Speaker B:And I'm gonna play.
Speaker B:I may have given you the wrong dates on the KPMG when I'm.
Speaker B:I'm playing in two pro ams, so there's one I'm playing in with the executives of KPMG and their.
Speaker B:And possibly their ambassador.
Speaker B:That's an LPGA player or some other LPGA player on the 18th.
Speaker B:That's on the 18th.
Speaker B:The morning of the 18th.
Speaker B:That's a Holly.
Speaker B:And then we're raising money for the second black woman to play on the LPGA tour.
Speaker B:Renee Powell.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:And a golf course that her father built in Ohio.
Speaker B:The only golf course ever built, designed, built, operated and owned by an African American in the country.
Speaker B:That is actually on the 24th at the Holly.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Dr.
Speaker C:Powell has been on the show before and I really enjoyed our interview with her.
Speaker C:That's been several years ago, but I really enjoyed that.
Speaker B:Yes, she's an outstanding person.
Speaker C:Yes, she is.
Speaker C:So, Jimmy, in playing from the rough, I noticed that what.
Speaker C:When you experienced what some people would consider uncomfortable situations and maybe you hit less than a perfect shot, Geez, that happens to all of us.
Speaker C:You refer back to your childhood at times with not so pleasant memories.
Speaker C:Is that kind of a.
Speaker C:Were you feeling, as you quote in the book or you say, kind of invisible?
Speaker C:You're not invisible, but feeling of inadequacy.
Speaker C:What made that leap mentally for you?
Speaker C:For bad shot to bad childhood memories or memories that maybe weren't so pleasant?
Speaker B:So I think the big issue goes back to my birth certificate and the first time I saw that when I started school as a six year old going into first grade, there was no head start at kindergarten for kids like me.
Speaker B:And to see a birth certificate with the most prominent features being colored and illegitimate.
Speaker B:So at the time colored Denoted second class citizen.
Speaker B:It was in the Jim Crow era, the late Jim Crow era in East Texas.
Speaker B:And then illegitimate was that I didn't legally exist.
Speaker B:So it was this sense of inadequacy, worthlessness.
Speaker B:And for some reason that's just triggered if I perform poorly, it just triggers back to that sense of inadequacy, of illegitimacy.
Speaker B:So I've always been driven to really perform well, that if I'm going to do something, to really work really hard at doing that, something well to gain that sense of legitimacy.
Speaker C:You speak very plainly in the book, which, by the way, if you can't figure this out, folks, I highly recommend that you get the book and read it.
Speaker C:And if you go to one of the book signings, Jimmy will sign it for you, of course.
Speaker C:But you speak very plainly about racism you experienced in your life at times and more subtly in golf, starting your golf journey.
Speaker C:Did you expect to experience that?
Speaker B:Honestly, I was concerned that I would experience it and I was, I thought it would be the determinant factor on whether I'd get all, get on to all these courses.
Speaker B:And it really wasn't.
Speaker B:Though I, there may have been some very slight things that I initially thought may have been racially motivated.
Speaker B:But I talk in the book too about how all slights, not all slights are really intentional or have anything to do with, with race.
Speaker B:So for the most part, I really didn't experience that on the, on, on the journey.
Speaker B:And I, a part of it may also be I played a lot of the most, most exclusive, privileged places with very respected members.
Speaker B:And not only would it have been disrespectful to me, it certainly also would have been disrespectful to that member to not treat their guests with the utmost respect.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Everywhere I went, for the most part, I was treated well.
Speaker B:And in some places, like Oak Hill in Rochester, I was celebrated.
Speaker B:They even put together, they gave me a, A, a commemorative back tag.
Speaker B:And they also, they also, they, yeah, Jimmy James Top 100 Golf Courses in the date that I played at there at Oak Hill.
Speaker B:And then when I came back a year later, a year or two later, they gave me a book that had been put together on their renovation.
Speaker B:So they really celebrated me that and, and quickly and then we can move on.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:But the other thing I'd say about that is I, I did a blog during my quest and on Oak Hill, I wrote a Black, a Jew and two Italians walk into Oak Hill Country Club and nobody notices or says a thing.
Speaker B:And they go out and play.
Speaker B:And the reason that's interesting is neither of us would have been able to be a member or play at that course decades earlier.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:And that shows the progress.
Speaker B:Doesn't say the problems have been solved, because they haven't.
Speaker B:There are still challenges, but progress has been made.
Speaker B:And that was an example of the progress that's been made.
Speaker C:Kind of like the Rat Pack trying to play at Los Angeles Country Club 50 years ago, you know?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:Jimmy, you seem to gain a lot of strength from your mom.
Speaker C:You already mentioned her briefly in that.
Speaker C:What was the most valuable lesson she shared with you?
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I'd say the two most valuable lessons, if you don't mind.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker B:One.
Speaker B:One is never quit.
Speaker B:That is, I never saw her quit.
Speaker B:No matter how hard things got, she'd find a way to overcome it.
Speaker B:From the simplest of things to the most complex of things.
Speaker B:When our stepfather abandoned us, just disappeared.
Speaker B:Just left one day, supposedly for work, and never came back.
Speaker B:Well, I should say he came back a few years later, but never.
Speaker B:For.
Speaker B:For all practical purposes, it just disappeared.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we went on welfare until my mother could get trained as a nurse's aide.
Speaker B:And she scrubbed linoleum floors and empty bedpans to.
Speaker B:To show us the value of work and the importance of that.
Speaker B:It was her responsibility, no one else's, to take care of us.
Speaker B:She didn't make a lot of money, and most of the money she made went to paying a cab to take her back and forth to work.
Speaker B:But it wasn't about that.
Speaker B:So our lifestyle didn't change from her working.
Speaker B:What changed was our understanding of responsibility.
Speaker B:And then the other trait was integrity.
Speaker B:And it was just a simple story.
Speaker B:When I was a kid, she sent me to the store to buy some items from the store.
Speaker B:She gave me, like $5, but the clerk at the store gave me change for a 10.
Speaker B:And when I got home with everything my mother had sent me to get and more money than I left with, her response was, you know, we don't steal.
Speaker B:And I said, but, Mama, I didn't steal it.
Speaker B:She made a mistake.
Speaker B:Yes, and you knew she made a mistake and you didn't correct it.
Speaker B:Go back to that store, give her that money back, and apologize to her for not giving the money back when she gave you too much.
Speaker B:And that was a long walk.
Speaker B:I show my kids.
Speaker B:I show my kids that walk when we go back to that town so they could see where we.
Speaker B:What I went through and what life was like for me in my early years.
Speaker B:I showed them that walk, I was about 10 years old at the time.
Speaker B:I showed them that walk and it's like two blocks, but it felt like a mile.
Speaker C:I bet it did.
Speaker B:Especially the walk back to the store to give the money back and apologize.
Speaker B:But do the right thing.
Speaker B:Always the hardest part should be figuring out the right thing to do.
Speaker B:But once you know the right thing to do, do it.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I bet you your feet felt like they had concrete blocks on them walking back.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker C:We're going to take another break.
Speaker C:We're going to be back with Jimmy James, author of Playing from the Rough.
Speaker C:I got.
Speaker C:I've got pages, literally pages of questions and we'll have to pick it up in the after hours portion, but Jimmy and I will come back and wrap up the show in just a minute.
Speaker C:Please stay with us.
Speaker D:Hey, everybody, J.T.
Speaker D:here.
Speaker D:If you need something to practice with in the inclement weather, try birdie ball.
Speaker D:Go to birdieball.com check out the actual birdie balls, their packages, their putting greens, which I happen to have a couple of those, and they work great.
Speaker D:Birdieball.com.
Speaker C:Welcome back to Grilling at the Green.
Speaker C:I'm JT.
Speaker C:We are very fortunate today to have Jimmy James with us.
Speaker C:His books coming out here, playing from the rough again.
Speaker C:We'd like to thank the folks that Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission also hammer stall knives and heritage cookware.
Speaker C:If you, if you haven't picked up on this, Jimmy, I also am a big in cooking and barbecue and stuff like that, but and not just from my size.
Speaker C:Maybe from the reach of the show there.
Speaker C:I was going to tell you too.
Speaker C:This is a little footnote I put in my notes here.
Speaker C:Side note.
Speaker C:Tell Jimmy, you never ask a woman how she knows.
Speaker C:I speak of what I knoweth.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:But the most.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The most foolish words ever uttered by any man when his wife is in labor.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:How do you know?
Speaker B:How do you know?
Speaker B:You want to tell people what you're talking about there?
Speaker C:I'm gonna let you tell them because.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So, yeah, my.
Speaker B:My wife.
Speaker B:We were about to give birth.
Speaker B:My wife was about to give birth to our.
Speaker B:To our second child.
Speaker B:We'd gone to the.
Speaker B:She woke up that morning, she said, today's the day.
Speaker B:So we got ready.
Speaker B:We went to her gynecologist office and they said, yep, today's the day.
Speaker B:Go across the street to the hospital.
Speaker B:It's going to be a while.
Speaker B:Take your time, relax.
Speaker B:But I hope it happens before the afternoon because I've got a class to teach today.
Speaker B:Is whether OB GYN said.
Speaker B:So we go over to the hospital.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They start running a nice warm bath for her to relax in.
Speaker B:And she asked for something for the pain.
Speaker B:The nurse says, we all.
Speaker B:We have to.
Speaker B:I have to examine you to make sure we got time because I can't give you anything within an hour.
Speaker B:Delivery.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the nurse examines her.
Speaker B:Oh, we got plenty of time.
Speaker B:Gives her a couple of pain pills, leaves the room.
Speaker B:Soon as the nurse walks out of the room, my wife Erica, goes, the baby's coming.
Speaker B:That's when I uttered those foolish words.
Speaker B:How do you know?
Speaker B:And at that moment, from some place no man ever wants to go, this sound came out that said, get somebody now.
Speaker B:So I go to the nurse's station, and I'm still.
Speaker B:I don't want to embarrass myself.
Speaker B:Remember this feeling of inadequacy.
Speaker B:You got to be right on understanding what's going on.
Speaker B:So I heads.
Speaker B:I said, my wife said, the baby's coming.
Speaker B:We go back into the room.
Speaker B:The baby's crowning.
Speaker B:Immediately, the nurse tells me to wash up.
Speaker B:She pushes the call button.
Speaker B:Before anybody else could come into the room, the nurse and I had rotated our daughter and delivered her.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker B:That's where those foolish words came from.
Speaker C:I read that, and I literally busted out laughing.
Speaker C:I did.
Speaker C:I went, oh, brother.
Speaker C:Not.
Speaker C:Not giving you a hard time because it just brought back memories of certain things in my life.
Speaker C:And I.
Speaker C:And every guy who reads that book.
Speaker C:Your book, I should say, is gonna know that, too.
Speaker C:It's just a common.
Speaker C:Common thread there.
Speaker C:By the way, we got a couple minutes left in the regular show here.
Speaker C:Jimmy.
Speaker C:I put this picture behind me because Bandon Dunes is a kind of a special place for you.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And your wife and Eric.
Speaker B:The Oregon coast holds a special place and will always hold a special place in my heart.
Speaker B:So I am so thankful to Mike Kaiser for building such wonderful golf courses along that splendid Oregon coast.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Up about 300 miles north of there, not straight up the coast, but a little inland from the coast along the Columbia River Gorge, is where my wife informed me that we were about to become parents.
Speaker B:She had a pregnancy test that she kept with her for that moment.
Speaker B:She knows that nature being in nature, that's the song of my heart.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And she wanted to, while we were in this beautiful, splendid place, let me know that we were about to become parents.
Speaker B:So the Oregon coast will always hold a special place for me.
Speaker B:It was where I learned we'd become parents.
Speaker B:You know, nine months later, a Little less than nine months later, our first child, Jordan, was born.
Speaker C:And you didn't ask the question, how do you know?
Speaker B:Now, on that one, I did not ask the question, how do you know?
Speaker B:What I did ask on that one was I asked the doctor, why do you call it catch when the.
Speaker B:When you're receiving a baby?
Speaker B:And he said, young fella, wash up.
Speaker B:Then he said, stand here.
Speaker B:Put on these gloves.
Speaker B:Stand here.
Speaker B:And I learned why you call it catch.
Speaker C:Yes, my.
Speaker B:Our firstborn went straight from my wife's womb directly to my heart.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker B:Into my hands and directly to my heart.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I get it.
Speaker C:Jimmy is going to stick around for after hours, but again, he's going to be at the University, University of Washington on June 21st at their bookstore.
Speaker C:Six o'clock, I believe, also on AM Northwest in Portland on the 21st.
Speaker C:I don't know what segment he'll be in, but it'll be sometime between 9 and 10.
Speaker C:And then on the 22nd again, back to Portland, Powell's Bookstore at 3pm for talk signing.
Speaker C:I'll be there.
Speaker C:I'll be kind of acting as Jimmy's moderator and he's got all kinds of stuff going on.
Speaker C:But Jimmy, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me.
Speaker C:And folks, I highly recommend playing from the rough.
Speaker C:I really do.
Speaker B:And thank you, jt, for all of your help for agreeing to moderate that session at Pals and the help you provided along the way to introduce me to folks across the Northwest.
Speaker C:No problem.
Speaker C:No problem.
Speaker C:We're going to get out of here.
Speaker C:You know, it's Father's Day.
Speaker C:Go out and do something nice for your dad for Father's Day.
Speaker C:Or maybe just leave him alone.
Speaker C:That might even be better.
Speaker C:You never know.
Speaker C:Until next time, go out, play some golf, have some fun.
Speaker C:And most importantly, be kind.
Speaker C:Everybody take care.
Speaker A:Grilling at the Green is produced by JTSD Productions, LLC in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserve.
