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Monday, December 27, 2004
454 He gave me the shirt off his back
WE HAVE all heard about Western Hospitality. In Wyoming, we offer more of it than perhaps anywhere else in the world.
The following story is true.
It’s about Western Hospitality and is my all-time favorite golf story. It occurred in the West, all right, but not in America. This occurred in Western Great Britain in the Welsh highlands.
Wales is the formerly independent country that covers an area about the size of Wyoming between the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. Its people are Celtic, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain. They are a very friendly and open people and often lack the reserve that is so common among their fellow citizens to the East.
MY FAMILY’S ancestors are Welsh.
Their names were Price and Jones. During a trip over there in July, 1987, it seemed like a good idea to me to visit the homeland of my forebears. My Aunt Mabel Caviani, in Wadena, Iowa, had done quite a bit of research on our family’s history and determined our ancient relatives lived between “Bilth” and “Bettws” somewhere in Wales before emigrating to the United States in the late 1880s.
As I studied my map of Wales, there appeared to be many places called Bettws, which I later learned means “church” or “holy place.” The only Bilth was a place called “Builth Wells” which had a small place named Bettws next to it.
At the time, I was a part-time student pursuing a Masters Degree at the University of Wales in Cardiff and also serving that school as an occasional guest lecturer. I was fortunate to rent a room from a well-to-do Arab fellow student.
My landlord and friend, Ali A’ail, offered to drive me up to Builth Wells. Ali is a television broadcaster from the nation of Qatar in the Persian Gulf. He also has had some interesting experiences in his life . . . but that is another story.
ALI AND I HEADED UP over some rugged short mountains called the Brecon Beacons in central Wales in his car. It was raining, which it does most of the time there. The hills were beautiful. We stopped and examined a series of waterfalls. The area looked like Glacier National Park in Montana.
It was still raining when we got to Builth Wells. After buying an umbrella, we examined the town. I found several old gravestones for people named Jones and Price in a church cemetery and posed next to them for photos to take home.
In the literature at the information center there, was a brochure on the local golf club. It seemed like a good idea to go over there and buy a golf shirt. The clubhouse was a converted 1600-era stone barn. We tried the door, but couldn’t figure out how to open it. Instead of a doorknob, there was just a hole. It must have been locked. We walked around ducking into various doorways to get out of a driving rain. It was late in the afternoon.
We walked around a corner and dashed into an unlocked door.
Suddenly we were standing in the middle of a dark locker room. Four elderly men in their late 60s and 70s were sitting there in various stages of undress. They looked up at us in shock. They appeared to take umbrage at our rude barging into their dressing room which they certainly were entitled to feel.
I apologized for the interruption and explained how my ancestors had come from this place and since I was a fledgling golfer, I had thought it would be nice to buy a golf shirt that said Builth Wells on it to take home.
“Can you tell me where your pro shop is?” I asked.
“We don’t have a pro shop,” one of the men abruptly answered.
“Is it possible for me to buy a golf shirt here?” I asked.
“No,” another man said, “you have to order them in advance.”
“Well, I guess that’s that,” I said.
We apologized once more, and said we had to leave.
“No, wait,” one of the older fellows said. “Go on downstairs and we’ll meet you after we get dressed. And that door isn’t locked. Just stick your finger into the hole and lift up. It’ll open.”
ALI and I went back to the original door and sure enough, it opened easily. A few minutes later, the four men came into the room. They had played golf on that day as they had every Thursday, raining or not.
One man, J. Ewert Davies plopped his wet sweater into my hands. “Here, take this. Now don’t make a big deal out of it,” he said, as I protested and tried to pay him for it. “Take it back to America as a souvenir from our country.”
I looked it over and it was nearly new. It had “Builth Wells Golf Club” inscribed on it.
Then they ordered pints of beer all around. We pulled up chairs and talked for hours about Wales and America. They were really a jolly bunch.
MY NEW FRIEND J. EWERT told everyone about his first experience in America.
In 1940, his ship docked in New York City. He and a fellow sailor were given an eight-hour leave to go see the city. They stopped at the famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel, but had little money. It didn’t matter because the people in the bar refused to let the two Welsh sailors buy a drink. They stayed there all night long with the food and drink provided by the other Americans in the bar. “I never forgot that American hospitality,” Ewert said.
Then one of the other gentlemen turned to me and said: “And that’s why he gave you his sweater. He’s had a guilty conscience for 47 years!”
I laughed at the joke, but decided, much like J. Ewert`s experience back in 1940, I wouldn’t soon forget this gesture of hospitality either.
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