Forgetting Bad Habits | A Bookseller’s Diary

Golf’s never made me feel good — “klutzy” is more the word –but that isn’t true for everyone. One of our friends from the St. Francis apartments for the homeless — where we stock a library — used to play a lot before his brain injury. Now he doesn’t get much of a chance, but when he does, it makes him feel better. He has lost a lot, but not his love for golf.

So he and I and one of the staff went out to play yesterday. It was a beautiful day and we had fun. I hadn’t played in so long, I’d forgotten all my bad habits.

We sat at a picnic table and talked afterward. When he was homeless, he spent a lot of time at the Denver Public Library. Because of his brain injury, he needed the quiet of the library — and the roof over his head. He told us that friends who used to work at a golf course would let him in at night and he’d camp there. He was safe from other people, but coyotes gave him a hard time. He fought them off with a strobe light from his bicycle and a golf club he found at Goodwill.

One day at the library, a social worker approached him. She connected him with various services for veterans and people with injuries like his. He hit the jackpot when he got to move into the St. Francis apartments, where we met him.

I learned, too, that he liked to cook. As luck would have it, I had some cookbooks in my car, so I passed those along to him.

All in all, best day I’ve had at golf in a long time