Eric Nuzum is a PoPville contributor and Petworth resident. You can catch Eric at Politics and Prose tonight at 7pm (5015 Connecticut Ave, NW.) More about Giving Up The Ghost here.
Eric says:
When writing Giving Up The Ghost I had just moved to Petworth, signed a contract to write a book about my fear of ghosts, and had absolutely no clue where to start. I mean, how do you approach telling the story of your life? Where do you start? After spending some time being terrified by what I was taking on, I sat down at my computer one night and wrote the following in one take. I wrote it first, even though it appears to have nothing to do with ghosts. But it does.
For many drafts, it sat about in the middle of the book, where it happens chronologically. But my editor convinced me that the book should open with this story, so it does.
Beer Golf
There are many ghost stories. Here’s one.
One night in June 1984, I took a girl from my high school named Laura Patterson to meet my friend Jimmy at a local miniature-golf course, the Putt-O-Links.
Putt-O-Links was located at the end of a long strip of abandoned industrial buildings outside of Canton, Ohio. Canton was once a blue-collar Mecca devoted to making vacuum cleaners, ball bearings, and steel. During the 1980s, Canton, like the entire Midwest Rust Belt, was in absolute denial that its way of life was dying right before its eyes. I don’t think globalization was even a word then, but places like Canton were already experiencing it firsthand.
Each spring the world around Putt-O-Links got smaller and smaller. One by one the nearby factories closed. Next, the car dealerships down the street moved. After that, the diner closed. Eventually, the Putt-O-Links and the ice cream stand next door were the only signs of life for half a mile in any direction. Then, that spring, the Putt-O-Links didn’t open either. Neither did the ice cream stand. There were no going out of business or thanks for thirty great years signs, just tall weeds and a fallen rusty chain that had once closed off the parking lot. It looked almost as if the owners had just forgotten that summer was coming and it was time to open again.
My friend Jimmy didn’t let Putt-O-Links’s change of fortune slow him down; he still went golfing there at least three times a week just like he had every summer. Every time I was with him, highlights of his mini-golf exploits were always part of the conversation. Jimmy and I had gone to school together for six years but were never really tight until our senior year, when it became increasingly apparent that we were both going to be “Left Behinds.” Left Behinds were those kids who weren’t visiting many college campuses or filling out a lot of admission applications. It just seemed like a waste of time. It was obvious that we weren’t going anywhere. Jimmy and I bonded because we both knew that when all our other friends left for school that fall, we’d be pretty much all we had left.
It was almost dark by the time we got to Putt-O-Links.
Continues after the jump. (more…)
