My younger brother is a golf pro. He doesn’t play golf for a living, but he teaches it and manages a golf club over in Georgia. My mother worried that he would ever be able to make a living at golf. He’s done much better than that. He is now a Dog Do. My mother is so proud.

For over 15 years, my brother has been a director of golf (DOG), managing the golf activities, including teaching, running a golf shop, tending to the golf course and keeping it in top shape, and hosting national and collegiate tournaments. He’s done a good job, as far as I know.

He doesn’t talk much about his work. But from what I can see, he’s worked hard, married, raised three children (two in college now), and lives a typical middle-class lifestyle. Golf must pay well enough.

A couple of months ago, his boss, the big guy who owns the club, approached him to become the director of operations (DO). In addition to golf, he’s now responsible for all operations at the facility, including the dining facilities. Golf, my brother knows. Food? I’m not so sure.

When he was a younger fellow, I watched as he suffered through two episodes with my “wicked sense of humor” mother. Both had to do with food.

Before it was popular, my mother insisted that we have wheat bread in the house. Her favorite was Roman Meal, so it was a staple in the kitchen. Younger brother, however, refused to eat it and continued eating the white bread instead. He insisted that there was a taste difference and that he, of all the people in the world, could tell the difference.

Enter wicked mother and only sister who loves to participate. My mother prepared bite-sized pieces of white and wheat bread before my brother’s eyes. Then I blindfolded my brother and tied the handkerchief tight around his eyes so that he could partake in a taste test. I watched as my mother fed him two pieces of white bread. The first, he claimed, was wheat. The second, he insisted, was white. We tallied the results. Then she fed him two pieces of wheat bread. The first, he claimed was white. The second? White.

I doubled over in laughter as I released the blindfold and he realized that he had failed this test.

Another time, my mother got interested in making homemade mayonnaise. It was delicious! But younger brother refused to eat it.

“There’s nothing like Dukes mayonnaise!” he declared, and he begged my mother not to make him eat the homemade stuff.

And then my wicked mother got another idea. She kept an emptied Dukes mayonnaise jar and filled it with her homemade brand. I watched her do it and listened as she said, “He will never know the difference.”

Indeed he did not. He plastered a sandwich with several layers of that white, gooey stuff, gobbled it down and rubbed his belly.

“There’s nothing like that good ole’ Dukes mayonnaise, is there?” my mom queried. “Nope,” my brother assured her. “It’s the only kind I’ll ever eat.”

My mother would never have told him what she had done. She gained enough satisfaction just knowing that he couldn’t tell the difference. But I am more wicked than she ever could be. I ratted on her and told him exactly what he had just eaten. He was “had” and he knew it.

My younger brother now calls himself a DOG DO (director of golf/director of operations). It’s appropriate. Years before he got the official title, he tended to fall into “dog do” at the hands of my wonderfully wicked mother. Wonder if he serves wheat bread in the dining room?

You must be logged in to comment.