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Column: Extreme croquet

James Bornemeier
James Bornemeier

We were doing some end-of-summer reorganizing in the garage as beach chairs and umbrellas and towels were moved out of the car into their accustomed autumn and winter positions.

We also did some minor purging of accumulated grandkid stuff — a remarkable arsenal of water guns was pared down to a sensible level, meaning every family member would have two such weapons should an all-out war break out next summer.

The never-used badminton set was shoved into a new spot revealing the once-used croquet set. Growing up in the Midwest, badminton and croquet were avidly pursued family activities and we, like nearly all our suburban neighbors, became pretty good competitors.

So it came to pass that, in preparation for a visit of relatives some years ago, we got the croquet equipment in a nice green bag. As I mused about the upcoming croquet match, I decided that I would take some major liberties with the layout of the wickets. Rather than the traditional figure eight arrangement, I chose an eccentric layout.

It started in the left front side yard, took its lazy time across the back yard and ended up at the top of a little knoll near the gate of the garden enclosure.

I began thinking about the course in golf terms, deliberately setting the wickets so that hazards were created. I used whatever the lawn gave me: depressions, rough patches of grass and, most prominently, a large tree. This tree, no longer with us, had a split trunk that produced a V-shaped opening about a foot or so off the ground. I placed wickets in front and behind the notch, making playing through the opening the most direct path to the next wicket.

The last “hole” was uphill, at the top of the knoll, but to get to it, you had to cross a slate walkway that I, in an unprecedented act of landscaping, had laid out from the barn door of the shed to the garden enclosure gate. The pieces of slate were left behind by the previous owner and were odd shapes so there were little spaces of grassy tufts where I had knitted them together.

It would, I hoped, produce some endgame frustration for our visitors, who were quite pleased by the innovative layout and were eager to play it, once a couple rounds of beer and wine were consumed to oil upcoming game conversations.

Immediately, rule disputes broke out. It was clear to me that these relatives had no clue about proper croquet etiquette. They were making it up as they went along, basically cheating. It was anarchy, but highly amusing anarchy.

My mother, now 102, took in the happy chaos from the sidelines.

The hazards performed as hoped. Players would luck out and pull ahead only to be bedeviled by some crummy patch of so-called lawn or some other impediment. I was eager to see how players would handle the split-trunked tree. You didn’t have to shoot through the v-shaped opening; you simply could shoot around it (and most did).

Not surprisingly, my nephew and I got to the tree about the same time. We, of course, would not dream of shooting around the V. He got there first and couldn’t get sufficient lift on several attempts that banged into the tree trunk.

He had to grumpily settle for a shoot-around.

I wound up about 8 feet in front of the V. I am a non-golfer but took a mighty golf-like swing and managed to just get under the ball. It took off like a rocket and cleared the V by an inch. And it kept going. It rammed into one of the Bilco doors, ricocheted off a cedar shingle and made a beeline for my mother (named Bee) who had moved along with the course action and was standing, arms akimbo, by the shed door.

She never saw it coming, but I froze, knowing that it could do some serious damage to the old girl.

It missed her by inches and I nearly wept with relief. She found it amusing.
It was predictable and fitting that the victory battle would come down to my nephew and me. Just as planned, the final wicket placements were maddening.

There was no margin for error and yet error was all there was. I can’t remember how many shots it took to make it safely home but I do recall cheating accusations being carelessly tossed about. By this time, cheating had become pandemic so that playing by the rules would have seemed unmanly.

So I did what had to be done and I won. My nephew was not pleased and at the end had pulled off some maneuvers that were downright despicable. But nothing that some beer couldn’t defuse.