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Over the next few days, you
will read many weepy reflections and see many sepia-toned
television highlight packages on the passing of Bob Hope,
one of America’s greatest entertainers.
These people didn’t know Bob Hope. I knew Bob Hope. At
least for the last week or so of a life that saw one-hundred
spectacular, America-entertaining birthdays.
I met Mr. Hope when I was called to his Bel Air mansion to
repair an electrical malfunction in his king-size Craftmatic
adjustable bed. Towards the end of Mr. Hope’s earthbound
journey, he’d taken to watching only TiVo’d reruns
of “The Practice,” and a short in the bed’s
wiring created interference that had the unfortunate effect
of making underfed actress Lara Flynn Boyle look eerily like
the Grim Reaper. This was unsettling to Mr. Hope’s domestic
staff, and they’d heard that I’d sometimes moonlight
in the bed-repair game when things were a little slow on the
writing front.
The short was easily rectified. Mr. Hope was too groggy (his
homeopathic diet of Ding Dongs and Metamucil blended into
an sugary, high-fiber paste often left him sluggish after
meals) to vocally thank me for my swift work. But his eyes
were as lively as they had ever been on the deck of a battleship
during a USO show, rolling at the sublime pithiness of a perfectly
executed one-liner about Ann-Margaret’s ample bosom.
Those eyes eased over me with gratitude. Then they focused
on the wall next to me, on the collection of photographs of
his many golf outings with the likes of Arnold Palmer, Richard
Nixon, and Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. His eyes began
to quiver with tears. He looked back to me.
And I understood him perfectly. “I want to play golf
again,” they said.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was pushing Mr. Hope’s
bed down the mansion’s hallways in some manic recreation
of a scene featured at least six times in any episode of “E.R.”
Various pieces of medical equipment designed to keep the newly-minted
centenarian viable dragged behind us as I cackled giddily
at the perfection of the moment. We were carefree and grabbing
life with both hands, turning it upside down, and bathing
in a hail of its loose change. His army of help, obviously
cowed by years of physician-endorsed eggshell-walking, cheered
us like a English soccer mob on the cusp of trampling four
of their own to death.
But we were alive, we were alive. And within seconds we were
on the green of the 18th hole of his estate’s golf course.
Mr. Hope’s full-time caddie, a kindly gentleman of 87
years who hadn’t hoisted a bag for the storied comedian
in years, handed me a putter and a golf ball. I dropped the
ball on the edge of the green, then gathered Mr. Hope up in
my arms, clasping his hands in mine around the shaft of the
club, oblivious to the possible innuendo of committing such
a sentence to print.
“You’re on the 18th, you’re putting for birdie
for the championship against that fucking Tiger Woods whippersnapper.
This is your moment,” I whispered in his ear.
We drew back the putter, together, then brought it towards
the ball. I hadn’t had time to read the green (not to
mention an armload of Hollywood Immortal), but somehow the
ball still rolled towards the cup, “like it had eyes,”
as regular golfers are fond of saying.
The roar of Mr. Hope’s personal domestic militia filled
my ears. Mr. Hope tensed in my expectant clutch. The ball
slowed as it reached the cup.
Then came to a dead stop at its lip. Its “eyes”
seemed to be peering into the golf ball oblivion that is the
18th hole, afraid of what lies beyond. The crowd gasped, but
the ball stayed put. I felt Mr. Hope go even more limp in
my arms. One of the machines that we’d towed to the green’s
perimeter screeched in its hysterical medical equipment language
of electronic beeps and trills. The help descended on us and
pried Mr. Hope from my arms.*
His eyes met mine for an instant as they spirited him off
into the house. Where before I saw longing and then excitement,
now I saw only heartache and defeat.
Like most games of this sport of kings, this one ended in
the kind of disappointment that inspires grown men to swear,
ignore their trophy wives, and write bad poetry that references
the fact that golf is a four letter word.
I snapped the putter in two over my knee and slumped back
to my car knowing that somewhere within that cavernous home,
an old man was let down.
I had failed Mr. Hope.
But golf had failed us both.
[*Lest you think that this attempt at fulfilling an entertainment
legend’s fantasy was in some way responsible for his
recent passing, I must state for the record that the events
recounted above took place over a week ago, more than enough
time for a lifetime, low-handicap duffer to recover from a
single, insignificant putt.]
Ed Note: Read
Review of Bob Hope's Last USO Shows
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Above:
Legendary entertainer Bob Hope loved golf, humor and Vietnamese
prostitutes
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