Perfect Practice/Practice Perfect

Chapter 1

Randy Raintree slowly moved his eyes around the auditorium as he took his seat in the twelfth and last of the red straight backed Victorian chairs placed in a half circle on the stage. Moving his head slightly to the right, his eyes found his beautiful wife, Beth, seated four rows back in front of the stage. She was sitting with her mother and father, and all three were beaming from ear to ear as each made eye contact with Randy. He tried to maintain his dignity by only showing a small smile rather than the ear to ear one he felt like giving to each of them.

The auditorium seated three hundred people directly in front of the stage. The second and third tiers in the back and side held another twelve hundred people, and every seat was taken. Sitting behind Randy and the other eleven people were the past recipients of the awards. On the opposite side facing the twelve were three chairs and two additional chairs directly behind the three. To Randy’s left, some twenty feet above, was another balcony that held an orchestra of thirty musicians. Directly below the orchestra, fifty members of the Swedish Karolinska Institute were seated.

The orchestra started to play, and everyone in the auditorium stood as a young man escorted a pretty twenty something year old woman to the two seats directly behind the front three. She was wearing a silver studded tiara and she walked with the grace of royalty. Following five steps behind the two was a magnificently beautiful woman, also wearing a tiara that was studded with diamonds as big as Randy’s thumb. She took Randy’s breath away as he watched her walk with the same grace as the one before her. She wore a purple floor length gown that matched the color of the jewels around her neck and hanging from her ears. She was followed by an older man who was walking beside yet another woman wearing a tiara, but what a tiara this one was. The diamond in the very center of the tiara was as big as an egg with others half that size around the top and sides of her tiara.

As the two women took their seats on each side of the middle chairs, the older gentleman nodded to the twelve men and women standing rigidly in front of their red chairs. Each gave him a nervous smile. The man sat down in what could only be described as a throne, which was the signal for Randy and everyone else in the audience to be seated. As the man settled in his chair he nodded slightly to the man standing some five feet away at the podium, and the ceremony began.

So many strong emotions were running through Randy’s body that he found it hard to concentrate and even harder to believe he was sitting in front of the King of Sweden and his family. The date was December 10th, the date each year that the Nobel Prize is given to the fortunate men and women sitting on the red chairs. For their outstanding and remarkable breakthroughs in their field of work, twelve individuals would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry, Economics, Peace and Medicine. Randy felt both giddy and profoundly humble as he looked around at the people on stage and in the audience. How did a little boy from Oklahoma end up on this stage sitting with such distinguished citizens from around the world? He darted another quick look at his wife who gave him a slight wink and one of her beautiful smiles. God, he loved her. He had to suppress a large grin when she winked; it wouldn’t be proper to grin from ear to ear while on stage with the King of Sweden, would it?

A professor from the Karolinska Institute nodded slightly to the King of Sweden before turning his attention to the twelve men and women sitting in the large red chairs. Speaking in English, he told them and the audience how the Nobel Prize came about after the death of Alfred Nobel on December 10, 1896. Randy smiled to himself; he had not realized that the Nobel Prize was given out on the day Alfred Nobel died until he heard the man mention the date of his death.

Alfred Nobel had come from a very wealthy family. Most of their wealth had come from manufacturing plants his father established in Russia. When Alfred Nobel took over his father’s business with other family members, he used his money to find out the secrets of nitroglycerin. With this information he invented dynamite just as the countries of Europe were engaging in wars across the continent. His invention was in high demand, and he was one of the richest men in Europe at the time of his death. His will was a one—page handwritten document, with no input from attorneys. This was why it took a number of years going through one court after another before it was declared legal. Only the income from the trust could be spent, which meant the Nobel Prize would be awarded each year in perpetuity.

Randy had never worn a tux in his life, but tonight every man on stage wore one, except the King of Sweden. Randy didn’t like the tightness of the tux because it made him feel like he had to sit completely still and straight, which he was doing. Usually his normal outfits consisted of a loose fitting shirt, pants and tennis shoes. He had an urge to reach up and loosen his tie. His hand was touching the knot of his tie when he took another quick glance at his wife. Her eyes were big and round and her mouth was slightly open as she realized what he was thinking of doing. He hadn’t realized his hand was at the knot until he saw her look of embarrassment and a small movement of her head going back and forth. Pretending to adjust the knot, he then slid his hand into the other one resting in his lap and pretended he hadn’t seen her look.

After giving his summation of the twelve recipients, the man bowed formally to the King of Sweden and took his seat. Two men and one woman were to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics; it would be the first presentation of the night. But before the presenter stepped to the podium, the orchestra played a beautiful Swedish melody that took five minutes. As the music stopped, another Karolinska Institute professor rose and walked to the podium and began telling how the three being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics had achieved their goal. The man spoke in Swedish and Randy didn’t know a word of the Swedish language. He tried to keep his eyes focused on the speaker as he spoke, but as the speech went on and on he let his eyes wander around. When walking in, he had not noticed the blue carpet completely covering the stage. Between him and the other recipients and the King and his family was a white two inch ring almost six feet in diameter; inside the circle was a large white letter N. How many other recipients had sat where he sat and stared at the N in the carpet in the last one hundred years that the award had been given out? How many, he wondered, were in the same position he was in, with a person speaking a language he didn’t understand and trying to look interested in what he was saying.

When the speaker said the names of the three recipients, Randy made himself pay more attention as the three rose in front of their chairs. The King was handed a gold medal and a diploma as the first man stepped forward and was greeted with a handshake from the King who said a few words to him before the man bowed to him, then to the Karolinska Institute professors and finally to the audience before walking back to his chair. This was repeated with the second man and with the woman. When the woman was seated, the orchestra again began to play, which lasted another six minutes. Being on the end chair, Randy knew he was to be the last one to receive the Nobel Prize and that was just fine with him. That way he could see what the others did, and he would know how he should act. Although they had all been informed about the program, it was never the same as the real thing, so he was glad he was last.

Randy was told the program would last approximately one hour, but he could tell already that the hour would be stretched a bit longer. He was thankful he had had enough sense not to drink anything in the last few hours before coming on stage. It would have been very embarrassing if he had to hold up his hand and let the King know he had to go to the bathroom.

As the music played on, Randy let his mind drift back to how his life had played out to allow him to be sitting where he was that night; in fact, he was the youngest recipient in the last fifty-seven years of the award. Randy was the youngest of the recipients at 37 years old when he had gotten his late night call just after returning from his evening jog and was examining one of his experiments from the week before. Between that day and now, he had turned 38 but was still the youngest on stage by eleven years.

Chapter 2

His mind drifted back to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a little over thirty-six years ago. His dad, Ralph Raintree, was a strong powerfully built construction worker who loved being with his children. He had also been the Putnam City High School golf champion his junior and senior years and was an All American at O.S.U. in the only year he attended college.

The first gift Randy ever remembered opening was the specially made golf bag and clubs his dad had made just for him on his second birthday. He remembered what it felt like to hold the club in his hand for the first time. When he had swung the club in his living room, it had felt completely natural, as if the club were part of his arms and hands.

His sister, Wendy, had been given an identical set when she was also two years old, and in the next four years she was at the golf course with her dad every spare minute they had. That first day when he had received his golf bag and club, Wendy gave Randy some puff balls—little golf balls with holes all around the outside. You could hit the ball as hard as you wanted, and it would fly no farther than ten or fifteen feet. It was the ideal equipment to have in the backyard as the ball would never become lost, and you never got in trouble for breaking a neighbor’s window.

His big sister and his father spent many hours in the backyard teaching him how to position his hands and arms. After school, before their dad came home from work, Wendy taught him things she had learned from their dad. She taught him how to make the ball slice or curve or draw in whatever direction you needed it to go. When Randy was three and his sister was seven, their dad took them to the golf course. Wendy was allowed to hit the ball and kept score with her dad as she had been doing for three years. Randy was allowed to stand some ten feet behind his dad and act as if his dad’s ball was his. He would set his body for the shot and when his dad took his shot, Randy also swung. His dad had told him that was the way he was to play golf each time they came to the golf course that summer.

At home when their dad was home from work and the evening meal was over, he would take them both to the backyard and make them swing each club one hundred times as he looked on. For both Randy and his sister that was a magical time spent with their dad. Not once did either remember him shouting at them about their swing; although sometimes he would laugh and tell one or the other that they just lost another ball out-of-bounds.

Their dad was always adjusting and correcting Wendy’s swing or the way her feet were placed, but after that first summer he never had to correct Randy’s swing. He constantly told him that he was a natural and his swing was perfect.

When Wendy was eight, she won the Oklahoma City Golf Tournament for ten year olds and younger. She also won it when she was nine years old and came in second in her tenth year, but only because she had come down with a terrible cold two days before the tournament and felt sick most of the first three rounds. She beat everyone’s score on the final day, but it wasn’t enough to catch the young lady that won.

The summer Randy was four, his father let him actually play the ball when they went to the course. By then his sister was beginning to be recognized in the golfing community. Randy looked up to his sister; she was always there when he needed someone to play in the backyard with their clubs. One day after hearing for the thousandth time how good Wendy was, Randy rose early the next morning and took his clubs to the backyard where he hit the puff balls for eight straight hours, stopping only when his mother called from the porch that he had to come in and eat his lunch.

When he came in that night, his fingers were raw and bleeding. He hid it from his mother, but Wendy saw his fingers when he was getting ready for bed. Grabbing both wrists, Wendy turned his hands over and examined his swollen and bleeding fingers.

Randy, look at your hands! You have to tell mom so she can put something on them.

No, Wendy, please don’t tell mommy. She will be mad at me.

Randy, you have to get some medicine on your fingers. They’re completely raw!

Would you find some medicine and put it on my fingers, Wendy? Please?

How long were you in the backyard with your clubs?

All day. Why?

All day? Randy, I should tell mom just to get you in trouble for doing a dumb thing like that.

Randy started crying, and Wendy, with a sigh, sat down on the bed and gave him a hug and told him she would find out what kind of medicine he would need. She would go to her dad and tell him she had a blister and ask him what was the best thing to use. Her dad had told her to put some Neosporin on it and cover it with a Band Aid. Wendy spent the next hour finding the Neosporin and instead of Band Aids she made him wear gloves to bed. Each morning he took the gloves off so his mom and dad would not ask him what he was doing wearing gloves in the middle of summer. Each night Wendy would sneak into his room and apply the Neosporin to his fingers before putting the gloves back on his hands. For the next three days Randy couldn’t pick up a club, but when he woke up on the fourth day and saw all the pink skin on his fingers, he picked up his clubs and started swinging away.

Wendy found him a few minutes later when she looked out her bedroom window and saw him pick up a club and began swinging. Going out the back door she grabbed him by the back of his neck before he realized she was there. Keeping one hand firmly around his neck, she used the other hand to grab one of his hands and turn it palms up. Already one of his fingers was beginning to ooze blood.

Randy Raintree! You don’t have any sense at all. Look at your finger; it’s already starting to bleed. You have to stay away from your clubs until your fingers are completely healed, and I will tell you when that is. If you don’t do as I tell you, I’m going to tell mom and dad.

But my fingers don’t hurt, Wendy, and it’s been four days!

And it will be another four or five days before your fingers are ready. I know, Randy, because I did the same thing when I was five. It takes time for your fingers to heal, but once they do your skin on that part of your fingers will get real tough and your fingers won’t bleed as often. The first thing you have to watch out for is the small blister that forms when you play too long. When that happens, just make sure you put a Band Aid on as soon as you feel it happening.

Wendy saw the look of disappointment on his face and the tear that rolled down his cheek as he started back toward the house. Wendy gave him a long hug and told him she promised she would give his clubs back when she saw that his fingers were ready. With that she marched back into the house and hid his clubs under her bed. Each morning he would hold out his hands for her to inspect, and each day she would shake her head no. On the fifth day, he pleaded with his eyes as she looked his fingers over.

That won’t do you any good, Randy. You can look at me with those sad eyes all you want, but I’m not giving back your clubs until I think your fingers are healed. Wendy saw a small tear form at the corner of his eye as he looked at her. She shook her head and grabbed him in a bear hug as she whispered that she loved her little brother to death and that his clubs were under her bed.

Many days Randy lost track of time as he hit his puff balls from one end of the yard to the other. Many times Wendy would join him, but after three or four hours she would grow tired of it and leave him to play by himself. On many days they practiced together, caring little about other friends that might drop by once in a while. They were content to hit the puff balls over and over, hoping that when their father came home from work he would take them to the small three hole golf course less than a mile from their home. The three-hole course was really a practice area next to the large golf course where golfers would practice a quick three holes just to get in the swing of things before they played their rounds.

Late at night with an hour or so of light left was the best time to go to the three-hole course because all the regulars were finishing up their rounds and the place was empty. Many nights the senior golfing pro at the club looked out the window and watched the man and his two children play the three hole course over and over and over. He was amazed at some of the shots the two children would make; shots that half the members of the golf club couldn’t make. He knew the girl Wendy was good because she had won one of her two 10—and—under championships at his course, but the four or five year old boy was the one he kept going back again and again to his window to watch. The boy’s form was perfect, and he did it exactly the same way every time he hit the ball no matter what club he was using. That took a skill that was beyond most golfers, including some of the pros on the tour, so he kept a movie camera at his desk for the times the family made their appearance. Someday, he thought, when this boy is a man and one of the greatest golfers around, he could bring out the movies when he was four and five years old and tell everyone he knew, without a doubt, the boy would someday be great.

The year Wendy came in second in the Oklahoma City 10—and—under tournament, her little brother won the boys’ ten and under division. He had turned six only a month before. By now their dad was taking them both to any children’s tournament he could find across Oklahoma. Sometimes they would find a tournament for father and son; other times he would find one for father and daughter. He loved showing off his two protégées, and there were very few tournaments that they didn’t come in first.

One of those tournaments Ralph Raintree took his two children to was the father—daughter and father—son tournament for seventeen and under in Chicago. Wendy and her dad placed fifth, and Randy and his dad placed third. They were the talk of the golf club in Chicago because no child under fourteen had ever placed in the top ten before. Here were two children from the same family, one seven and the other eleven, who had placed fifth and third.

Three weeks after the three of them returned from Chicago, their mother, Ginger, was bringing a bowl of lettuce to the table when her left leg gave out and she fell. After making sure she was all right, they all started laughing. For the next few hours, every time one or the other walked by their mother, they would pretend to fall down, and then everyone would start laughing again, with Ginger laughing the hardest.

When it happened a second and third time in the next month, Ralph took Ginger to the family doctor who in turn sent them to a specialist. Ginger was diagnosed with Neuro-Muscular Dystrophy. It was a close cousin to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig disease. The disease is called a wasting disease, losing muscle control, one at a time, finally becoming unable to walk. Eventually the disease progresses until the only thing functioning is the mind, a mind that is now trapped inside the shell of a body. With the proper treatment, the person can live a number of years and a few live into old age. Stephen Hawkings, the brilliant physicist, was diagnosed at the age of twenty-one. Today at the age of sixty-one, he is still alive. He can blink his eyes and twitch one muscle in his face, but his brain still functions. He is still researching many things, among them the big bang theory, black holes and singularity.

Wendy and Randy began taking over the household chores as their mother became weaker and weaker as the months went by. At eleven years old, Wendy, with directions from her mother, was becoming a good cook. Randy knew how to keep the house clean and what it took to clean the bathrooms and showers in the house.

Ginger had received her Master’s in Literature from the University of Oklahoma but had never worked a day outside the home. She had been in downtown Oklahoma City with friends celebrating their degrees the day after the ceremonies when she bumped into Ralph as she was coming out of the restaurant. Ralph was working in construction, replacing and rebuilding the outside patio for the restaurant; three months later they were married.

Ginger loved to read, and she had passed that gift to her two children. When her illness kept her in a chair or her bed, the children would take turns reading a book to her. One month she would have them reading only history, the next month governments of the world and so on. She would also not allow them to spend Saturdays anywhere but on the golf course with their dad. Not only did they read every classic of literature, they read all the scientific journals in every field there was. As young as the children were, they still picked up knowledge that the ordinary child would never get in school. They loved to read to their mother because they could tell it made her feel better.

Randy was eight years old when his mother gave him a book so big he had trouble carrying it into her bedroom. It was called The Rise and Fall of The Roman Empire, and the book was six thousand pages long. Reading the book, Randy realized how much he loved gaining knowledge, and this book took him back thousands of years to the time of the Caesars and the great houses of the rulers of the Roman elite.

Randy and Wendy grew closer together as their mother’s illness became more and more pronounced. Soon her bed became her prison. Each morning Ralph would feed and bathe Ginger before leaving for work. Both children would come home for lunch on school days and fix their lunches and something for their mother. Each day at noon they would work together to turn their mother from one side to the other so bed sores would not form and cause an infection that could be fatal in her condition. Ginger could still speak in a whisper, and she made sure the children understood how proud she was of them and how much she loved it when they read to her. Ralph would sometimes read to her, but he did not enjoy it. Ginger knew he disliked it and she never asked him to, but he would take the time to read something from the newspaper he thought she might like to hear about.

When Randy won the ten—and—under city championship, she made him tell her every swing he took just as if he were reading a book to her. When he described the shot on the final