Plymouth Thanksgiving rekindles memories of Ed

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No doubt you knew Ed. Maybe not the same one I knew, but you knew an Ed. Ed was the guy who could do anything and do it well. He was the kindest person you ever met, but had enough devil in him to keep you laughing.

Ed was the guy you’d do anything for. The guy who’d do anything for you.

If you needed shelves built, Ed would build them. If you needed a room painted, Ed would show up with a brush.

He’s the guy who made my family part of his when my brother married his daughter. My wife and daughters were suddenly Ed’s kids as well – so much so that my 7-year-old daughter calls Ed’s wife Nana Bev. So much so that every Thanksgiving since my brother’s wedding has been spent at Ed and Bev’s home in Plymouth, Mass. That’s 10 years now.

During those 10 years as the families melded, Ed and Bev flew to Bangor for a visit and to play golf. My brother and his wife drove up with the clubs.

Ed loved Bangor Muni. He told them so in the clubhouse. He told them after we played the 18 the first day and then again the next day after we played the new nine and the 18.

He also had his first bite of a red-casing hot dog at the Muni. He liked it so much that he took the time to walk back from his cart at the 10th tee to the dog shack to tell the woman there that it was the best hot dog he’d ever had. And he meant it.

Golf was a big part of Ed’s life. He was good at it, and our trips down for Thanksgiving included golf matches for bragging rights at Thanksgiving dinner.

Three years ago we went down for Thanksgiving and we knew it would be the last one for Ed. Cancer got him. It hit him in the colon, and before it had run its course, it had taken this energetic, cheerful guy and turned him into a frail, shivering old man in a recliner.

But that didn’t stop Ed. You see, I mentioned Ed had some devil in him, and even though he couldn’t play in our annual golf match, he sure as hell could talk about it.

Our match that year had come down to what was then the 17th hole at the Bay Pointe Country Club in Onset. It is the worst kind of hole for yours truly. It is a par 5, with a long dogleg down a tree line to the left.

I am a natural slicer of the ball. Normally, I couldn’t hit a draw if money were offered. But that day, under overcast skies, with a cold drizzle falling and my oldest daughter riding along with me in the cart, I “Bagger Vanced” my tee shot.

I mean, I focused until there was nothing but the ball, the trees and a soundtrack with birds chirping and ducks flying south for the winter, and I hit the prettiest draw you’ve ever seen. I remember my brother laughing about it. And I remember beating him by one stroke on the day. But one stroke is bragging rights.

Ed was sick sitting at the dinner table. His family, both blood and adopted, was sitting around kind of nervously. The kids were laughing but we grown-ups were walking on eggshells. We were trying to make the best of it, but it was tough. Ed fought through the pain he was in to make it as comfortable for us as he could. He was sitting there, dying right in front of us, but he was trying to make us comfortable.

He kept a smile on his face throughout dinner, eating what he could and telling Bev how good everything was. And every now and then Ed would look over at me and kind of laugh.

“So, you got him today, huh?” he would say to get the bragging rights going. He would laugh. He had to make my brother relive it.

That was Ed – the devil in Ed. He loved that part of golf. He loved hearing my brother and me talking a little trash to each other. He loved it when my brother told me not to overswing “like you normally do.”

He liked it the day my brother turned sideways on the tee to take a practice swing and hit me right in the chest with a clump of mud.

And he laughed out loud as I walked my shadow back and forth through my brother’s line as he stood over a money putt.

The last thing Ed ever said to me was that he would play with us next Thanksgiving. I knew it was bravado. But I also knew he was trying to make me feel better.

This year, as usual, we made our way down to Plymouth for Thanksgiving. Our annual golf match took us back to Bay Pointe. It was the first time we had been back there since that Thanksgiving just a few months before Ed died.

Things had changed. The front nine was now the back nine. As we approached the eighth hole (formerly the 17th) we started the old “do you remember?” game and, of course, we both did.

We talked about having played that course on a cold, cold Thanksgiving years earlier with Ed and how he’d hit a perfect approach shot to the 18th hole only to see the ball bounce about 30 feet straight up into the air off the near-frozen green.

We talked about how much Ed had enjoyed egging us on that final Thanksgiving. “So, you got him today, huh?”

Unbelievably, this year I hit the same shot I had the morning of Ed’s final Thanksgiving. Only this time, my brother did as well. He got me.

It’s much different around the dinner table now. My brother sits where Ed used to, and though we don’t talk about it around Bev, we all miss the hell out of Ed.

We hardly talk about golf, which some at the table no doubt don’t mind. We eat and talk about other things.

Bev asks my 23-year-old daughter about her boyfriend. She demands to know how serious their relationship is – a question a mother would ask of a daughter.

We tease. One of the men teases Bev about her wonderful pies, telling her they look like they came from Shaw’s.

My youngest daughter walks by, leaving the kids’ table, and Bev stops her for a hug and to tell her how big and pretty she is getting.

I could hear the laughter – hear them fussing over my sister-in-law who is expecting twins.

I could even hear Ed talking to my brother. “So, you got him today, huh?”

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.