Ramona, California unloaded the last of the boxcars that came down from Reno. Hardened men soaked down all the wooden crates with 100VLL aviation fuel. The bonfire would begin at dusk.
The wind swirled up only when a ball was placed on a tee. Otherwise it was dead calm.
Only the oilman who six putted the eighteenth hole back in Chula Vista hit the green. It was a shot as glorious as it was improbable, graced with a pure trajectory that cut an angelic arc through the haze.
For fifteen impossible seconds, the ball soared through the gauzy morning sky. It came down straight and from what they could see from the tee box, it only rolled a foot or two after landing.
The pin placement made a birdie unlikely but that didn’t matter.
Ramona, California had never seen such a bonfire.
