Giving 'Em Fitz: A macabre task on the 17th

This is a story about a par 3, an old football field, and the man who became part of both.

Before my father died in 2008, he asked us to scatter his ashes over two decidedly unconsecrated sites - the 17th tee at Paxon Hollow Golf Course and a triangular lot at Bridge Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, where he and his pals played football in the 1930s.

Though the request was both illegal and odd, it revealed a lot about the man: A lack of pretension. A passion for sports. And a penchant for embarrassing his children.

The day my brother, my sister, and I set out to fulfill his final wish, we carried the ashes in a cardboard box. None of us had ever been adept at the manual chores Dad assigned. And as we attempted this one, I could hear his voice, warning us not to screw up but knowing we would.

Perhaps because his two locations seemed frivolous, we added a third - his parents' grave at St. Dominic's Cemetery in Holmesburg.

At the cemetery we discovered two kinks in our plan - it was raining and none of us knew where our grandparents' plot was.

We trudged around in mud for nearly an hour, Dad's box getting as soaked and dirty as us. We violated the cemetery's solemnity by constantly shouting to each other: "I think it's over this way!" "This could be the row." "They must have just buried someone here because my foot's stuck."

When we finally found Frank and Valentina Fitzpatrick's resting spot, we each grabbed a handful of their only child's ashes.

Unfortunately, because of the rain, they clumped together like wet sand. A sizable portion of my father was now adhering to a few blades of wet grass. My brother and I instinctively tried to kick it loose, until my sister suggested that was probably inappropriate.

The Roosevelt Boulevard site, just a few blocks from where he'd grown up, had been a perfect ballfield - 75 years ago. Traffic then was minimal, and kids could safely run into the wide roadway to fetch an errant ball.

Now the cars came constantly and at considerable speed. Forget football. You'd be afraid to walk your dog there, though as we quickly discovered, many residents apparently had no such fear.

Dodging those impediments as well as speeding motorists, we realized that, as was not the case at the cemetery, there could now be witnesses to our crime. My sister and I, far more sheepish than our more worldly brother, discreetly began to drop a few pinches of ash.

The rain increased, as did my brother's impatience. Finally, he grabbed the now-disintegrating box and heaved a great load of Dad onto the soaked lawn.

Again the ashes did not disperse gracefully. Thick bunches stuck to a small patch of green, as if someone had just overapplied Scott's Turf Builder 2.

Back in the car, I swore I could hear my father calling, "Get back here and do it right!"

Not surprisingly, we postponed the Paxon Hollow mission. The day we decided on was dry but windy. We parked at a playground near a remote corner of the Broomall course. Not knowing exactly where we were headed, we trudged up and down hills and ravines. What remained of my father, I knew, was not pleased.

The wind hadn't deterred the golf nuts. Afraid of being spotted by them, we cut across a Martin's Run retirement community parking lot and hid like highwaymen in woods bordering the 14th fairway.

After a foursome passed, we emerged. "Yo, I found a couple of balls!" my brother whispered. "They're playable."

The choice of the 17th tee as his resting place never made sense. My father was a horrible golfer, a screw-yourself-into-the-ground-on-every-swing hacker. He liked 500-yard holes. Short par 3s like this bored him.

A softball field would have made more sense. Or - and thanks for not going with this one, Dad - a bowling alley. And though he lived a few miles away, he seldom played Paxon Hollow. When he did, it was the course itself and not par that was in jeopardy.

Carefully, we crept toward the 17th. It's a pretty spot. The elevated tee on the short hole looks down into a wooded valley split by a creek.

Though golfers occupied the green, the tee was clear. This time my brother immediately commandeered what remained of the box and dad, dumping the rest of the ashes.

Unfortunately, a gust caught them. Mouths agape, we watched in horror as Dad wafted gently down toward the green like the softly struck lob wedge he could never manage there.

The ashes fell on the foursome. The befuddled men gazed up, perhaps imagining it was snow, or residue from the nearby Marple Township incinerator.

For my father, always worried - insanely paranoid might be more accurate - about what strangers might think of him, it was the ultimate humiliation.

I'm certain he would have scolded us for not yelling Fore!

Our chore complete, we crumpled the empty box and trekked back.

We'd done it, though we'd done it as shoddily as most of the other tasks our father had given us over the years - the lawn-mowing, weed-pulling, and furniture-repairing (an indication of my manual ineptitude: As Dad watched, I once screwed our upturned kitchen table into the floor).

Two months later I played Paxon Hollow. Even though I've inherited my father's golfing DNA, I got lucky on the 17th. I hit one a few feet from the pin and made birdie. Next time I played there, same thing.

Dad, I wish you'd asked us to spread your ashes over all 18 holes.

Twenty-thousand ticket-holding fans, stuck in traffic, never got to last weekend's Sprint Cup race at Kentucky International Speedway in Sparta, Ky. Some who did waited nine hours in traffic and walked an hour from their parking lots.

Curiously, it was the federal government's fault.

"Traffic is horrendous," said track owner Bruton Smith. "Interstate 71 is a disaster. It may have been OK in 1955, but somebody should have rebuilt that thing 20 years ago."

That did not stop Smith, who has not yet issued any refunds, from adding 40,000 seats before the event.

- Frank FitzpatrickEndText