The July 4th Celebration at the Amazon Golf Course

Colm Glackin from Ireland giving golf lessons at the July 4th celebration for the Amazon Golf Course.

We had a big day on July 4th at the Amazon Golf Course. We were lucky to have Colm Glackin, and excellent golfer from Ireland, available to give our Saturday morning lessons to the new golfers. Colm spent the entire day with us from middle of the morning till 8:45pm. His final round of lessons was to help one of our best caddies learn more about golf, and ended in the dark.

Chris Webb teaching his son the game of golf.

I watched as Colm helped Michael and Cesar improve their golf game. Thanks Colm, your good attitude and golf skills were much appreciated.

Colm Glackin giving golf lessons at the Amazon Golf Course on July 4th.

We weren’t so lucky with the weather, and thus the turnout. It rained hard around noon and then rained hard at 1:30, and again at 2:30. The silver lining was the rain was great for the 100 small Palmarosa trees we planted the day before, and 20 baby palm trees that I thought had died sent up new leaves. I celebrated our tree planting project.

New palm growing from our special compost mixture at the Amazon Golf Course on July 4th 2009.

We celebrated our family and friends that came out to the Amazon Golf Course to visit and support our efforts. Thanks.

Mike Collis and Henry Gray enjoying the day at the Amazon Golf Course Clubhouse.

We had music playing all day, played golf, soccer, and volleyball, and danced until dark.

Soccer, and volleyball at the Amazon Golf Course July 4th party.

At 5:00pm I pulled my chair under a palm tree near the 9th green looking out over the Amazon Golf Course admiring the work we had done.

I sat there by myself for an hour thinking about my friend Phil Gonzales in Iraq, Mike Collis’s son in Afghanistan, Papa Dan Buzzo, the guest of honor at a 4th of July festival and parade in Texas, Jim Hunter who should have come home from Viet Nam but didn’t, my buddy Bill Reed who did…I don’t spend much time thinking about the past so I was relieved when a mirage that seemed to be a beautiful young woman walked out of the golf course toward me and brought me back to how lucky I was to be here in Iquitos Peru, managing the Amazon Golf Course, and celebrating another 4th of July. I bought our grounds crew a round of beer and we had a happy 4th of July. I hope you did to.