SEE YA, PAL

Jim Hunter, RIP

In one the modern world’s pains of reminding one as to the things they have missed, my cell phone’s unrelenting, generally disliked missed-call list displayed Herbert Ames’ name.

Herbert is a proud Palmetto State boy who years ago was introduced to me by another proud South Carolinian, NASCAR’s Jim Hunter.

Although the damnable cell phone’s ability to remind also included Ames’ voice-mail message, it was ignored in favor of immediately dialing his number.

“DC, Hunter’s visitors have been restricted to family. He’s only got days to live,” Ames said earlier this week, choking his emotions.

Though sad, the news that our friend, Jim Hunter, was about to cross into the great unknown wasn’t surprising.

It had started a year ago at this race weekend when Hunter, suddenly short of breath, sought help at Talladega Speedway’s infield medical center.

Soon, heads were spinning with the rapid pace undertaken to fight the cancer which had invaded his chest and neck. Bombarded by radiation, veins filled with drug concoctions that future doctors will surely think as primitive as bloodletting is thought today, every means available was deployed in the fight to rid Hunter of what he and I would come to simply refer to as “The Demon.”

Still, I was nonetheless accepting of almost anything but the inevitable word that my friend had reached the end of his fight because I didn’t really wish to be the one to further pass along word of his imminent demise.

”Hunter’s death only days away, hospital visits restrained,” were the words of a text message I soon sent.

My youngest daughter, Camille, is a wonderful golfer. Anyone who plays or who has attempted to play the game marvels at her grace, strength and accuracy on a golf course.

Hunter was one such soul.

If anyone could truly love something other than another human being, Jim Hunter loved golf. So much so, in fact, his chosen daily business footwear were de-cleated golf shoes.

The common, everyday golf shoe has a funky look that can be easily spotted at 100 yards by even the most detached non-golfer. Hunter didn’t care. In fact, he reveled in it.

As many hours walking on a variety of terrains had taught him, “They’re the most comfortable shoes I got,” Hunter would say.

His love of golf didn’t stop there.

Honestly, I don’t know why Hunter so loved the game, especially as cruel as it could be and as cruel as it’d become as Hunter’s aging body ever more restricted his ability to play the game, even long before The Demon struck.

At first I was wary of pairing Hunter and Camille on the golf course, or even in the same neighborhood, so deep was Camille’s dislike of cigarettes.

Headstrong on nearly everything for as long as I can remember, Camille saw every smoker as among the lowest, most vile humans to be found anywhere.

Jim Hunter’s infectious laugh, his zest for life and his love of golf soon changed her point of view and taught her a lesson to look within that soul for the good to be found, cigarettes or no.

It wasn’t long before the two started playing golf on a moment’s notice.

I don’t know exactly what Camille saw in Hunter, maybe he was the Grandfather Camille never really had, her maternal and paternal grandparents having all died while before she was really old enough to remember them.

Whatever, she ignored his smoking and before long the two would play pickup golf matches.

Not long afterward, Hunter bought a house next to LPGA International’s practice facilities, where after a long trip to a faraway track or a tough day at the office could be countered in a matter of a few minutes in the quiet that usually surrounds a golf course.

Before moving away to Louisville and an awaiting college golf scholarship, Camille practiced every day at LPGA International and like every other golfer itching to play the perfection gained through practice, Camille often headed out for nine or 18 holes after practicing. Hunter often went with her, too.

Camille and Hunter soon became regular golf buddies, so much so that I can remember once being a tad envious. I loved ‘em both; wanted to play golf with both of ‘em. But, in the end, after all is said and done, parents just want to see their kids happy and healthy.

By sheer coincidence the 2006 NCAA Division I Women’s National Championship was slated for LPGA International at the end of Camille’s freshman year.

Sure enough, when Camille and her Louisville teammates played their way into their first national championship, Hunter was there for Camille.

Cheering her on, Hunter carved at least a little time each day she played, walking with her as she finished her last round.

I think Camille was saddest this past week because she wasn’t alongside Hunter for his last round, the one in which The Demon finally prevailed.

But she had no clue.

Oh, for sure, Camille was aware of his fight. After all, the two frequently communicated. They last spoke just last week. But Hunter wouldn’t let on – a benefit of being hundreds of miles apart and using a telephone to convey glad tidings – which Hunter did until his very end.

That was Hunter, too. Yes, Hunter could be cross with others, as would a fellow even named Earnhardt learn many years before, but Hunter really had one of the best souls I’ve ever known. The man embraced everyone first.

With golf one has many chances to share much time, Hunter’s and my matches were filled with his wonderful insight and of stories about days long passed along with shared knowledge of present headlines.

Recollections of those, though, now are best left for another day.

Today, this father grieves for a daughter who for the first time in her life has been deeply touched by another human’s passing.

Today, now, this father grieves for himself, because he lost one helluva a friend and, perhaps, knowing his daughter’s age of innocence is now passing, washed away with her tears for Hunter . . . or, perhaps, oneself.

See ya, Pal.

DC