For the last several years, I’ve said that my ideal job for when I retire– or win the lottery– would be as a starter at a golf club. It’s not so much for the love of the game (I’m an average player at best) as it is the fact that it’s just a very cool place to be. Think about it: it’s very difficult to not be in a good mood when you’re heading out there first thing in the morning. I want to be the guy who looks down at the first green, sees a putt sink, and then says, “Okay, guys, go ahead.”
Well, that’s my ideal retirement job, anyway.
The song in today’s posting is Renaissance’s “Carpet of the Sun,” from their Ashes Are Burning album. Renaissance was a folk/rock/classical band that grew out of the end of the 60s band The Yardbirds: one set of guys went off and became Led Zeppelin, the others became Renaissance, and the two groups couldn’t be more unlike each other.
(For more information on the group, visit The Northern Lights Renaissance Web Site, of which I am co-editor. I also wrote the liner notes to the 1997 reissue of Ashes Are Burning.)
Now back to golf.

The first time I heard “Carpet of the Sun” was probably sometime in my late teen years. I remember listening to the song and suddenly a visual popped into my head of the time my dad and I played a round of golf at the Mt Prospect Golf Club. I was probably 13 or 14 at the time we played, and when I heard this song a few years later the memory of that early Saturday morning was still fresh in my head: the summer sun shining brightly over the fairways, the grass still wet from the night before. And it was so quiet except for the birds and the occasional voices from my dad or the people playing nearby.
Over the years, I would occasionally drive by the golf club and every so often “Carpet of the Sun” would pop into my head as that vivid memory came back. I’d always thought about taking my camera out there early one morning and trying to capture what’s been lurking in this brain of mine for all these years. This morning, I hopped on my bike and rode the two-and-change miles to the course and snapped the photos on this page. I think I was successful.

It’s moments like this that make me hope I’m giving my girls happy memories that, while very simple, will stay with them for years. And maybe Emma or Becca will connect this with a song that calls back those moments so vividly.
There are several versions of “Carpet of the Sun” available, but I prefer the original arrangement. This is a YouTube video that contains that version of the song while showing a visual of the album cover.

CARPET OF THE SUN
(Michael Dunford / Betty Thatcher)
Come along with me
Down into the world of seeing
Come and you’ll be free
Take the time to find the feeling
See everything on its own
And you’ll find you know the way
And you’ll know the things you’re shown
Owe everything to the day
Chorus:
See the carpet of the sun
The green grass soft and sweet
Sands upon the shores of time
Of oceans mountains deep
Part of the world that you live in
You are the part that you’re giving
Come into the day
Feel the sunshine warmth around you
Sounds from far away
Music of the love that found you
The seed that you plant today
Tomorrow will be a tree
And living goes on this way
It’s all part of you and me
(chorus)