By Laney Figueroa, staff writer
One thing I will always remember from when I was 7 years old is going to Golden Gate Park every month with my family to play a round of disc golf with my dad’s friends. The outing also included getting to walk my dad’s friend’s dog, volunteering to help clean, and going out to eat.
My dad loved to take our family with him to play disc golf because he got to teach and show us something he’s good at, while also hanging out with his friends. At first, my mom, siblings, and I hated going because it was usually cold and dirty at the park. After a while though, my sister and I started to enjoy going because we got to play catch with the frisbees.
When we’d get to the park we often picked which 2 or 3 discs we wanted to play with, then we played catch and practiced throwing the discs we chose in different ways as far as we could. Out of the siblings, I was the best at throwing, I threw the farthest and straightest. My brother was younger so he wasn’t able to throw as far as us and usually just threw straight into the air and it would fall right back down to his feet.
In between holes we would sit on logs to take breaks and eat snacks. Most of the time while our dad talked to his friends we would get bored and play with one of his friend’s dog, Sai. She was a big husky and we always gave her treats and practiced the tricks she knew and took turns walking her.
Another of my dads friends also liked to help clean up the park and clear the path for each hole. Since no one else was willing to do this my dad always volunteered us, his kids, to help pick up stuff too. Most of the time we’d move leaves out of the walkway and pick up and move sticks and branches that fell down after a windy or stormy day.
We also would always get to the park late and since my siblings and I were little kids, we would be too lazy to play all 18 holes and only played half the course (9 holes). But at the end, when we are all done playing we would walk to hole 12 and always take our “tunnel shot” picture with the whole family. Then we’d say bye to my dad’s friend and dog, and go out to eat dinner since my parents would be too lazy to cook.
After a couple years we stopped going to the park to play. My dad’s back got injured so we took a break from disc golf for a couple months and after that my siblings and I stopped playing, but my dad continued to play with his friends. Sometimes I miss the family time of going out to play catch and taking our picture in the tunnel together, but at the same time now we’re busy with school and my parents are busy with work, so we all just kind of grew out of it.
