Betina

Lessons From the 10th Tee Grill

Half a dozen burger patties, arranged in three rows of two- like a six pack. Next to them, the beginnings of a grilled cheese and one grilled ham and cheese. Then, two hot dogs, split down the middle length-wise.

The flattop grill was in full symphony.

Inside this tiny brick-encased box, the kitchen was unbearably hot. Summers in Virginia tended to be that way and working a grill in an enclosed space the size of an RV toilet had the two of us dripping with sweat.

The Iran-Contra hearings were silently playing out on a small 12” TV in the corner to the left of the take-out window. Above the same window and clipped to the frame was a too-small fan, similar to one I would take to college with me in the fall.

Neither the fan or the hearings served a meaningful purpose for this 17 year old itching to be in the pool, or the tennis courts- or anywhere else.

I reminded myself I wasn’t going to be stuck in this job for long. I was just waiting for my position as a lifeguard to get sorted out. This must be a penance for my laziness as I had applied late and the pool manager ‘needed some time to get the staff settled’ before I could join all of my friends across the parking lot where I thought I belonged.

My partner in this wayward station for hungry and even more thirsty golfers was a woman named Betina. She was Jamaican and had a deep voice. She pronounced my name like ‘CREEES’. She was my boss, but between the age difference, my skin tone and the fact that I was essentially a member by proxy of my parents club membership, I was more of a project to be treated with kid gloves.

She probably didn’t want me there any more than I wanted to be there. But for the time being, we seemed to make the best of it- inches away from each other in an oven with a bathroom out back.

Betina handled most of the grilling and gave me the task of parsing out the drink orders. I wasn’t legally allowed to handle the beer but fortunately they came in cans so I made myself as useful as I could. I would quickly gather the orders of Bud and Miller Lite and lay them out in rows on the cooler top, away from the prying eyes of the member golfers. Betina could then pivot from the grill, open each can and slide them up and through the counter window.

My favorite drink to make was a Half ‘n Half. It was just part lemonade and part iced tea, drawn from a set of matching fountain machines directly behind the grill. I would later learn this is called an Arnold Palmer but military inspired nomenclature at the Army Navy Country Club had a way of stating the obvious in lieu of creative branding opportunities.

Betina and I danced around each other on these busy weekend days, and slowly found our groove, and mutual respect for one another.

I realized Betina was also biding her time, as she would bring a uniform with her to change into after work on some days.

I recognized the black one piece, a top that bled into a knee length skirt with a white front. It was what the waitstaff women wore in the clubhouse. The large, air conditioned main building centering all of the real estate of ANCC.

She was picking up shifts inside and years later I realized how we were in the same boat, she must have just started working at Army Navy and was tossed to the last outpost on the golf course as a trial. She probably thought of me as a mole, a test of her desire for the role.

Weekdays were much slower. I began to recognize the cadence of our customers. I’d hear the metal spikes of the golfer’s shoes as they walked from the 10th tee, where they played golf, over to the 10th tee, where they would order drinks and burgers. It got so I could tell if it was a foursome coming or just a pairing.

Those slow days, Betina began to let me handle the food orders. I learned how to make hamburgers, and grilled cheese. I loved making the grilled ham and cheese because it involved the most steps. The ham went on the grill first and needed to be flipped just so, then mayo on the bread, then the cheese laid on top of the bread with a metal bowl over it to help steam melt the cheese. Add the ham at juuust the right time and then place the final piece of bread on top. One flip…wait. Then it’s done.

I could carry out this process like a seasoned line cook as long as that was the only order I was taking care of. That scenario never materialized, so Betina would constantly be at my side rescuing me from myself.

I know thirty years later that Betina is a quiet woman. She is a very hard worker. Too hard. Back then we certainly didn’t talk much and there were socioeconomic hurdles, age barriers and racial stereotypes set up against us, neither of which we were in control of.

The Iran-Contra hearings seemed to be dragging on. When it wasn’t busy, Betina would turn up the volume just enough to hear parts of the broadcast. There was now a still, tensely upright military officer seated most days and I learned his name was Oliver North. There was also a lawyer who seemed to be younger than most and he moved around a lot.

I learned nothing more about the trial that year.

Betina saw and felt my teen angst on the dragging weekdays, and with no place to sit inside other than propped up on the one minuscule counter, she would send me outside to hit balls on the backboard of Court A.

I arrived each day in quasi tennis gear- an all white ensemble needed to adhere to the lily white country club rules of ANCC. Not so great for slinging burgers but remember, I belonged over at the pool. Or at least playing tennis, I mused.

What began as a one time, “15 minute break, Creees” turned into any opportunity I got. Court A was one of three hard courts that happened to be feet away from our shack. They were barely used as the club had sixteen clay courts and the adults preferred to play on those.

I hit thousands of balls, alone against that backboard while waiting to get my lifeguard job at the pool that summer.

~~

August hits Virginia hardest. The heat is relentless but the humidity is what gets people talking. It’s unbearable unless you can spend all day in a pool and get paid for the honor. Even then, I knew I was very lucky.

My drives home each day took me down the back entrance. This road leaving the club was appropriately named Army Navy Drive and it intersected along the back 9 of the golf course. It was a steep and winding downhill path, with lots of speed-bumps to keep seventeen year old shirtless fools blasting Depeche Mode in their parent’s Volvo from killing golfers at the crosswalks.

One day, I found Betina walking on the edge of the road towards the exit. There was no footpath because Jesus Christ, who would walk in this heat. I hadn’t seen her in weeks as my ticket to life-guarding had been finally punched some time ago.

I stopped and offered her a ride home.

I wish I could remember the details of that moment. The conversation, to have had an epiphany or an enlightenment for both an entitled white kid and a middle-aged woman from Jamaica, but I don’t.

I do have a feeling about it, one that has grown in the 30 years since that summer.

It’s one of human-ness. And respect and a common bond.

I would give her rides for the rest of the summer. As we exited the gates of Army Navy, we turned right onto the now flat, sprawling neighborhood accessible only to country club members. A few miles further and the trees became more sparse, more roads appeared, with stop lights and now intersections. The massive lawns gave way to utilitarian shops; auto-body garages, fast food chains, and Hispanic markets. We were now in Arlandria, home of a growing population of immigrants. Homes became apartment complexes.

I would drop Betina off here and I never saw which door she went in, there were too many.

~~

In the years since, I have moved many times. Different cities, a rural ski town, different coasts. I am now on the West Coast, thousands of miles from that tiny brick kitchen.

I have a family, and every so often which is not often enough, we visit my mom in the home I grew up in. We will go to Army Navy, now as guests. My mom slowly withdrew from the Club, first going inactive then finally giving up her membership our family has had since I was seven years old.

It was for a different time, and a different era, and with my dad gone, I can’t imagine it’s too much fun socializing there anymore.

My moms lifelong friends host us, and we will spend a day in the pool, and I will drag my kids through the glory days and the wall of swim team pictures I’m still in that somehow now look like they were taken during the Civil War.

Everything has changed, apparent by the aged look of non-digital photography. Several eye rolls later, my kids will need lunch. Off we march to the Clubhouse grill.

Betina will be our server.

I always get a picture with her, and I love so much seeing her smile. I am very proud to introduce her to my children. She is gracious, and interested I believe.

I begin to think about that drive home, only now Betina is in her seventies, and I am the middle-aged one.

My thoughts go to that bare chested teenager, driving an older Black woman home in the 80’s, and wishing I could tell her how much she taught me about myself.

Me and my kids with Betina several summers ago