Above the mantle there is a mural: a golden American eagle centered prominently atop a collection of flags arranged with the United States, France and Great Britain featured prominently. The other flags are partially obscured. I was able to recognize the colors of Greece and Japan (the now abandoned Rising Sun flag). I pondered it for a moment and asked a question of another person seated at my table. My guess was correct: the flags represented the allied powers from until the 1940s was called the Great War. That made perfect sense as the Evanston post received its individual charter in 1919.The congress had authorized the national charter of American Legion that same year.

Elsewhere in the hall were framed banners commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of World War II and a similar one for the Korean war (call it a “police action” to be technical). The World War II banner featured the victory eagle, the celebrated “ruptured duck” that was sewn onto the uniforms of returning veterans. There is a print of a Viet Nam veteran holding a folded American flag.

Behind the service bar, opposite the door leading to the restrooms, there is an aerial photograph of Dyche Stadium from the storybook 1995 NU season. The swarms of visiting fans in red sweatshirts and jackets were stunned into silence as the Northwestern Wildcats shut out the Wisconsin Badgers 35–0 on that afternoon. Northwestern played its substitutes in the fourth quarter and the benchwarmers held the visitors in check until time expired. I was in the stadium that day. The game was played on Central street, a few blocks west of the clubhouse.

The real purpose of my visit was to spend Sunday morning at the golf course. The Legion Post held a breakfast and a closest-to-the-pin contest. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages and slices of cantaloupe were served for our meal. I drank coffee and orange juice because it is Lent. Some of the other visitors chose Bloody Marys. .

A Bobcat with a bulldozer shovel cleaned the snow off the improvised teeing area. Because of weather conditions, it was decided to reduce the distance to approximately 120 yards rather than to run the risk of damaging the turf on the actual tee by having all of the players trying to hit 195 yard drives on the par three 18th hole that is opposite the clubhouse. Each player was permitted to hit three golf balls. There were twenty entrants in the competition.

I watched the other golfers take their shots and waited for my turn. I had not hit a golf ball since last Spring. A surgery sidelined me for the remainder of the golfing season. I did not want to risk an infection or injury until an open wound had healed, so I sat out the balance of the year. I was looking forward to resuming golf this season and entered this contest to start off the 2008 season on the right note.

If I had thought things out more clearly, I would have brought a hammer to drive the tee into the frozen ground. It was that difficult to set the tee even after the snow had been plowed. The footing was poor. I managed to hit three good shots with my eight iron, but two were wide of the green. All of the drives were in the immediate vicinity of the green, but the greens at this golf course are postage stamp sized, so you have to be accurate. I was fortunate with one of my three shots.

The best shot of the morning was hit by the first golfer: closest to the pin. Chuck hit the best ball and took first. They had to walk it off to determine second and my best was about a foot farther from the pin than Kevin’s second place shot, so I settled for third prize. I knew when the judges hiked up to the green that I had a likely winner, but the question was how much. They stepped it off and I narrowly missed second. I still won thirty dollars. Not bad.

Every golfer had to mark his golf balls with a felt tipped marking pen for the contest. I thought of a cowboy theme and chose a branding iron approach. My golf balls were marked with a “Circle K” brand for prompt identification.

Feeling confident, I knew that I would be all right if I could find the correct range (most of the players who braved the elements never reached the green as their golf balls simply bored into the snow). I knew something good would happen: my father was in the artillery. He taught me that you learn to fix your target and take dead aim.

He had caddied at Edgewater and Tam O’Shanter. I looped at Bryn Mawr. Today would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. On Memorial Day my sister will plant new flowers on his grave at St. Joseph‘s in Baraboo.

That shot—and more—was for him.

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Daniel J. Kelley is a hacker and a contributor to “The Chicago Daily Observer.”