Even if You Don’t Golf: Part 1

By Aunging @ Adobe Stock

Even if you don’t golf, you’ll love this profile by long-time Boston Globe sports columnist Kevin Paul Dupont. For as long as I can remember, Dupont has covered the Bruins mixed in with wonderful stories related to sports and life.

If you visit Your Survival Guy in Newport, RI, from the north and take Rte. 24 South over the Sakonnet River Bridge, you will pass the Montaup Country Club on your right. Chances are you will also see golfers regardless of the weather. This is New England, after all, and if you wait to pick the right day, you may never leave the house.  Three days a week, 104-year-old Arthur Medeiros tees it up with three others or whoever has the guts to get out there. Medeiros is a WWII veteran, musician, husband, father, truck driver, and golfer.

Wounded on D-Day, “Helmet on my chest, flattened,” recalled Medeiros, “My [finger]nails all ripped out. I thought I’d lost my fingers. But they were OK.’’ After a short hospital stay back in England, he was back across the Channel for a second landing at Normandy, and then the months of fighting before, during, and after the fighting at the Bulge, explains Dupont. “If you were warm and walking, they wanted you back out there,’’ Medeiros said. Dupont explains:

Some not so fortunate

On the day of his last and most severe injury, March 15, 1945, Medeiros was under the command of captain Edward J. O’Melia Jr., the former Holy Cross football star. The award in O’Melia’s name is still given to the standout player in the Holy Cross-Boston College football games.

“The nicest guy. Everyone called him “Mother Hen’’ because of how he looked after us,’’ said Medeiros. “He’d come down and see us. Not all captains did that.’’

It was O’Melia, recalled Medeiros, who insisted his boys on the front line one day get served pancakes. Because of intense fighting, the flapjacks took three days to arrive, carted in a five-gallon canteen and an accompanying jug of Karo syrup.

“Three days in a canteen,’’ recalled Medeiros. “You can imagine. But for us, it was heaven.’’

On March 15, less than six months before the war came to a close, Medeiros and O’Melia were riding in a jeep in Belgium. O’Melia was in the front passenger seat and Medeiros behind him. They stopped to pick up a lieutenant, who popped into the back, Medeiros sliding over behind the driver.

“Not much later, they spotted us, going up a hill,’’ said Medeiros, referring to German troops. “The shelling began. The 88s [millimeter]. Our jeep got hit in front, boom, and the two of us on the left went one way. The two on the right went that way and got killed. We went the other way and got wounded.’’

Edward J. O’Melia Jr. was among some 8,000 military dead laid to rest (Plot F, Row 4, Grave 75) at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium.

Medeiros and daughter Sharon, who lives in Riverside, later this month will begin their annual drive south to see his other daughter, Eleanor, who lives in Melbourne, Fla. The three will be together for Christmas and Arthur will head back to Bristol in March.

“You know, when the cold’s outta here,’’ he said, warmed by the thought he’ll be golfing three days a week, too, while in Florida.

For his 105th birthday, he figures, he’ll have lunch with Sharon. It likely will be at his favorite spot in Bristol, the Hope Diner, a homey spot across from the bay where the sailboats still glide in the filtered light of a December afternoon sun. “And maybe,’’ said Medeiros, with not a trace of doubt about his birthday plans, “I’ll play golf.’’

There are only good and better days out on the course for Arthur Medeiros.

Action Line: Tell me your story by emailing me at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com

Read Part 2 here.

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.