We didn’t have the Chipper Invitational Golf Tournament this year. It wasn’t a good summer for anything that takes place outdoors, for one thing. Just too danged hot.

For another, people we knew all over the world by internet or pen pals were having a tough time surviving any disaster du jour.

Thirdly, it just wasn’t a good year to celebrate Doc’s legendary pet squirrel. Chipper came to life several years ago when Doc placed an ad in The Valley Weekly Miracle offering a reward for finding his missing pet squirrel. Five dollars and fifty cents.

Since it’s really hard to find a non-existent squirrel, even in the best squirrel habitat, the reward money went unclaimed, but our valley got a new story and legend and laugh.

The Chipper Invitational Golf Tournament came about to raise money for charity. Doc and the guys each took a shovel and a t-bar fence post and walked out onto a farm for a ways and then dug a shovel’s worth of dirt, slammed in the t-post, and taped a number to it. Multiply by eighteen, and our golf course was born.

Each year “Chipper” would pick another farm, and the legend grew.

So this year we had to be content with raising our coffee mugs to the best non-existent squirrel a valley ever had, and look forward to a better summer for fun next year.

Insomnia getting you down? Watch a golf tournament on television.