One O’Clock Tee is a novel about people.
This story revolves around an ex-professional golfer, Jesse Porter, whose wife died from cancer some years earlier, leaving him with a daughter who has grown up and survived a broken marriage. He became depressed and gave up competitive golf. His daughter now lives in a small town near Wichita. Jesse goes to visit.
There he meets one of the wealthiest women in the country, Larona Starr, owner, and chief operating officer of a huge pharmaceutical company. She inherited the company years ago. Focusing all her attention on business, she has never married. When she meets Jesse Porter, however, both of them immediately hear wedding bells and see rockets bursting in the sky!
But they come from totally different backgrounds! Marriage seems to be an unlikely, perhaps unachievable, event. Can they find a realistic path to happiness at their ages? With their extremely different life experiences?
On top of this romance, you’ll accompany a bunch of old codgers on the golf course. They have survived through thick and thin for many, many years. They’ve managed primarily by their friendship and respect for one another, and, in large measure, by their personal grit.
Oh! There’s also a mystery for your consideration. Could Larona Starr possibly have been involved in a murder?
PS: My dad’s name was Clyde. Hence, the setting for this story is Clydeston, Kansas. (A fictitious name.) For many years, dad played golf with several fellows such as you’ll meet in this story. I often tagged along, learning to play while observing how grown men behave. Some of the craziness really happened. More or less. — Enjoy! Matt
WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK DIFFERENT?
Well, I ask you: How many novels have you read about some crotchety old guys finding a corpse on their golf course?
How many books have you read about a middle-aged (over fifty years), extremely beautiful (putting-movie-stars-to-shame) billionaires who desperately seeks a lover?
And-for crying out loud- how many books have you read that wind up with a nail-biting golf match?
It’s a page turner, folks! There are numerous characters, and you’ll find out what makes them all tick. About the time you get a laugh about one, you’ll find yourself worried about another! I actually have a long-time best friend -a U.S. Marine- who calls this book a “page-turner.” How‘s that for an unbiased recommendation!
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DO YOU GIVE YOUR FRIENDS TIPS ABOUT ENJOYABLE READS?
If your friends like books, let them know about One O’ClockTee. Middle-aged folks may be pleased to read a story they can relate to, about men and women who are still searching for intimacy, happiness, success, and all the experiences that continue to make life interesting,
Younger readers might like a break from Villains from outer space. Help them understand that the future holds great experiences for them right here on earth. Give them a glimpse of what life was like when they were just toddlers and what it can become if they sometimes push the boundaries a bit.
WHO IS J. A. “MATT” MATTOX?
In my family, there was an unwritten understanding that I would someday achieve a livelihood through art. Working with pastel chalk, I took art lessons when I was six years old. By the time I reached junior high school, I was drawing a weekly comic strip which was posted on the big bulletin board outside the principal’s office. When the U.S. got into World War II, I immediately turned my comic strip hero into a pilot in the U.S. Air Corps. That was when I recognized that the story was more important than the drawing!
I am now an old married man. Make that a lucky old man who has been married to the same extraordinary lady for more than sixty-eight years! My plans regarding art school changed with marriage and the Korean War. The old men in One O’ClockTee were born during or shortly after the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II, followed closely by the Korean War, (The politicians called the latter affray a “police action,” but you’d better believe it’s a war when someone is trying to bury you!)
In 1952 I joined the U. S. Navy. After graduating from OCS, I became an instructor in the Explosive Ordnance Disposal School about thirty miles south of Washington DC. (I got that assignment because I had worked for a manufacturer of rocket propellant for a year after college.) Later, as a qualified diver, I became Executive Officer of the USS Blackbird, an experimental mine hunter.
By the time I was separated from the Navy, I had decided I wanted to become a writer. So we wrote to fourteen universities who offered creative writing in lieu of thesis. From a few responses, we chose the University of New Mexico. (I have said “we” because my wife played a big part of our decision.) Thus, knowing almost nothing about the Great Southwest, we drove out of Virginia to Albuquerque and graduate school.
My wife got a full-time job and I got a part-time job and attended classes. After a year, we were offered an opportunity to adopt a baby girl, so we did. We had bought a little house, and my wife quit her job to be at home with our baby. I found a job with a pharmaceutical company based in Richmond, Virginia. My job as a salesman was to call on physicians and dentists from Albuquerque to Mexico.
After about a year on the road, I attended a training class in Richmond. While there, I became acquainted with the Advertising VP, and he offered me a job. At that time, the company’s advertising was written almost entirely by an ad agency. I was to become the first in-house writer. Wow! I jumped at that.
Six years later, one of the Richmond VPs moved to New York. He became president of the Pharma Division of a very large Swiss chemical corporation. Shortly after, I told him I’d like to follow, so he introduced me to head of the Promotions Department. Thereupon I became a copywriter for the Swiss company and we moved to Connecticut and I commuted into the Bronx!
Thus, over the years, I wrote and edited over a thousand ads for medical journals, numerous sales aids for a thousand salesmen and women, and hundreds of ads for direct mail to many, many physicians.
During the 1960s, when time permitted, I tried my hand at short stories, writing at home. Some appeared in Mystery Magazines such as Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Shayne, and Ellery Queen.
Our Swiss company merged with another Swiss company and our family moved to New Jersey in 1972. By then, my wife and I had adopted a four-year-old boy. I became Product Manager for a new product licensed from a Swedish company. With the second child and much greater responsibility, I backed off writing anything other than company requirements.
About eighteen to twenty years ago, I returned to drawing and painting. Mostly I draw pictures of houses for realtors who present the artwork to new homeowners upon closing the purchase of a house. It has kept me busy. I’ve drawn over a thousand houses in and around Albuquerque.
I guess you can see from this little essay that I have had a long and varied life. My wife and I have had residences in ten different states and the District of Columbia. I’ve met many, many fascinating people throughout the USA-salesmen and saleswomen, physicians, businessmen, artists and writers, scientists, teachers, and even some dummies.
My Swiss connection was great. Over the years, I made several business trips to Switzerland and the British Isles (once with my wife), Germany, Sweden, France, and Italy. Those trips and the people I was able to meet greatly expanded my understanding of how life on this planet works. I hope it makes my writing more effective and worthwhile. I hope you will find these objectives reflected in One O’ClockTee.