The Boys of August
Longtime Rye residents Walter Roode and Bill McColl have been friends and golfing partners at Rye Golf Club for decades. Both have August birthdays. Bill turned 88 on August 11, two weeks before Walter turns 89. They still play 18 holes four days a week, making pars every round and the occasional birdie. As careful readers of The Rye Record are aware, Walter had a 125-yard hole-in-one on the 17th when he was 86.
Both served in the Navy during the Korean War, on different destroyers so small that they were known as “tin cans”. Walter was a foreman in the Rye City Department of Public Works. Bill was an electrician working for several telephone companies and then for Pepsi-Cola in Purchase.
Both men also served as Chiefs of the Rye City Fire Department in the 1970s and 80s and are current members as Past Chiefs.
- Bob Marrow
