Hurley Ring was chasing moles at the old Earlington Golf Course near Tukwila when I met him in the spring of 1950.

His job was to rid the course of pesky varmints. I had five little varmints of my own and so I was hoping he would trap them so I could get in a round of golf.

Hurley had a special knack for killing moles. He would drive in a circle with his three-gang mower, watching for fresh dirt being poked up. He would leap off the mower with his shovel, sneak up like a ninja to scoop the little rascals out of the hill where he could swat them with the shovel. He averaged several a day at the course.

While Hurley was busy whacking moles, his partner George Puetz, ran the golf shop.

Hurley tired of poking holes in the ground looking for rodents. He ended up in White Center, like me, but he was selling novelty gags and mixers next to the liquor store on 16th S.W. at the Party House.

My oldest varmints liked to go into his store because Hurley carried an assortment of crude but humorous items like hand buzzers, phony rubber doggie poop and, as bad as it sounds, some fake vomit. They were all hot items for the younger set.

The kids would bring home fleshy fingers with construction nails piercing them. They had stink bombs, spilled paint, wobbly golf balls, rubber snakes, hairy spiders, cigarettes that smoke themselves and the all-time favorite--whoopee cushion.

For more than 30 years, Hurley ran that novelty shop. His sunny disposition was well known to White Center businessmen. Hurley wore a lot of shirts--bowling, darts, golf, racquetball and tennis.

At the age of 11, growing up near the shores of Lake Washington, Hurley took a spill on roller skates, breaking his hip. It never healed correctly giving him a decided limp for most of his life.

It did not prevent him from competing in his favorite sport of tennis. He was the #1 man on Franklin High School’s 1942 tennis team. He never won a match. He always faced the number one player from the opposing school. Hurley never said he was a great player, only that he was the best player Franklin had at the time.

Sixty years later, after countless rounds of golf and hours of competitive sports, Hurley needed a new hip. The doctor asked him if he wanted his legs the same length. Hurley’s bright blue eyes lit up. Of course he did. The limp is gone.

He uses a cane now but only to keep the competition off guard or to whack an occasional mole.