“Heaven was green, like nothing else in Arizona.”
The first time the narrator and his friend lay eyes on the vivid green cultivated grass of the first very golf course they have ever seen—or ever heard about—it is nothing less than a metaphorical glimpse into paradise compared to the natural topography of Arizona the man-made additions with which they are familiar.
“It was like The Wizard of Oz”
Still struggling to make sense of what they are seeing, the narrator continues to struggle to put the otherworldly and unexpected vision of a golf course—which he still does not know is a golf course—into a perspective he can understand and construct some sort of sense out of. But since the vision of the perfection of a manicured landscape is so foreign to his experience, he can still only grappled with fantasy imagery such as when Dorothy and her friends dash madly toward the Emerald City.
“like the tablecloth those magicians pull where the stuff on the table stays the same”
The comparison of his experience with the golf course is inextricably linked to concepts of illusion. His reference point is persistently a comparison with something fantastical. Right from the beginning it is obvious that the young narrator is at a loss for precise language to describe his experience with his friend and the golf course. As he fumbles to find a word capable of describing it appropriately, he turns to metaphorical language, referencing a scientific principle he hasn’t yet grasped as magic trick.
"Nature’s gang was tough that way, teaching us stuff."
This is a beautifully wrought metaphor. After first providing the reader with some background detail on how he and his friend no longer did some of the things they used to do as a result of experience teaching them it had become pointless to try to replicate the earlier adventures, he gives the lessons learned through experience a metaphorical nickname: “nature’s gang.”
"our friend from long back”
The “friend” from way back the arroyo across the street from the narrator’s house. An arroyo is a very narrow channel of water cutting a swatch through dry, arid land. The narrator metaphorically enhances its size and character by also referring to it as “our personal Mississippi” but by definition an arroyo barely even qualifies when he calls it “our river.” But to two young boys who have reached the age of 12 without ever seeing a golf course before, active imaginations can easily transform a gully into a raging tributary.
