'50s and '60s ...

 ... when everything was in large print!

Pluto was a planet; Wonder Bread built strong bodies twelve ways; you could depend on Social Security; the man in moon was in it, not on it; there were four channels in black and white; everyone hated Shredded Wheat; and Leslie Gore gave us all an out with, "that's the way boys are …”

You go, Sam!

I’ve watched him play in a surgical symphony of shots that raised eyebrows and caused that boyish smile and cackling laugh. He seemed surprised, and yet it is what he expects from himself—of the stuff where expectation and effort are expected to meet success, where failure boils and then comes to rest on lowered shoulders. You can’t help but feel for his dissatisfaction on any particular day should it point south, though you know and you’ll witness the phoenix in his play soon enough. The incredulous expressions he offers in both success and failure don’t surprise me. There are those who possess a passion that propels an effort connected to a personal cost: golf is not a game, but a challenge. It matters little that the foe is a reflection, it is the challenge that offers the breed more than satisfaction; only in accomplishment is a beer truly deserved and peace preserved … you gotta love that.

You go, Sam!

Yeah, I know, it ain't about golf, but WTF!

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name stripped from children’s book award over ‘Little House’ depictions of Native Americans

You cannot go back and decide today what a person’s motives, experience, and understanding were—a hundred years later! We won the Civil War; we raped and pillaged the South and taxed away their land until all they had left was the difference of opinion that lived in the bronze statues and flags, saying I felt differently from you. Nearly 300,000 souls died in the South and were buried under a different flag—one that is banned today—but morons still wave flags with swastikas on them. Any historian will tell you it wasn’t all about slavery.

Should we remove Jefferson from our coins and history books because he had slaves (as did Washington and most others at that time)? Are we going to decide that Germans should have known about 6 million Jews and take fresh action against them today for what happened 70 years ago? Do we boycott Mercedes and BMW and beer? When do we start a Pearl Harbor hate month: "Sushi is un-American!"?

What other retro arrogance can we now bathe in to cleanse ourselves against histories that are now viewed in black and white but that were made in color? If those histories became "lessons," so be it—use them as such. I wonder who will be first to suggest that we burn all Laura Ingalls Wilder books in the name of the view from over here now—and how very right we are!

Who makes up this shit?!  Michael Landon must be turning over in his grave.

Ever notice ...

... how golf can make you feel like Sonny on the causeway? 

Hey Joe...

It was written across his face, facing the white tees. The expected challenge, when it appears to have increased, allows doubt to double its threat. I believe it took about four holes for Joe Valdez to meet and pass the angst. “I didn’t think I could keep up”—a  sentence I would ordinarily turn into something lewd or at least off-key, but on this occasion I looked over at the sand-bagger riding shotgun in my cart and smiled.

There’s something humbling about a humble man; I missed the Humble Class long ago and still see d’Artagnan while shaving. We traded questions about golf, life, and yesterday—and left plenty of room for the moment. He never complained, just rose to the occasion (another opp—but then again golf is rife with them).

Joe Valdez is a curious man. I think curiosity is a trait that extends one’s life, because it fills voids and gains its own appetite. It’s the small stories in recent and not-so-recent pasts that often catch the listener and make him thirsty for another small revelation in the enigmas shoved deeply in another’s pocket. Trading such pearls on the way home with “The Hat” in tow, I found myself open to revealing the less capitalized version of my story and willing to show some vulnerable and even less savory sides of past shadows. There is comfort in the trust we make with confederates frozen in a set of seats going 65 mph, something in the laughs that loosens jaws, no matter the score that day. I might have just let this go, just thought about it instead writing about it. But for some reason, the comfort of the company made its way down to my fingers, and I suspect a humble man named Joe had something to do with it.

Rule 24-16...

I don’t know what the true slope is for a man playing the women’s tees, but I suspect it is far less than the recorded 120 for women. I don’t know how we came to accept playing from the women’s tees—though I think in Dennis’ case it was quite necessary and kept him moving, vying, and part of the group; amen to that! There is a handicap system in place that, until a year or so ago, we played to; we understood its purpose and varied only when we wanted to step outside the norm to visit a fresh look.

Changing the field of play seems so far from the concept of golf, its handicap allowances, and purpose thereof. Would you walk halfway down a bowling lane to make more strikes? Lower a volleyball net to waist level to spike? Or add two or three more strikes at the plate before you were out? (I love analogies because they’re the lazy man’s offering when explanation and definition of what he wants to say elude him.) 

Miniaturizing the game frankly makes no sense and ignores the game’s foundations and purpose: fair play. The handicap system has been in play for decades; besides, there is no fair or equitable way of measuring men playing from the women’s tees; there seems to be complete agreement on that. We play from the “senior” tees: 5,968 yards. The actual white combo tees are the standard “white” tees at 6,178 yards. The women’s tees are 1,000 yards shorter than those!

It’s not a dig against those playing the women’s tees. We somehow, I believe incorrectly, accepted it as okay until it became apparent that we were missing the point: equity is ingrained in the game already. The field of play is the field of play. Returning to the way the game is supposed to be played eliminates the personal and imposes the concept and rules we began with. Handicaps will rise, as they should, according to each player’s rounds; the field of play will dictate a player’s true handicap accurately.

Rule 24-16 of the USGA Handbook says: “Anyone hitting from the women’s tees must have a uterus.”

(Of course I’m having fun with this. But seriously, let’s all get back to playing the game the way it was designed, please!)

Thursday's Child...!

Thursday

Hot

High: 103 °F

... at the table

The first and the fifteenth of the month—the measure of the man, or one of those rare occasions when a man prefers that something so dear to him shrink in size.

I hear the voices talking about trending—when a score is recorded, what effect it will have on the handicap—and the braying in fear that it will lower the BBN (Burning Bush Numbers) and holes will be lost, making skins more difficult.

All the while, our handicap leader, Lyle “The Hat” Bradley, sits content to listen, quiet about his game that day (unless of course it has left the tracks and he has blown into the 90s, where I live). His head is turning with the conversation; nodding and head-shaking abound. But nearly every toss back of his Ultra finds him centered and focused on the brew and company.

Every time I looked back yesterday, I saw him in the middle of the fairway, striking the ball with a consistent short swing and clearly without any fear about rising or falling BBN, never talking about his game, what it will do, will not do. He knows no one really wants to listen or gives a shit about someone else’s trials and tribulations, or the last time they did this or that (though recounting a circumstances in the round is welcome fodder, and we all want hear those); Lyle just sits and takes another pull on his Ultra. It’s not confidence, not really—more modesty, knowing the fragility of the BBN.

Maybe he’s superstitious?

I stand over the ball in hope, in prayer. My “allowance” is much more generous than that of my counterparts. I’m just hoping that the score that ends on the 18th isn’t a sunburn I have to wear until the next round.

So this morning I anxiously acknowledged the email announcement with my handicap update, not really knowing the direction it might fall or rise. It stayed the same. Does anyone care?

NO. The belt loop remains the same, and eventually I’ll have to shave.

Our leader carries a 13—I just checked. I love playing with him, of course, regardless of the distance between our games. I just wish I didn’t feel like I was wearing a toga on the tee.

100 degrees... The gal and a very insistent hawk!

Mr. Ham and Mr. Egg

I haven’t figured out over all these years which one is the ham and which one is the egg. I only know playing with them makes me feel like the yolk!

Example: Today

I’m having one of those rounds on the front nine. “Team Meal” (ham and egg) are avoiding eye contact, lest they have to acknowledge how poorly the effort is being put forward, or they’ve already used all the adjectives, long faces, and compassionate utterances they can think of—and it’s only the 5^th hole!

Speaking of which, my second shot goes so far left I tense up and await the accident my Titleist is about to threaten on the highway.

Meanwhile, back on course, of course golf is being played, discussed, measured, and nodded to by my playing partners, Mr. Hammer and Mr. Egg-straordinary. I concede to defeat on hole 5. I want to confess to a golf priest, all … well, a lot of my sins, to be extracted from this pain. The contrast (over there) by those people is painful. 

Suddenly I’m  Orpheus! If I don’t look back, maybe I can find my game; if I don’t peek, I’ll hit one straight; if I don’t look, I’ll gain some self-respect. I looked, damned to golf hell. If there be a melody and harmony of golf, it’s those two. God they’re fun to watch, fun to hate! They do encourage one to dig a bit deeper, even if the soul is lost.  

So. So I know what to expect and assume; they rarely let me down. I do feel like the bastard child, or Linda Blair bouncing on the bed, or that thing that explodes from the guy’s chest in Alien, from to time—but I’m forgiven by better play, and they don’t hold that last sentence against me. ;-)

Christ, even their names rhyme!

Upper 90s, brisk wind. The hills are already parched … and she's back!

I confess, I’d almost given up, ceded to the idea that “The Gal” was no more. Injury, nefarious circumstances, age, hunters—or maybe she had just moved.

On the eleventh tee, I watched Fred and Ed tee off, then did the same. They went down to the women’s tee, awaiting another good drive from Wayne. I stood on the tee and decided that, although there had been no response for over a month, I’d issue one last Hail Mary whistle and an extended arm. The wind was strong and the whistle would carry. Nothing.

I drove down to my errant tee shot and measured the distance to the hole. As I was measuring, I heard the familiar tread of my favorite coyote! She circled me as I asked where she’d been, nearly expecting an answer. She looked the worse for wear. Her new brood must be one rowdy group.

Suddenly the front nine melted away (54!). The Gal quickly gobbled up the Fig Newtons I had kept in my lunch box, just in case. She followed us to the next hole, where she talked me out of my ham sandwich.

She’s back … how cool is that?!

Gal gone?

They were never automatic, her visits. Sometimes often, sometimes infrequent, but always upon appearance came a respected welcome; four-legged royalty who seemed to set aside the “wild” part and dare proximity for a snack. Her swaying and circling, and the occasional paw scratch on the ground showing a bit of anxiety and impatience, seemed more like an attempt at communication. That one could whistle and hold up an arm and then find her racing from some unseen tall grass was, for me, anyway (and I suspect for others as well), a sign that our friendship was still present and quite active. We were the “pets” grazing past her territory and paying the toll with a variety of “tributes.”

It has been a month since “the gal” has visited, responded, or been sighted. Hopefully she is nursing a new brood and is much too busy to collect our infatuated faces and smiles. But she has been longer absent than any other span, and she hasn’t left a note, nor any indication of what is happening with her.

A group of golfers awaits with hopeful curiosity that she’ll show again, take some time to abate the concern, and confirm that it wasn’t something we said …