Remember golf

Feels like I haven’t played in months.

I was nearly asleep, but something was begging for examination.

Eagle Springs: first hole. (It made more sense than counting sheep.) Tee’d, and never ready; the first few practice swings feel like wielding an angry cat. There is nothing I trust in these wasted movements. It’s all hope, and I’m disguising my fear with it.

Going left: well, left is jail, pure and simple. If your ball isn’t in the water, it’s plugged so deep it’s speaking Chinese.

The middle: prayer answered, and an undisguised exhale of relief.

Going right: negotiation, maybe some strategy, and always a stoic oak whispering, “Go ahead, I dare you—no, I double dare you.” I examine the color of the flag as if from here it will, could possibly, affect my choice of clubs. Arguably the toughest initial hole I’ve played, this first hole.

Dogleg/uphill/wet (always wet): elevated camelback green.

Red flag: impossible if you’re past it.

White flag: inevitably placed on a sloping angle. Short, and the putt runs back at you like a kid on the first day of preschool.

Blue flag: the black sheep of flags. Unless your damp divot gives your wedge permission, you’re over into more crap; awkward chips are abundant and rarely garner satisfaction.

Leaving the first hole with a bogey is like putting a dollar in a change machine and getting only 75 cents back—and being just fine with that!

I remember golf—the abuse … and I miss it, so go figure!

Poker Wisdom?

Poker wisdom?


Conservatively, at any one time, there are a collective 420 years waiting to raise or fold. Over these past years, “yesterday” always seems to be the focus, a softer focus, a matter-of-factness. (New word.) The sense is  less of an apology for what was and more an explanation for it. Changes came in the way change might best be consumed—over time, a long time.


We have all, to a one, admitted scandalous actions and words—the hallways of our lives then were much narrower. We lived in our communities and learned from sidewalk to sidewalk, and of course we believed mostly what our parents believed (with the exception of sex, bedtime, and broccoli). We learned about races through avenues of television and some of us took a fresh look at one another, for the first time examining the other one’s last name. But hallways still remained narrow.


We shake our collective heads at the table and wonder how we could have been so distant from what, in retrospect, now seems so obvious. But it wasn’t … obvious. We rubbed two sticks together, if you will, to start a fire, unlike today’s flip of a switch. The news was uninterrupted by commercials; it was Joe Friday news. And it was meted out in small bites, because the hallways were narrow.


Politics was that “thing” that you felt you should know about and would take the time one day to investigate, but not now. Feeding kids and making rent were the paramount issues. No one on the television was selling right from wrong or left from right—at least not so obviously as to permeate those narrow halls enough to make us stop and think.


And that is where we “seniors” stand united in our observation: There seems to be reaction, not thought; the flavor might be accurate but there is no sipping. “Our side says …”—without any regard to Mr. Simon. Ideas need and deserve the fermentation that should come from thought, and while it may seem obvious to some, swift currents make the table suspicious. We are not guilty of ideas we digested as normal and true when we believed they would always be so. We were mistaken.


This new generation has grown up with explanations, retro accusations that are justified within that shield of hindsight and completely out of focus to a generation dueling with a guilt they’re supposed to feel, but don’t understand. How could it possibly have been different? We didn’t have the benefit of understanding and explanations that came in seconds from a keyboard. Most were, it appears at least to this group, political plebes.


When someone tells me, “This is the way it should be now,” and wants some immediate movement as if it has come from the burning bush, it is representation without fermentation.


Half the table voted for someone I didn’t. And long before that inauguration, they were tired, weary, and angry. And I realize no one wants to be told their nonfiction chronicle deserves to be edited—as if it would or could amend one’s today.


There is something frightening about righteousness: It’s not like a sunset that speaks for itself, or music that moves the soul. It lacks the subtle influence water has on thirst, and usually it is offered in fortissimo, showing that it couldn’t last if whispered.

Vegans and my drive to Palo Alto to see pictures

Vegan for a Day


X-ray explanation:

“Well, Mr. Raggio, you do have a measure of arthritis along your cervical spine, and plaque around your aortic arch, nothing too worrisome for a man of your years.” (There’s a smile, and then an extra nod of assurance as she begins to read or count the furrows on my brow and sees the squinting of my eyes.)

I turn and begin putting on my shirt. I stop, spin back toward her, and reply, “I don’t recall having any arthritic issues with my back, Doc. Plaque?  Like the one hanging in the den that says, ‘Awarded to Glenn Raggio for never calling in sick the whole year of 1983’? That’s a plaque, Doc! I thought teeth got plaque. I mean, I’m not a doctor, but I know the aorta, and teeth do not have a relationship, right? This sounds pretty heavy, Doc.”

She waves me down in the seat as if I were eight and says, “If you’re truly concerned about it, consider veganism.”

Now, “vegan” all by itself just sounds, well … evil. I can’t tell you why. But you add the “ism” and you start seeing Linda Blair bouncing on the bed!

She pulls out a chart, handling it like a treasure map, and spreads it over the examination table. It’s a chart of every vegetable known to mankind (and some that look like they used to walk). It starts out with pale, nearly white vegetables and graduates to tan, orange, brown, and then 40 shades of green shapes. The only thing I recognize is corn. All the while, I am hoping this isn’t going to be a test where she points to one and I have to fucking guess what it is.

Then it dawns on me (well, two dawns, really)—she’s a vegan! The other “dawn” is that as a cop, I should have figured this out much earlier. Must be my aortic plaque setting in. You ever see people who go into health-food stores or those supplement places, and they have that sort of sheen on their face? It’s like a tan, or a faux tan, produced on the skin by some vegetable you have to cook with certain spices so you can’t taste what it really tastes like.

Anyway.

She gently guides her hand affectionately over the images, pointing out her favorites and making recommendations as she goes. “This one is good for the prostate, and this one is great for the skin. And oh, this one works against plaque and Republicans …”

Okay, I made that last part up.

“You’d make a perfect vegan, Mr. Raggio.”

I’m not sure how to take the “compliment,” so I ask, “Why do you say that, Doc?”

“Well, you appear to be in reasonably good shape, you’re not completely gray, you did well on the eye chart …”

She went on for a bit, and I let her, but I couldn’t help but add right after she finished, “And I’d look smart in Birkenstocks?”

The chart was suddenly rolled up, and she was staring at me over her glasses. “Vegetables will do for you what clearly you’ve been unwilling to do for yourself.”  Now I’m thinking, I wonder which one of those vegetables will buy me a Taylor driver, but I hold my tongue.

Raley’s produce section later that day:

I peruse the aisles as if I belong there. Pick up some of those images I saw earlier and imagine them on my plate. A woman sees me and starts in on how if you prepare them this way and add some of that and this, you’ll be in heaven. I nod and smile, knowing full well these Nikes are going to melt in hell for sure. I see a small sign for arugula and I start to giggle. It sounds like one of those exotic diseases that eats flesh. The same woman smiles from 50 feet away and again starts my way. All I can think of is, where the hell is Dick?! I practice a quick duck-and-cover maneuver and escape into the land of processed food.

Fuck it, life is dreaming of a grilled cheese and waking to make it!

MONDAY, MONDAY

I’m driving home from yesterday’s debacle and I’m suddenly reminded of that Mamas & Papas song,  “Monday, Monday.”

Monday, Monday, can´t trust that day,

Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way,

Oh Monday mornin´ you gave me no warnin´ of what was to be …

There were exceptions during the round that almost made the gas money worthwhile. I saw Alan hit balls that literally appeared to disappear! And others that went so errant I imagined the Fresno Bee with breaking news:

 A utility worker was found deceased today from unknown causes, though detectives suspect his passing might have had something to do with a Titleist #4 embedded in his forehead. They urge any golfer wanting to retrieve his lost ball to contact … blah blah blah at blah blah blah.

And then there was Dick, who said he had this great idea: He was showing pictures of fairways to his new sleeve of Callaway balls. “Look, it makes sense! I’m sorta making ‘em, well, homing-pigeon-type balls—they’ll know where to land!” We all squinted and leaned towards him to see if he was serious. He was.

Alan and he are best friends, so Alan readily agreed, turned toward us, and raised his eyebrows to his hairline. The Hat grinned weakly and said, “Wow … how’d you think of that one?” 

Having missed several fairways myself, I admit I gave some consideration to the concept around the 13^th hole. 

I called “The Gal” and Lyle pointed out that no self-respecting coyote would come within 500 yards of this foursome. 

Monday golf that became Thursday’s hope—again!

Dennis has left us ...

"Denny, club down one or two!"

No, he knew what his yardage was and fought to get back to it ...not the other way around.

He loathed compromise.

Mystery bird appears again!

Sam spotted it first. There it is sitting on the closest rock. Yes, there is a duck and an egret who insisted on staying in the picture!

Hole 17 - last pics of 2018 Lyle, Coach and Sam!