Today I slept until the alarm woke me. No panic — today’s tee time was for 7:00. Cool morning again, but by now I know the routine. Start with sweater and jacket and a hot coffee — and by the third hole we’ll be peeling off layers and lotioning up our noses.
Robert was waiting for me at the course. November 11, Remembrance Day. The last day to golf Mountain View — it was closing tomorrow for overseeding and wouldn’t open again until Christmas Day. As we headed to the first tee all I was determined to golf better than I did yesterday.
We were paired up with two big hitters, Brian and Barry, from Seattle. They’d flown in at midnight the night before and were hoping to golf 36 holes per day for the next 3 days, after which they were flying back home. They’d be hitting from the back tees; Robert and I would play the more reasonable ‘tan’ tees.
The great thing about golf is that even if YOU are playing crappy, you can enjoy the other players’ success. Man, it was fun to watch these boys play, especially Barry. He would more-or-less walk up to the tee, wiggle his club a few times, and then wind up and WHIP that club so hard he nearly jumped out of his shoes — and that poor golf ball had no choice but to sail down the fairway. And when Brian had a birdie on the first hole, they asked us if we would mind if they would have a little celebration from time to time. No, they wouldn’t just drink their mini (airplane) bottles of Fireball; they also like to listen to music, if we were okay with that. Nothing too wild, they said. And so for the rest of the morning we were entertained by the sounds of “Today’s Country” (most of the songs were about drinking, and some of that ‘country’ music sounded more like ‘country rap’, and it stayed on loud throughout — no breaks at tee-off or on the green!) and fairly regular Fireball celebrations. Brian and Barry were great golf partners — very friendly and completely relaxed and so entertaining to watch, never mind good athletes.
When we reached the 18th green I asked Barry if he would mind taking a photo of Robert and me. He obliged, and then said something about doing a handstand. Huh? Oh, he says, his ex-wife had been taking yoga classes and had called him up to ‘brag’ that they had learned how to do a handstand. “Phooey!” says Barry, unimpressed. “Who can’t do a handstand?”
“Well,” says I. “I can’t do a handstand. Can you?”
“Of course,” says Barry.
“Show me.”
And with that, Barry puts down his putter and bends over and does a handstand. Whoa! As the money spills out of his pockets, I line him up for a photo.
“Hold on,” says he. “I’ll give you a photo! I’ll count down 3-2-1, and you get ready to take another photo.”
And that’s how I got a photo of Barry standing on his head!
What a great morning! (And I finished the day 10 strokes better than yesterday, to boot.)
We loaded the clubs into the van and after a quick stop at Ralph’s for wieners and buns, we went to Robert and Arlene’s RV park for lunch. After lunch Arlene packed an assortment of groceries into a couple of bags for me to take back to my house — they were packing up and getting ready to go back home, and I got whatever they would not be needing after today. We arranged that the Dycks would come to my house later this afternoon, and we’d go out for pizza. Which we did.
I was watching the end of the Bomber semi-final game on TV, and had the Jets queued up on another channel when Robert and Arlene arrived. We had a G&T and watched a bit of hockey. Then we went up on Cook Street to Billy Q’s for supper. A great little place it is — the pizza is very good, and they even put the Jets game on for us.
The Dycks gave me a ride home and left me the leftover pizza and wings for my lunch tomorrow. We said goodbye — they are leaving early tomorrow morning for Phoenix, where they are parking the motorhome and driving their Honda home. They’ll be coming back to Phoenix next March.