I'm behind a foursome and in front of the women's member/member. It's slower than 95 at rush hour. To pace myself, I decide to play two balls: One from the back tees and one from the blues. After six holes, Mr. Tips is 1 up on Blue Man.
I catch up to the group ahead of me on 7 and my next-door neighbor Randy offers to let me play through. I decline so I can better wallow in the gloom. I watch the smoke curl up from the cigar clenched between my teeth and the optimist in me wonders if my sabbatical from the game will lead to a healthier lifestyle full of running, weightlifting and yoga.
"Keep dreaming," says a contrary voice inside me.
Mr. Tips hits a 4-iron short and left of the green onto a strip of fairway, while Blue Man uses a 9-iron to put his ball on the dance floor. But just as it looks like the match will even up, Tips makes a nice chip and gets up and down for par. Blue three-jacks it and drops another hole. Two down with two to play. Dormie.
That's what life feels like today. If you work hard and grind it out, you might get lucky and break even. Not exactly The American Dream.
As I wait on the 9th tee box, I wish I'd brought my fishing rod. A large bass leaps from Goose Creek into the Potomac where the river and creek meet at the confluence nearby. Mr. Tips hammers his drive left-center, and Blue Man bunts one out to the right side of the fairway. Both wind up bogying the hole, and Mr. Tips takes the match 1 up.
Suddenly we are surrounded by a flurry of monarch butterflies clapping their wings in silent applause as if to say, "Lighten up."
Posts
2 comments:
Oh boo hoo. The melodrama is killing me. It reminds me of a bard who once wrote of such tragic love lost. Hell he even knew about birdies:
Juliet:
'Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone—
And yet no farther than a wan-ton's bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Romeo:
I would I were thy bird.
Juliet:
Sweet, so would I,
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Whilst thou lie one last tyme with thy bag?
Or fondle the shaft tenderly again?
Hold thy balls to fondly recall their heft?
Slip thy left hand into the soft, fleshy vessel one last sweet and sorrowful tyme?
But Shirley I jest.
Oh PLEEEESE, keep writing. It's kind of like seeing a car wreck - fascinating, but you're glad it's not happening to you.
I would I were thy birdie.
Post a Comment