False fronts and other golf stories.

18th

My local country club contains 6,200 yards of undulating, sinuous, lush and verdant meadow that is a perfect representation of all the great and small things encountered in this life that are not what they seem to be. Yes, along the green and swelling fairways there are hillocks and raised putting surfaces containing 'false fronts' that cause one's golf shot to roll in the opposite direction of what was intended or needed as a result of a club swing. The hole locations on the greens are not usually a serious problem. The length of the grass in the rough is manageable. The issue is those damnable raised greens themselves, presenting their 'false fronts' that seem higher in altitude than the distant view one may get of a Boeing 747 on its glide path to Logan Airport, (many such Boeings can be spied by the alert strokesman while strolling on the local layout). These 'false fronts' mock us all and cause the improperly executed shot to end with a ball thudding into a raised, grassed, earthen wall, and then roll...backward. Back down the slope into a valley of divots, from which one may try to recover, but not for par. No, never for par.

On the matter of the local aircraft, in the early morning or in the late, lazy afternoon the low rumblings of the airport's winged citizens, their groanings heard from ten miles away over the harbor, make their intent clear to even the clueless. Take off is imminent, get out of the way.

In fact, this warning in this phrase applies should a fellow golfer be near me, whilst I am in the act of "swinging."

Here is our boy Woodsy, the World's Greatest Golfer, holding the trophy signifying his victory in the United States Open in June 2008. This championship was gained although WGG playedwith a leg fractured (by stress) in two places, and a ruptured ACL. While most of us would not arise in the morning should we have sustained such damage to any appendage of ours, i.e nose; or an encounter with a stray zit...Woodsy competes on the most challenging layout that the USGA can arrange, and then wins.

Although WGG is still better than anyone else when he plays with only one leg working at maximum warp speed, he has decided to rest and recuperate before he competes again, doubtless as a balm to the players who think that they may have a chance in competition with him. He beats them all with his leg broken, ergo, they don't.

Do you suppose that an injury to one's knee of this dimension is painful? A rhetorical question, dear reader.

On to a topic dear to my retired goal of a more structured diet, i.e. cooking food, not heating food someone else made. I and my bamboo skewers are partnering up for a delightful grill season. Among my other healthful retirement resolves are frequent trips to GNC after reading Men's Health magazine...stylin' new threads...weight lifting under the supervision of the aforementioned Delainey...cucumber salad...walking on the golf course...and declaring every day a holiday that calls for a drink...I think that is what A-Rod has been doing all his adult life...how's he doing, anyway?

Is A-Rod rich enough to get divorced? Two kids? Who is?

Come and go in a heated rush....

What's with this July heat? I have to put an icepack on my distinguished brow in order to sally forth into the noonday sun. This is New England, but, the current weather pattern has worn poorly, and a new cut of weather cloth is needed at this time. Like dry, sunny and a breeze. Make a note of it.

EarRe is now getting fitter than ever. There are ever expanding opportunities to exercise, play games, eat only healthy food, and pore over literature on the net that will lead to an old age of vim. Vim and vigor. Vigorous vimmery. Yes, I will call myself "the Vimmer" when, as and if I sicken of EarRe.



Helping out with this fitness binge is blonde Delaney, a personal trainer of a most unusual appellation. Names mean something in this life, (so says EarRe), so the source of this name will be traced. Normally, a name like Ann, or Kim, or Kate might be appended, but here, in the case of this personal trainer, Delaney was chosen. Inquiring minds want to know....

Not wanting to let the post out without an intriguing photo, please cast your (non-drooping) eye on Lucky Luciano, the last great gangster. Lucky is the source and inspiration for my use of "make a note of it" above, a phrase that an unremembered actor uttered in playing the role of Lucky in a 1930's film, also unremembered of title.



In 1929...a scant 79 years ago...

"Luciano was now at the top, a dandy dresser and well-known sport on Broadway. He looked menacing, however, thanks to a famous scarring he had received in 1929, when knife-wielding kidnappers severed the muscles in his right cheek, leaving him with an evil droop in his right eye".

I understand that his throat was also slit; yet he lived, ergo..............Lucky!

A Wonderful Feeling....

Sometimes the weather forecast and one's plans to recreate in the outdoors do not properly synchronize, i.e., an early tee time on a weekend morning + rainshowers, wind and hail beating on the roof.

This never happens to the retired.

We can always go...later. No longer slaves to the machine, recreation time to the retired is entirely cued to the weather, not the weekend.

For example, instead of looking glumly and hopelessly into a forecast weather pattern of precipitation, lightning, local downpours, etc., the retired gent can plan substitute activities and be assured that his golf game will be played when the next blue sky and yellow sun appear overhead. Not "next weekend." Not in the dark after a harried drive to the golf course after "work." Not after an uncomfortable lie to one's manager about a phantom "sales call" to a fictitious lead. Recreation can be had as God intended. At the proper time and place.

This goes as well for sailing, hiking, long car rides to seaside places with the top down on the Mercedes purchased with one's surplus, (read: unnecessary), social security payments. After a lifetime of prudent 401(k)investment in South African coal gasification projects, (which proceeds also allows this gent time share ownership of a nifty solar powered golf cart. Grass and sun; all very, very green. South Africa is very, very far away from my green life and style), money is no object.

And having all this money is a key point. For the retired, single, gentleman, with a face that is a cross between two pounds of halibut and an explosion in an old clothes closet, money is the great leveler.

This will be obvious to you as you read on...

Trying it on

This blog takes on F. Scott. After all, he never got a chance to retire*. So, my take on retirement is far more valid than anything F. Scott would have written, ipso facto, and cogito ergo sum. F. Scott can't say that. He can't say anything. He does, however, project well, as his words wer actually paid for and published. That was an achievement. Nothing of his was in print when he died. No book, no blog.

I wish he were here for a "duelling blog". Not to be.

With that out of the way, let's get the broad outline out there:

1. Began employment 1/5/81. (Ronald Reagan became President 15 days later; technically, I obtained employment status in the Carter era).

2. Remained with employer through Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II---27.5 years.

3. My polling numbers slipped, and so was offered a "package" called "early retirement" which package is now held in an undisclosed location, and contains m_n_y!

List of options now under consideration? Well, in the northeast it is golf season. That is a key piece of information for the retired male golfer. No travel is needed in order to play golf. As a factual matter, my domicile is 0.4 miles from the country club, a place for golfers to congregate, play golf, drink beer, eat unhealthily, and drain out unwanted beer via perspiration, or is it dehydration? No matter.

Option 1. Golf across the street-no travel....a "staycation."

Option 2. Blog-can be accomplished for free, and doesn't take much time.

Option 3. Work out. Can be done at the town gym for $12.50 per month.

Option 4. Wash car.

Option 5. Open mail.

Option 6. Schedule appointments to see infrequently the people that you used to see every day.

Option 7. Buy a pot of flowers, and see if you can keep them alive.

Option 8. Haircut

Option 9. Cook things to eat rather than heat things to eat.

Option 10. Look for work.

OPTION 11. Look for her:

OK, I'm on my way.

*F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Born: Sept. 24, 1896
Died: Dec. 21, 1940
Cause of Death: Heart attack
Physician's Notes: The chronicler (This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby) and eventual casualty of the raucous Jazz Age missed his junior year at Princeton because of a mild attack of malaria. In 1929 he had a tubercular hemorrhage, and X rays revealed scars from attacks as early as 1919. During the early 1930s, he was attacked by depression, insomnia, and guilt over his wife Zelda's being committed to an asylum. He tried to pass himself off as only a social drinker, while secretly bribing waiters to bring him glasses of straight gin in lieu of water. "I have drunk too much and that is certainly slowing me up. On the other hand, without drink I do not know whether I could have survived this time," he said in 1933. In 1935 he had another flare-up of tuberculosis. Back in the hospital in 1939, he blamed the stay on tuberculosis, but friends suspected alcoholism. Most of his life he suffered from an oversecretion of insulin (hyperinsulinism), which contributed to his need for alcohol. It also resulted in low blood sugar, which explained his craving for CocaCola and heavily sweetened coffee and his near addiction to fudge. In late November, 1940, he had his first serious heart attack. He stopped drinking and stayed in bed to work on his ultimately unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon. Just before Christmas he suffered another massive heart attack and died. At that time, not one of his books was in print. --The People's Almanac