That's All Folks

Dear Jim:

Well it has been a week since our two-day Centennial golf event, and I guess I’m now coherent enough to drop you a note. As you know I have been on the winning team twice, come second and third once and usually won a boatload of money each year with my team of 20 years or so.

This year, after explaining to each other all our pains and deteriorating body parts, teed off with great expectations.

On the first hole we were 4 over par. OK. Lots of golf to play.

Since we didn’t have any balls in the fairway for most of each hole, we drove our carts like a Moroccan car rally team. By the time we finished there was no battery life left in either cart and I vowed to wear two gloves the second day as I had blisters from making abrupt turns to avoid running in to trees and rocks.

We did have one natural par when a pebble redirected one of our putts in to the hole but other than that we played like we were firing a shot gun in to a flock of geese hoping to hit something.

At the end of day one we were 6 under par or so having given up 4 shots on the last hole. The leaders were 20- under! Just wait till tomorrow.

Day 2 arrived with temperatures over 100 degrees F and no wind. Perfect.

Our playing had deteriorated overnight, and we found ourselves   12 over par with 5 holes to play.

I looked over at my teammates. One was biting on a stick to stop from screaming out in pain every time he swung the club, I was crying, another was hitting himself with his club and I thought a broken ankle was imminent. The fourth was muttering to himself that he never played like this.

I was so hot I thought I was going to have a stroke and wondered how long it would take to turn on that cellular phone, get a signal and call for help. My big thought was wondering if the photographer had taken my picture which would serve as the last known picture of good old Bill to be shown at a celebration of life. What a great bar story. “Did you hear he died playing golf?”

At that point I decided to invoke the over 70 rule and called a team meeting.

Is anyone enjoying this?..nope.

Does anyone see any reason for continuing?…nope.

Does anyone care that we are about to lose a lot of money?...nope

 Then since we are over 70, we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do.

 To the clubhouse at speed.

 We were the first to park our carts this year and that’s all I can say.

We left our wounded team mate to pay off our bets hoping that pity would inspire a debt forgiveness. HA!

Those vultures, with one exception took our money and ran off giggling like a bunch of 7-year-old school girls. We have kept their names and stored them in the cloud in case we ever get a chance to show our compassion to them.

As for the black-tie dinner where noise levels hit a decibel level not on any chart and you can’t have any plastic items on you since they will melt from the heat, we didn’t go.

My black-tie suit has been seized by the McCord Museum as a heritage piece and my regular suit is on loan to a bunch of clowns who jump out of a small car at summer picnics and amuse the kids. Since I don’t dance or drink or read lips trying to understand someone shouting over the racket, I have decided to declare the Centennial dinner a past memory once and for all. 

Like most things we used to do that seemed a lot of fun I fear that Centennial is over for us. If we all live another year, we may feel differently but aside from watching the young new members or the perennial sandbaggers walk off with a 40 under winning score there isn’t much hope or fun left for our team.

If you can think of some other activity that can be done without any physical skill or stamina let me know and I will make the switch before it is too late.

Sincerely

Bill Meder