mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just call me JP Woods OOooo doggy. I'm sore! I ended up not going to the hockey game last night. One reason is that it started at five o'clock, which would have been too early to go see my dad (now living thirty minutes away towards the north) then drive back an hour and a half just to catch the game. The second reason -- and the one that really set the deal -- was that the Gulf Coast Coliseum obligated their parking lot to another event last night, which would mean that we would have had to walk up to a mile just to watch a hockey game. I'm on vacation. My ass isn't walking to see anybody. So, I ended up going to see my dad at around 1:15 yesterday afternoon. When I pulled up to his new farm/ranch/big piece of property with a house and a barn, he had his monster-sized bar-be-que grill going wide open with hamburgers, kielbasa sausage, and sliced onions singing the praises of 1200 BTUs. Or however many there are. I just know you could steer the space shuttle with my dad's grill. It's stainless steel and it magically makes cold food hot. We had a large lunch, which was wonderful if not for any other reason that I didn't have to either 1) cook it myself, or 2) pay for someone to cook it for me. After lunch was.... GOLF! Now, I have always hated, dispised, and in many other ways abhorred golf. I still do. I think it is a boring, elitist game on par (pun intended) intellectually with a broadcast journalist. Here is the jist of golf if you have been lucky enough to avoid it for your whole life: You get a crooked stick. You get a ball. You hit said ball with said crooked stick, and you watch the ball fly. When the ball has quit flying, you chase after the ball and, with another crooked stick, you hit the ball again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Ping-pong. Now that's a sport. But my poor ol' pop is getting old and needs new things to entertain him. He also needs more entertaining ways to get his exercise. Treadmills aren't exciting enough, and at his age, those electrodes you hook up to your belly to "tone up while you watch TV" would more than likely stop his 56-year-old heart. So, he went to a garage sale and bought a bag-o-crooked sticks (for the sake of ease, we will call them "clubs.") He also has a friend who owns a golfball cleaning business but throws away the lower-quality balls. So, my dad liberated these balls and now has a whole bag full of them. So, after lunch, we went out on my dad's land, marked out 150 yards, set up a target, and we let the balls fly. I had never hit a golfball in my life before yesterday, save for several embarrassing rounds of goofy golf. Supposedly there is a "proper" way to hold the golf club, stand, look at the ball, adjust yourself, shake your butt, breathe, blink, think of..... It's just too much. But I got one of the bigger clubs, set a ball on the tee, squared everything off, prayed to God, closed my eyes, and took a lob at the ball. When I opened my eyes, my ball was flying towards the stars, straight and narrow, right at the target. Beginner's luck, I later realized. I think my very next hit defied anything I had ever seen possible on any golf show I've seen. I got my ball and my tee and set it all up. I squared up, looked at the ball, shook my exercise caboose, pivoted on my right leg, shifted to my left, and I let that club swing harder than I could ever imagine. I looked up and saw this white thing flying towards the stars. It looked small! It must be really flying! Then I saw it land five feet in front of me. It was the tee! I looked to see where my ball went, and it was sitting the the exact same place where I put it. I hit the tee out from under the ball! My club went completely under the ball and left it in the same spot. The family laughed at me. They took pictures. We now have stories to tell everyone for years and years. But it was the damndest thing I'd ever seen. We hit balls for well over an hour. I say "we hit balls." What I mean was, my dad hit balls. I ended up digging a few ditches and trenches using the golf club. I was praying for our golf lesson to end early because my bones were starting to hurt. Now, I am feeling the muscles that have never seen the likes of golf. And I still don't see the appeal. We then went fishing. Nothing too exciting to tell there. We caught a ton of fish from one of my dad's ponds, but we only kept four that were "eatin' size." My granny is coming into town from Florida tomorrow. We will undoubtedly catch a few more and have us a fish fry. Mmmm-boy. Well, I need to run. I am taking my sister to her daughter's doctor appointment, then we will go shopping. My mom's birthday is Friday, and I still haven't gotten her anything. I'm sure carrying a crying baby through the mall will make for a wonderful day. Stay tuned! 7:44 a.m. - Mon., Oct. 21, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||