The Day the Birdies Stopped

Had been playing some pretty good golf, and I had taken to telling people that I was a bogey golfer.  Somewhere around the last weekend in May played at Percy Warner with three generations of Septers. How cool is that? I shot about a hundred. No bogey golf here!

A few days later on June 7th Sam and I are sight-seeing at a local dam and we drove to the boat ramp. Boat ramps have changed a lot since I was a kid. There's now a dock for assistance in unloading or loading your boat. Used to be just a chunk of concrete heading out however far into the lake or river that it went.

I was trying to take a picture of this heron, a bird that Captain Dick the Seaman calls a squawk and shit bird with good reason. If you'll look closely you can just see something laying there on the dock. Of course the bird got pissed, squawked and shit and swooped off. I walked out on the dock to find a P.O.S. Zebco spin-cast combo, list price probably $9.95 at your local wally world. I was in the creek the next day or so.

Haven't swung a golf club since.....

Did you ever smile in your helmet?

Did you ever smile in your helmet? I got to thinking about this while watching FIS Alpine Women's World Cup Super-G from Italy. On a hill steep as a church steeple a chick banged off a coupla' hundred yards of precision needle threading. Bonking her shoulders off the poles, and quite close to the ground on occasion! At one point in a great camera shot I swear she flashed a grin for just a quarter second.

And that's the grin that you allow yourself cause you know that you had in fact gotten it right. And so fucking right, that you actually had time to breathe. AND grin. And to me it was skating a pool wall, riding asphalt, a trials section, or the moment when you realize that a fish has granted your wish.

Did you ever smile in your helmet? I know I do.