Sleep 20 hours a day, getting up only to eat and go to the bathroom.
When you get tired of sleeping, you go hunting for a bird or mouse, and maybe even a rat (if he’s little) to torment, until it eventually dies. You might even decide to eat it, if you find you’re hungry after that hard bit of exercise.
Then you just go back and find that nice comfortable chair, and start the whole process all over again.
After a hard bike ride Friday, golf on Saturday, and another hard bike ride Sunday, just like in the Tour d’France, I decided today would be a rest day.
I did walk to the golf course, this morning, to sign up for the club match play competition, starting next month, and then to the bank, but after that I settled in front of the TV, for a day of total relaxation.
Of course that can get pretty boring after a while.
Even with over 200 stations to select from, there’s only so much television any one person can watch. So I did little things, like pay some bills, take out the garbage, put the new registration sticker on the car, clean out the glove compartment (why do they call it a glove compartment?) and center console, in preparation for our trip to Oregon on Saturday, and surfed the internet.
Oh, and I did do a little bit of work also!
One thing of interest I discovered, when cleaning out the center console of the car, was my SuperCuts frequent hair cut card. It’s the card they fill out each time you get a hair cut, and after 9 cuts, you get the 10th one free.
I found it interesting because the last date on it was December 12, 2002, and I haven’t had a hair cut since that time.
It also gave me something write about, and occupy some more of my time today.
Ooops! Gotta go, the Rifleman starts in 10 minutes.
I know I’m getting older. I realize it every time I’m on a bicycle ride with younger and stronger riders.
What makes that feeling so demoralizing, is in my mind I don’t feel any different, than I did 30 years ago, but when the jumps are hard and speeds exceed 30 mph, reality sets in, and I realize my body just won’t respond as quickly as it once did.
But what’s even worse, is when the father, of one of those riders, joins us sometime during the ride, and I discover I’m even older than the father. That’s when it really hits me just how old I am.
There was one consolation, as minor as it may seem, at least I was stronger than the father.
Yesterday, I watched the HBO special Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush, and it brought back memories of, what I like to call, “the good ol’ days”.
While certainly there were problems, i.e. the threat of an atomic war, wars in Korea and Vietnam, we were united in our resolve to deal with those issues to the benefit of everyone.
It was a time of innocence, when a 10 year old boy or girl, could get on a bus (or in Pittsburgh a street car) by themselves, and go downtown, to the gym in Oakland, the local swimming pool or just about anywhere else, anytime of the day or night, without worrying about anything.
It was a time where you interacted with everyone in your neighborhood, and you had to learn to get along with everyone, whether you liked them or not. We didn’t have video games or computers to occupy our time, keeping us in the house, and isolating us from the real world.
It was also a time, and pointed out in this documentary, when ball players played because they truly enjoyed the game, and played for the honor of the city, and for the most part, stayed with one team their entire careers. It was a time when players were part of the community, living amongst the community, and could often be seen at local restaurants or even getting their car washed at my friends family’s car wash in East Liberty.
Back then, I actually enjoyed baseball, and went to the vast majority of Pirate home games. Of course it didn’t hurt that General Admission tickets cost only $1.50, and the left field bleacher seats were only a $1, and that my father knew most of the ushers in the stadium, allowing me access to better seats without an extra charge.
I can still name every player on the 1960 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have an autographed baseball from the team for reference.
Now I’ve lost all interest in baseball, and my only connection to the game is that autographed baseball, that sits above me at my desk at home. (I am still an avid Steeler fan though.)
But what jogged my memory so much, in the documentary, was the brief mention of Roberto Clemente.
While he was over shadowed somewhat, during his career, by Willie Mays, in my eyes, Roberto was the better player, and likely the greatest right fielder to ever play the game. (Willie played center field.)
It never ceased to amaze me, and still amazes me to this day, that if the opposing team had a man on 3rd, with less than 2 outs, and a ball was hit to the farthest part of right field (300 feet away), runners would seldom tag up and test his arm, but when they did choose to test his arm, they were typically called out at home plate. There is no one in the game today that holds that sort of power.
What I didn’t know, and what this HBO documentary pointed out in referring to Roberto Clemente, was he was the first Latin American ball player. At the time I didn’t understand the significance of that, nor am I sure I even know the significance of that fact now, but you know what, I didn’t care if he was black, Puerto Rican (which he was) or what ever, all I saw was a great ball player.
Unfortunately he died prematurely, in an airplane crash, in 1972, at the age of 38, while on a humanitarian mission to help Nicaraguan earthquake victims, and it was shortly after that I went to Okinawa, Japan, to serve out my tour of duty in the Army. That’s when the world changed for me, and as far as I am concerned, the good ol’ days ended.
So matter what happens from this time on, I’ll always be able to look back fondly on that time, and know I was fortunate to have lived in what I consider to be the best of times, a time of prosperity, a time of innocence and a time of hope for everyone.
Well, I didn’t make the cut in this years Long Beach Mens City Golf Championship, but I did shoot a decent round of 89 this morning, redeeming myself for yesterday’s horrible round.
But I have managed to put that all aside, since I have been selected to be the honorary teammate for the 2007 Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s, Los Angeles Team in Training (TNT), Tucson cycling team.
A few months ago, I had mentioned to the coach of the Tucson Team, that I would be a perfect honorary teammate for one of the teams, since obviously I had lymphoma, and had even coached one of the Solvang TNT teams 2 years ago.
Now, while I was serious when I made that comment, I never really expected to be asked.
So, as you might imagine, I was quite surprised when the coach actually asked me if I would like to be honorary teammate for the Tucson Team. I thought about it for about a millisecond, oh maybe it was even less time than that, but in the end I agreed.
So if you’d been considering joining a TNT Team, to get yourself in better physical shape, and support a worthwhile cause at the same time, this is the perfect opportunity.
I would be honored!
Today was the first day of the Long Beach Men’s City Golf Championship, and I have never been so disappointed in a round of golf, than I was today.
I started out quite good, shooting 7 bogeys and 2 pars for a 43 for the first 9, which included a par on #18 (I started on the back 9), which is one of the more difficult holes, and one I seldom par.
But on the very next hole, that good game came to an abrupt end.
I hit an OK drive, but it ended up behind a tree in some standing water, but I still had a shot to the green. I just had to keep the ball below the branches of the tree. So I took a drop from the standing water, and hit what I thought was a perfect shot.
Unfortunately I hit the ball a little too hard, as it ran through the green, and out of bounds.
Unbelievable!
So I dropped another ball, and hit the same shot again. This time, I hit the ball into the sand trap in front of the green. I didn’t have a bad lie, but I was so upset by the previous shot, I hit the sand shot over the green, and as you might guess, out of bounds again.
I ended up with a 9 on the hole, 5 over par. I was just devastated. I was playing so good, but it only takes one shot to screw everything up. I did manage a few good shots after that, but just couldn’t recover, shooting a 51 on that 9, for a total score of 94.
And that was on a course which I typically always break 90. It’s just not that tough a course.
On the bright side though, I’m only 4 strokes off the cut line (Flight F), and tomorrow’s course is more difficult. So a lot of things can change.
I just have to try and put todays round out of my mind, and focus on tomorrow round, something that’s a lot easier said than done.
Golf, it may not be the most physically demanding of sports, but it sure does test a persons character.