I am sitting in the Denver International Airport at Gate B60 waiting for my flight to Atlanta. Tonight I will meet Guy, and on Saturday we will be at the Augusta National Golf Course for The Masters. Whoa! Surreal! Of course, I will write about it all, so check here again to get my perspective on what could be one of my best golf experiences ever. Until then, I am posting the rest of my writing about James's and my trip to Long Beach.
Written on 3-31-12...
Is it really April tomorrow? Wow, where did March go? It’s not an April Fool’s joke, though; March ends tonight. The Vanilla Moose was supposed to open tomorrow, but it opened one day early instead. I like that kind of trick! Yummy!
April, to me, however, especially this year, means The Masters! One week from today and I will be at Augusta National watching the best golfer/s in the world. Tiger just won his first tournament since his fall from grace, so I am charged up to go watch arguably the best player in the world “live!” I mentioned at dinner tonight that I will probably be...
Speaking of quality time, I wanted to write a bit more about my trip to Long Beach with James. First, we did get to see Garylee and his family (all except Krista who had a flaming sore throat and could not drive out from New Mexico when she wanted to). It was a long drive for us with a slew of traffic, but using the “h.o.v.” lane helped at certain spots. I teased Garylee by saying we loved him so much that we would not only die for him, but we would make an even greater sacrifice by driving through California traffic to come see him. He laughed.
They were restless, and I don’t blame them. Being stuck in that hospital, as beautiful as it was since it was brand new, was torturous. One thing I noticed was Garylee avoiding his room at all costs; he only went in once when someone came to check on his vitals. We got caught up as best as we could for the short time that we stayed, but I am really glad we made the effort. James was, too.
Everyone was restless because of the situation. They want a new heart for Garylee, and they want it yesterday. They have seen their son/brother/uncle suffer through procedures, discomfort, and uncertainty his entire young life. Now, with the possibility of a heart arriving in less than a month, the impatience is growing and festering. I continue to pray for him daily.
As we walked away, I was surprised to see that they do something our family always does. They were three stories up watching through the glass, and they continued to wave, as did we, until we rounded the corner to the parking lot. James jumped on and off the rocks at the fountain near the entrance between waves of goodbye. Waving until the last possible second reminded me again of how the Zuniga family is...well, family.
After visiting the Zunigas, we made a stop at the Herrera’s new house just about twenty minutes away. Darrell and Angie have a gorgeous new house in San Diego. Their son gave us a quick tour. Darrell and I still call each other Kiki and Alex, two former Denver Nuggets who played pro ball when we were in high school. He’s Kiki because he had better shooting form. I taught Darrell how to shoot, and he thanked me by shooting better than I ever did. The real Kiki was a great shooter, too. I am Alex since he was my hero back then. Actually, he’s still a hero of mine. We were fortunate to play in a prep/pro night at McNichol's Sports Arena on the night they played the Boston Celtics. We took pride in slapping our hands on the backboards and leaving marks during warm-ups. As we walked off the court, the Celtics walked on. With mouths wide open we walked past Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, Kevin Mchale, Robert Parrish, and the other guys.
We missed seeing their daughter Jordan who was at a birthday party that night. After James had some organic chocolate milk and I had some green tea, we said our goodbyes. It was another short visit, but we were glad we took the time to go see them. Darrell enjoys teasing James about his lady killer ways; his nickname for James is “Cool Breeze,” a name he gave him after our last high school reunion when James got the number from the daughter of a former classmate of ours.
I also got to play some golf. On Saturday James spent his longest amount of time at the convention, so I played a full round at the Skylinks Golf Course right next to the Long Beach Airport.
To sum this up quickly, it was not a great round. First, it took five and a half hours, the exact time one of the guys I played with predicted. Not that I was in a hurry, but...gee whiz! Second, whose bright idea was it to put a golf course next to an airport? I felt like a country mouse playing in the big city. For the first few holes, it was helicopters. In the middle of the round, it was airplanes, some flying so low (coming in for their landings) that our golf balls looked as if they might hit one if we launched them high enough. At the end of our round, it was jets. It was distracting for me, but the guys I played with mentioned them only once.
My partners for that day were nice enough. They were younger business types. One was a short muscular “former” baseball player (he said he still plays) who could really drive it far, as far as Troy, just not as accurately. He was the better player of the three. Another had become the father of his firstborn son five months ago. He was a mellow fellow about as tall as I am. The last is a manager at TGIF's. He is into the latest greatest clubs, and he was using a new app for his iPhone that did yardages and kept scores. He had a new RocketBallz driver and clubs.
They all cussed, complained about the slow play, compared salaries, and picked up putts. I did my best to keep a true score, and I did. I putted out everything, much to their discontent (especially TGIF guy), but we weren’t slowed down because of that; we had no place to go! Overall, though, I had a fine time. I wish I had played better (I shot a 93), but a day playing golf is better than a day inside a convention center filled with trading card enthusiasts.
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