Friday, May 22, 2020

Quite an Honor and a Super Power Ranger

Written on 5-14-2020

Hello again! I am sitting out on our deck in one of the big blue and black cushy chairs, and it’s the middle of the afternoon.  My daily reminder just went off at 3:07, and it’s a beautiful, partly cloudy, mostly sunny day in the middle of May.  
Belinda is coming home soon.  She just messaged me to ask if I can come pick her up at the Edgerton’s in an hour and a half.  They are just leaving the cabin.  Kody is lying down behind me, just chilling and taking in all of the sights and sounds around us.  I can hear the obnoxious sound of an ATV in the back hills, and he is surely surveying the surrounding area for silent lizards and rabbits.
The mama or the papa bird just delivered an insect snack to the its little baby birds, and there was much rejoicing and squawking/squealing.  We can just barely see their little yellow beaks peeking above the rim of the nest, opening and closing, and taking in the food.  It’s a reminder of the cycle that repeats every year.  They are a little less ugly than they were just two weeks ago.
When B gets home, we need to make a video right away for...
Hillary Cooper (not her real name).  Today is the last day to send a video, and Victoria (not her real name either) has asked us, and many others, to honor Hillary in this way.  She was Aztec High School’s valedictorian this year!
On Monday night, we will be participating in a Zoom meeting for the Honor Banquet.  Zachary Cogburn (one again, not his real name either) asked both of us to represent him as his teachers from his past.  Quite the honor to have asked us both!

On to golf…

I finally got to play golf yesterday, and it was fun, like I thought it would be.  Eric and I played 18 holes at Hillcrest, and it was different, also.  The closest I came to being near someone (within the social distancing limit) was when I gave my credit card to pay for the round, and the guy grabbed it with what looked like wooden tongs with rubber grips to get the needed information.  We did play with two other players, too, but they kept their distance.  We played with Scooter and Brian (not their real names), and we had to play in a foursome, because it was super busy.  Group after group was sent off the first tee every fifteen minutes or so.  Scooter and Brian walked, but Eric wanted to ride, so we rode in separate carts.  That was another thing that was different due to the pandemic.
It was windy.  The forecast didn’t say anything about it being so blustery, but it was.  We only had a few holes when it didn’t seem to blow so much.  Scooter had had enough after the first nine, so he left.  He was slowing us down, though.  We didn’t mind his slow play at all, but the group behind us complained after hole #5.  We saw them waiting on the tee there, but we picked up the pace after that, and they never had to wait again.  We all thought it was pretty silly that they complained after only having to wait one time, but oh well.  
The ranger checked on us on hole #8, and he was very kind.  I am certain that he was sent to check on us due to the gripe of the group behind.  On his cart, it said “Player’s Assistant,” and I teased him about the gentler, politically correct name.  He laughed and said he gets called many other names.  I laughed at that, of course.  He was very pleasant, and I was really glad he stuck with us for the next four holes, and then we met again towards the end of our round.  He witnessed two of my best shots of the round.
He watched us tee off on #10, and Brian and I both had wicked pulls off the tee.  Brian popped his up, and it flew over the ranger’s cart, but mine went much farther.  They both ended up in the grass on the finishing hole, and I know we really hooked them, but the wind helped push them even farther to the left.
The ranger helped me find them both, and then we talked while Brian took his second shot.  He had been a really talented player before he stopped playing completely.  He was Club Champ there once, he said.  He showed me that he could turn back to about pitch level, but if he turned all the way back for a full swing, it would wreak havoc on his spine.  He was eighty years old for goodness sake.  If I could play past eighty years, that would really be something. 
When it was my turn, I used my utility club, and I cracked the first of the two best shots of the round, in my opinion.  That shot went from the grass on the fringe of the 18th hole all the way back to the fairway on the 10th just under 125 yards from the green.  He could tell from the sound that it was an excellent shot.
The second best shot came from the very next hole.  My approach from the fairway bunker flew the green (by a long way), and my ball ended up in the junk behind the green at least 50 yards away.  It was pretty bad, but I could get my sand wedge on it.  I had to bring my wedge below some branches, so it came in really shallow, but I scooped it out, and my ball somehow landed in front of the green with an uphill putt to the hole.  That gave me a chance for par, but I won’t tell here how many more strokes I used to finish the hole.  I’ll just say I need to work on my short game to get it back into shape.  I did have multiple putts that just missed below the hole, so I needed to put more speed on them.  That’s something I am discovering with the new putter.  I need to put some more oomph than I usually do.

Until next time…

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