Playing With Old Volleyball Friends

Written on 12-13-25.

        This is a bit different.  My breakfast was just served, and I am at Rubia’s/Rubio’s.  It’s a Saturday morning, and the twins are up at the cabin to clean up after all of the new flooring and painting.  I have to send off my evaluations from my Time to Teach training again, so I decided to stop and have breakfast here for the first time.  Randy gives me hard time every time he sees me.  He wonders where I have been, and I tell him we are still around.  I saw him walk by, but he didn’t see me.

On to golf…

When I played with Mike and Jim, I enjoyed playing with my partner Lee, too.  He played with me from the whites, and he was very friendly.  He had a long, silver beard that was tied at the very end.  It looked like cotton candy; it was so fluffed up.

He made six amazing putts in a row!  The first one happened on hole #2, and then it continued until hole #8.  I would give him a fist bump after each one, but I forgot to give him one immediately after hole #6.  Thankfully, I got it done just before we teed off on #7.  Some were long, and some were mid-range.  Either way, they were all impressive and a topic of conversation that continued after each hole.

12-14-25

Surprisingly, Mike was not as good as Jim at golf.  It was the opposite with their volleyball skills.  On the tee box on hole #9, Jim told Lee that the three of us played in a 6 on 6 men's volleyball tournament in Cortez, CO years ago.  I had forgotten about it.  We hid Jim, he said, and we ended up winning.  I was amazed to learn this, and even more impressed that we could win a tournament while hiding a player.

I casually wrote down scores as we played along, and I noticed that Jim got pars on holes 4 through 8.  I noticed Mike struggled on many holes, and that shocked me.  Since he was an excellent volleyball player, I assumed he would be better than Jim.  Well, he wasn’t on this day.  I know they weren’t taking the golf too seriously, though, due to the colder temperatures.  Jim moved his ball on hole #1 to give himself a better lie, and Mike gave up on a couple of holes. 

I played decently, shooting a 45 with only one blow-up hole again, the par five #8.  I haven’t played since.  If I put the two scores together from Riverview and Pinon, I shot an 88.  Not bad.  I was relieved to break 100 at the end of this year.  Golf continues to be weird.

Mike started sharing more and more as the round went on.  I think he would not mind playing with me, because of our past history. I thought I had his phone number, but I didn’t.  I was going to text him and thank him.  Next time I see them, I will get his number.

Belinda and I invited Herman (not his real name) and his wife over for dinner on the Monday after I played.  I texted him to see if he would play with me, but he was just finishing up.  I took that opportunity to invite them over for dinner instead.  It was great!  We had green chile stew and salad (she is a vegetarian), and the stew was a huge hit for Herman.  He ate seconds.  I think they had fun, and I know we did.

I had been talking about all of our home improvements with the new bathroom and our newly textured and painted walls, and I wanted them to see it.  So glad it worked out.