And you get to keep all the bananas you knocked down too.

Don't get me started on golf stories.

Figuratively speaking, I've played golf with the blind, the crippled and the crazy over the years. Most recently my companions, the Unusual Suspects, and I resemble the crippled and the crazy part although we're working, day by day, toward the blind part.

I've hit and I've seen other people hit golf balls that smacked into not just trees, oceans, streams, rivers, ponds and sand bunkers, but houses, cars and painfully, other people. Twice, not one but twice in my illustrious golfing career, I've hit a golf ball BEHIND me without hitting any other animate or inanimate object. (Email me and I'll tell you how I pulled that one off.) I've hit a ball off ice while standing in the middle of a frozen pond. Fortunately, I carried that off without becoming a statistic. I'm sure my close and dear friends would have sued my estate for the $3.00 they would have won from bets I lost during the match had I fallen through the ice and ended up in Davy Jones's locker, 5 iron in hand. Regretfully, I've hit a ball out of mud in a water hazard, in order to save a penalty shot, only to find myself, after the conclusion of the ill conceived shot, to be covered in said mud, much to the glee of my esteemed associates. Heck just last year, while looking for $1.45 golf ball of which I have many, my Catholic “There are poor starving children in Biafra without enough golf balls” upbringing forced me to pursue its retrieval in a slippery, muddy water hazard. Next thing you know I step on the golf hazard version of a banana peel and I'm flat on my back in the mud covered with cat o' nine tails fuzzy seedlings head to toe. When I surfaced, I looked like Big Foot after an illicit night with Princess Summerfallwinterspring. Subsequently, I was greeted by one of my fellow competitors, who upon seeing that I was still alive but somewhat sartorially challenged, gleefully ran back to his cart to grab his phone to take a picture and immortalize my buffoonery.

I've heard some great expressions on the golf course over the years like “That dog will hunt,” and “That's a two cheeker,” when someone has really tagged a drive. One time, when one of the regulars had a brain lock and stood over a putt so long I thought he was posing for an oil painting, he finally comes out with “I'll hit the putt in a second, I'm going through the 14 point checklist in my mind.” Another friend, after he hits a particular, if infrequent, booming drive and is reassured by the others on the tee that he really caught that one, is fond of saying, "I know.” It's that kind of crowd I'm up against. Everybody's a comedian.

Once, a long time ago I had the privilege to play St. Andrews. On the second tee my buddy hit a skanky little pop up drive that ignominiously traveled about 150 yards and ended up in the brillo like heather and gorse. Our Scottish caddy, without hesitation, said “No problem, laddie. With a pack of dogs and three days, we'll find that ball.” You can't make stuff like this up.

But my favorite expression on the course, I first heard when I slightly over powered a 150 yard shot about 180 yards, and, after it crashed into the trees behind the green, and ricocheted all over the place, seemingly for minutes, bringing down leaves, branches, acorns and perhaps an unsuspecting blue jay or two before the ball came back to terra firma. Then one of my friends uttered with a completely straight face, “The good part about that shot is you get to keep all the bananas you knocked down too.” I thought I was going to die laughing or at least soil myself. I couldn't wait to tell my wife and the urchins the story and the line when I got home. We all had a great laugh later that night.

So fast forward a couple of years later. My 10 year old son was caddying for me at the golf course I played at down the street. I'm in a group with a couple of familiar loonies and one guy, a guest who I knew from my town, that I thought was both co-captains of the All A-Hole Team. So, hey, I don't have to marry the guy I just have to play golf with him for four hours. No big deal. We came to a par three with trees on the left and right and up steps Mr. Wonderful. Unfortunately, Mr. Wonderful's tee shot wasn't so wonderful and he pulled it dramatically to the left and it goes crashing in, among, around and through the trees before splashing down in a nearby pond. And my son, the cherubic little toe headed altar boy looks at Mr. Wonderful and says, “No problem, Mr. ________, you get to keep all the bananas you knocked down.”

Do you know what it's like to want to tear off all your clothes, roll around in the grass, writhe in spasms and cough up your spleen in laughter until your throat is raw as hamburger? But I can't show any emotion. I have to keep my wits about me so that I can move quickly just in case, Mr. Wonderful, makes a move to eradicate the little nose picker that just humiliated him. God, he was red as a beet and because I was standing right there and was about 100 pounds and six inches bigger than him, all he could do was just make a noise out the corner of his mouth that sounded like air leaving a balloon when you blow it up and then release it from your hand.

The joke was immortal and my son's timing was impeccable.

I always knew “the apple didn't fall far from the tree.” He's just like his mother.

Until next time............

Cleaning out the Closet of My Mind

Before he passed away many years ago, I used to read the Boston Globe columnist, George Frazier, and my favorite columns of his were the ones where he just “cleared the air” with his thoughts. The column would be made up of several one or two line random thoughts. Totally random. Stuff that he was thinking and/or wondering about.

This is my version of one of those columns.

(Some of what you are about to read are my ideas. Some are thoughts that I've accumulated from my reading. If, while reviewing the following, some of it appears familiar to you, then those are the things that I've compiled from other people's writings. If you don't recognize any of the following, then they are all completely original ideas made up by me.)

So here goes:

I take back all those times when I didn't want to nap as a kid.

Nothing sucks more than that moment in an argument when you realize that you're wrong.

We can't change the cards we are dealt in life, we can only play the hand as best we can.

The words "may," "possibly," "could," "potentially" and the like should be banned from news reporting. ("Just the facts ma'am, just the facts.")

If the Democrats are against the soaring deficit and the Republicans are against the soaring deficit, why is there a deficit?

What you do every day matters a lot more than what you do once in a while.

Why is movie rain always coming down in buckets at a hundred miles an hour? (Remember that the next time you see a scene in a movie where it's raining.)

Anne Hathaway's singing of “I Dreamed A Dream” in the movie, Les Miserables, is one of the best scenes I've ever seen in movie history.

A year from now, you may wish you had started today.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least a little bit tired.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

Ask yourself if are you spending your time on the right things?

Weather people should be held accountable for their accuracy in forecasting, dammit.

I'm so glad hockey is back. Is there any way to make the NBA go on strike forever?

I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone, just so I know not to answer when they call. (But I ALWAYS take your call.)

We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love. (Mother Teresa)

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

The happiness in your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

If Daniel Day Lewis doesn't win the best actor award for his for portrayal of Lincoln, there is no God.

We should all show more gratitude.

Did you ever get a song stuck in your head? (Now try not to think of the song, Mama Mia, for the next five minutes.)

There's a great line in the movie, "The Lord of The Rings" when Gandalf says to Frodo, "All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." (I love that line.)

Did you know the first testicular guard, the "cup", was first used in hockey in 1874. And the first hockey helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for hockey players to realize that their brain is also important.

Did you ever see a rainy scene in a movie where in the background it's perfectly sunny? (Did they think we wouldn't notice?)

There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

Newspapers should only print the sports page.

There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.

Whatever you've been meaning to get to, get to it now, you'll sleep better.

Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News, is the smartest guy on television ever. (Google him. He's lead a very interesting life.)

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

All elected officials (and I mean all) should only be elected for a single term, that way they would have to try and rob us blind very, very quickly.

I never know when it will strike, but there sometimes comes a moment during the day when I know that I'm just not going to do anything productive for the rest of the day. (Assuming I was doing something productive prior to that.)

Pick up the phone and call somebody. And start off the conversation with, "I was just thinking of you and I thought I'd give you a call." Screw emails.

Mama Mia.

Until next time..................................

PS I'm starting a new blog. It's called, “You Are Of The Mistaken Belief That The World Is On the Level.” I try not to be too overtly political in my writings here. The YAOTMBTTWIOTL blog will be a bit more “pointed” in its presentation. 
This will be your only warning. 
http://yaotmbttwiotl.blogspot.com/

Changing smoke detector batteries and other life threatening events

I must be the only person in the world, who after changing the battery in a smoke detector, has a moment of personal pride similar to how the Egyptians must have felt after building the pyramids. Not only was I having a personal high five moment, having extricated the old chirping battery, without drawing blood I might add, but now I had to risk it all and head to the “special replacement battery drawer” to see if Lady Luck's smile was still upon me. Usually when I find the time in my busy schedule to replace things like batteries in smoke detectors, I am greeted, upon opening that special drawer where I keep my meticulously arranged spare batteries, with the fact that I have every size of battery, except the one that I need, in this case a 9 volt. One day, not long prior to the smoke detector malfunction, when I really had a gap in my day planner, I tested those remaining batteries, and found that many had exceeded their expiration date by months, and were ready and waiting to give me the battery version of “the finger” at some future date when I needed them the most. It gave me a good chance to clean up and clean out another now expired household item that when properly used could possibly and probably save my life. In this case, no need for clean up or clean out, I didn't have the proper battery. And so another trip to Costco for a $2.00 item that will, most likely, cost me $100+ in items I didn't know I needed upon checking out.

And speaking of checking out, I must be the only person in the world who would perpetrate bodily harm on the designer of the checkout register's scanning glass at my local Stop and Shop. Now in my continuing effort to be voted Husband of The Year, I do most of the food shopping since my lovely bride, the former Miss Massachusetts, works. Rumor has it that she continues to work so that she won't have to be home here with me all day. I know that rumor to be false since every weekend she is doomed to a life of companionship. Although she does do an awful lot of shopping on Saturdays and Sundays.

But I digress.

I now know, after two years of retirement, where all the items we usually purchase are at Stop & Shop, so I can get the hell out of there in mere minutes, no matter what the length of our shopping list. I mean I'm at 78 rpm and the rest of the other shoppers are at 33 1/3. (You younger blog readers, ask anyone over 60 what those last numbers mean and they will explain it to you.) And now, here I am, shopping complete, at the self checkout register. No waiting for me while an over indulgent housewife checks out 35 packages of yogurt, in the 12 items or less lane. No sir, not for me. I'm flyin' solo at self checkout and proud of it. Kind of like Lindbergh must have felt when he first viewed Paris from the air. And, sad to say, that's when the music stops for me at Stop and Shop. That's when I take my first item and swipe it over the glass, a minimum of 300 times, while rotating it like it a Rubik's cube, only to have “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel playing in my head from the lack of beeps, honks and chirps of the checkout machine. Oh, it must be that particular item that has a defective bar code.....let me try another item.......another 300 swipes...............bupkus. This is supposed to save me time, not get me to the nuclear point where I'm about to fire an orange 100 miles per hour at the customer service booth. Eventually, I calmly but deliberately push the “Help” button on the checkout screen. I have to admit, for someone who is really, really looking for a no holds barred, knock down, drag out, death match fight with a 85 lb. customer service girl, they usually respond in a matter of seconds. I'm sure they respond quickly to all the people who press the help button, not just the 258 lb. jerks who look like they are going to exude steam from the top of their heads like a cartoon character. Again, I calmly but deliberately explain that nothing is beeping when I scan my items and the 12 year old, listens responsively, then reaches under the machine and takes out a bottle of Windex. She sprays the glass, wipes it off and then triumphantly declares that that should solve all my problems including explaining to me how Bill Clinton just got voted Father of The Year in 2013. Of course my next item could have a bar code created by my 6 year old granddaughter with crayons and it would beep and honk and give off noises like hitting a slot machine jackpot in Las Vegas. The point of this entire rant is what the hell are people scanning that so fouls up the glass that it won't scan for the next buffoon like me that follows? I mean everything that I scan is wrapped in plastic or bagged in plastic or triple shrink wrapped in plastic so much so that it takes me at least five minutes to unsheathe the item when I get home. What the hell are they scanning that drips, drools and fouls MY scanner? Maybe when my day planner permits I'll go “ghost recon” at Stop and Shop and nab the pesky culprits. No need to thank me, just doin' my job.

Also, you didn't ask but I thought I'd mention that I must be the only person in the world who thinks it's crazy to listen to the news, or read about it for that matter. Have you ever gone away for a few days, sans media outlets, and come back and felt like you really missed out on how many drive by shootings there were or many hooligans were killed at a soccer game in some woefully under capitalized European country? I gave up on TV news from major networks or local stations completely. (“Moscow in flames, missiles heading our way. Film at 11. Now back to you Carmelita with that wonderful weekend forecast.”) What really is there to gain. As they say, “5,000 planes that land safely every day, even the ones landing in Sheboygan, aren't news.” Inquiring minds really do want to know what happened to a member of the Kardashian family that day, just not mine.

Until next time........................