The End is Nigh

Skip Raking, Go Golfing!

I was well along in writing a new post that was a look at why humans tend to move to and live in places that are not really meant for humans. You know, places that are built in a swamp and regularly battered by hurricanes like, say, Ft Myers, FL. Or in a desert, for example, like Las Vegas or Phoenix. Included were thoughts on our selfish destruction of the environment for our fellow creatures like butterflies. But something much more serious and important has come up that I had to acknowledge and write about. The end of the golf season.

I know what you’re thinking. “What?! Golf is more important and serious than hurricanes and deserts and stuff?” Sorry, that is a question only a Minnesota non-golfer could ask and the answer, of course, is yes. 

Anyway. The season is winding down as it always must up here on the tundra. Oh, there will still be some days where you will see silly golfers out there in 40 degree weather in shorts and windbreaker pretending they are enjoying freezing off important parts of their bodies. (And don’t up and go stereotyping, it’s not all men, only 98%.) I have to admit there was a time (a long time ago - over 3 years actually) when I might have been one of them but now in my dotage, I have come to my senses and will NOT join that foolish band. No sir, it has to be at least 45 degrees AND less than 20mph wind – a man has to have standards! (Well in golf anyway.) Nonetheless, the end is coming.

A me lookalike enjoying a fall round

Weather this season has been splendid even if partially brought by drought conditions. Droughts are obviously difficult for the golf industry - do you know how much it costs to keep watering a 180 acre golf course?! And my greatest fear was that the powers that be would try to divert water to silly things like crops and people’s yards and showers. Thank the God of Golf, Lord Doubleeagle, they didn’t have to. But dry conditions are otherwise a boon to golfers (many of whom are “fair weather golfers” like most of my friends) and it has been a fine season.

Many people ("Normals" as we golfers call them) seem to have a problem understanding what it is about the game that attracts us. For example, many studies have shown that golfers are among the most brilliant, talented, highly educated and often the most handsome people around.(With a certain ex-Presient being the exception that proves the rule)Yet, they say, we become addicted to a game that turns us into brain addled Gombies (or Golf zombies.) Delusional individuals who spend an enormous amount of money and time just to be constantly beaten to a pulp by the game - and within 24 hours are convinced that the beating was an abberation and they will soon be breaking par. Well, ha, the joke is on the Normals! There is a great Garth Brooks song called “Standing Outside the Fire” the chorus of which is “life is not tried it is merely survived if you’re standing outside the fire.” It’s about people who never take a chance and just trudge through life, happy and content with their nice home and families, sanity and money. Not golfers! No,ma’m, we jump into that blazing dumpster fire that is golf several times a week – and . . . well, it hurts,yes, but there’s always another tee time tomorrow. I choose to lovingly describe the game as a “Trifecta of Fertilizer”: expensive, time consuming, and frustrating. (Fertilizer isn’t actually the word I use but this is family blog post.)

The Agony . . .

 . . . And the Ecstacy

Also, Mrs Dear Leader is endlessly fascinated by my ability to link absolutely any everyday occurrence to golf. “Dear, I got a raise!” Which I could describe as “Dear, It’s like I had two birdies today!” Or, “The neighbors house caught on fire.” Which I could say is just like “Oh no, got rearended and wrecked the clubs!” Yes, golf really is a metaphor, analogy and simile for life. 

Golf also has all the important human conditions: anger, frustration, depression, resentment, resignation – and occasional euphoria. She’s so impressed that she often just shakes her head in wonder at my brilliant insights.

So now to end with one of those figures of speech, let us just say that as the days grow shorter, the number of tee times also grow fewer. Not unlike the days of our life left to jump in the fire (or something like that.) So be sure to get your tee times while you can, you never know which one will be your last. (Although I have played in Jan in MN so I don’t exactly know what that means in our metaphor. Resuscitation maybe?)

Anyway, true story: Bing Crosby was an absolute golf fanatic. In October, 1977, he walked off a golf course in Spain AFTER a round – and dropped dead on the spot, heart attack. I know what you’re thinking, perfect way to go, right? Sadly, no, he didn’t sign his score card so he was disqualified from the tournament. See, golf really is like life – not always fair.

Well, I gotta go, I’m playing tomorrow so I need to charge the battery for the electric golf vest that my golf caddy daughter gave me and the electric gloves that Mrs Dear Leader gave me (foolishly thinking I would use them for something stupid like shoveling snow.)

A Younger Dumber Guy

Okay, Still Kinda Dumb

Anyway happy fall. Bundle up and get another round in before it’s too late.

FORE!

PS

Coming soon, a new post on more human foibles. 

Music to sooth the golfers soul:

Dougle Bogey Blues (Really blue this time of the year!)

I Come to Bury the Liberal Arts . . .

  . . . Not to Praise Them

A recent letter to the editor in the Strib regarding the looming - and apparently, welcome - decline of the liberal arts education (You know, the education most of us got when we went to colleges like the Harvard of the North, UMD!) struck a chord with me.  It reminded me that I had been thinking about the passing of the good old BA and the Humanities some time ago. Allow me to meander to my point.

I started college back when dinosaurs roamed the earth - 1966. Like most wide-eyed freshman, i.e. without a clue, I took all the required liberal arts undergrad courses while assiduously (a word I must have learned in one of those classes) avoiding math and science to the greatest extent possible. (Thankfully, one geology and one biology class filled the requirement.) I admit that when I took classes like World Lit, Intro to Art and Philosophy 101 I simply suffered through them as the price I had to pay to get to declare a major.

No change in 56 yrs - still a dork

And declare I did. I ended up with a BA degree with a major in political science and minor in world history - ha ha ha, not a STEM class in sight! Hot damn, that REALLY prepared me for the world of work. Of course, I was also in the Air Force ROTC and knew I had a job when I graduated for at least the next five years so I had that going for me.

Now fast forward over 50 years. I have been fortunate to stumble through life with a long career in the military doing a number of different jobs (including as a navigator – take that, STEM!) After retiring I followed it with stints of several years each in the health care industry and as an adjunct college instructor. (And stumble is the correct word, I never had a clue about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Still don’t.) I readily admit that my undergrad degree itself was of virtually no value to anything I did in the real world. However, GETTING that degree meant everything.

Algebra? I don't need no stinking algebra!

You know there’s an old joke that asks how often do you really need to know how many Circles there are in Dante’s Inferno (9) or need algebra (more often than you think.) I would have said the same thing in my youthful exuberance but as I reflect on my life now I know how often I have dredged up some piece of information long buried in my few remaining brain cells. For example, you would be surprised how often that knowing a little about Descarte (I thought therefore I was?) or what Socrates had to say about youth could help me to at least not sound like a total idiot in a conversation with people I respected.  Then, of course, I would occasionally bump into a conversation about Mozart (or Rod McKuen, look him up) and be able to impress attractive, young women. Ah, the humanities! (Most of my friends, bless their tiny little hearts, are just impressed that I made it through college.)

In the end, though, it’s not even the individual nuggets of information that are the most important thing from a liberal art education at least for me, it’s the skills I developed from it. I think that being exposed to all those totally new ideas and concepts and being challenged to agree or disagree with them greatly helped me in life. That also seems like a pretty good definition of critical thinking too. (As proof that there is a god of irony, I stumbled into teaching Critical Thinking.) I can’t speak for others but it also fostered in me a great curiosity about life and brought at least some ability to learn new things.

Well, I can hope, right?

That was then and this is now. Now students are asked to focus on skills that employers want rather than taking the time to explore new ideas and wasting time on “unnecessary” subjects and I get it. (Although I think there is something sinister about turning our entire education system into an assembly line for corporations.) There was a time when any kid who graduated and could fog a mirror could get a good job. That is no longer true and also a college degree isn’t really necessary for many of the new jobs - although everyone needs a skill. Besides, not everyone can or should go to college. 

And I have to admit that if I had to pay $100,000 or even $50,000 for a BA degree it would give me pause too – my degree cost $6,000, every penny of which was paid by me. I guess you can add that to the long list of benefits heaped on my generation, the baby boomers, the luckiest one in the history of the world. (Although we haven’t done much to justify that good fortune.)

But this is about those that who do go to college - or are interested in learning new things. While there is no point to lamenting the decline of liberal arts, I do think that we will find the country poorer for its loss and the skills that type education brings us. In fact, I hope we aren’t already seeing this with the turmoil enveloping our country politically, socially and economically. 

Sadly, the distrust of science, loss of belief in democracy and increase in "mystical thinking" and dysfunction this causes in many of our most important institutions does not bode well for our country.  

                                                                            Oh man, here we go again                                                                                                  (well, so long "The Catcher in the Rye" I guess)

Obviously there's no rule that a college education is required to explore new ideas and learn to think critically but even so perhaps we can find a worthy replacement for the liberal arts anyway.

And to make it more palatable to some perhaps we could name it the “conservative arts?”

 

 My Old School Steely Dan