I don’t think I’ve seen a magpie, nor would I know one if I heard one. Are they native to my part of Grey Goatee Nation? No idea. Doesn’t matter.
My boys, the sporting gentlemen of the 3GA, were chattering on like Heckle and Jeckle, giggling by text message just after securing reservations for the reopening.
I wasn’t joining in much. Just listening.
If I was smiling, well, I was feeling it, too. Golf is back. And we got our tee times.
***
Ornithological digression: Magpies are noisy, sometimes predatory scavengers, as black in reputation as their sleek coat of feathers that in the right light hints at a deep cerulean blue.
One species, the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia), lives in the northwesternmost state of the Nation. Who knew?
What the hell is cerulean? No idea. Doesn’t matter. We have tee times.
***
Golf has returned to the precincts of the Global Golf HQ, just in time for the 15th Annual Bent Shaft Classic, the lid-lifter to the re-imagined 2020 season of the Grey Goatee Golf Association, known around the globe as the 3GA.
We acquired our prized tee times, in a ragged sequence from noon well into the afternoon, by going online individually and reserving slots. No dirty money is ever exchanged, hand to hand, with the pro shop
Some things are as always. We know, at least, that foursomes still have four players, and we can prove it, but there are no foursomes in Golf in the Covidian Era.
So we’ll play in twosomes, practice social distancing and observe all other guidelines intended to safeguard the health and safety of ourselves and others. This will play hell with our post-tournament chattering, but I, for one, am risk-averse, by which I mean scared shitless.
Most of us own the most dangerous underlying health condition of all. That is, all the years we’ve piled up in earning the pronounced grey in our scraggly beards.
It’s golf, and we’ve missed it. I expect we’ll go ahead and play. I doubt we’re smart enough to do the smart thing.
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