2016 – Week 8
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Finally, after several weeks of crappy weather, we finally got a picture perfect day for golf. Not sure it could have been any better. We had perfect attendance once again thanks to our subs filling in once again. A huge thanks to Miller, Harmeling and Glaser to stepping up this week.
As I sit here trying to put together the week 8 GCCGL blog, I quickly realize this will be a lot tougher to do than I originally thought. First of all, have you ever tried to concentrate on anything after popping Percocet all night long? It’s very difficult. Second, it’s never easy to capture the “feel” or the “mood’ of the league when you’re not there. I’ll do the best I can over the next several weeks so bear with me.
This week’s survey asked what GCCGL members used to watch on their VCR’s which I think is funny since half the league has probably never seen or operated a VCR in their life. What the Millennials and younger generations don’t understand is how revolutionary the VCR was when it was first invented. As crazy as it was to think that we’d be able to watch movies that we stood outside on line for hours to see at the movie theaters, right in the comfort of your own home, was unthinkable. But in my opinion, as great as the VCR was, it still wasn’t the greatest invention of “my” lifetime. You might think it was Cable TV then, right? You’d be wrong. Don’t get me wrong, going from 5 channels to like 30 channels was HUGE! For most of my childhood we had 5 channels growing up in the greater NY/NJ area. If you want to count the free Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), then we had 6 channels. That’s it. No Xbox, no internet, no cable….you might be asking yourselves, what the hell did we do all day as a kid? There’s no doubt we had to get creative. Do you remember when your parents and your grandparents would tell you all their “When I was a kid” stories? “When I was a kid, my old man would give me a stick and a rock and tell me to go play outside all day”. Well, we came pretty close to that. We’d take a stick and replace the rock with a tennis ball giving us “stick ball.” It was similar to baseball but could be played with just two people and it kept us busy for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. Do you remember watching those old futuristic science fiction shows like Start Trek when someone would press a button and PRESTO….instead food? That was the microwave for my generation. To be able to actually cook a meal in minutes as opposed to hours was unfathomable, yet there it was. The microwave was truly a modern day miracle. However, as freaking fantastic as it was to cook a SPAM sandwich in under 60 seconds, it didn’t beat the invention of the wireless remote control. You see, even though we now had cable TV and 30 channels, we’d still only watch one channel because we were too lazy to get up and manually change the TV channel. In fact, my friends and I did everything possible to not have to get up to change the channel. We’d spend way too much time designing and manufacturing prototype devices that would ultimately be comprised of sticks, rulers, pencils, erasers, duct tape and bottle caps and served as the “lazy man’s” remote control. We’d create this long stick-like device that had to be strong enough to reach the cable box and switch the channel. Keep in mind that it didn’t matter that it would take 5 minutes to change one channel as opposed to 5 seconds if someone would just get up off their ass. The point was not to leave the couch. We’d sit there and watch hours of Mr. Rogers teach little urban kids how to tie their shoes before we’d get up to change the channel. It’s a miracle that we all went to college, got married and raised families.
The other half of the survey involved finding and/or revising nicknames for several GCCGL members. I gotta say, I like the new nicknames for the following:
Morell = Meat
Schott = Marge
Roddy = The Senator
I also like the new names for Carrier a.k.a Gorton Fisherman, a.k.a. Angry Lobster and Brooks, a.k.a., Knee Pee, a.k.a. Co-op. Although I heard there was a nearly flawless execution of a knee pee on the 9th fairway. Speaking of nicknames, that was something that was very prevalent growing up. Many friends and acquaintances had nicknames and they became their actual names. Folks would referred to themselves by their nicknames, they’d sign each other’s year books with their nicknames. Like I’ve stated before, nicknames chose you, you do not choose your nicknames. There were too many to remember growing up as a kid, Digger, Sauce, Rabbit, Fitz, Milkman, Cheese, Pebbles, Monkey, etc. But one of the best ones was this kid named Pima. Pima was one of those kids that kind of was always around. He wasn’t your best friend and usually he wasn’t even part of the inner-circle but he knew enough other kids to always be around. All the way through grade school until high school graduation, this kid’s name was essentially Pima. If someone asked him what his name was, he’d answer, “Pima”. I heard teachers call him Pima. Then one day, I found out his nickname was an abbreviation for Pain In My Ass. Here’s the funny part, I’m pretty sure the kid’s dad is the one who coined the nickname. I’d like to throw out this name as a potential replacement for Cletus. We can go with Pima or Pita, it don’t matter. You get the point.
I heard Squintz got nailed with a Couzin’ Joe errant drive. Rumor had Squintz getting nailed right in the family jewels. Wow, CJ must have really “nutted’ that drive off the tee. At any rate, Joe did the right thing and signed his glove and gave it to Squintz. That’s class right there. Thank goodness someone captured the moment in this week’s main blog pic. Is it me or is Cousin’ Joe smirking a bit? I also heard that tensions were at an all-time high even before the “golf ball in the side pocket” incident. Goldie took out his frustrations, first on an unsuspecting Ollie when he couldn’t recover from an errant tee shot on the first hole and then blew up at Squintz after his missed putt on #4. On hole#9, the gallery was all liquored up and extra boisterous this week which may have contributed to a rare Oliie 4-putt and a near epic Squintz meltdown when he overshot the green badly and wound up having to chip off the top of the ridge down to the 9th green. He flubbed it as the gallery formed around him and then used his putter as an Olympic javelin. Apparently, putters were flying all over the place this week (see Hollywood picking his putter). Oh boy….that didn’t come out right…
I’m gone for 1 week and the league is already starting to go into chaos mode. The big winners this week were Three Men and a Sub who toyed with Grandpa’s Cough Medicine and won (23-17). They were led by yet another one of Cletus’ subs, Harmeling, who grabbed 7 points. The Prince Albert Syndrome defeated Laying 8 (21.5 – 18.5). They were led by the prince himself who took 8 points. Protein for Peffercorn narrowly beat Gamblers Fallacy (20.5 – 19.5). They were led by Potter and Boot Boy, a.k.a. Little Richard who both managed 6.5 points.
The standings remain the same. Don’t forget to check out the latest installment of the Prince Albert Chronicles. We move to the back nine of the Willows for the next two weeks. It’s US Open Week! I wish I could be there! We hope to see you on the golf course and as always, hit ‘em straight!
George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner
