President’s Challenge

Good morning GCCGL golfers. I don’t know if you know this but by the time you actually start reading this, I will be golfing on a beautiful golf course somewhere in Myrtle Beach, SC sipping on some girly drink with one of those little umbrellas in them. Last season, the Portuguese Warrior was ripped apart for not updating the GCCGL blog each and every week, even while on vacation. May I remind you that this is EXACTLY the reason we have Kreyling Korner! So that when I’m not around, you all can get your blog fix. Don’t tell Lip Gloss, but Kreyling Korner is just a prelude to the GCCGL blog. The plan is for KK to take over as the main GCCGL blogger. You may be wondering, “But O’ Portuguese one, if KK takes over the GCCGL blog, you won’t have anything to do.” EXACTLY! So please, don’t say anything to him. He doesn’t have a clue! He’s too busy working on his pecs and glutes.

Since I will have ZERO time to update the blog this week, I’m actually writing this post several days before Week 2 – April 27^th. I’m going to blog about what I think will happen and throw in some other irrelevant information. Let’s see how close I get shall we?

Just End The Season’s rein at the top of the standings lasted all of one week after getting absolutely rolled over by Roller Over And VanPelter-er In………oh for Christ’s sake! I’m not typing this team name. Nope, I won’t do it! I refuse! It is way too long! My fingers are cramping up just thinking about having to type that preposterous team name. Let’s start again, Just End The Season’s rein at the top of the standings lasted all of one week after getting absolutely rolled over by ROVER (24.5-15.5). VanPelt wins the battle of the newbies and leads his team with 7 points. Meanwhile the Young Guns outlast Birdies, Eagles and a Crowe (21-19). They were led by Scratch and Marge who took 6 points each. However, the big story is Dropping Deuces. They begin their march out of the cellar by defeating Straight To Church (21.5.- 19.5). They were led by the shirtless one, Cupcake, who chopped up Meat for 7 points.

Since I’m writing this post ahead of time and although I am multi-talented, I cannot predict the future and therefore don’t know what to really blog about for this week’s GCCGL blog post. So I’m going to have to bore you with another story from my youth as I have done in the past. Now, I warn you, this one is pretty embarrassing and I never even thought of sharing this one before but I’m desperate for blog material. It all started when  my wife and I were working outside on our deck and had the oldies radio station on when a song started playing that I hadn’t heard since the 3^rd grade.  As I’m working on the deck and listening to this song, I start to recall a memory that must have been repressed so DEEP within the nether regions of my subconscious, that I had completely forgotten about it. This memory was SO far-fetched, so mind-boggling, so FANTASTICALLY unbelievable that I thought it must have been a bad dream I once had as a little Portuguese boy growing up in a blue collar town in NJ. I start to recall the episode to my wife who immediately called me out and said, “NO WAY THAT CAN BE TRUE!” But it was. I eventually contacted my childhood friend and my twin brother who were both in the 3^rd grade at the same elementary school with me, and they confirmed the story as FACT. They too had forgotten about this and for good reason….

Physical Education was mandatory back in 1974 and even before that. It started with Eisenhower I think. The point is that Phys Ed was important and we had this program called something like the President’s Challenge Program and there was a President’s Fitness Test as well. If you passed, you got this really cool patch! Do any of you out there remember this? Seriously, weren’t there other more important things to worry about back then like a major gas shortage,  equality for women, Watergate and for the love of God, all those really bad haircuts made even worse by those wildly un-groomed mustaches. And the Bee Gees. My God, the Bee Gees! Why wasn’t anyone doing something about that!?
So instead of actually working on serious issues and teaching the youth of that era a little more mathematics, our 3^rd grade gym class was putting on a “show” for the rest of the school. The entire 3^rd grade class worked on this “show” for weeks before the big debut in front of the rest of the elementary school. Keep in mind, back then in NJ, the elementary school consisted of grades K through 8^. By now you’re probably wondering what the hell is this “show” I’m talking about. The “show” consisted of us jumping over a cardboard box. I’ll let you digest that in for a second….. Yep, that was it. Jumping over a box. No more, no less. The box was set up in the middle of the gymnasium. We all lined up just outside the doors of the gym, out of sight from the audience. All of us wearing our skin-tight RED 70’s shorts and white T-Shirts. One by one, we sprinted out to the middle of the gym, with hundreds of kids in the stands watching, and jumped over the box. This was the show. This is also where the music comes in. There were two songs that played over the speakers. The first one was Locomotion by Grand Funk Railroad.  If you are at work, you might want to lower your speaker volume, you don’t want your co-workers thinking you actually like this crap!

But wait, there’s more. After everyone jumped over the single cardboard box, we had to line up again, and prepare ourselves for the encore. Hold on to your hats because the second act consisted of a daredevil stunt. They stacked a SECOND box on top of the first box! Yes! Now we have TWO cardboard boxes to jump over. But by now, it was time for a new song so we waited for the assistant gym teacher to load up the next 45 EP and blast the next song, Love Machine by the Miracles.

That was our cue to proceed with the second act and start racing towards the middle of the gym, again, to jump over this towering set of cardboard boxes. I know what you’re thinking, “he’s making this up!” I wish I was. As embarrassing as this was for all of us, it was even worse for Ronald Novakovitch (not his real name). He was the resident fat kid and class clown but there was nothing funny about trying to watch him hurl 170 pounds of baby fat over those two boxes. Well, maybe it was a little funny, but none the less. This was nothing short of child abuse! In case you’re wondering, Ronald didn’t make it over the two boxes. It was too much for him. He hit the middle of the top box with his left foot and tumbled over like drunken hobo reaching for half-eaten bear claw. His shorts came about half way down in mid-air and after he stopped rolling, he picked himself up, pulled up his shorts and scattered to the back of the line.

What makes this even worse than it sounds is that we were in the 3rd grade! Eight years old! I mean come on, that’s old enough for a kid to remember this kind if crap and scar them  emotionally for life! What possessed the school administration to put on a show where 3rd graders jump over boxes, in front of an audience, of their peers, to really bad 70’s funk, I’ll never know.

So there you have it. I swear, except for my fat friend’s name, all of the above is true. I can prove it if I have too. But I’d rather begin the process of suppressing the memory back down into the recess of my brain as soon as possible.

We move to the Pioneer back next week.  If you like what you’ve read, then join the conversation and leave a comment. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!

George Almeida – GCCGL Co-Commissioner