2021 – Week Three
Sorry I missed the festivities this past week. PW did something really stupid. Let’s just say there was a slight gardening incident which has put PW on the DL…excuse me, the IL. Since I was not there last week, you all get another PW true life story for this week’s blog. Feel free to navigate to youtube, twitter, Instagram or your favorite social media platform right now. It’s OK. You won’t hurt my feelings.
When I was a pre-teen, around 11-12 years of age, I lived in a small blue-collar town in NJ. I wouldn’t call it the “city” but there was more concrete then there was grass. It was a true melting pot. Many different nationalities lived there, Scottish, Irish, Polish, Italian and yes….. Portuguese. Each group had their own club, The Scotts Club, The Irish Club, and of course, the Portuguese Club where my father was one of the founding members. I believe it was this club that ultimately caused me, my brothers and my Portuguese friends a lot of adolescence angst. I want to be very clear, everyone got along with each other for the most part. We went to school together, we played sports together, in many respects, we were very much the same. Except for one thing, Portuguese School. That’s right. Somewhere, somehow, someone got the bright idea that they should open a Portuguese School that would teach Portuguese to the children of the Portuguese elders. You see, most Portuguese Americans my age had started to forget the language because we refused to speak it in the house. The elders must have gotten together at the Portuguese Club one night and after one too many glasses of port wine, they organized and opened a Night School that taught Portuguese. This is just want a 12 year old needed, another 4 hours of school AFTER school! It was a nightmare.
To make matters worse, the Portuguese school was located at the next town over in the High School and we had to walk there. Three times per week, my brothers and I would walk from our house carrying our Portuguese books and pick up a few more olive-skinned Portuguese kids along the way because there were strength in numbers. Along the way, we’d dodge rocks, food, and insults from the other kids who were already out of school for the day and had nothing better to do. The worst was winter time and having to constantly be on the lookout for a snowballs being whipped at our heads.
After surviving the pilgrimage, we were forced to endure hours of Portuguese class with a classroom of other poor kids who wanted to be riding their bikes or playing whiffle ball like normal children. One day a pair of brothers were really pissing off the teacher. Again, no one wanted to be there, this teacher had endured countless days of smart aleck remarks and wisecracks from the start this “project” was conceived. One day, she just couldn’t take it anymore and she went ape and began smacking the crap out of one of the brothers. The class was stunned. The very next day, after surviving a particularly treacherous journey after taking a shortcut through the park, we arrived at the Portuguese school somewhat disheveled, but alive. There were several adults in the class arguing really loud in Portuguese. It was hard to understand what they were arguing about since, after all, that was the reason we were there in the first place. None of us understood what the hell they were saying! But it was evident early on that these were the parents of the brothers who got smacked around the day before. The “President” of the Portuguese School was there too, trying to calm things down but it was spiraling out of control. The whole time that the adults were screaming at each other, the brothers stood in the background smirking at the rest of the class as to say “later suckers…. we are ditching this lame ass Portuguese school!”
Needless to say, the scandal rocked the Portuguese community. My brothers and I concocted a plan to tell our parents that this teacher was a menace to society and we could be her next victim. Of course, we had to really sell it but it worked! A few days later, we were done with Portuguese school after promising our parents that we’d start speaking Portuguese around the house. That was a lie, that never happened. But we were back to being regular kids again.
The big winners this week were Jerry’s Kids (23 pts.). They were led by Jim Allen who grabbed 7 points. Aces Ventura followed right behind with 22 points. They were led by the Politician, who also took 7 points. The low net winners were Snoodles (A/B) with a low net of 35 and Cletus and Cap (C/D) with a low net of 37. Congratulations to the winners! We move to the friendly confines of the Pioneer front this week. We hope to see you on the course and as always, hit ’em straight!
PW – GCCGL Co-Commissioner
