The 9th of July

Five days after the fourth, let me see the fifth, the sixth the...yeah that's right five days, the Founding Fathers set forth, a different kind of fourth, upon yet another celebration, the already long established holiday, Doc and Charly's anniversary. Anniversaries being what they are, that is, the yearly toasting of a union, this could have been called Dependence Day, but coming so soon after Independence Day, the Father's decided it just wouldn't sound right, so they opted for the simple and clear, but somewhat long and unweildly title of Doc and Charly's Anniversary. Over the years, as calendar's got smaller, it became impossible to fit this holiday into the little day squares - especially when you added the year, the thirtieth, the fortieth, the one hundred fifty second, etc.- and it was dropped entirely. The omission, however did not stop the celebration.

In keeping with the tradition established by the Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, Bobby Jones, Adams, Trevino, Franklin, Palmer, Watson, Hamilton and the like, we played golf. I won't bore you with a blow by blog description of every hole, - that I've already done in a piece I'm going to send as the next blog - but I will say that we played well and came within inches of a story I would have really liked to write. First I want to tell you about the amazingly long putt Charly made on the fifth hole and the four iron I pured on the eighth. Okay, that being done, let me tell you about the sixth. It was there one year ago that Charly made a perfect swing and recorded a perfect result, an hoyo en uno, a hole in one. I was very aware of this as I stepped to the tee with the clear and present swing thought of "now it's my turn." And that was the problem... my turn. Any golfer will tell you that if you don't get the proper turn of hips and shoulders, you are not going to strike the ball properly. I didn't and I didn't. The ball landed short of the green. Charly, looking for a repeat performance was long. We both chipped up and got down in two for bogies. The story that almost was came later, because the course we were playing is a nine holer and we were down for eighteen. The Sixth came around again. This timeI had no swing thoughts as I teed up and let 'er fly. A nice high arcing PW that looked just like PW shots are supposed to. I could see the ball was coming down a little left of the flag but would be pretty close. And it was, maybe six feet. The ball, however had a little spin, a little juice, a little English on it, and it began to roll toward the pin. Back on the teebox, I'm thinking it might be, it may be, it could be and Charly's holllering, "go in, go in" but...to no avail. The ball came to a final rest at what, from the tee box, looked to be right on the edge but was actually about 5 or 6 inches short. Close but no cigar. Well, not right then anyway.

The cigar came at the Cantina where we had beers and watched the first half of the World Cup final. Zinedine Zidane scores on a penalty shot and France leads uno a cero.

After that it was home to watch the second half and wait until we were hungry enough for dinner. Italy scored on a header to tie the game and went on to win in a post overtime shootout.
Yeah, I'm thrilled too. Zidane got kicked out for knocking a guy down with a headbutt. Nice.

I would tell you about dinner, but really, what is there to tell about a dinner unless you are Andre and that other guy. It was lovely. I say lovely because anniversary dinners can't be good chow, great grub, hearty fare and like that. They have to be lovely and ours was even though we both had steak and potatoes.

Home to music, wine and dancing in the dark. We left the fireworks to that other July holliday, but we did make some noise. The Fathers would be proud. Here's to us.