FEAR OF FALLING

What follows will be of no particular interest to anyone apart from the archeologists of cyber space, who when un-ethering this text some time in the 24th Century, will note that at least one ordinary 21st Century dude sure liked to run on a bit.  That warning given, should you recklessly read this anyway and find yourself fallen into a boredom induced coma...don't blame me. 

I dreamed last night that I was roofing.  This is not an unusual  occurrence as it happens to me two or three times a year.  These dreams often end with me falling from the roof and being startled into wakefulness, so they are not among my favorites.  Last night I was in and out of the awareness that I was dreaming, so I was able to exert some conscious control over the dream, but not completely; just enough, though, that I could make falling unlikely.  This, however, did not fully mitigate the disturbing elements of the dream.  I was on one side of a very high, very steep roof.  Steep enough that it was barely walkable. I had finished shingling about two thirds of my side when my father, Walt Walton, who had completed roughly the same amount on the other side, climbed over the ridge to challenge me to a who can finish first bet.  

I am going to interrupt my narrative here, because I am reminded of perhaps the greatest off-the-cuff pun I have ever heard.  On another roofing occasion, not a dream, my father stood on a roof just below the ridge, but above me and my step brother, Ray Hoffman, who were working there.  He read us the riot act for one thing or another - I can no longer remember what - and then left. As he descended the ladder to the ground, Ray turned to me and said, "That was a ridge over troubled Walter."  I laughed until tears.

In my dream I was reluctant to take the bet.  I could see my father's side of the roof from where I was - dreams are like that - and most of his unfinished part was from the middle up, the safest part of the roof.  Mine, conversely, was near the bottom where I could see over the edge the long, long way to the ground. 

I was instantly adrenalized: racing heart, electric spine, sweaty palms, the whole litany of the fight or flight glands.  How this can happen while you sleep and not cause you to awaken seems impossible, but it is in fact, what occurs.  Ask anyone who has had nightmares and you will note that it is not until the threat has gone from immanent to actual, which is to say when the monster that has been chasing, reaches for you, or, in my case, when I fall, that reality arrives with a start!  Adrenaline has been present for the many moments leading up to the dramatic finish.

Why falling is the substance of my nightmares has its basis in reality.  As a kid and then a young adult, I had grown up working for my father's roofing company with its unusual name, Roof Coating Company of New Jersey.  I say unusual because most small companies of its kind had names like Bob's Roofing and Gutters or Big Ed's Roofing and Siding.  Although our company had been created by my grandfather as a service that applied an asphalt based paint as a preservative to wood shingles, it had grown under my father into a company that did all types of roofing.  The name remained the same because "coating" roofs was still a large part of what we did.  

After high school, I had gone into the Army for a six month stint before being released to the N.J. National Guard for an additional four and half years. After the Army, I took employment with a Food Fair supermarket as a shelf stocker and began attending Upsala College in East Orange, N.J. at night. The $1.40 an hour I was earning at Food Fair was insufficient for my needs, so I returned to roofing where I could make $3.00 an hour and afford school, dates and the 25 cents a gallon gas for my '51 Mercury.  Bad mistake. 

The reason, forgotten at that moment, I had not gone immediately back to roofing after the Army was that the work was hard, heavy and dirty.  I really didn't like it at all.  I also didn't like working for my father who was a tyrant on the best of days and worse so as an employer. Add in, and this I only realize in retrospect, that I am a monkeymind, which is to say often lacking in focus, awareness and attention, and the idea of continuing to work at heights was clearly not a good one.  

(Something here about the idiocy of the young in general would would make me feel better about my own stupidity, but the truth is, I was at the time, apparently, dumber than most.)

And so I fell.  I climbed up our 36 ft. ladder fully extended one summer day, grabbed the rope that was affixed to the ridge  and began hauling myself to the top.  When a roof was too steep to walk, we would use ropes wrapped around one leg at crotch level to keep us from falling.  The ropes were heavy and extended over the bottom edge of the roof almost to the ground.  The weight of the rope beyond you keeps the wrap tight on your leg.  The technique is essentially one of reverse repelling.  As I made my way to the rooftop, my thoughts were far far away.  I had climbed like this a thousand times and I was doing the task similar to a person driving a car on autopilot, their thoughts elsewhere.  As I neared the roof's summit I  reached with my right hand to grab the chimney there and pull myself fully up to the ridge where it was possible with one foot on either side to walk along without aid.  When I did so, I lifted the rope off its tether with my left.  As I have said, the roof was very, very steep.  I slid down it on my belly too fast, really, to grasp what was happening.  Besides, I was 19 years old. I was immortal.  This couldn't be happening to me.  I did manage to smack the ladder top as I went over the edge and this served to flip me so that I was face up as I fell to the ground.  Because I was looking at the sky in the second that it took me to land, the sensation was not of falling, but rather of the ground coming up and smacking me from below.  Years later while sky diving I experienced a similar reality. When first exiting the plane I was so high up the ground's approach was almost not discernible.  The sensation then was more of flying than of falling.  Later, at a lower altitude, when the ground's approach was rapid, falling was the preeminent feeling.  Open chute!   

Somehow, perhaps by instinct, I got an arm behind my head before I landed and this may have saved my life.  Keeping that up-until- then useless appendage from strikning the flagstone below me was a good thing.  The other good thing was shock.  After the initial wham of the landing, I had no pain.  I couldn't move from my torso down, but I had no pain.  When the ambulance arrived, I was prone but smoking a cigarette.  I thought by doing so, this made me seem cool, calm and collected.  Let me say again, I was nineteen. 

The EMT's, I don't think they were called that then, thought it was encouraging that I could move my arms, including the big, fat, swollen one my head had landed on, and that I could wiggle my toes.  They shuffled me off to the hospital in a shiny, new Cadillac ambulance, the first Cadillac I had ever been in.  Now that WAS cool. 

I lay about the emergency room for what seemed an eternity before eventually being sent to X-ray.  Those spooky skeletal pictures showed no damage. Or so I was told.  Yeeha!  I was coming out of the shock by then and starting to hurt on a scale of ten at about a twelve and  moving rapidly to other double digit numbers.  I was sedated and given a room where I would remain for ten days.  It wasn't until a couple of decades later when, at my first chiropractor visit, the doc, looking at new X-rays, asked how I had broken my back.  I said I hadn't.  He said I had.  "See right here. No way could your spine be at that angle unless it had been broken and healed back that way."  Alrighty then, live and learn.  

The woman who was later to have the misfortune of being my first wife was a student nurse at the hospital where I was enjoying my recovery.  Because it was known that she and I had been dating prior to my accident, she was not allowed to attend to me.  Part of my rehab was to receive three or four light massages each day, hence the enjoying part, the idea being that since my injuries were mostly muscular, massages would aid blood flow to the affected area and stimulate healing.  These massages were given by student nurses, all friends or acquaintances of my girlfriend.  A few of these very hot young ladies in their sexy, pseudo nurse's uniforms were not above rubbing my black and blue ass until I achieved an erection that put me in a damn near one point stance and one student, who shall remain nameless, although it is a name I'll never forget, even reached under me and gave me what is now referred to as a "Happy Ending."  Should I mention that I proposed to her on the spot?  As fate would have it, though, and fate was definitely giving me "ups and downs," so speak, at the time, this girl was never assigned to me again.  Bummer.

Had that part of this run on blithering been the impetus for my dream last night, I'm sure it would have taken a different turn and I wouldn't be writing about it this grey, rainy, morning. I'd still be abed smiling.  But alas no, it was the fall that inspired my nightmare.  And, I suppose. I think that maybe, possibly, by putting the tale to paper, I might also put my nightmares to rest.  

Hmmm.  Let me think about that. 

After deep thought, well, medium deep, and further consideration, but not much further, I think that falling as the crux of my nightmares is not so bad. I am, after all, used to it. If I lose falling my 'mares might take a turn to something worse like, for instance, that nasty thing that chases YOU through the swamp at night.  No, forget that. I'll stick with falling.  

But I DIDN'T fall last night.  My dream, although uncomfortable for awhile, morphed into something else that I can't quite remember; something to do with Woowoo Charly and football and politics and dogs and trying to remember to write this in the morning. 

So here you have that very thing, more memoir irrelevancy to clutter up cyber space; the cluttering being possibly my principal talent. But hey! Somebody has to do it, don't they?  Else where will  the archeologists of the future get their material?

Okay, perhaps I hit my head harder than I thought.





  

 



 


   

 


      

EIGHT YEARS FROM NOW ?

Eight years after the Romney Presidency:

My fellow Americans.  If I am elected I promise to bring home our troops from Syria before my term is out and I will schedule an honorable withdrawal of our troops from Iran.  I want to salute the thousands of American soldiers who lost there lives so that arms manufacturers and oil magnates could thrive and continue to own the Republican Party.  We Democrats are against that, of course, but our now grossly under educated populace doesn't agree so we have decided to just go with the flow.  As long as China has money to loan us and we have millions of employees at fast food restaurants striving to pay the money back, we can afford these and other wars.  Hey, we have to keep America safe.  Don't worry about these two wars ending, we have more of them on the horizon.  President Romney has shown us that Avarice is the best policy and if you don't believe that you are not a patriot. We Democrats will no longer be whining and mewling about fairness and level playing fields and the we are all in this together nonsense.  It is clear that Americans want a dog eat dog, every man for himself, get it while the getting is good, screw that helping hand, society, so we are climbing on board with that.  If I'm elected I will do everything I can to keep my financial backers in chips so they can continue to dictate American policy. There will be no programs to help anyone but them, because they are the people who put out leftovers in their dumpsters and that helps feed Americans.  Beware though, if you don't do as we say, those dumpsters can be removed.  In conclusion I want to say that if you poor people, which the census shows is 90% of you, really want to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, I suggest you join our armed forces or sign up as crew on the yachts of our politicians and their friends. Good luck I say to you suckers. Now it doesn't matter if you vote Republican or Democrat.
                                             
                                        The 2020 Democratic Candidate

                                                                     

THE BACK NINE

My take on the new nine at Lucero G.C.

THE BACK NINE

          By Doc Walton

My partner, Woowoo Charly, and I were working a consulting gig for the local Panama P.D.  What happened was that she and I were in Boquete town to see the sights and maybe get in a little golf when one of the locals, a resident gringo name of Lawrence Johnson, turned up missing.  We being vacationing P.I's out of L.A., Hollywood division, of no small repute - we had solved the Missing Mashie Case after all - and the Panama P.D. being underfunded and undermanned, it was a natural they'd ask us to look into the matter.  Johnson, we were told, had last been seen heading for the Lucero Golf and Country Club.  As that just happened to be our principal playing destination, we said what the hell, why not? 

Preliminary questioning of the staff at Lucero revealed that Johnson, a popular regular there, had arrived at the course and subsequently completed the first nine holes of a practice round before disappearing sometime before the back nine’s completion.  Maintenance personnel throughout the course testified to hearing Johnson's familiar cry of "Goddamn it Larry!" throughout the morning, but not a word after the ninth hole.  Although no one harbored suspicions of foul play we knew that with all those angry expletives the play could not have been all that good.

Woowoo and I decided to begin our investigation at the 10th hole.  If clues to Johnson's disappearance were to be found on the course they would most likely turn up between there and the 18th.   

Although five tee boxes were available at the 10^th from the most distant at 418 yards to the forwards at 286 where Woowoo teed it up, I chose the whites at 364 as we had been told that was the tee Johnson generally played.  This particular tee area is elevated and requires players to hit a drive across a narrow canyon where golf ball eating creatures were rumored to lurk.  The desired landing area is at the top of a hill that slopes up from the canyon.  A drive at least close to the top is necessary if the player wants to make the green visible for his second shot.  Dense foliage flanks the tee box on both sides, but no signs of Johnson or anyone else entering there was in evidence.  Woowoo and I surmised that if Johnson had been there, he had played through, so we hit our drives onto the hillside and continued.  Neither of us hit far enough to reach the hill’s crest and we were thus forced to lay up with our second shots as the tenth green was fronted by yet another menacing crevice.  From our laid up positions over the top, the course widens out and we could see beyond the green, where lush mountains capture the eye and inspire "Wows" from first time players.  Woowoo and I were not exceptions.  After hitting our thirds to the green, we crossed over the canyon bridge looking from side to side, but seeing no trace of our missing golfer.  After a few putts each on the nicely manicured “dance floor” we meandered on to the 11th tee.

The 11^th hole is a par 5 that ranges in length from 615 yards for the pros to 400 at the forwards for the fairer sex.  A goodly drive that fades or cuts is useful here as your ball must first clear an expanse of scrubland before confronting a fairway dog legged to the right.  Woowoo discovered our first Johnson clue while she and I were tramping about in the rough, short of the fairway, looking for my errant drive.  It was a Titleist golf ball nestled in the thick gorse bearing the initials LJ, imprinted with a black marker.  Our man had definitely been here.  We matriculated along the lengthy, broad fairway flanked by bunkers and trees left and dense wasteland right.  The fairway, after gently sloping downward, began to rise as we approached the cavernous sand-trap guarded green.  The journey there had taken longer than expected, but we were rewarded when finally finding the putting surface, by the plush vista that is Panama mountain jungle.  When I missed my short putt for double bogey, I inexplicably cried out, “Goddamn it Larry.” Somehow the words seemed appropriate and, as if to confirm that thought, they lingered on the air.

The challenge to drive straight and long continues at the 12th hole as it is a narrow par 5 whose fairway, for the first half, inclines left to right.  It's best to keep your drive hard left here or find it rolling into impenetrable gorse along the right hand side of the cart path.  I, um, hit mine, purposely of course, to the right to see if Johnson might still be in the aforesaid rough looking for an errant drive of his own. We had been told he hates to lose golf balls.  Having no luck finding him or my own ball, I dropped and hit another up the fairway avoiding bunkers left and, a little further along, right as well.  This hole features a gorgeous mountain backdrop that can catch the golfer's attention and distract from the task at hand, to wit, seeking par and learning the whereabouts of one Larry, "The Old Redneck" Johnson.  Arriving at the bunker defended green a stroke after my partner, I took a moment to take in the full 360 degree views this spectacular location provides. This is clearly a golf course that takes advantage of the many wonders a mountain terrain can provide.  If you were to play here but a single time, I would advise you to not forget your camera! 

Standing at the 13th tee Woowoo tells me that on the previous fairway she had stumbled upon divots that had been replaced as neatly as possible.  "Divots," she said, "deep enough to inspire a ‘Goddamn it Larry’ or two.  Curious, we thought, if that were the case, that none had been heard. 

Decent drives off tees that range from 482 yards to 388, will get you across a patch of  "You don't want to be in there" landscape and on to a fairway protected left and right by evil sand bunkers halfway home.  There is a seemingly endless view to your left that requires a moment of reflection and perhaps an exclamation along the lines of, "Whew!  Would you look at that!" which were my exact words.  Another manicured green with sand traps to test your accuracy awaits your second shot, or in some cases like mine, your third, when you have finished gawking at the environment.  A jacket found near the green turned out to be that of a groundskeeper and not one of Johnson’s.

Starting the 14^th, a 329 to 437 yard - pick the distance that suits your game - exquisite torture of a golf hole, we conjectured that perhaps the elusive Johnson had come this way playing well enough that his typical exclamations of disgust were rendered unnecessary.  Whatever.  We were now into our own games and completely captivated by the beauty of nature surrounding us and the golfing challenge the course presents.  Woowoo and I were both startled to silence as the green came into view and appeared before us as an infinity pool of wonder, its borders seemingly suspended at the edge of the world.  It was a long while after our golf balls arrived on the green’s surface before we got to putting them. Time spent staring at the majestic series of mountain and valley drifting to the end of human visibility and on into the sky was surely a prerequisite for all who played here.  Even after recording our scores, bagging our clubs, and climbing into our eerily quiet electric golf cart, we were reluctant to leave this very special place.  But…15 awaited and Johnson had still not been found.

Elevated tee boxes carved into the hillside at distances from the highest and longest at 441 yards to the forwards at 314 provides golfers at the 15th a straightaway view of the green below and beyond.  Some of Lucero’s elegant private homes tucked neatly into the mountainsides are visible from all parts of this stretch of golf course. There is yet another 360 degree Panama panorama to keep the golfer’s sense of an Alice in Wonderland magical experience intact.  I had to pull myself away from a trance-like stare to hit my high arcing drive onto the fairway.  Elevated tee areas are truly barrel-of-monkey fun and this course has them on nearly every hole.  The putting surface here has the requisite daunting sand traps beyond it, both left and right, and, to add further fear of being long, it backs up to a dense wooded area.  A cursory inspection of said area necessitated by a too muscled Woowoo shot uncovered not only her ball but another with the marker made LJ inscription, reminding us of our secondary duty, The Hunt for Red Oct… er, Johnson.

One of the additional pleasures of Lucero G.C. that you might not notice if you are completely caught up in your game is the nifty cart path that meanders from hole to hole through Hobbit-like landscapes of hollows and grottos and enchanted forests along with its necessary border-the-fairway route from tee to green.  Woowoo Charly and I paid particular attention to these diversions as it was easy to imagine a golfer getting captivated by this tropical beauty and perhaps wandering off in search of one mystical creature or another.  Woowoo Charly, in fact, was sure she had glimpsed a unicorn darting into the underbrush, but I couldn’t confirm the sighting as I was busy talking to a leprechaun at the time.

The 16^th hole is a Par 3 that plays from 110 yards at the forwards to 155 on, you guessed it, an elevated surface.  It is sculpted from a heavily wooded area and there are trees waiting to gobble errant shots left and long. There are also trees left and right of the tee box so your vision from there to the green is tunnel-like. An accurate tee shot is especially needed here as in addition to the ball beckoning trees there is sand to swallow under clubbed or miss-hits short.  Woowoo and I both found the green with “sweet spot” irons, but nary a trace of our missing golfer.  We walked off after paring puffed and confident, unaware of what waited at the 17^th.

If you hit left at 17, a 335 to 410 yard Par 4, a mountain lake will drown your ball.  If you hit short or too long - excluding pro style long – deep arroyos will see to it that you are hitting “Three” from the tee.  Right, you ask?  Nothing there to worry about, but impenetrable jungle.  There is a landing area here that your tee shot has to find so that your second shot will have access to the dog legged right green over the second arroyo.  This green too, is closely defended by traps and trees.  By now, though, Woowoo and I were accustomed to the rigors of this course and welcomed the challenge, having posted those routine pars the hole before.  “Whoops,” was not exactly what I said when I topped my second and watched it disappear into the grunge at the bottom of the arroyo.  I managed to save a triple with a nice 8 footer while Woowoo walked off with bogey.

At this point I should probably note that we had now both forgotten about our search for one Larry Johnson.  As we neared the completion of our round our thoughts were entirely on when we could next play this gleaming gem of a golf course.  Once was clearly not enough!

As we teed it up at the 18^th the beer commercial concept of “It doesn’t get any better than this” shared my reality with that old folksy song lyric, “I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling.”  Our last two hours had been dreamlike and - if we had remembered - only our failure to locate the missing LJ kept it from being perfect.

The 18^th is a straightaway Par 4 ranging from 314 yards to 410.  There is a narrow canyon to clear with your tee shot and then it is a gentle climb up a gradual slope to the finish.  This hole is located in more open ground than most of the others and there is “Big Sky” here to see you on your way.  The course’s lake is visible to your left.  When you reach the green you will find, as we did, that it slopes from back to front.  My approach shot landed and stuck in some “first cut” grass nearest the trap that awaited overly long shots.  As I neared my ball, putter in hand, I began to hear what sounded like murmuring emanating from that very sand trap.  I peered tentatively over its edge and there found, deep in a hole, one Lawrence “The Old Redneck” Johnson digging even deeper with his sand wedge.  He had apparently failed to clear his first shot from the bunker and his ball had rolled back into the depression made in the sand by his club.  Subsequent shots of a similar nature caused the pit to grow ever deeper and steeper until I discovered him barely able to peer over the top.  Noble and true golfer that he is, quitting was not an option and though his teeth were gritted as he counted his strokes, 212, 213, 214, and let fly with his famous epithet, no amount of argument could stay him from his task.

Woowoo Charly and I two putted out and drove quietly away.  The sound of “Goddamn it Larry, Goddamn it Larry” fading like an echo as we did so.