A Perfect Day At The Hair Farm (A Dorm Daze Prequel)

One of the things that drives me in life is the quest for "the perfect day." Now that means something different to everybody. For me it means a day so goddamn good, if you could bottle it up and relive it over and over again, you would. I can think of maybe three of those off the top of my head. Days where you are actually kinda sad when your head hits the pillow at night. 

There was a day last Fall where after sort of knowing somebody online for over a decade and texting or talking to her every day for four months solid, I took five days off of work, blew out of town, drove nine hours and a state away and we finally met in person. Let's call her Katie. Katie and I spent a Friday (and eventually the whole weekend, where unfortunately we made one bad decision after another, not the least of which was spend entirely too much money on club seats to attend the atrocity that was my beloved Chicago Bears taking on her Denver Broncos while unbelievably hungover) together. DIAGRAM THAT SENTENCE! But that Friday, I'm telling you, that Friday was a perfect day. We met for breakfast, had our first actual golf lesson for the first time in person after several years of virtual online sessions, played eighteen holes, got dressed up (GOOD LORD, SHE'S A KNOCKOUT), shared a fancy dinner and drinks, talked about what we wanted out of life and capped it off with a warm embrace and kiss to cap the evening. I never felt more alive in my goddamn life. Now, somehow, despite my best attempts at screwing things up royally in the ensuing month and change, Katie is still as good a friend as I have, I love her to death and always will, and we at the very least message daily if not talk. I'm sure I'll write about her again some day. Things didn't turn out quite the way I pictured it in the future with her when I drove back to my hotel that Friday night. As always, I massively over-read the situation like I do the majority of putts these days. My dumb brain going places it shouldn't have and seeing things that weren't there. That tends to happen more often than I'd like. But that Friday was as perfect a day as I'd had in two decades. If I could bottle up that day and sell it, it'd fetch more on the streets than cocaine.

Halfway through a perfect day!

Most recently, I had a day a few weeks ago where I got up, watered my garden, taught an awesome golf lesson, fired a red-number on my old golf course and spent the afternoon with a pretty special gal, let’s call her Carly, who took me shopping at one of those high-end clothing stores that I wouldn't have ever pictured myself wandering into in a million years. I could’ve never fit in their clothes! She outfitted me with a whole new wardrobe. Stuff I never thought I'd wear, but you know what? They look fucking fantastic on the new bod! We capped the day again, with a lovely dinner and drinks at a swanky restaurant talking about how we got to where we were at. Unfortunately, I was actually successful at torpedoing that friendship royally and I still don't know if Carly and I are really friends anymore. I suspect probably not, and that really fucking bums me out. Sometimes the perfect day doesn't result in better things down the road. In fact, by definition, it's really all downhill from there. But sometimes, when you can just live in the moment of the perfect day, those things stick with you and burn a memory so vivid in your head you couldn't shake it if you try. 

This entry covers the events of one of those days, and we're going to turn on the wayback machine. Just a little over twenty-one years ago to one perfect June day that I spent with one of my best friends before I moved away to go to Westminster. I call this one "The Perfect Day at the Hair Farm."

It was June 19th, 1999. My alarm clock blew off at 5:30 AM with my favorite Keith Richards Stones' song, "You Got The Silver." I had to catch my pops before he left for work so he could sign my financial aid paperwork. My whole application to college came in pretty late. I'll tell that story another day, but I was behind the eight-ball and couldn't afford to wait for the mail to deliver it, and the money was starting to run out. So my buddy Skwez and I were going to drive it up to Salt Lake and hand-deliver it ourselves to the school. Plus, I wanted him to see how good this situation was going to be. He wasn't only one of my best friends, but he was also my golf coach in Junior College at Eastern Utah. He wasn't just going to send me off into the wild without seeing the lay of the land first. And I at least wanted to introduce him to my new coach. 

The old man and I sat at our ancient-ass 70's era kitchen table (yellow veneer? TACKY), hammered down some bacon, eggs and coffee and went over the paperwork for my pell grants and work-study. I think it was finally setting in for both of us, the clock was ticking on my leaving Price for good. Less than two months to go. I still miss those breakfasts. Pops Nickas was a hell of a breakfast cook. I swear it's the paprika on the hash browns. Goddamn fantastic. "You guys staying up there tonight?" he grumbled. 

"I don't know pop. We're flying by the seat of our pants today. The only real item on the agenda is dropping off these papers and checking out the dorms."

"Didn't you do that three weeks ago?"

"Yeah, but this time I'm taking a camera so I can see what I've got to work with as far as space goes." I obviously needed to figure our a way to fit all of my worldly possessions into an 11'x9' space. "Have a good day at work, pop. I'll find a pay phone and let you know what we do."

Nickas and Skwez, lookin' like a couple preppy
assholes, circa 1999.

Skwez pulled up an hour later at 6:30 in his pimp-gold 1996 Jeep Cherokee. I tossed my golf clubs and overnight bag into the back. He tossed me the keys as he filled up his CD changer with our road-trip standards. GNR's "Appetite for Destruction," Ozzy Osbourne's "No More Tears," Metallica's "Master of Puppets," and Rob Zombie's "Hellbilly Deluxe," among others.  "You're driving." He hated driving that canyon. 

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"I had TK call in a favor and we're teeing off at South Mountain in two hours. Fucking step on it dude." The course was roughly two hours away.

South Mountain Golf Club was at the time (before Salt Lake County bought it) was one of the two high-end golf courses in Northern Utah in the latter part of the 90's. Carved into the hillside in Draper, it opened up in 1998 and immediately got a reputation as one of the best tests of golf in one of the best conditions in the state. And for $90.00 at the time, it sure as hell better have been. That was pretty much unheard of for a public course green fee in Utah back then. 

We blasted through the canyon. Just a college dipshit and his slightly older than college buddy screaming metal tunes and power ballads at the top of our lungs. Not being my own vehicle, I drove extra carefully and we pulled into the South Mountain parking lot in an hour and twenty nine minutes. We popped the hatch on the Cherokee and started unloading our gear and changing our shoes when a bag attendant pulled up and loaded our clubs onto a cart. I damn near pulled the Happy Gilmore and tackled him when he grabbed my bag, until I remembered that yeah, nice courses have those guys. We tipped the dude and checked in where the guy informed me that I wouldn't be allowed to tee off unless I wore a collared shirt. Free golf at a swanky track though. Blew my mind, but I saw a decent looking one in a fat-kid size (MORE X'S THAN A PORNO THEATER) on the rack and bought it so we could tee off. Only $70! I couldn't believe how much of a rube I was back then. I'd like to say I still have that shirt, but no. It was in that giant tub of giant clothes I donated to the shelter last Winter. 

We teed off and this track was better than advertised. Super long from the tips, tight, with trouble everywhere. The greens were slick and the wind was whipping. Birdies were hard to come by, but we both made a few. Our scoring was pretty unspectacular, we both shot 75, but we had a damn blast and took a hundred bucks off the suckers we got paired with in a best ball match. We thanked the Director of Golf for being an awesome host and said hello for TK. "Come back anytime," he said. I don't think he lasted more than a year in the job.

DJ for a Day!

We dropped our gear off at Skwez's sister's place, got cleaned up and I got my paperwork together. We still had to make my meeting with Financial Aid at 2:00. We jumped back in the car and headed for downtown, switching this time to the radio. It was no secret, radio in Price Utah in the 90's was liquid shit. Radio in Price is STILL liquid shit. We had three country stations, two right-wing talk stations, a pop station, and an oldies station that I probably listened to more than anything. In fact, I can still sing along to almost any 60's song on Sirius Channel 6. I heard them all a thousand times. Liked them, but we were hurting for variety. But Salt Lake had the mighty KBER 101.1. Still, for my money the greatest radio station in the history of this state. We flipped it on just as the last refrain of Tesla's "Modern Day Cowboy" blasted out and the DJ, Hammer (who I got to actually host a show for an afternoon a few years later) came on. "Let's check in with Helmut over at Rocky Mountain Raceway getting warmed up for the big Poison/Ratt/Great White/LA Guns show tonight!" 

We looked at each other, "Dude, no way we're driving home tonight. We've gotta go to this. There won't be twenty people there, they might let us play in the band." Don't get me wrong, we still loved those bands. We grew up in the timewarp that was Carbon County, where it was still 1988, but we both knew most of those acts hadn't been heard from in years. Thankfully, the legendary Heavy Metal Shop was in the Sugarhouse neighborhood within walking distance to Westminster so we popped in and managed to snag their last two tickets. We were gonna rock our dumb asses off that night. 

Formerly known as Res.3

The college visit was every bit as good as my initial one, if not better because one of my best pals was there with me this time. We met with my new coach, DP, briefly and it was like a passing of the torch. We took another dorm tour. And this time I got to see my actual room. Res. 3, Room 302. The Penthouse of the new building. And I didn't know it at the time, but I also met one of my future roommates, Jerry Flynt. I took a few photos of my bedroom to get some idea of what I had to work with space-wise. Not much, but at least I got my own room. I was going to have to stack some furniture, or do some "Step-Brothers" shit. Skwez was impressed. "This dorm is nicer than Harvard!" he said. I have no idea if that's true. We stopped over to the Campus Patrol office so I could pick up my residential parking permit, made one more trip by admissions to say goodbye to DP and my admissions counselors Kenny and Clint and booked it over to Tres Hombres for some dinner before the show. 

Over giant smothered burritos and for him a margarita, for me a Sprite (I was still 20 years old and the DD for the trip), we talked a bit about what I was about to dive into. He asked me, "What do you think about your coach?"

"Seems like a nice guy. And this is the chance to get in on the ground floor of something. Yeah, we're probably gonna get our asses kicked, but at least this is a chance to play. I mean, I won our Conference last year and I couldn't get a look from any of the big schools. I just want to play man. I know I'm not D1 talent. But I think I can hang in the NAIA."

"I think you're making the right move man.That campus is awesome." he said

"Yeah, and not a ton of rules when you live there. Just enough rules. And I kinda like the idea of living in the dorms. I kinda need rules and structure to bend and push!"

We finished eating, paid the bill, I hit up a pay phone (REMEMBER THOSE?) to call Pops Nickas to let him know I was staying up there that night, and we lit on out of there towards Rocky Mountain Raceway. After driving for what felt like a goddamn eternity we approached the 5600 West exit off of the 201 freeway. Felt like we were basically in Wendover, kind of funny to think that’s pretty much where Casa de Nickas is now. But about a half mile from that exit we ran into bumper to bumper traffic. “Shit, maybe there’s more people that remember this stuff than we thought.” 

It was a half hour before we reached the venue to find an absolutely jam-packed parking lot. We got out of the car just as the opening bars of LA Guns' (Jizzy Pearl Version) "Ballad of Jayne" echoed across the property. Bummer, we'd missed most of their set while stuck in traffic, but managed to clear security just in time to see them blast through "Never Enough" and "Rip and Tear" to close out their set. The infield of the racetrack was packed wall to wall with people. There might've been 13,000 people there. Which considering it had been nearly a decade since any of those bands have had a hit, really said a lot. 

This dude was put in charge
of reviving the unrevivable

Next up was Great White. I know, I know, but this is pre-Station fire. We were at the same time both struck by how good they sounded and how awful they looked. This was a weird era for rock music, Sony had created a label called Portrait that summer and tabbed producer John Kalodner to revive the careers of these old glam rock and blues metal acts. I bought a couple of those albums that year and while they sound pretty good, don't exactly hold up to the older material. But there's a couple gems on each. Great White recorded one of those albums in which they pretty much re-recorded most of their old hits along with a new song or two. It was pretty stereotypical, when the new songs came out, that crowd made a mass exodus for the john or the beer line. It was uncanny. 

Their set wrapped up, and I was really most excited to see Ratt. So Skwez hit the beer line, and I hit the restroom. When I came out he was talking to these two fairly attractive women who immediately ran up to me and asked if I'd buy them a drink. I'm an idiot, so dumbfounded, I obliged and they planted a kiss on each side of my face like to freaking Doublemint Twins and disappeared into the crowd. Skwez was ten feet away laughing his ass off. "The fuck was that all about?" I asked.

"Oh, I told them you were one of the promoters and loaded. But you 'don't like to make a big deal out of it.'" 

"Thanks pal, I've barely got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. Especially now that I'm going to that school!" Still, at the time, that was pretty damn funny.

Utah! Get me two!

We waded back into the crowd just as the opening riff of "Lack of Communication" brought Ratt out onto the stage. They sounded great, and unlike about 2/3 of the times that I've seen them live since (6 or 7 times in various clubs and bowling alleys) actually put some effort into the performance. They blasted through all the songs you recognize and a few only us heshers recognized. For us, the highlight was easily "Nobody Rides For Free," just because it was the closing credits song on one of the two movies (the other being Top Gun) that we'd watched over and over again that summer, Point Break. Bottom line though, Ratt sounded fucking awesome that night. That tour might've been the last time they were really at their best and the crowd was shit hot. I had no clue this many people even still liked this music, but this crowd was genuinely into it!

And now Tan Mom plays the hits!

Poison was Poison. Even if you're the type that thought of them as "metal for chicks," you still couldn't help but have a great time jumping around to their songs. They basically blasted through their entire greatest hits record, which for a nostalgia tour, should be an actual law. Played pretty much every recognizable song they had. About halfway through the set, I got bumped into by a guy absolutely flying on grass, hobbling around on crutches. "Dude, you look sturdy, I need a favor!"

"Uhhh, whatcha need?"

"Put my lady up on your shoulders man!"

Hey, who am I to say no to a man in need. Up she went for "Something To Believe In." I managed to catch a glimpse of Skwez's face. He had a mixture of bemusement and a bizarre pride when she handed me her tube top. It was funny at the time, but there's a good reason you don't see that too often at shows anymore. And that's definitely for the best. 

They wrapped up the show with "Rock and Roll All Nite" from the legendary Less Than Zero soundtrack. A hell of a good time was had, and as we filtered our way out of the racetrack and back to the car, Skwez and I just looked at each other like, "did that day just happen?" We ran pretty much nonstop from 6:30 that morning until now at 12:30 at night. And everything we did tangentially hit on just about every aspect of our friendship. From playing golf (where we first started hanging out), to touring the halls of academia, to blowing our eardrums out with a bunch of obnoxious hard rock tuneage. It was a the fullest of days with one of my best friends, dare I say "perfect." Because while life has moved on for us both, and we're still pals and have had many good times since, that day was pretty much our apex mountain. And I'll remember that forever.

Epilogue:

Two months later, I left Price for the last time as a full-time resident. In fact, outside of the summer after my first junior year, I've only popped in for a few days here and there to visit the family and a few friends. Skwez got married, moved to Colorado, divorced and married again, adopted a couple kids and now is a domesticated family guy. Neither one of us are fat kids anymore. My history in the years since has been pretty well documented here on the 'Monster. But that perfect day will stand out as a real turning-point in my life. That day, moving to the city became real.

Into The Great Wide Open, Finale': The Bridge To Nirvana

It's time we put a bow on this stupid little travelogue. Again, all apologies to the tens of you who still read my incredibly infrequent stuff. Thanks for sticking with it though. Now, who knew I could get four posts worth of material out of an eleven day road trip? Certainly not me. Maybe I'm a little long-winded, I guess. Check out part one here, part two here, and part three here. Now that I've seen my old college roommate and seen how he's found satisfaction in life, caught up with some long-time friends, and experienced the beauty and the excesses of what California had to offer, all while getting laid emotionally low, it's time to wrap it up. In this installment, I hit up a stupid landmark from a twisted movie I saw as a kid, make my way into the Valley of the Sun to spend a couple days with my little "brother" and meet a new little buddy, end the season with some bad golf, and maybe figure out the key to life on the drive home. Let''s rock!

I didn't set an alarm the next day, and I finally found something that overpowered my Golf Professional Circadian Rhythm: three gin mules the night before. After a week and a half of managing to not sleep past 7:00 AM, regardless of whether I set an alarm or not, sleeping in was a welcome change. I rolled out of bed at 9:30 and packed up my shit. It was time to hit the road again. Thankfully, I'd slept past rush hour. Also, I think subconsciously, something in me didn't want to leave California. Outside of a protein shake, I skipped breakfast, checked out of my swanky hotel and made my way to a thinning I-10 freeway. I had one more stop on this spastic odyssey, a couple days with my "Little Brother" Pete and his little family in Phoenix, AZ.

Pete isn't really my brother, he's my first cousin, but growing up, we were as close as two guys that lived a hundred miles apart could be. Once a summer, I'd blow out of Price and spend some time with his family up in Salt Lick. Oddly enough, those trips always seemed to take place whenever Pete's dad needed a major project done in their yard. Funny how that works out. Those Summer days digging trenches in the yard, playing baseball and committing general mischief forged a hell of a bond. There still isn't a day that goes by that we don't at the very least fire off a "Wazzup" text to each other or argue about the Bears or Yankees. He's still the closest thing I've ever had to a brother, and now he lives five hundred miles away, so any chance I get to spend any time with him at all, I gotta take it.

There's things you wouldn't understand,
things you couldn't understand,
things you shouldn't understand.

But getting there is half the fun. After a stop for gas and lunch in Palm Springs, I saw a giant billboard. "The World''s Largest Dinosaurs in Cabazon!" OH SHIT! It's the statues from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure! Whoa! There they were, off in the distance, aaaaaannnnd, not nearly as large as they were in the movie. But still, you gotta check out the roadside attraction when you can, right? I wrestled Giselle off the freeway and pulled into the parking lot. There was a giant "Closed for Renovation" sign hanging from the gate. They needed to remodel the dinosaurs? They also wanted $13.00 just to walk in the door. Just as well, at least I wouldn't have to dodge Big Andy. Besides, you wouldn't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner. A rebel. Wait, what? Oh yeah, road trip. Anyway, I snapped a photo from a low angle to capture their slightly underwhelming majesty and hammered the gas pedal.

I contemplated taking a detour a little south to the Salton Sea, because clearly I hadn't seen enough dead things on this trip. Or north to see Huell Howser's crazy house on top of a Volcano in Twenty-Nine Palms, or even have a vision quest in Joshua Tree, but really at this point in the trip, I no longer really had no concept of time or distance. It's weird how two weeks with little-to-no responsibility can warp any sense of schedule, but I'd told Pete I'd be getting to his hood around 4-ish. He's a family man, and on a pretty strict, regimented schedule. It wasn't on me to disturb that. And really, a part of this trip was to see how the other half lived, so to speak. So those other stops on the road, well, I'm going to have to hit them up next time. But that's the nice thing about having a little bit of that freedom. I'll always have another chance.

The Grand Canyon State
welcomes you!

The vastness of the Mojave Desert spread out before me as I tried to make up time wasted. Nothing but straight highway all the way to the horizon. If you lose it out here, you're in a world of hurt. Thank god the car was fairly new and it was November. Driving across that stretch of desert whether it be on the 15 as you would heading from Vegas to LA, or where I was on the 10 from LA to Phoenix, you just end up happy you made it with no problems. I'm pretty sure a lot of people have just vanished on this stretch of highway.

I crossed the state line early in the afternoon and stopped at a rest area in Ehrenberg, AZ to stretch my legs. The desert panorama that lay before me was quite impressive. Arizona really is quite beautiful with a a lot of vistas that reminded me of the San Rafael Swell not far from where I grew up. The colors and the cacti and buttes had me in rapt attention until out of the corner of my eye, I saw a sign posted just a few feet away "Rattlesnake dens nearby, exercise caution." Well, that's as good a sign as any to get me back on the road. Giselle may have laid a patch of rubber in the parking lot as I punched it back down the highway. Eff snakes!

Milk Drunk vs. Drunk Drunk (WHO YA GOT!?)

I pulled up to Pete's house in Phoenix around 4:30 and nobody was home yet so I swung by the grocery and liquor store to pick up some supplies. I got back to find Pete opening a box with a cooler in it. "You're just in time dude," he said, "Blue Apron just showed up. Lets go change the munchkin and get dinner on." Literally my first "how do you do" to my brand spankin' new nephew, Niko The Greeko was wiping his little ass. And really, I wouldn't have it any other way. Pete and I did a faithful re-creation of that episode of "Saved By The Bell" where Zack and Slater had to change Kelly's little brother, with the "awww god" and everything. He might've been the happiest baby I'd ever seen though. We put him on the floor and watched him play with his dog, Lia the Labradoodle. She'd come a long way from her days as a puppy, and her patience with the little drool machine was both awesome and pretty beautiful in its own right.

 With everybody freshened up, I retreated to the kitchen to prep some dinner. I'd never cooked anything from one of those meal-delivery things, but after constructing a passable version of pozole, I can certainly understand their appeal. It almost made it too easy. The ingredients were quality and they actually had some peppers with some heat to them. Pete's bride Rachel made it home from work and we all sat around the table. They even let me feed the kid. And holy Moses, that little dude will hoover up anything you put in front of him! Gotta love a kid who isn't a fussy eater. Of course, I wasn't either, and look what happened to me. Anyway, we put the kid down to bed, had a couple glasses of whiskey and I called it an early night.

The next day was a nice little whirlwind of some yard work in the morning (some things never change), and a killer lunch at a nearby Mexican joint where I got my palate blown sky-high by an Adovada burrito and my liver utterly destroyed on a giant margarita. We trucked our drunk asses back to the house. Rachel left for a haircut, and Pete and I calmed down little Niko and got him ready for his afternoon nap by introducing him to some of the watershed moments of our childhood, old pro wrasslin' promo videos from an unbelievably high on coke Macho Man Randy Savage and an equally beaked-up Ultimate Warrior. What can I say, little kids will surprise you with what catches their attention!

Later that evening, Pete and I barbecued some burgers and dogs, and a couple of their friends came over for dinner and drinks. It was nice to meet some new folks. They'd worked college jobs for a long time and as y'all well know, I've kind of been around that world for a long time. So at least there was plenty to talk about. After awhile, the baby monitor flickered to life, the kid was having a tough time settling in the crib for the night. So I drunkenly volunteered to try and calm him down. "Be my guest, and good luck," Rachel waved me into the room. Crying babies tend to freak me out a little bit. Poor little kids can't communicate what is wrong, you have to guess and it usually ends up being a case of throwing a bunch of shit against a wall to see what sticks. But I was bound and determined to get him to sleep. I picked him up and rocked him a little bit, his diaper wasn't mushy, but that didn't stop him from howling in my ear. I tried to calm him down to no avail. Finally I put him back in the crib and just kinda rubbed his belly while singing "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion, a Capella, lullaby-style. He just kinda giggled a little bit, turned his head and passed out. I'm still convinced he was just fucking with me.

One of the few I managed to pipe that day

For my last full day on this trip, Pete and I played golf at a spectacular course called Papago Park. Now, I consider it a great professional and personal failure that virtually every one of my non-golf-world friends are pretty terrible at the game. I really need to do a better job as a teacher and a friend in that regard. Pete, like me, was primarily a baseball player for the bulk of his life, and it shows. The kid handles a club like it's an axe, but he's got potential. He also has an advantage in that every time I upgrade my gear, he gets my hand-me-downs. At least I know they're going to a good home that way. Now, I hadn't picked up a club in a little over a week and it showed as I struggled to a 78. That track was long and narrow and my hungover ass had no pop left in the bat. But it was great to get out with the kid, and he hit the new driver I gave him better than any I'd seen him hit before. All in all, a great capper to this visit with my brother, despite the shitty scores we posted.

I got up pretty early the next day, I was going to try to make it all the way back to Salt Lick by nightfall. Got one more chance to hang out and feed my little nephew. I found that the "airplane" method was, tried and true as it is, the single most effective way of getting mushed-up apples and carrots ferried from the bowl to his mouth. I was genuinely envious of him as at least that looked like it had some flavor. My daily breakfast of Greek yogurt, or as we call it, "yogurt," and a protein shake was kind of starting to get a little stale. The kid just stared at me with a "what's with you old man?" look on his face, and believe me, I get it. This old, crazy ogre blew into town in his red death-mobile, and shook up his highly structured 7-month-old world for three days, leaving goofy punk rock songs and about a million razzberries to the belly in his wake. And I couldn't wait to do it again, but sadly, real life back home beckoned and once again, I had to take to the highway.

Unfortunately, the Waze app on my phone decided to send me on the "road-rage" route out of town. It sent me down surface streets, nowhere near a freeway, resulting in it taking roughly 90 minutes to finally hit city limits, but soon I was crossing the desert on a two-lane highway through Wickenburg, Wikiup and I probably passed through Wikipedia as well. I soon made my way up to Highway 93, streaking toward Boulder City. I needed to see for myself the greatest public works project in our country's history, Hoover Dam.

The 93 soon came into view of the Colorado River, so I knew I had to have been getting close. The scenery was spectacular, with an almost bottomless canyon to the left of the highway and some crazy cliffs on the right. I passed a sign, "Hoover Dam and Lake Mead Recreational Area 1 mile" I figured, I'd better stop soon. As I neared the turnoff, I noticed that there were hundreds of people lining the right side of the road, probably looking at the dam. Sadly I couldn't see it from the road and there was nowhere to pull over, so I just kept going until the turnoff to the dam itself. I drove down a little windy road and over the top of the dam to an overlook. Unfortunately, it was getting a little late in the day for a damn dam tour, but I had to stop and admire that incredible engineering marvel.

The metaphor I've been looking for

It was then that I looked up and saw where all of those people that I drove past were standing. They were along the top of the O'Callaghan-Tillman Bridge. As impressed as I was with the structure of the dam, the bridge was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, just completely massive and artificial, yet somehow looked like it'd been there forever. It was then that I realized the lesson I'd been searching for since I departed on this whole stupid odyssey. Everything we experience in life is your bridge. Just like when I was in Big Sur and I drove across that massive span and didn't even realize I was on the damn thing. I'd taken so much in life for granted. Always looking dead ahead, rarely stopping to appreciate the moments I was in, and the beauty that surrounded me. I always looked at the things that happened to me over the years with a certain detachment, reveling in the story without living in the experience itself. I think about where that had gotten me and how empty I often felt because of it. I'd look back on things and think, "wow, that really happened" and never really realized the gravity or the flat-out, batshit-crazy nature of those experiences while in the moment itself. That's no good way to go through life. We need to appreciate all of it, the good and the bad while it's happening.

It's like I said in the last entry, absolutely nothing is forever. Everything ends. It's the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, "that to live is to suffer." Suffering is inevitable for all of us as long as we labor under the delusion that things can be permanent. When in fact, nothing is permanent. We''re all composed of a series of systems. Our culture, our relationships, our physical bodies, they're all systems and all systems have a few things in common. They all begin, grow, flourish, decay and die. Everything. Without exception. you can be a good Christian, a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Mormon or Scientologist. You can make all the right moves and do all the right things. But your dog is still gonna die. your parents are still gonna die You're gonna fuck up your marriage. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is still gonna cheat on you. Your kids are gonna grow up and not call you as much. And you can, y'know, sit in your nice house and not sleep for three days and cry to the cats and jack off until you're raw. Or you can buck up, put on your boots and work towards achieving Zen.

Zen is when abandon the concept of the past and the future and embrace only the moment. If you can free yourself from the events of the past, which is dead, and your expectations of the future, which is fantasy and embrace only the moment in which you are alive by freeing yourself from the tyranny of all of those wants that you have, then, dammit, can you finally have a taste of that state of Zen. But of course, by its very nature, it won't last.

Final Stats, but some things are immeasurable

Sadly that trip couldn't last forever. I pulled Giselle into my driveway around 9:30 that night and after getting all my bags out of her, I closed the trunk and just leaned against the bumper for a minute, looking up at the starry sky and how those stars looked the same whether I was in Monterey, SLO, Los Angeles (not really, wayyyyy too much light pollution but stay with me here), the Arizona desert or even in my driveway. In the big scheme of the universe, we're not even a blip. But in our own lives, and for the people around us, well, we're all we've got. We need to take care of each other and make each other's lives the best blip we can.

Thanks for sharing this dumb odyssey with me. Now I can finally write about something else! More material coming soon! I swear!

Why I Do What I Do (Riding a different kind of white horse)

Okay, I know what you're thinking. "What the hell man! You promised us an insanely personal story about the whole lot of good and that personally crushing thing that happened to you in Los Angeles during that stupid trip you took last fall! Why are you leaving us hanging? What an asshole!" To which I am going to reply, "Hey, it's been a busy year." I'm actually almost done with that story and hope to have it up in a few days. But something happened to me today, and it hit some weird spot in my brain and I just had to reflect on it a little bit. Because it cuts to the absolute core of who I am, what I do and why I do it. So for you guys, and the shockingly strange amount of readers I have from Eastern Europe and behind the Iron Curtain, here's your chance to get inside my head for a second. I'll finish that travelogue soon, and maybe dust off The Dorm Days later this year. 

Not enough tacklin' fuel.

Anyway, on to the meat of this blog entry. Growing up I was a total Mama’s Boy. Not Waterboy bad, but my momma and I were pretty close. Like it should be, I guess. When I was a little kid, my dad owned a trucking company and worked from 6 AM to 8 PM every day, so he wasn’t around too much. She drove me to various sports practices daily, served as president of my Little League and Babe Ruth leagues, helped me with my homework and did all this while holding down a full time job, and attended college! Total Superwoman growing up, a strong, take-no-bullshit kind of lady. Eventually my dad sold the company, and took another job giving him a little bit more time to be around, but I was always closer to my mother.  

What a bunch of reprobates.

My dad and I butted heads constantly. It seemed like I could never do anything good enough for the guy. My grades were never good enough. I didn’t work hard enough in the yard. Hell, I think I was the only “coach’s kid” in all of youth baseball that didn’t have an easy ride. I’d hit a home run to the opposite field and as I’d be rounding first, all I’d hear is “You were a little late getting around on that one.” One of the reasons I got into golf in the first place was that it was something he’d never done before so he couldn’t criticize me about it. To be honest with you there was a period there where I thought the dude was a total asshole. We just didn’t get along, even threw down a couple of times. Believe me, I'm not proud of this, and I'm glad we're good now. Get along with your parents kids, you'll thank me later.

About a month and a half before high school graduation, my folks split up. I never did see it coming, but at the same time, I wasn't around home very often back then. I pretty much lived over at my buddy Wischer's place back then and the local golf course. In a baseball parlance, I was just "playing out the string" until graduation when I would maybe force myself to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. A wiser person than I (not exactly distinguished company, that's probably 95% of the world) once said "whatever you take for granted, you lose" and you could definitely say that at the time, I took my family for granted. And when it blew up, mentally it threw me into a tailspin. I pretended to hold it together for my Dad and little sister, but even they had to have known I was pretty jacked-up. Sure, the circumstances kind of forced my Dad and I to get along for the first time pretty much ever, but I was still lost, spending what time I wasn't in class or at work crawling into a bottle of Jack Daniels that an older buddy would pick up for me once a week. 

There used to be a lot more weeds to the right.

One day though, the following summer I was out by myself playing golf at good ol' Carbon Country Club. As was typical at the time I was thinking about what a mess I was and probably feeling sorry for myself. It was late in the day, right around dusk, and the course down home seemed completely deserted. I striped my tee shot down  the 18th fairway and walked to my ball. When I reached it, I had a good look around and something weird happened. I noticed the grass was the most beautiful tint of jade that I'd ever seen. The sand in the trap seemed pearl white, even though it was the same shitty sand we'd always had. The clouds in the sky looked to be on fire as the little remaining light cast what seemed to be the air around me in the most surreal shade of blue with streaks of warm orange light almost illuminating a path towards nirvana. The scene gave me pause, and then for the first time a sense of total calmness came over me as all the chaos and strife in my life seemingly lifted away. It was almost like something else was there standing next to me letting me know that everything was going to be all right. Then I stepped up to my ball, and hosel-rocketed it straight into the weeds. But you know what, I didn't care, because I was in a good state of mind. Things were going to be all right.

A monster is chained in all our hearts, waiting to be set free by obsession

Now, I'm not particularly religious. I grew up that way, hell, I was even an altar-boy at my church. I grew out of it and let's just say it's probably not in the cards for me to head down that path again. Nowadays I dabble a little bit in the Tao, and meditation, but that's more for personal enlightenment. I fucking hate rules. But I felt something that day, and I've been chasing it ever since. I competed at a fairly high level in the game for years, and I thought the charge of being in contention in a tournament might've been that feeling. But it's a whole other ballgame entirely. What I've been chasing is that sense of calmness that I can only describe as being one with the vibrations of the universe. I don't mean to come off sounding like a two-bit Rust Cohle but golf happens to be my particular tool for finding that greater sense of being. For the rest of you, it might be (and probably is) something else entirely and I can't tell you what that might be, but I encourage all of you that might be reading this to try and find it. You'll know it when you do. It's better than drugs. It's better than booze. And you'll be chasing it like a junkie taking the spike until you find it again. Hopefully what it is for you, isn't actually heroin. That shit kills people.

Anyway, today, I threw some new irons in the bag, gave them a good shakedown on the range, and blasted through eighteen holes in about two and a half hours, firing the best round I've shot all season. Afterward, I taught my golf for women class (beginning golf session 1 starts in just a month, sign up!). Tonight they learned a very difficult shot, and at the end they all had hit a bunch of shots they could be proud of. Professionally, nothing satisfies me more. Once class wrapped up, I sprinted back out for nine more holes. I work mostly evenings these days, so rarely do I get some dusk golf in, and this is my favorite time of the year to do it. I didn't hit the ball as well as I did earlier today, but that's okay. The great thing about the game is you can still have a great time, even if things are struggling. 

These days I struggle finding a balance between work and life. For the first time ever, I feel like I have my health, and mentally I'm in a pretty good place, but we didn't get much of a break this Winter and it seems like we've been grinding pretty hard since January. I'm down to one day a week off, and I'm filling what free time I've got with lessons. I enjoy being busy, but it's left a bit of a lack of time for other things in life, from relationships, to creative pursuits, to hell, even just keeping up with my yard! My work-life balance is way outta whack, but I guess it's what I signed up for all those years ago when I got into this crazy business in the first place. 

I didn't have a camera all those years ago.
Today, I did, and this still isn't as brilliant as it looked in real life.

I got to the last hole, as the sun was hanging low and found myself with an approach shot out of some heavy rough after shoving my second shot about thirty yards right of the fairway. I pulled the club out of my bag, took a couple practice swings and just before I took a stance, I took a good look around. And for just a second, that sense of balance and calm and brilliant color washed over me like a gentle flood. The only sound I could hear was a couple sprinklers in the distance as I drew my wedge back and fired a smooth dart to about five feet from the pin. The smile and daze I was in didn't leave my face as I walked up to the ball, hearing an imaginary gallery going crazy as I approached the green. I lined up my putt and slid in my eighth birdie in twenty seven holes. Pure bliss, until I remembered that I had taken a cart and left it at the spot from where I hit my approach 120 yards back up the hole. Sometimes getting caught up in the moment can make you feel like an idiot.

Into The Great Wide Open Part One: From Salt Lick to Domestic Bliss

"So, are you headed out to the course today?" queried the bright-eyed gal at the drive-up coffee shack, seeming just a little too cheerful for 6:00 AM just after she'd taken my usual order.

"You know, for the first time in five years or so, I'm on vacation." 

"Awww, that's awesome! What are you going to do?"

"Hitting the road for a couple weeks. Heading west until I can't go any further, then south." I replied.

"Right on! When are you leaving?"

"Right now." I said as I paid her for the drinks, crammed a couple singles in her tip-jar and punched the gas pedal on Giselle. 

It had been four years since VodkaRob from back in the Dorm Days and his lovely bride had gotten married on the beach at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, and it had been that long since I'd left Utah. Outside of a Mesquite, Wendover, or Evanston quick hitter to place some shitty bets on football games or pick up a Powerball ticket for my old man anyway. California and the ocean are almost always calling my name. With everything I've put myself through in the last year and a half, between the surgery and the accident, I've realized that you never know when your ticket is gonna get punched. The life we have is precious, and after the responsibilities you have towards others, you owe it to yourself to experience all it has to offer. So it was time to go and see some people and some places, and hopefully figure out a few things about myself and where my life is headed in the process. Was I able to succeed in any of those endeavors? Well, hopefully while I'm reflecting on the last couple weeks, it'll become a little more clear. In the interest of not shoving a novel's worth of content into one entry, I'll split this one up into three four parts. And away we go!

There was relatively little traffic heading west on I-80. Of course why would there be? It was 6:30 in the goddamn morning. But it made for a pretty pleasant jaunt towards Wendover and the Great Basin. it almost felt like I was racing the sun. Of course, the sun always wins. Passing Wendover, I noticed just off the highway, maybe the biggest liquor store I've ever seen with a "Grand Opening" banner hanging off it. Between that and a proposed cannabis dispensary going out there, it seems like it's going to bring the death knell to the "quickie gambling trip" where you could make the drive back to Salt Lick in a little over an hour. 75% of the highway patrol in the state is gonna be on that stretch of I-80!

Miles and miles of not much!

The rest of the drive across Northern Nevada was fairly uneventful. Other than I realized that the Lovelock Penitentiary was just a little too close to Salt Lake for my liking. What if OJ had busted out and tried to play golf at Rose Park while trying to find "the real killers"?! Also, taking a look around and overhearing a few conversations when I stopped for gas, I really kind of appreciated how uncomplicated life seemed out here in the middle of nowhere. One of my best ever golf recruits came from this area. Anyhow, I eventually arrived at my first long break in the drive, Reno Nevada, right on the border. Home of the greatest fake cop reality show of all time and the primary location of the first family vacation I could ever remember taking when I was four-years-old. Really Mom and Dad?! What in the hell is there for a four-year-old and a two-year-old to do in goddamn Reno? I'm sure they had fun. And somewhere back home I've got a photo of me at age four at the Ponderosa Ranch in some giant cowboy boots. God help my electoral chances if that ever gets out.

Sometimes nature can do better than any painting

After picking up some "party supplies," the story of which I'd really love to tell here, but alas, I work for the government so it probably wouldn't be a good idea, I had lunch at the hotel we stayed all those years ago. The road once again beckoned, so I gassed up Giselle and continued west. The barren plains of the Great Basin soon gave way to easily the most scenic stretch of this drive, up over Donner Pass. In what would be a trend on this trip, I kept having to pull over just to admire the beauty. Pretty incredible country near Truckee. It's no wonder another one of my old golf recruits still calls this place home. If I lived here, I don't think I'd ever leave. I really gained way too much entertainment looking at the telemetry stats on my car. I don't think that beautiful beast is ever going to average 70 miles to the gallon again on any stretch of road. Probably could've pushed it to 80 if I hadn't kept pulling over just to look at pretty things.

Only darker and weirder.

Unfortunately, from pretty much Sacramento to my first destination the famed California traffic took over, and with no real planned route and almost a complete reliance on Celeste, the voice in my GPS and the Waze app, I had no clue where I was going and no idea how to get around it. I kinda miss the old Rand McNally days. I'm sure it's a really lovely drive coming into the Monterey Peninsula, but I wouldn't know because soon it was dark as hell and the fog had rolled in. It looked like something out of a David Lynch movie. I eventually found my old college roommate, Big Nick's neighborhood in East Garrison, near the old Fort Ord. Unfortunately, his neighborhood is still pretty new, so his street didn't appear on any of my GPS devices. So I got as close as I could, driving through some random construction sites and gave him a call.

He still has the same haircut, I unfortunately, do not.

I wasn't too far off, and I was soon parked in front of his gorgeous looking home. I was unloading the trunk, when suddenly I heard a yell and a five-year-old had latched onto my leg. "Hi Uncle Mike!" Big Nick's little girl was about four-months-old the last time I'd seen her. Melts the old heart. With Giselle unloaded and gifts delivered (A first set of actual golf clubs for the girl, his first Metallica t-shirt for the little boy and a bottle of Highland Park for Mom and Dad), Big Nick and I hammered down a couple beers and commenced to catching up. It'd been about five years since I'd seen him and the missus, and a whole lot had changed.

They'd bounced all over the world in support of his military career, eventually temporarily settling in Monterey so he could attend a Naval engineering school. He was the only remaining Army guy left in the program left with a bunch of Navy dudes and Astronauts-in-training. A pretty awesome source of pride. He was always a great student. That might've been while we meshed so well in college. He was awesome in the classroom as a pre-med and super athletic. As is well known, I was a shitty student and schlubby looking. We were kind of a real-life Mutt and Jeff. But boy howdy, were we good at the college experience. That being said, it wasn't as shocking as I thought it''d be seeing him as a pretty domesticated family man. Granted, this is just my own uninformed observation, but seeing some of the awful shit he's seen with his job, I'm willing to bet the relative calm of a normal home life, as chaotic as it could be, has probably brought him the balance we all crave in life. Plus, he's got a great partner in this, his wife, Annie, might be one of the sweetest people I've met.

I can't believe they let a brute like
me just walk around out here.

So sweet, that the next day, even though Big Nick hadn't had any time off in god knows how long, she was totally cool with him driving my ass around to check out the touristy shit a golf pro visiting that area needed to see. Yup, Seventeen-Mile Drive and Pebble Beach were on the agenda! Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to play there in a million years, but they were cool with us just walking around there. Looked a lot different than it does on TV. This is the course that some of the greatest US Opens ever have been played. Watson chipping in on 17, Woods and his blitz of the field in 2000, and of all things, Tom Kite's holeout on #7 in 1992 during that magic summer where the seeds were planted for a twelve-year-old Nickas to start taking the game seriously. Just walking around that place was magical, at least until I saw some of the shots that the people that could actually afford to play there were hitting, then I just got pissed off. I talked to the cart-shuttle driver next to the 18th green for  awhile and asked him how many good shots he sees on an average day. "Not many," he said with a grin.

Still have no clue how that
tree grows out of that rock.

The rest of Seventeen-Mile drive was just magical. The majesty of the famed Lone Cypress, the bits of Spyglass Hill and Cypress Point that you could see from the road, a whole lot of houses that had names, it was all pretty cool! Mother nature may have carved this place, but old money fleshed it out. For big Nick, having lived here for a year, seeing this stuff was kinda old-hat, but he was a good sport pretty much every time I wanted to get out of the car. As spectacular as these sights were, my favorite part of the drive was just a plain-old section of beach. The swells were huge and I was mesmerized by how high those waves were. Looked just like the end of Point Break to me. The power of "the world's largest water hazard" is tough to deny. Just watching the waves roll in, whitecaps crashing and then get sucked back out for the next one held my rapt attention for at least ten minutes until I realized Nick was still in his car, probably bored out of his mind. Lunch in Carmel was pretty good and Nick got me to actually open up a little bit about the mysterious gal back home that I'd been hanging out with for the last few months. "Dude, I've never seen you like this," he said. "You're totally over the moon about this chick!"

"Well, I don't know about that man, but I do like her very much and have for a very long time. But I don't know what I'm doing."

"Nobody does! Things tend to just happen."

"Yeah, but they've never just happened to me. I've always been pretty terrible about opening up to anyone I've ever really had any real affection for. I always clam up, at least without the help of booze and that has never gone well. That being said, I don't drink a ton anymore so maybe things'll be different this time. Hey! Here comes the food!" I said, already getting uncomfortable. I'd have plenty of time on the road solo coming up to ruminate about that particular situation.

Sad to say, one of my lame side-quests never came to fruition as I never did find the mysterious "awesome bathroom," that our old roommate Jose's wife told me to look for. The only one I did find, looked just like the ones up at the old University Golf Course that I'd occasionally find homeless dudes crashing in when I'd open the shop and somebody forgot to lock the door.

My love life in a nutshell.
Swing and a miss!

We returned to their house to a nice surprise. Big Nick's mom, recently relocated to the area had come over to visit the grand-kids. Loved this lady back in the Dorm Days! She worked for the local health department and I knew she had an awesome sense of humor when I returned to the dorm one night after class and Nick said, "my mom said she was worried about you, so she left you a gift." I walked into my room to find a gigantic manila envelope crammed full of prophylactics. The funny thing being that I struck-out more than Aaron Judge when it came to women all through college. That being said, I listened to Loveline pretty much every night, so I fully believed in supporting safe sex. So I became the Res Hall Three condom hookup. It was great to see her again and she even volunteered to take care of the kids so Big Nick, Annie and I could go to dinner. But first, we took his daughter to her favorite spot, the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium to watch her run around like a little maniac and look at some awesome sea creatures. As she ran by, whooping it up to the kids area for the fifth time, Nick shot me a look like, "do you really want to deal with this all the time? STAY SINGLE!" "Dude, kids are kids, and there'll be a time where you look at this stuff fondly." I told him. I've got no idea if that's true or not, but it was still fun to see some unbridled joy on her face, right up until they kicked us out because they were closing.

We had a lovely dinner in Pacific Grove, and the next day was a hell of a good time as well. Big Nick and I played golf at a course called Monterey Pines on the Navy Base which is adjacent to the area where they held the legendary Monterey Pop Festival back in 1967. You could almost still hear the echoes of a 1967 Fender Stratocaster, with original pickups, and maple neck, strung upside down for a left-handed motherfucking genius ringing through the trees. My putting was still hot garbage, but a 75 on a track I'd never seen, down at sea level where the ball doesn't fly very far felt respectable. Annie cooked us a great dinner and while Nick had to retire to his office (where I'd taken temporary residence on his awesome couch) to do the homework I'd caused him to neglect for the entire weekend (some things never change!), I got the chance to play with the kids. I got to help the little girl craft a Lego masterpiece, and played a mighty game of peek-a-boo with his two year old. Those kids are already smart as hell. And were loving their first ever visit from "Bad Influence Uncle!" Loved the opportunity to hang out with them. The boy cracked me up, they had to give him a dummy TV remote because he's already figured out how to use the real thing. But he got control of the real one and I'm pretty sure he set the TiVo to record Houston Astros games for the next decade. I switched the remotes when he wasn't looking, but the little dude knew something was amiss and kept trying to trade me the dummy for the real thing. Given enough time, he'd have probably outsmarted me for it, but it was bedtime for everybody. And this awesome visit with my old brother and his family had finally come to an end.

Never piss off anything with
a ten-foot wingspan!

Life goes on, and for a busy military family, Monday puts a sobering end to the weekend's shenanigans. The next day I woke up early enough to see Big Nick off to school. This had been the longest we'd hung out together since we were in college. Couldn't have had a better visit. I don't think I could ever thank them enough for their wonderful hospitality. And seriously, in all honesty, I'm kinda jealous about the life those two had put together. I'm kind of a cynical old shit, and I really admired just how happy their family was. They do it the right way. I packed up my bags, loaded up Giselle, gave the Annie and the kids a big hug and took off. I had one more stop before the journey continued. On the recommendation of my friends Mark and his fiance' Steph, I had to play the "Poor Man's Pebble Beach" (I fit the description!), the Pacific Grove Golf Links.

Just unreal.

Walking on was pretty easy and I got paired with some nice local folks. I don't think I can say enough good things about that course. It is a tale of two nines, with the front-nine hilly and winding through the neighborhood. A small herd of deer followed us around for a couple holes. You had to be a real shotmaker here, and be able to shape your shots well and I was really feeling it, working the ball both directions better than I have pretty much all season. But the best part of that track, and the section that earned that course its reputation was its stellar back nine.

Somehow I overcame all the
distraction to pipe this drive!

The back-nine was more of a traditional links-style layout right on the sea! We're talking huge dunes, crazy wind, a pretty bitchin' lighthouse, crashing waves, all that jazz! Truly golf the way it was meant to be played. I saved my best golf of the trip on that stretch. Only finding serious trouble once and making a great save out of an iceplant on one of the dunes. The dudes I played with were very helpful in letting me know where I could miss, as well as indulging in my dipshit tourist act and clicking off a few pictures for me. I played the closing nine at 1-under to card a 72 and put a close to the Monterey portion of the trip. I probably should've finished the season with that round. I don't think it could've gone better. I thanked the kind folks in the shop for allowing me to walk on easily and talked business for a little while. I could've hung out at that place for hours. But the call of the road was too much to overcome. I had another dumbass bucket list item to check off: Cannonball Running down the Pacific Coast Highway. I stowed my gear, filled my water jug, gave Giselle a loving pat on the dashboard and hit the ignition. The real work of this trip was about to begin. The solo section where I had nothing but my own issues in my head to confront and there might not be a better place to do that than the most awe-inspiring stretch of road in North America.

Holy shit kids! Part one was WAY longer than I thought  it'd be! Thanks for suffering through it this far! Things get a little more introspective in the next segment, I promise.

Stay tuned for part two later this week:  A Mudslide, A Funny Farm and a Shiny House On A Hill

Tales From The UGC Part 1: The Commute

I might be possibly indirectly
 responsible for THIS GUY

Good god! Seems like it's been a hundred years since I've put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard so to speak in service of entertaining you, my dear readers, who if my usage stats are to be believed are mostly from behind the former Iron Curtain. Hello Russia! Anyway, Winter is setting in, which means I might have a little time on my hands, so like I've said at least ten times in the past, I'm planning on getting a little more frequent with my posts, because I feel like I've got a few things to say. Now, before I get started, I just want to say, I appreciate you guys' support over the years. I recently undertook a major lifestyle change. No, not that kind of lifestyle change (not that there's anything wrong with that) but I can promise you, this blog won't turn into one of those "My Journey" type of deals. Yeah, I might dedicate one post to that when I'm done, but that's it. I'd much rather just spin some hopefully entertaining tales from this crazy life I've led.

The Mighty UGC! No longer exists!

That leads us to today's story. It's kind of a quick one. I worked for seven and a half years at the University of Utah on what used to be a little nine-hole executive-style golf course, right in the middle of campus. I started out as a guest instructor for some junior camps in 2003, and by the time the powers that be decided to drop a building on top of us and shut us down in 2009, I'd worked my way into being the last ever Head Professional of the UGC and pretty much the last man standing. They were some of the best times in my life with friends I still have today and the stories I have are innumerable, so much like my "Dorm Days" series. today will be the first post in an occasional series I'd like to call, "Tales From The UGC."

"The Commute"

A fine place for vagrants to read newspapers on
a rattan cane and masturbate to Internet porn!

Not long after I was hired at the UGC, my beloved giant 1982 Chevy Blazer, affectionately known to my high school buddies as "Sweet Ride" partially exploded on me during a trip to my hometown to see my buddy Rat for a haircut. That truck was legendary, especially during the "Dorm Days" as the most reliable way for my roommates and I in room 302 to get around, safely and in style. There was no mistaking who was pulling up when it's diesel-ly growl approached. But she'd finally given up the ghost and since I had about $500 to my name at any one time (THE LIFE OF A GOLF PRO, SO GLAMOROUS!) my options for getting to and from work (and really anywhere else) were limited to public transportation. Thankfully, I lived in a not-so-horrible condo about a block and a half from the Salt Lake City Library and the light rail station adjacent to it. Riding the TRAX train every day to work was amazingly convenient (No gas! A drop off right next to our 5th hole! A semi-convenient schedule!) and provided me with endless people watching opportunities.

One early Fall day I boarded a train for my normal afternoon shift. There were about seven stops between the library and my drop-off point on our 5th Fairway. The car was about half full as I thankfully rarely had to commute during the busy parts of the day. I popped in the ear buds, cranked up a little "Heartbreak Boulevard" by Shotgun Messiah and settled in for the fifteen minute ride. 

Two stops in a guy boards the train and sits in the seat across the aisle from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell he bore striking similarity in appearance to a certain long-time Carbon High School football coach, who in turn was the spitting image of long-time WWF wrassler, former Governor of Minnesota and current underground bunker-resident Jesse "The Body" Ventura. As a matter of fact, I thought it actually WAS Coach, so rather than just staring out the window, like I usually did, I actually popped the ear buds out when he motioned towards me that he wanted to say something.

"Hey man, lot of pretty girls on this train."

"Well yeah, it's kind of the main artery up to the University," I said, a little apprehensively. 

"Yeah, the State is making me take a bunch of classes up there, so I can get out of the halfway house. You grow up around here, man?" He asked.

"Naw man, a few hours south of here. A little town on the high desert called Price. How about you?"

You can trust me to get you
 the good shit, Gorilla!

"Kansas City, had to split town though. A few hombres were bringing the heat down on me," his eyes starting to dart back and forth, "I've been to Price. Got busted down there, a couple years ago."

Here we go, a good story, maybe! "What did they nail you on?"

"Dealing Crank. The market down there is goddamn great these days!"

"Yeah, that's what I hear." The economy was tanking in the early 2000's, and my hometown's drug issues were getting pretty gnarly. But his comment was making me wonder if there was a magazine like Investor's Business Daily for the drug trade. 

"We were making money hand-over-fist! Then one day, a new guy started hanging around. Goddamn narcs. Next thing you know, I'm in County getting hosed down and they were breaking out the rubber gloves." He said grinning, way too matter of factly for my comfort level.

"Well, at least it seems like you're getting your shit together man. They eventually let you out." This dude might be Heisenberg.

Had to jump a fence, to get to work,
 but damn it was convenient!

"Yeah man. These classes have been great for getting some new connections! You guys are sitting on a gold mine up here."

I just kind of gave it a snicker. Time to pull the plug on this conversation. "Good luck to ya, pal."

He nodded and grinned, "Lot of pretty girls on this train."

I punched the button and jumped off the train a couple stops early. Hiking clear across campus to the clubhouse. It was already a weird day.