Black Cloud.

I Have The Kind of Luck That...

On Thursday I paid off my truck.
Yay!

On Wednesday I lost my transmission...

I've been told...
I have that kind of Luck,
that if they cut a woman in half,
I'd get the half that talks.

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Weekend. Post Jammers 2015.

Weekend. The First Weekend after the Jammers 2015.

There is kind of void, a sadness that settles in after Josh and the Jammers leave after such a great weekend. And this 2015 Jammers WAS great. Conditions were awesome. Seabreeze. Mid 80's. Winds around 13+ from the East. You could not have asked for a better weekend for Paul & Cheryl to host 30+ players from across the country and Puerto Rico to jam 8 hours a day for 3-4-5 days on the best beach in the world. Jacksonville Beach.

Here is Last Throw on Tuesday to officially end the Jammers weekend....Paul Kenny, me, Dave Murphy and Steve Scannell. We are still standing!

But this post is not really about the Jammers. It is about the first weekend AFTER the Jammers.

Josh has gone home. I went back to work. And now I have a 3-day weekend to recover and recharge my batteries. Feels like I have not seen Sportscenter in like 10 days. And holy hell, what happened to the Red Sox?!

Normally, I sleep about 5 hours of interrupted sleep a night. Last night, I slept 12 hours. Big smile.

Saturday Morning:

Michele asked: "So what are your plans for today?"
Me: "My only goal today is to finish reading my book."
(That is like 69 less goals than my typical answer on any given weekend)

So fast forward....

David needed shoes. Went to Kohl's. Shoe Carnival. TJMaxx. Academy Sports....It's a Memorial Day Weekend. Traffic sucked. I swear I hit 69 red lights and made 6.9 U-turns and I said the F-word every 6.9 minutes.

Ended up buying not only shoes and flops for David (because who's flip flop decides to break in store number 2 of 4?) but we also returned with a bag of pool toys for him and Matthew in exchange for him doing cat litter duty for the next 10 days... (yeah, says a proud Dadman, I know how to negotiate)

So now it's 4pm and I still have not even opened my book.

We are poolside, Beer in hand. Book in hand. Ahhh....

And I suddenly realize... I am physically incapable as a responsible Dadman to read a single page of my library book that was due last Tuesday. Never EVER buy snorkels for a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old and expect to read at the pool! We also brought a few squirt guns...

Relaxing has never been SO exhausting... sigh.

You can only imagine.



So, Carl, What do you want to do on Sunday?...........................................


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Feeling Like My Frisbee Player Self Again

Feeling Like My Frisbee Player Self Again

I saw a frisbee golf tournament advertised on Facebook a few weeks ago. A buddy of mine, whom I've known for many years was holding a small tournament on his property, Out Yonder, about an hour away. Hhhhmmm.... I don't know, I thought… but maybe...

You see, I have not competed in a disc golf tournament in about 10 years. Wow. Time flies.

Last summer, I hurt my knee on that very course being advertised. Since then, and only in the last 2 months I've played only 3 partial rounds. Which sadly means, I've only played about maybe 6 rounds in about 2 years... How can I even call myself a frisbee player? What gives me that right?

You see, Frisbee is my thing.

In Hawaii, as a kid, Little League was my thing. I loved baseball. Playing shortstop, and being a pitcher, that was my thing. I loved being recognized for my efforts I put into baseball. I cared about the game. It was part of who I was. I loved being on that ballfield. I felt like myself.

When we moved to California, I didn't have the success in baseball like I did in Hawaii. I still loved to play, still loved the game, but Little League only lasts til a certain age, and then it ends. When it came to HS Baseball, I was told my freshman year that I wasn't ready, and was cut from the team. I was devastated. I spent weekends in my pajamas. I had no friends until almost the end of the year. I never felt like myself.

But I found a couple of friends nearly as miserable as me, and we cut school, went to Miller Park or Folsom Lake, complained about how things sucked and we smoked pot. And we played Frisbee.

In 1979, two members of the Sacramento Wizards came to Bella Vista High School and did a frisbee demo at lunchtime. And only because it was 1979, I can use the term, and I fully mean it, “I was STOKED.” 

Frisbee filled that baseball void. I started playing Disc Golf, Ultimate; throwing Distance and MTA. I learned to delay. I began to feel like “myself” somehow again.

For the last 30 years many of my decisions in life were frisbee related. Many of my best memories are frisbee related. Many of my best friends are frisbee related. Ninety percent of the totes packed away in the garage are frisbee related.

I traveled to tournaments. I ran tournaments. I arranged trips, weekends, roadtrips, dinners, margaritas and girlfriends around frisbee. When I got married, I surprised Michele with our rings being tied to a SkyStyler. Even our decision as a family to move to Florida was based on frisbee. (Sorry Mom. Hi Paul.)

Living in Connecticut, I have so many great memories and so many close friends from playing frisbee for over a decade in New England as a member of NEFA. That was when playing frisbee felt like Family. And yeah, I felt like, Hey, this is Me. It was kind of like a confidence; an identity.

Let's fast forward and rewind to about 10 years ago. We moved to Florida. I played in a disc golf tournament when we first moved to Jacksonville. It felt cut throat and way too competitive. This time it was me saying, I wasn't ready. I was devastated. I felt like I had been cut from the team. From the sport.

 

So for the last 10 years I've let work, family, debts, and stress rule my life. Immersed in work, being a husband, a dad; being a provider. And never fully succeeding at any of it, it seems. Comparatively speaking, I've played a little Freestyle and recreational rounds of Disc Golf, but never fully committed to either.

So Friday night was kinda huge. Not able to fully explain it, but feeling Nervous. Totally overpacking  the night before. Loading the truck. Filling a cooler.

Waking up on a tournament morning….I savor the smell of an early weekend morning as everyone else is still in bed.

Then.......it comes back to me - it’s almost like a ritual....

McDonalds for 2 Egg McMuffins. Coffee steaming up the inside of the windshield from the dashboard. The smell of coffee in the truck is so different going to a frisbee tournament than it is driving to work. Getting gas. Getting settled in for that ride to a tournament.

Pyamids. Marston Mills. Buffomville. Maple Hill. Newport. All these memories come to mind.

Picking the right CD to listen to on the ride up there. Typically Sister Hazel. But not too loud. I want to hear my thoughts. I visualize the course hole-to-hole. The Anticipation.

Arrival. I park. I put on my cleats. Is it just me, or are your frisbee cleats the most comfortable shoes you own? I choose the discs I think will find the fairways, miss the trees and avoid the pond. If only I could putt, I say to myself.  I sit on the edge of the tailgate and pack my bag for the first round. It is so silent. And everything around me is so vivid – the colors are saturated and bright. Dan, I peed in your woods.

I take a deep breath. I say a quick prayer to say Thanks for this opportunity, and for Him to “show me the way in which to walk, for in Him, I have entrusted my soul…”  Yeah, I do that. 

And then I walked through the fence gate. I stopped, looked around and exhaled. What have I gotten myself into?

And suddenly I am my Frisbee Player Self again.

I take that first step forward. I hear my golf shoes crunch firmly beneath me.

And it feels great.

I've missed me.

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