Some years ago, almost in another lifetime, I taught school.

Those were some of the best years of my life, and quite possibly, the most traumatic for my students.

Someday, I may write a bit about those years.

But I do recall something I often told my students during creative writing; “When it feels right—write.

I’ve tried to endorse that same adage for when and what I write.

But sometimes I get derailed on what to write.  It feels right, but other factors float in, like, they won’t like this, or it’s too long, or it’s about such and such again, or . . . 

I don’t pay those floating thoughts too much mind though; seems like it often distills down to something I’m enthused about and want to get out of my system. 

Quite often, I end of writing with maybe one or two people in mind whom I hope will read what I have written, because it pertains to them. 

And if the rest who peek in at the blog get some enjoyment or distraction out of it, then that is good too.

All that for this.  I’m going to write about disc golf again.  Those not interested may go on merrily with their day now.  Because I’ve thought about this off and on and now it feels right to write about it.  Even though I don’t know why I write on this subject; my Udisc app shows I’ve played over 50 rounds, my score hasn’t improved much.

Morley Field

My good wife and I were in San Diego for several days to celebrate our 25^th anniversary.  And I had my disc’s along, just in case, although I was fairly determined to make it the case.

The weather for the end of our stay looked grim with rain and wind, so I chose what looked like the best day and planned accordingly. 

I didn’t realize how devasted I was about to become.

That was back when I was fairly confident in my disc golf game.  It may well be that the game I played on Morley field changed my confidence level indefinitely.

Because, I naively thought it would be a lot like home. 

Sure, you had to pay $5 to play, but that was okay; I was in California, by the way, where a nacho appetizer, shared by my good wife and I and our two drinks cost a nice $45.  Or where a soft drink ran you in the $7.90 range. 

But when my Uber finally got us there, I wasn’t so sure he had the wrong place.  This was Thursday morning, and the place was loaded with cars.  And people.

I sallied forth, still pumped in my own self confidence.  I had this.

We got to the first tee and were told by those standing there that they were waiting on the group in front of them who had a 10:00 tee time.  Okay, so I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Then, as the 10:00 teer’s teed off, an older fellow came striding up and asked, “Do you mind if I play through?  I got stuck in traffic and had a 10:00 tee time.  (Turns out he was a pro golfer)

I was getting the heebie-jeebies’ already.

There were two nice looking Spanish fellows following us and they said they had played the course a fair bit.  I invited them to join me, on the pretense of being friendly, but really because my nerves didn’t look to handle this alone.

Because, ahead, I saw many many trees.  And hills. And rocks. And people. 

I selected an old fried of a disc and spoke a few quiet words with him and let fly. 

He vacated for the parking lot, and almost creamed a few high-end California vehicles.

My bladder suddenly tried to empty itself.  Right there.

But I counselled with it and after a few hiccups, it submitted to me.

I hit a tree next, and finally bogeyed on hole 1.

I made par on hole 2, but things started going downhill, literally from there.  And it was at hole 2 that started noticing the benches.  There were two benches by each tee.  I began to realize more and more as my vision slowly morphed away from the tunnel it was in.  People were sitting on these benches.  Watching me.  People were at the next basket, watching me.  People were everywhere, watching me. 

Suddenly, it didn’t matter how I tried to set myself up to throw.  Everything went whacky.  Whacky the tree, whacky the rock, whacky hill, and whacky fence. 

The Spanish guys proved to be a good decision.  They acted as tour guides and coaches all at once. They also became psychological counselors when they saw how frayed at the edges I was getting. 

For sure at hole 9.  I threw into a thicket of brambles and thorns.  When I tried to toss out, it made it ten feet and stopped again.  When I tossed out the second time, I watched incredulously as it landed flat on the slope in front of me, and slid down, flat, not rolling, for a good ten feet back to me.  The hill was that steep. 

The Spanish guys were hanging around par.  At least that is what they claimed, but they told me that if the other one didn’t catch them cheating then it was okay. 

I was done.  I tried to convince my good wife we needed to quit, the wind was coming up and everything else.  She said if we had come this far, we needed to finish.  It seemed she was enjoying this for various reasons and was intent on keeping it going for those reason’s sake. 

And so I threw, gamely, high up, and smack into the trees.  And there it stayed.  The Spanish guys told me there were some pipes there for problems like that by the clubhouse.  I slinked and crouched behind every available grove of trees on my way over there, and even more so on the way back with the blazing white pipe in my hands.  But it worked, and I eventually finished the course, not necessarily having fought a good fight. 

We waited, for the first time during our trip, a long time on Uber to get there.

My score was 20 something more than the Spanish guys.

I bet, if I knew where to look, I’d find some pro disc golfer’s blog about that day and a certain white bearded guy that he watched trying to play in a most frantic sort of way. 

That is, if he could type while laughing so hard.