The Ash Creek Papers

I guess the first time I picked up golf clubs I was 10 or so. Our family had a membership at Racebrook Country Club in Orange, CT. This was a golf club. At the time there were no tennis courts. No swimming pool. No other sporting activities to detract from the main 18 holes, and the secondary 9.

I was told that I had a “natural” swing… even when I shanked a shot, I was praised for my swing and how, with a little practice, and a few lessons, I could tame those faults and become a real good golfer.

But I never had a calling to become a real good golfer. Rather my calling was simply to enjoy Sundays with my Father and Brother playing Racebrook’s course… a course that did not overly penalize a player for straying from the fairway.

We get old. I suppose it is natural to magnify memories connected to our youth. We strip away the painful parts, and just leave what is sweet.

Nothing wrong with that.

I loved those Sundays with my Dad and Paul.

It has been years since I have picked up a 3 Iron (my best club). And while I never enjoyed watching golf on TV back then… I do now. Technology is far better. It’s easier to follow the flight of a ball. Better cameras, and more of them. But more important — Tiger Woods is playing.

I wince at the thought of him not making the cut at Winged Foot. But I followed his progress each round on the links of Royal Liverpool on the ESPN website. And on Sunday I watched the final 18 on television.

More than beating the field, it was the way in which he beat the field that truly impressed. In 72 holes of golf, he used his driver (his “howitzer”) but once. He let his opponents out-distance him off the tee, and then beat them off the fairway with his long irons. He dropped putts from every length… perhaps most stunning were his long range approach putts from the far reaches of those huge greens.

When he picked up his ball from the cup on 18 to the applause of the grandstand, he took off his signature Nike cap, punched the sky, waved to the crowd, acknowledged the congratulatory hand shake of his playing partner, Sergio Garcia… and then he hugged his caddie. Their embrace remained, and we didn’t need to see Tiger’s face to know that he was crying into the shoulder of his caddie.

His Father had been there to see his 10 previous Major Championships… and for the first time in Tiger’s life, Earl Woods was not in the gallery to greet his son after a major victory.

I guess the way I see it… Earl was there… he was just viewing it from a different angle.

I think the spine of the heat wave has been broken; but not before we had a flash storm that alternated between headache producing thunder, crashing rain & crashing rain with hail… and, oh yes, lightening.

Route 1 could not cope with the volume of rain and the road looked like a river. The parking lot in front of Grapes (which I refer to as our Lido) looked like high tide with water bubbling up from the catch basin.

Maybe the intensity of the storm was fitting… it matched the unbearable heat and humidity that preceded it.

But the storm tapered, and presumably moved down the line to the East and North. And it was 9:00PM and the close of the business day had arrived. Time to head home. I had expected to see in the storm’s wake, numbers of trees downed and sections of neighborhoods without light.

I had charted a course back to Woodbury… first the Merritt Parkway in a northeasterly path, then nearly due north on Route 8, exiting to back roads… first Route 334, then 188 before hooking into 67 and finally 6.

It’s a route I have taken many times. And I was hoping that the storm’s path had hugged the shoreline and had not moved inland. I don’t enjoy driving in storms, nor do I like to suffer detours around roads blocked by fallen trees.

Aside from some branches that had made their way to the edges of the Merritt, my route was damage free… at least from what I could see.

Yet it appeared that I was following the storm… you know the sequence, the sky changes, then thunder, then lightening, then heavy drops that splat, then heavy rain with thunder and lightening, then wind and then finally as the rain recedes, a trail of lightening remains as a reminder of what had just taken place.

And now as I turned north on Route 8 I could see flashes of light in the sky ahead. The road was dry, still cars slowed, maybe worried for what lay over the next ridge. This section of Route 8 is fairly open with good lines of sight, and on what is usually a “fast road” to be doing less than 70mph seemed a crime… yet there was something scary about those flashes of light. So yes, slow down.

During an Army Reserve Summer Camp at Indiantown Gap, I had the opportunity to see (and hear) cannon fire at night. I was miles from the artillery range; but what I saw and heard gave me chills and respect for the sorry grunts who had to endure shelling in the trenches of the Sommes in 1914.

And when I turned off of 8 and on to 334 those flashes of light loomed closer… and I thought about how cannon fire eerily lit up a sky… you knew that a flash represented the discharge of an artillery round, and that flash upon flash represented a battery laying down a barrage in a sector.

On 334 and then 188, the road narrows… several hills, tight curves and trees that line the lane. And in the sky, sudden bursts of light. No sound of thunder… merely a pop of light in the night sky.

It’s not like I haven’t seen lightening before; but on this night it was different. And it was different because of the sky. The heavens lacked uniformity. The sky was not cloaked in a flat cloud cover. Rather the sky was a patchwork quilt of layered puffy clouds with the night’s “true sky” making only sporadic appearances thru apertures in the clouds.

On another night the moon would have reflected against those clouds lending a “haunted house” quality to the landscape.

But on this night it was blazes of lightening that projected ochre and mauve thru the cloud formations. More than anything else, the change of colours recalled the variety of light seen on the 4th of July when you see the effects of the fireworks; but not the fireworks themselves.

This was not mere lightening. This was a light show. And it made any staged expensive fireworks/light/laser show insignificant by comparison.

Italy: Barolo vs. France: Bordeaux. EDGE: France. It’s all about Chateau Latour. Simply put, Latour is the best wine made anywhere on this planet earth (and unless they’re growing grapes on the moons of Jupiter… make that in this star system).

Italy: Brunello di Montalcino vs. France: Burgundy. EDGE: Italy. OK. I have a big weakness for Valdicava. The ’01 Vintage maybe the second or third best wine I have ever had.

Italy: Campari vs. France: Lillet. EDGE: Italy. Sure it looks like medicine, and yes it’s bitter. But served with cold club soda and an orange slice it kills a thirst and doesn’t kill your taste for dinner (and a terrific wine). And besides, it looks like medicine… isn’t medicine good for you?

Italy: Zabaglione vs. France: Creme Brulee. EDGE: France. Toughie. I love them both. I just love the contrast between the caramelized “crust” and the creamy fill.  Gotta have Creme Brulee.

Italy: Federico Fellini vs. France: Francois Truffaut. EDGE: France. On “paper” Fellini takes the prize; but I find the film Fahrenheit 451 so compelling. Scary stuff, maybe more for the Bradbury book behind it. Still, Orwellian and chilling.

Italy: Ferrari vs. France: Citroen. EDGE: Italy. No one makes better looking automobiles than Italy. Even Fiat is better looking than 90% of the cars made.

Italy: Osso Buco vs. France: Boeuf Bourguinon. EDGE: Italy. I actually prefer this dish with a Rhone; but it is oh so good with Barbera, too.

Italy: Anzio vs. France: Normandy. EDGE: France. Actually you could throw in the Invasion of Sicily and it wouldn’t add up to D-Day… still the most amazing military achievement in History.

Italy: Coliseum in Rome vs. France: Cave Paintings in Lascaux. EDGE: France. You can’t go back much further in antiquity to find an equal representation of human expression.

Italy: Linguine con Vongole vs. France: Steak Frite. EDGE: Italy. I changed my mind three times on this one. There is something supremely satisfying about tiny little clams cooked in the shell sitting in a bed of fresh linguine with garlic & oil with a glass or two of Soave Classico or a Sancerre. 

Italy: Romeo & Juliet vs. France: Henry V. EDGE: France. Here we have locations for two of Shakespeare’s plays. What could be better than the fields of Agincourt, site for one of History’s greatest Battles?

Italy: “Il Canto Degli Italiani” vs. France: “La Marseillaise”. EDGE: France. I like the Marseillaise better than our National Anthem! At least you can sing it… Metropolitan Opera stars can’t sing our Anthem! Besides what do they sing in Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca? Enough said.

Italy: The Roman Empire vs. France: The First Empire. EDGE: Italy. You can toss in the Second Empire and the First Republic and it’s still Italy.

Italy: Il Tricolore vs. France: Le Tricolore. EDGE: France. Rumor has it that Lafayette stole the colour scheme from our Flag; but for sure the French flag and its scheme has been the inspiration for many other Nation’s flags, including Italy’s (which was created after Unification in 1848… some 54 years after France’s Flag was first hoisted).

Italy: Little Italy vs. France: Little France. EDGE: Italy. Do you enjoy strolling thru the New York’s French Quarter looking for onion soup? Not!

Italy: Andrea Bocelli vs. France: Maurice Chevalier. EDGE: Italy. Yes, different styles of music; but both are popular representations of music from their respective periods and Bocelli has not needed to switch to singing in English to enhance his popularity here.

Italy: Joe Dimaggio vs. France: Greg LeMond. EDGE: Italy. One of the best players ever… ever. LeMond has the distinction of being the first American to win the Tour de France. A great honor… but hey! We’re talkin’ Joe D heah!

Italy: Aldo Vanucci vs. France: Jacques Clouseau. EDGE: France. Two tremendous roles portrayed by Peter Sellers. In After the Fox he played a crook with big ideas, and he carried out his heist in the guise of the great Italian Film Director Federico Fabrizi. Hysterical. Still not good enough to surpass Inspector Jacques Clouseau of La Sûreté.

Italy: High Renaissance vs. France: Impressionism. EDGE: France. Yes, Michelangelo was great, as was Raphael & da Vinci; but all those fussy religious themes are glorified poster art… I’ll still take Monet, Manet, Degas & Renoir (Besides, I think her smile was over rated).

Italy: World Cup vs. France: World Cup. EDGE:Pick’em. Sorry. What a ridiculous way to settle a Championship that is decided but once every four years. A “Shootout”? Why didn’t they put Zidane and Materazzi in the center of the pitch by themselves… Materazzi could have repeated his insult, “your mother wears combat boots”… and then the winner would be declared after a hair pulling & eye gouging fight.