The highlight of the recent PCBF tournament was probably the snapping turtle near the culvert on number 17. He was slimy and fierce-looking, but I moved in anyway with the stealth of a 10-handicapper, iPhone camera ready to snap the varmint into Pulitzer lore.
Chick and Judge watched from a safe distance.
“Do they move fast?” I asked, knowing surely they didn’t, yet nevertheless very wary of being snapped and chewed on - torn from my Footjoys to my Masters cap.
“Do they move fast?” Chick mocked.
They don’t move at all, in fact, or at least this particularly indifferent subject didn’t. I got my photos (see him on Facebook), and the three of us headed back to our 50-yard wedge shot, which we would nestle in to 25-feet, again.
None of us could make putts, and so our 63 was just edged out by two 57s. To add insult to injury, I was a yard short on the long drive. Kingbossdaddy, my cart mate on the day, later invoked the name of Thor in reference to my Taylor Made hammer-driver. Thor’s was called Mjolnir, which literally means “that which smashes.” I kind of like that. In Norse mythology, Mjolnir was one of the god’s most fearsome weapons, capable of leveling mountains. But last Friday it was a half-yard short.
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Speaking of a half-yard short, college football season is a month away, specifically Wednesday, Aug. 27 when Abilene Christian takes on Georgia State in the battle of ferocious felines in the Georgia Dome. And we get right into it the next night with Texas A&M, sans Johnny Football, at South Carolina.
Saturday, Aug. 30 games that look interesting are:
• Florida State vs. Oklahoma State – last years champs after vanquishing the SEC’s best move to another conference and hopefully shuck their crab-leg thieving blues.
• Penn State vs. Central Florida – Commodores pull for Knights as Franklin makes debut.
• West Virginia vs. Alabama – King Nick admitted even he couldn’t motivate against the Sooners after that crazy 109-yard missed field goal return. I’d hate to be a Mountaineer, or for that matter, a Hog on September 20, which I will be.
• Arkansas at Auburn – Sigh.
• Clemson at Georgia – Looking forward to this. Two teams with lofty expectations.
• Wisconsin vs. LSU – Last year, the Badgers crushed UMass 45-0 in their first game. I guess the Minutemen were busy on August 30.
Then Monday night, Sept. 1,
we get Miami at Louisville. Thanks again Bobby.
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Speaking of first games of the year, I was reading my favorite section, the obituaries, one morning this week. This is often where you find the most creative words and wonderful old names. Like the 81-year old Ila Mae Hall, who is survived by, among others, her sister Ester and 19 great-grand children. And there was Cornelia “Peaches” Pettis of North Little Rock, who had a caregiver named Hattie Love.
I then came across the obituary for Gloria F. Wiggins, nicknamed Glo, but who the plumbers and electricians called “Miz Wig” when she was the “foreman” of her and her husband Austin’s (Big Wig) homebuilding company.
I remember Mrs. Wiggins; didn’t know her well, but my mom did. They were two of that wonderful group of southern ladies who had settled in North Little Rock.
What I also learned from her obit on Wednesday was that Austin had been a dive-bomber pilot in WWII, and that she worked in a bomb-loading plant during that war and had her own pilot’s license. She also got serious about oil painting when the couple lived on the island of Oahu.
Besides painting, she loved writing and dancing and “throwing the best garage sales ever.”
And, I learned, we share the same birthday.
Godspeed Gloria.
Jay Edwards is editor-in-chief of the Daily Record and an award-winning columnist.
Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com v