Should I Wait?
Patience was wearing thin.
Before each drive, Johnny would look off into the distance and see the group in front of us pulling the pin on the green some 400 yards away.
"Should I wait until they're done?" He'd ask.
"Hit the ball!" Chuck and I would yell in unison.
Following what would be a dribbler that would send Johnny and Sam into fits of laughter, Johnny would turn to walk away.
"Pick up your tee!" I would yell out.
18 times I told him to grab his special tee.
(It's there in his mouth in the photo).
And I look dumbfounded in the photo because just before he took it he said:
"My phone doesn't work."
I was trying to figure out what he was doing wrong.
He snapped the photo.
Yet, the 17th hole was the one that got me.
I was seated in the cart...
...very physically worn.
Johnny was right in front of me, lining up his shot.
I watched the placement of his club. He actually had the ball centered in his stance. He had the right club. He looked to be lining it up perfectly.
"Head stays down," I said for the 400th time.
Then I waited.
And waited.
Eyes never leaving the spot where his club would meet the ball.
Waited some more.
Finally looked up at him...
...and he was smiling menacingly, with two raised eyebrows.
"Hit the ball!" I said, laughing.
He was simply standing there, doing it all right, waiting for me to glance up so that he could laugh.
I did laugh, but my heart jumped straight to my throat.
There were so many moments when he pulled the exact same antics as Jeff.
Neither Sam or Johnny were good.
It didn't bother either one of them in the least.
Sam took four swings at a ball, never moving it an inch.
"Getting prepared," he said after each missed stroke and then the two of them would be crippled in laughter.
The more he missed the harder they laughed.
The laughter echoed all along the fairways of the same course that I had played hundreds of times with my brother...
...who was always looking to make us laugh.
"Did you have fun?" I asked the boys as we headed towards home.
"The not talking when other people are swinging is bullshit," Johnny said.
That about sums up our day.
My back aches, and my legs are buzzing, to be sure...
...but other muscles also hurt from non-use...
...the ab and face muscles from laughing that had been a forgotten part of my game.
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