deVere at Large
by Paul deVere
This is what happens when you do your job too well. For almost a decade I have offered my humble advice to better a player’s performance on the golf course. Then, out of the blue, it happens: Some golf organization claims the average golfer’s handicap has gone DOWN for the first time in recorded history!
I am just returning to our quite modest abode from a journey to a grocery where you are forced to buy a minimum of four of any one item because that’s the way they wrap their otherwise reasonably priced products.
My publisher calls with the news: “You did it!” she exclaims.
What? I innocently ask.
“The national handicap!” she effuses. “It’s down! You’ve achieved your goal!”
Well (I modestly scrape the toe of my spikeless golf shoe to and fro), my contribution was small compared to ….
“YOU changed the face of the game! YOU!”
I have never heard my publisher so passionate about my writing.
“Now,” she continues, “YOU MUST WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!” She seems beside herself.
Like what?” I inquire.
“ANYTHING BUT GOLF!” she all but pleads.
A hint, I ask.
“LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, REALITY!” she urges.
Oh, that, I cautiously reply. Is this kind of like a promotion?
“There you go,” my publisher says with a smile so broad I can hear it over the phone as she disconnects.
So here I am. Sole proprietor of a new domain: the world at large. My charge? Through observation, bring order to chaos. Deliver small bits of wisdom to mankind before we all slip through the ozone layer. Challenge the status. Question the quo.
And so it begins …
“Daddy?”
Yes, my darling daughter?
“This is getting really heavy.”
I glance sideways at my beautiful, almost 11-year-old child. The 30 pound bag of dog food is delicately balanced on her small shoulder.
“Dad!” my almost 11-year-old son chimes in. “My back!”
The store had one of those specials, “buy four, get the fifth free. I’m not sure what to do with 50 pounds of whole garlic, but the deal seemed right at the time.
We are at the back door of our house. It is locked. The dogs, who need walking immediately, are cheerfully barking inside.
I have a 72-roll family pack of toilet paper balanced on one arm, five plastic grocery bags crammed to overflowing in my other, and I am trying to remember which pocket I put the house key in.
Oh yes, it is raining.
“DADDY!”
Which brings me to the point. No matter how good your recall, what are the odds that the key is in the first pocket you check?
“DAD!”
I’ve figured it out.
“WOOF!”
The formula is P (number of pockets) + Ft (feet from the car) + R (rain = 2) + C (waiting children) + D (waiting dogs) = X (odds).
“Daddy, PLEASE!”
Knowing the formula is important, especially if you are prone to minor fits of uncontrolled anger about your fading, short-term memory. Recognizing that the odds, according to my formula, are so outrageous, finding the keys on only your fifth attempt makes you feel quite blest, and your blood pressure remains stable.
As the door clicks open and the dogs joyfully bound out, upending only one bag of groceries, and you actually reach the phone before it stops ringing, and it isn’t a very earnest telemarketer on the other end with some really great news about your opportunity to get an extended warranty for your 14 year-old car (the call is for my daughter), you just know, minus the two pounds of ground beef the dogs are fighting over, this really IS your lucky day!
“DAD? WHY DON’T YOU JUST KEEP THE KEYS IN YOUR HAND?” my continually curious son, still somewhat doubled over from the garlic, inquires.
As the dogs lick the shrink wrap clean of any remnants of raw beef, I admit that this might be a plausible option.
Originally published 1998, CH2 Magazine. This was the column that switched emphasis from golf to everything else. Copyright 2021, Saron Press, Ltd.