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Golf and Dysfunctional Families. Fun!
Where am I now?
In Chiangmai, Thailand, with my wife sitting across the bedroom watching Netflix videos. I love this life. Outside, a monk spoke for a long time on a loudspeaker at a funeral down the road.
This morning I played golf with New Orleans Joe at the crack of dawn. I have dreams of starting the Dawn Patrol Golf League. Fast golfers go first, no handicap system, just make your own bets. If someone’s a sandbagger, simple, don’t play him. Once word gets out he'll be a lonely golfer.
About five years ago I met a guy at Chiangmai Highlands Golf Course named Tony. He's an ex-police chief from California, and he's the one who turned me on to early morning golf. He would tee off in the dark just to get on the course first and we played lots of rounds together.
Tony is a big, cheerful Italian guy who says hello to everyone. All the workers on the course know him, all the caddies know him, and we had good times. We also took a trip to DaNang, Vietnam, with Derek to play golf and had a great time.
I think he was also a fine, honest policeman and chief. He talked of times officials tried to get him to fix tickets and he showed them the door. He also talked about domestic disturbance calls and how dangerous they were. Remember, he was a cop during the Vietnam protests and the days of police being called pigs.
We came from wildly different perspectives on all that so the conversations were interesting, but we found common ground in our distrust of organized religion.
After a couple of years I told him I wanted to play some rounds on my own and work on my game. I must've said it wrong because that was the last we played together. Social skills? No thank you, I prefer to drive people away. We did meet for coffee occasionally and had long conversations but sadly, he's back in the U.S. now battling lung cancer.
I did thank him many times for getting me to play early morning golf, which pretty much saved me. In the league that started at noon I couldn't figure out why I wasn't enjoying the games. I couldn't understand why I'd get angry after 13 or 14 holes and turn into a raving asshole. Now I know I was hot, exhausted, and close to sun stroke. I'm not kidding. One time I came home from a round and couldn't