Rightly or wrongly, or maybe just because I am stir crazy, I have decided it is alright to go to the driving range. It is outside. It is very possible to maintain a couple meters of social distancing. What is not so good is the young clerk that is not so worried about her health, and without a doubt the baskets are not going though any sort of a sanitizing wash. Golf balls at ranges are generally washed after they are picked up out of the field, but never the baskets. Wish me luck.
I was there today about half way through my extra large bucket when a fellow came and took the station next to mine. He was 30 give or take a few either way, with orange closely cropped hair, and rolly-polly obese. He had a decent golf swing. However… what got my attention was his t-shirt, pictured above. World War — Win — Repeat — America. I don’t know if my jaw dropped, but I surely stared as he passed me by.
For reasons, some clear and others fuzzy, his t-shirt offended me, and I found it depressing. Maybe he was looking for something to feel proud about in this time of crisis with a nut job loose in the White House. It may have been that, but I had him pictured as standing on the Michigan Capitol steps with his AR-15 (or whatever the heck it is), and other similar scenarios. I strongly suspect that he considers the occupant of the White House to be someone God ordained.
I have many ways I could describe America, but this is certainly a very limited definition. And it strikes me that he was forgetting several other little conflicts since WWII whose outcomes were not glorious. War is sometimes necessary, and it is one of the most atrocious of human activities. It is not something to be celebrated like a sporting event.
I’m going to leave it there. Otherwise, I will be ranting like the madman I am. I keep thinking of an old country proverb. A friend is experiencing some troubling issue. You remind them that this too is much like the fellow who swallowed the peach pit. It too, will pass. I just hope I live long enough to see my beloved country back on a good road.