Empty Calories & Male Curiosity, #28 🥃

My Week Volunteering at the Women's US Open: 7am Beers, Adirondack chairs, and a case of why the f*ck did I sign up for this?

QUICK HITTERS

1. The only speech I remember from my public speaking class in college was one where we had to say who we would trade places with.

   I chose Magnum P.I.

   Because….

2. It took me three tries to get through The Handmaid’s Tale series finale (on Hulu). Not because it was bad, but because I’m old and kept falling asleep. I know I’ve recommended this before, but I’m going to do so again because it is friggin’ awesome. For the cherry on top, the last episode pays significant homage to the book—so much so that I had tears in my eyes at the end.

   .

   Shut up Travis.

3. SilentPunt Podcast #21 dropped earlier this week. We are rolling with our 4 topics, 4 minutes each theme. This week we discussed wills, NBA playoffs/finals, ChatGPT (do you use it??), and friends with addictions. Check it out here.

4. Some people liked a note I posted this week about dumbass congress people not reading the bills that they sign (here). Check out downsizedc.org to sign that petition and others calling for our elected officials to start doing their jobs. Shout out again to subscriber Matt F for this.

5. Book recommendation this week is in keeping with the golf theme. If a dad in your life likes golf and doesn’t have Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book (by Harvey Penick, duh), buy him this for Father’s Day.

   You can thank me later.

   

   Darla isn’t scared; that is just one of her looks.

For the love of God do something: ❤️ this post, share with a friend, tell me I’m a good man.

Or unsubscribe if you don’t like fun things.

GOING DEEP:

My Week Volunteering at the Women's US Open: 7am Beers, Adirondack chairs, and a case of why the f*ck did I sign up for this?

For the past ten years or so, a tremendous number of high-level professional golf events have visited Wisconsin. Last week was the final one for the foreseeable future: the Women’s US Open at Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin, Wisconsin.

More on the sweatshirt later.

My week started last Tuesday with volunteer training. This was scheduled for two hours in the afternoon, not including the hour roundtrip car ride. The closer the date came the more I was considering bailing. The job I was assigned, Marshall, is pretty simple. 

Either stand with your hands in the air facing the crowd to keep them quiet during a golf shot, or stand on the tee with paddles that you wave showing which direction the golf ball had been hit. How on Earth could it take two hours to train for that?

This is not me.

Part of the crap shoot with volunteering is getting your time wasted. I often think these organizations figure that you've got nothing better to do since you've volunteered. Eventually, my guilt won out, and I decided to attend the training. 

Suspicions confirmed: my time was wasted.

My shift Wednesday morning was supposed to start at 7:30. On my 30-minute walk to my holes, I passed a couple of interesting things.

First, the beers. I know I live in Wisconsin, and this was a sporting event, but I did not expect to see people drinking Spotted Cows at 7:30 am for a practice round.

For you non-Midwestern people these fans were not literally sucking on cows. Spotted Cow is a beer.

Second, the mobility scooter tent. Good lord were there a lot of scooters in there, I’d guess maybe a couple of hundred. I know old people like to watch golf, but this was ridiculous. It looked like the staging area for an army of disabled octogenarians getting ready to deploy on the local Walmart.

I actually wrote a piece several weeks ago about these scooters after our visit to Disney World. I did not publish it in large part because the entire point of our trip was our daughter’s cheer competition, and I couldn’t make the piece whole without talking about that.

I have no intention of willfully inducing the rage of a 15 year old by dragging her into my dorky life.

The most I’ll do is show you this recent video of her. Because she’s a baller.

However, I will share the gist of the piece with you here: Are all of these people really disabled? Or are some of them just lazy? I know that’s a harsh thing to feel, but I can’t be the only one wondering, right? 

There is an old Scandinavian saying, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” I know this saying because I live in Wisconsin, and it holds true here as well. So, shame on me for not thoroughly checking the weather forecast for the morning. 

Had I known the ‘feels like’ would be in the low 40s with steady rain, I certainly would’ve worn more than an extraordinarily light rain jacket. Hence, this picture………

Shitty picture from a shitty day.

After an off day on Thursday I was back at the course bright and early Friday morning. The weather was supposed to be much better (I checked), so I just brought a pullover.

However, I was wrong again. In the thirty minutes it took me to get to the course from my house, the forecast changed to include wind—lots of wind. So, I shivered my ass off most of the morning.

Choices have consequences. 

Raucous crowd at 7 am on Friday.

My three highlights from that morning were: seeing the main group of the day come through, having a lovely chat with an elderly couple from the Quad Cities, and hitting the volunteer tent for some chemical cookies. 

You know these right? Chemical cookies. Shout-out to Angie D for the very appropriate name.

After volunteering on Friday, I posted the video below to Facebook with the caption: “Nelly Korda & Charlie Hull doing their best impression of high school girls in 1993 walking past me”.

Long story short, a buddy of mine from college saw it and wound up gifting me some VIP passes for Saturday. So, once my volunteer shift was over my plan was to go gorge myself on free food and just in general act like a big shot.

Shout out to my boy Goose. If you are from North Jersey and in need of a good chiropractor you can find him here.

I’m posting this pic, and not an actual pic of my friend Goose because he doesn’t really give off the dorky yet sexy vibe that the mid 80s Anthony Edwards did. And also, that’d just be weird. Weirder than calling mid 80s Anthony Edwards dorky-sexy? I’ll let you decide.

Well folks, here’s where things got interesting. First, I was unaware that Friday’s round had been cut short due to darkness, which meant Saturday’s round would be delayed. So I arrived at the course a little after 7am for a round that wasn’t going to start until 10 am. 

It gets better: I had my days wrong. My last day of volunteering was supposed to be Sunday, and I technically had Saturday off. It is times like these when I wonder how I was ever in charge of hundreds of people. Like, am I really this stupid? Or when the doc excised that tumor from my brain did he take a little part of my intellect with it?

I’m going with the latter.

Anywho, after about 15 minutes of being pissed at myself I decided to lean in. I was already there, and with a pass to be a big shot. Plus, I was smart enough to bring an extra sweatshirt on this day.

The fact that I brought it meant that it turned out to be a gorgeous, 75 degree day.

Because of course it did.

I was a very special boy.

The coolest part about my VIP experience wasn’t the food. (Gasp!) Strangely, it was the portable bathrooms. I have never been in a nicer Port-A-Potty in my life. Wood paneling, dry floors, all sorts of accouterments, and a delightful smell.

I know there has been a lot of discussion lately about the broadening wealth gap in our country, and I get it - I really do. But I will tell you: when it comes to shitting at a major sporting event the rich know what they’re doing.

Check out my friend Paul Horton’s cool article on Adirondack chairs (here). Paul, these were the cheap plastic variety. You would not approve.

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