PLANES, TRAINS, and AUTOMOBILES

    "You're taking the TRAIN to Los Angeles?  That is so cool!"

     If course Larry and I are nothing, if not cool, but here, judge for yourself:

     We arrived at the PDX station the requisite hour ahead of time, to learn that there had been a freight train derailment near Tacoma, and thus our departure was delayed for 3 hours.  Great.  Perfect.  News of a derailment just the way to begin a train journey.  We debated turning in our tickets and taking the family car instead, but Larry got the deciding vote in this instance, so we checked our suitcases and settled in to wait.  We sleeping-car passengers have our own "lounge" (not exactly equivalent to the first class lounge at your local airport, but with, at least, upholstered chairs and a coffee machine.)  We take what we're offered.  This was an adventure, after all.
     Finally underway.  Here's what a "sleeping-car" compartment looks like.  There is a 7-foot-long bench-like "sofa" and a single chair facing, with a cute collapsable table between.  And, most important, the cabin's own "bathroom."  (Sorry about the quotation marks, but seriously . . .)  Do not underestimate the value of that little room!  There is a shower that could be operated, one of those on-the-wall hand-held things which of course get the whole room wet, but in the event, Larry and I opted to wait to shower at our destination.  Which was to be Peter and Allison's home the following night.
     An hour down the road, nearing Woodburn, we came to an unscheduled stop that lasted an hour.  Seems there was a automobile on the tracks, on fire.  Huh?  How does such a thing happen?
     Anyway, we were 4 hours late and only 20 miles outside Portland, and it was time for dinner.
Now, they do their best, let's agree on that.  But dinner on the train means you will be seated with another two people, whom you do not know.  Neither Larry nor I are very sociable, and this idea sounded awful.  We had already heard a great deal about the monarch butterfly from one scientist back in the lounge, which was interesting, yes, but we were relieved to see upon arrival in the dining car that he and his long-suffering spouse (we suppose) were already seated with another couple and the lecture was in full stride.  Money discretely changed hands, and for the rest of the journey we were taken care of by way of a table to ourselves.  Sorry, but that's how the world works, I guess.
     Bedtime, and an attendant comes to convert the sofa in the cabin to a bed, and to lower the upper bunk, reachable by a ladder.  Why it is that Larry gets the top bunk need not be discussed here, but that's our arrangement.
     The very best part of going by train is the opportunity to see life's back yard.  The scenery is wonderful, though you can, of course, see the same scenery from your automobile.  What you can't see is this sort of thing:  It's 4:22 in the morning and we are stopped in some small town to await the passing of a freight train going north.  The moon is full and there is a brick building with EDDIE curved above the doorway, next to another building, a cafe, closed at this hour.  A white pick-up is parked on the street before the buildings, luminous in the moonlight.  The telephone wires sagging between poles catch the light as well, and a single dark figure walks along the road.  Magic!
      It takes 30 hours to travel by train from Portland to Los Angeles.  By car, the journey is shorter in miles (it's almost exactly 1000 door to door), but longer in hours as it has to include a night in a motel.  We have driven this in one long, long day, and it takes about 17 hours, but I do not recommend this plan, even switching drivers as we do.  By airplane, it's 2 hours, not including the time spent in the airport.
     But guess what.  The train, if you choose a sleeping car, is the most expensive option of the three.  And 30 hours in a tiny room, even with a book that's hard to read with the swaying of the car, a game on your iPad, a nice companion, lots of snacks and your on-board gin supply, gets really boring!  You are interrupted constantly by updates from the cafe that William is now closing to take his dinner break, from the dining car that it's time for the 6:05 reservation to take their (communal) seats, that we are approaching Chico, and if that is your final destination you should look about your seats for your belongings, and that this is a family train so we must please use G-rated language.  And so on.  You can stroll about the train, lurching from one car to the next, but that's it for exercise.
     And by plane, you are, of course, on an airplane, so there's that.
     Next time, we go by car.  Is that cool?  Mmm, probably not.  Sorry!
   
   

BOOK TEA

     This year I'm starting early!
     "I've heard that one before.  Just saying."
     Sigh.  I have this other person who lives in my head who's life mission it is to correct me, point out my foolishness, remind me.  She calls me "Janie-girl," in her superior little way, and not to put too fine a point on it, she's a real bitch.  She doesn't have a name, but for our purposes here, I'll call her Other Person, O.P. for short.
     We were talking about the Book Tea, which it has been my privilege to attend for the last few years, courtesy of my friend Julie.  This group of really smart women had a book club, but as they all have busy, important lives, had insufficient time in their daily schedules to meet regularly.  Inspired, they decided to have a once-a-year event in which they'd meet to have a book exchange.  They invite outsiders, all also really smart, busy women, and the premise is that each of us bring the book which we've most enjoyed in the past year, and at the end of the evening, each chooses one of these books to take home.
     "Excuse me, but are you suggesting that we are one of these 'smart, busy women?'  O.P. says.  "Pretty proud of ourselves, are we?"
     No!  It's just that Julie is my friend and she invites me.  All the other women are smart and busy, that's all I meant.
     Anyway, this event is always in December, at Renee's beautiful home.  I think I read as much as anyone, so I should really anticipate each year's Tea, hope to be invited.  And I do, for the first few months of any year.  Then reality bites, and I start to fret.  See, the thing is with this party that you have to stand up and say a few words about the book you've brought, that you found the best of your reading year.  So it's not just an anonymous pile of books and you pick one that looks interesting.  No, no, you have to sell your book, sort of, and you don't want everyone thinking you've been reading Lee Child or whomever.
     "You have this incredibly stupid way of turning everything into a competition," O.P. points out.  "Why can't you just relax?.  And I love that 'whomever.'  Whom are we trying to impress?
     Well, it's not that fun when you find that the book you brought is the last lonely book on the pile and your hostess finds herself stuck with it.
     "That only happened once.  Please get over yourself."
     Once was enough.  I become hyper-critical of my reading list.  What will people think of this one?  (In other words, what does this choice say about me?  Pitiful, actually)  The months go by, and I think, aha, this time, I got it!
     And then it is December and suddenly all my candidates look unappealing.  But this year, Alli has come to my rescue.  She has introduced me to John Green, who writes Young Adult books and I'm impressed with him, with Alli, for that matter, and decide to present Looking For Alaska as my entry in the competition -- uh, I mean Tea.
      Renee's home is beautiful and festive, everyone arrives and puts her book into a basket.  We nibble on appetizers, drink wine, and catch up with one another.  Then we all find chairs and sit down.  For the past few years, I've found two chairs rather outside main circle and Vik joins me back there in relative obscurity.  Renee begins by pulling one of the books from the basket, and she whose book it is stands and describes the story, why she chose it, then places the book on the stairs, to become the take-home pile.
     The books all seem interesting, with the exception of The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, a writer I do not like at all.  Vik whispers "try to get that one."  No!  But others leap into the conversation to admire Ms. Tartt, and so here we are.  Out of step.  Is anyone going to like John Green?
     "Sounds like we're a little jealous of this Donna Tartt person," O.P. suggests.  "Famous, successful? And let's remember the point of this evening.  We're here to exchange ideas, interests, to . . . "
     I know!  I get it!  Hello out there?  If you like Donna Tartt, by all means go for it.  The Goldfinch.  Everyone loves it.  But please look at John Green, too, especially if you have a young person in your family who likes to read.
     That evening, I came home with Glaciers, by Alexis Smith, a Portland writer.  The book is quite lovely, a small treasure.  And Looking for Alaska was snatched up by Sally, who is so voracious a reader that a rule has been named after her to mandate that each woman may bring only one book to the Book Tea.  Hooray!  And now it is January 1, 2014, and in the event that I am invited to the Tea again, it's not too early to start the hunt.  First book of the year is San Miguel by T.C. Boyle, Christmas gift from Larry, and one of my very favorite writers.  But not everyone likes T.C Boyle, oddly enough, so this book won't be my choice for the Tea.  Next up:  The Round House, by Louise Erdrich.  Anyone else have a suggestion?
     "Okay, the morning is fleeting.  It's a beautiful day, and I hope we're going to get busy now.  Practice. Go for a walk.  Do not pick up that iPad and play your silly Hay Day."
     Thank you, O.P., what would I do without you?
   

SUGAR COOKIES

     "Tell me a funny story about your mom," I asked Larry this morning.

     "Hmm?" he said, not looking up from his book.

     "Something funny about your mom."

     He put his finger on his place in the book and looked at me.  "I don't know any funny stories about my mom."  What he meant, plainly, was "I'm not going to write your blog for you.  If I wanted to write a blog, I'd write a blog."  He resumed reading page 2057 of The Guns at Last Light, a tome about WWII, with an air of exasperation.  You would think I had just done him a favor, as he says the book is deeply disturbing, but he apparently didn't see it that way.

     What brought this on was a really lovely gift that we'd received in the mail from our sister-in-law, Gloria.  This is a kitchen towel on which is laminated a copy of a recipe card in Myrtle's handwriting. 

     Her famous sugar cookies.  

     This gift exactly the sort of thing we can expect from Gloria, as she is endlessly inventive and clever.  She is married to Myrtle's second son, Allan, is a nurse, and the mother of four inventive,  clever, and, I have to say, funny sons and daughters.  My own sons and daughter love these cousins, tell stories about them, and even go so far as to tell me they we should never have moved away from   Minnesota. I'm pretty sure they don't mean that, but you get the idea.

     "But you and your mom were always laughing when you talked on the phone," I persisted.  "She was such a funny mimic, she loved to laugh about the strangeness of people.  Can't you remember anything funny I could say?  What about the time that Charlie dialed 911 on what he thought was a toy phone, and soon the police were knocking on the door? That was funny."

     It was funny:  we were all visiting Minnesota for Grandma Viehl's 90th birthday celebration.  At Gloria's and Allan's home, the grandkids ranging from Charlie, then five, on up or down the age ladder had been playing in the basement, and no one upstairs knew why the police had suddenly arrived.

     "Yes," Larry agreed, "but that's not exactly a story about my mom."

     "What about sneaking booze into the retirement home for the ladies' happy hour?  Liquor wasn't even allowed, was it?  Being a Lutheran home, and all?"

     "It wasn't forbidden, she just was afraid the other residents would disapprove.  Anyway, it wasn't booze, it was wine."

     "Still, it says a little about how feisty she was."

     Larry put his book down and shook his head, looking at our Christmas tree, but seeing the past, perhaps some white Christmas of way-back-when.  He laughed.  "We did have good times," he said.  "The story we always remember is the time Allan threw snowballs at the cars out on Snelling, and hit a truck.  He ran home, with the truck driver right behind him.  Mom had to promise she'd deal with her little delinquent.  Then the time we were shooting our bb guns in the basement and scored one of the jars of pickles she'd canned that summer."

     "I dream about her roast beef and those ethereal dinner rolls," I said.   "If Gloria ever gets her hands on that recipe, I hope she knows what to do with it.  I think she used lard, or something."

     My mother-in-law was a talented musician, a fabulous cook, a great mom.  A woman of her time, she made a complete life in the circle of her church, her family, and friends.  Here is the recipe for her cookies, which I intend to make as soon as I finish this blog.  Hmm.  Uses vegetable oil?  Well, I'll certainly sub out butter for the margarine, but I suppose I'll use what I imagine was corn oil.  Good luck  and Merry Christmas to us all!

SUGAR COOKIES:

1 egg, well beaten

1/2 cup margarine (no!  don't do it!)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. soda 

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar.

Sift dry ingredients.  Cream egg, butter or the dreaded margarine, and sugars.  Add vanilla and dry ingredients.  Roll in balls.  Dip into more granulated sugar on a plate, and press with a glass.  If you can find one with a decorative base, it makes a pretty pattern.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

     

THE PERUVIAN KITCHEN

   
     Who am I to be discussing the food of Peru?  Good point.  But my blog is supposed to be about food, at least some of the time, and I was in Peru for two weeks, ate something every day, took photos, and here we are.

     First, you should know that the food in the large cities is sophisticated, varied, and enjoys a wonderful reputation in the several magazines to which I subscribe.  But guinea pigs?  Seriously?

     Our trip was planned down to the minute, it seemed, including NINE different flights.  I know, who was in charge?  So we were busy little tourists,  and still only saw the southern, high Andean part of the country.  We were lucky to have a guide in the area around Cuzco who was native to one of the communities in the countryside.  He was passionate about his land and her people, so introduced us to the kitchens, markets, and flavors of the centuries-old Peruvian kitchen.  Wow, that sentence sounded like an excerpt from one of those magazines I mentioned.

     But let's get the guinea pigs out of the way.  Here they are:

     We found a group (collective name as per the web) of guinea pigs in every home we visited.   I learned, again on the web, that most families in the Andean countryside will have about 20 of the animals, being raised in, or adjacent to, the kitchen.  Approximately 90 percent of the guinea pigs, which are, incidentally, neither pigs, nor from Guinea, are raised at the household level.  They are such an expected part of the indigenous communities that any family who does not raise them is considered either lazy or extremely poor.

     Guinea pigs are high in protein, low in fat, but what do they taste like?

     I thought I was prepared, but never got the chance to try any cuy meat, as these fellows are called in Peru.  I would have, but they were never on offer.  This sample is being "rubbed" with the herb which is actually his diet, and his mouth is stuffed with same.  This seems logical, I guess.  He'll be roasted and inevitably served with potatoes on the side.  (If they'd just snip off those little feet, they might look more like, well, chicken?)

      Edgar, our guide's gringo nom de plume, insisted that the Peruvians are thrifty, never wasting any part of an animal they butcher, and some scenes from a market we visited seem to confirm the idea.  Among the abundance of grains, potatoes, veggies, flowers, we found the following:

     Yum!  Can only imagine that these will be added to the stew pot, teeth to be extracted later.  Note the Inca Cola on the side.  Didn't try any, as it was said to be fatally sweet.  I don't know how typical the following photos may be, but these are scenes from a local (NOT touristic) restaurant.

     We didn't eat at this establishment -- didn't eat locally except once when we were given empanadas from a stall run by one of Edgar's many friends.  After closely questioning the contents of same, we think we were eating cheese, but the little treat could have included alpaca -- which I knowingly tried once in a stuffed pepper.  Check those foodie creds! 

     Look how gorgeous the people are: (friend Ursel in the middle)

     The last group had just performed at a restaurant on the island of Tequille in Lake Titicaca, and the gentleman on the right is Papa Grande, my partner for the dance.  At 13, 500 feet, the dance was a short one!

      From there, back to Lima, back to Miami, back to Portland, where, at 6:30 in the morning, the cold wind is howling.  We've been promised snow, and it seems a long way from the gorgeous colors and sunshine of Peru.

     Note:  thanks to Ellen Banks for the help in manipulating the addition of photos to my blog!  I don't know why the font isn't consistent, but Ellen has gone back to Whitman and isn't here to solve the problem.  Sorry!

ON SWEARING AND CRYING

     Larry had a very bad day last week.  Fishing in Montana with three of his friends, standing by the river in his waders, tying his boots, and his hip went out.  Wouldn't self correct, as it usually does, so there he is.  His friends and the guide have to leverage him into the back of the guide's SUV for the ride to Ennis, a back-road hour away.  Though I haven't experienced it, let's stipulate that a joint out of its socket is pretty excruciating.  And his hip was dislocated for six hours, not to be righted until his arrival in Bozeman, x-rays, a spinal.
     So, he says, he swore.  A lot.  Didn't cry, though this is the man who weeps an Disney movies, weddings, sunsets.  I wasn't there, but I'm familiar with his vocabulary which is solid, mid-western Lutheran in origin.  Thus nothing particularly shocking.  But he felt he had to apologize to the nurses who scissored off his trousers, his favorite flannel fishing shirt, his really good t-shirt, who took his blood pressure and vitals, administered the i-v with its god-sent morphine.
     One such angel told him that they hear it all, that swearing is a form of pain relief, and no apology was necessary.
     Meanwhile, I was having a bad day of my own, involving the pain of watching two people I love struggle, and worrying about Larry, and the insensitivity of the people at Citi Bank who wanted me to confirm my identity before allowing me access to my AT&T credit card info.  Okay, not quite up there with a dislocated hip, but enough, it seems.
     On my way to my training session with Aaron that morning, sweet, empathetic man, I felt the tears coming.  Deep breath.  Get over yourself.  Stop it!  And yet, I cried.  Embarrassing myself and, I'm sure, Aaron as well.
     And so I've been thinking about the difference between swearing and crying.  Why one and not the other?  They both help.  I can keep from swearing, but not from crying.  (Well, how do I know?  I've never dislocated a hip.)  Is this a gender thing?
     Talking to my sisters during our Sunday conversation, I asked them.  "You're lucky," Martha said.  "I can't cry at all."  Wow.  That's almost unbelievable, but believe her I do.  She's had enough to cry about (haven't we all?).  Mary told a story of the time in Berlin when she was on the U-Bahn with Paul, as a child, perhaps with Neils, also.  There were other Americans on the car, and Paul, who was an extraordinarily handsome boy, but who is profoundly autistic, did something that the other women considered funny.  Mary said that she, too, laughed for a moment, but then was sobbing and couldn't stop.  That breaks my heart.
     "Do you still cry sometimes?" I ask her.  "Not often," she says.  Well, it's hard to imagine a reason that reaches the level of that moment on a German train.  Certainly not the events of my Thursday morning!
     Maybe I am lucky?  I swear, too, that's for sure, but not when in pain.  Mostly in annoyance when I break an egg into the refrigerator and have to clean it up, or can't make my computer behave, or have to wait for a technician on the Citi Bank phone line for 10 minutes because they need me to prove I'm me.  My mother's maiden name, should you ever need to know, starts with H.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR -- FRIED RICE

     "Hey, Mom," says my daughter Jenny.  "Have you ever made fried rice?"

     Jenny lives in Seattle with her family, and is a glorious, curious, inventive cook, and when she has a suggestion, I'm all ears.  So she made the following recipe, found somewhere on the great www, doesn't remember where.  I said I'd love to put it on my blog, would she type it up for me.
     "But you have to try it first," she says.
     "Tell me a story about it," I say.  "Our readers like to have stories."
     "Okay," Jenny says,  "I made this on Monday and had some left over the next day.  My friend Ann came over and said she was starved, and was there anything a person could eat in my refrigerator.  Of course, she was already poking around in there, pushing the milk and eggs aside.  She found the fried rice and ate the whole bowl-ful, cold, as is, and loved it."
     "That's a good story," I say.  "But we don't know Ann.  She said she was starved, maybe she'd eat anything.  Did your kids like it?  What about Will?"
     Will is ten years old and currently eating down the house.  But he is a kid, after all.  You know, eats sushi but not broccoli.  Fried rice isn't all that exotic, but?
     "Will loved it," Jenny says.  "Alli did too."
     Okay, that's better info.  Alli is thirteen, bit of a fashionista in her own way, pretty sophisticated and is, at the moment, busy separating herself from all things Mom.  She'd be a tougher critic, so if she liked it, the stuff must be pretty good.  We don't need to ask if husband Tom likes it, he pretty much likes everything that doesn't include fresh tomatoes.
     "I'll give it a try when we get home from Black Butte," I say.  And on the next Tuesday, I did.  We were planning to have fish, so I got some tilapia filets to pan fry, and in ten minutes from start to finish, had dinner on the table.  Larry frying the fish while I made the following (for two people, a third of the recipe)  Loved it! :

JENNY'S FRIED RICE

3 cups cooked rice, chilled*
3 Tbs. peanut oil
2 eggs beaten (for 1/3 recipe, 1 egg)
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped *
1 1/2 inch fresh peeled ginger* (chop the crap out of it because it's so fibrous)(Jenny's words, not mine)
1/2 cup carrots, small dice
1/2 cup peas
4 scallions
3 Tbs. soy sauce.

Heat 1 Tbs. oil in a large nonstick pan.  Saute onion for a bit and then add carrot, garlic and ginger.  Saute for a bit longer.  Push the veggies to the side and add a little more oil.  Scramble eggs, breaking into small pieces.  Add more oil and add the cooled, cooked rice.  Fry the rice with the veggies and eggs for 2 to 3 minutes.  Add peas and soy sauce and stir fry for one more minute.  Add green onions and serve!

*  I usually make up more rice than we need, and freeze the extra in snack-size baggies, so had some of that on hand for the recipe.  A good idea, by the way -- you should try it!  (Of course, I do have a freezer in the pantry, a luxury not available to every one.  I get that.)

*  Jenny's lazier mom has discovered Gourmet Garden tubes of ginger paste and chunked garlic, which seem to last forever in the refrig.   Yes, the real thing would be better, but if we're talking about a ten minute dinner, not a bad option.

 

alli ederer

will ederer

A GOLF STORY

Good afternoon, Sports Fans

     I'd like you to meet my husband, Larry.  A perfectly lovely man, who loves golf.  I mean it, he LOVES golf.  He started going out to the Como Park Municipal course in his St. Paul neighborhood when he was seven or eight years old with his little brother Al, or buddy Mike.  They'd sneak onto the course on those long, humid summer nights, when the sprinklers were on and the mosquitos thick, swinging their dad's clubs.
     Later, before he was old enough to drive to a real summer job at the paint factory where his dad worked, Larry took up caddying for a living.  Scrawny, lanky, sometimes hauling double, watching the weekend duffers, he learned how to think a round.  And when he got his first car, he, Mike, and Al would drive over to the football stadium at the U where, in the season of snow, a driving range was set up inside, beneath the bleachers.  Under the watch of Gopher coach Les Bolstad, he took up playing leftie, and the future was set
     Didn't play for the U, he tells me, not good enough.  Maybe, but having to work his way through college, these probably wasn't enough time in any case.  But he still lived near Como Park Muni, could still go out after dark with, by then, his own leftie clubs.
     Life happened.  He got married to me, strapped on the suit and tie and went to work managing other people's money, first for IDS, then Columbia Management out here in Portland, where we settled and raised our family.  Kind of a numbers guy, which would, later, prove to be a problem.
     He still got out a fair amount to the club in Tualatin, which he joined along with his friend Robb.  Got a good handicap, shot in the high seventies, low eighties.  Being in Portland, the two could go out all year round, sometimes negotiating a frost delay, enduring all but the most driving rain.  Mudders, you could say.
     And the years rolled on.  Kids left home.  We moved into town.  He joined the wonderful new Pumpkin Ridge golf club.  Robb, too.  A real golf club, no swimming pool for the wife and kiddies, and if there's a men's poker game, I don't know about it.  You'd have to ask someone else.  No silly day when women couldn't be on the premises.
     So I began to take up the game a little.  Me, I grew up in the country, no golf course for miles around.  Dad didn't play the game.  I never watched it on TV.  Therefore, an absolute tabula rosa.  I took a few lessons.  Went out to the course a few times at odd hours when my beginner's play wouldn't slow the foursome behind us.  We began to go to golf destinations on our vacations.  I learned how to manage my emotions when we were paired with strangers, that is, not to cry and kick my golf bag and so on.  And gradually I came to enjoy this infuriating, addictive game, although not really until I freed myself from the tyranny of the score card.  Just live in the moment, nothing behind or ahead of this one shot.  So I'm happy, leave me alone.
     Larry retired from his years of watching the ebb and flow of other people's money.  Now free to play as much golf as he liked, his scores perversely, began to climb.  Mid-eighties.  Okay, not that good, but.  High eighties.  Low n-n-n- well, you know.  Something must be done.  That's when he began charting, I believe it's called in the money profession.  Soon he began taking so much time between holes recording data that he forgot to notice the blackberries, ripe for picking, along the sixth, carpet of fallen apples on the tenth.  The rain.  Or not.
     "What on earth?" his wife would ask, as he noted the distance of the drive, greens in regulation, how many chips, how many putts, brand of ball used.  A system of pusses and minuses augmented the whole numeric thicket on the card.  "Why?"
     "So I'll know what to work on."
     "Ah.  You'll look at all these old cards and . . ."
     "Of course not.  I record the data on my computer."
     And work he did.  Hours.  On chipping, which had now been statistically proven to be the worst offender.  But his chipping did not improve, and his gloom expanded to fill our entire house, the garden, the neighborhood.
     At this point in the story, let me introduce Aaron.  He's our personal trainer and, I think, our friend.  He loves golf, too.  He and Larry talk golf.  Aaron devises special exercises.  They do not help.
     Aaron and I put our heads together and create a strategy.  Next time Larry and I golf together we will play a sort of scramble-type format wherein we both drive, then hit each other's ball alternately all the way to the green.  The theory is that he will not be able to record any meaningful numbers, although he will certainly try.
     To our mutual surprise, this proved to be fun.  If he had to blast a long iron from the sand where I'd put my drive, that was okay.  If his drive wandered into the rough?  Oh well, not his problem.  Suddenly we were laughing.  He could chip just fine, if it were my ball that had failed to make the green in regulation.
     We played that way all summer.  Robb was off in Montana, so I was the temporary BFF, the golf buddy.  And there must have been something about pulling my irons out of the fire, as he put it, which relieved the pressure of all those numeric evaluations to which he'd been subjecting himself.  He couldn't post a score for weeks, but he was making wonderful shots.  The kind that amazed those strangers we got paired with.  In fact, I got better, too.  Weird.
     I don't know how this story ends.  Fall is in the air, and Larry has gone to Spokane for a few days -- the rump sessions of a guys' tournament held every spring.  He'll have to keep score.  I hope he notices the pumpkins turning orange in the field, the rows of corn, the autumn sun.  We'll see.