On Becoming My Own Worst Nightmare
So last weekend (as of writing this) was the sporting version of Spring’s coming out party. That’s right, The Masters golf tournament. The Masters is one of the four majors of the golf season and the only one that is played at the same course every single year: Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta Georgia. There are so many things about this tournament and this place that are special but what really shocked me this year was what it turned me into.
Augusta National Golf Club is one of the most secretive and exclusive clubs of any kind in America, and maybe the world. Nobody outside the club truly knows how much it makes, how many members it has, what it costs to join, or who all the members are. Like many country clubs in the U.S., it has a pretty shitty history as far as acceptance of anyone who isn’t a straight white man, but like in many areas of life, bullying works. Beginning in 1990 (NINETEEN-NINTY!!) the club began accepting non-white members and even after that, it took until 2012 (TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE!!) to accept its first female members.
Due to the secretive nature of the club, the only time almost everyone in the world will see it is during Masters week, and even then, most of us through a television. This was my second year watching the Masters and the first one where I was really locked in. I listened to podcasts, I read predictions, I looked up stats, and I felt like I was truly ready for this tournament. So, when the weekend rolled around (professional golf tournaments start on Thursday and end on Sunday [unless we’re talking about LIV which is an entirely different can of Saudi-financed-sports-washing-beans]) all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and let myself be surrounded by the azaleas and dogwoods and allegedly-fake-bird-noises. This is when I became my own worst nightmare.
Somewhere in the middle of all that lush greenery, quiet commentary, and subdued clapping I… fell asleep. I became my own father, and his father before him. I fully fully became an old man dominating the television room without actually watching it. Growing up, I loathed golf tournament weekends because like many hard-working-, and some not-so-hard-working-, fathers my dad would plant himself in front of the TV, and take a big old nap.
I didn’t get it. I thought it was selfish. I hated it. I swore that would never be me. And then, like so many of life’s great tragedies, you blink and you become your own worst nightmare. Sure, the tournament was a blast to watch (at least the parts I was awake during). Sure, two local Los Angeles golfers made Sunday exciting until the eventual champion proved why he’s the best in the game. Sure, I got a great nap in. But at WHAT COST? I have much thinking to do about who I am and what I have become…but deep down, I’ll never shake how great that nap was.
Do you have any behaviors that you swore you’d never adopt as a kid and now savor as an adult? Let me hear them!
Okay, so duplicating minor behavioral habits of your father is your WORST nightmare? I mean, it was a nap, for God's sake. I didn't beat you, or your mother (who could take me in a fight any day). I rarely kited checks and never lost our house due to gambling, drink or drugs. I didn't even stand in front of the open refrigerator eating pickles out of the jar in my underwear like my dad, something I swore I'd never do and a promise I have successfully kept. And it's not like we didn't have another TV somewhere. Ah, well, what can you do? At least I have seen you fall in love with golf as I did. And baseball. And the Packers. Couldn't get you into the Beatles, but you like some Tom Petty. I'll take it. And in terms of my own promises to myself as a kid, I have not developed my own dad's chronic inability to be ready on time for any important family function. The memory of my mom, brother, sister and me, all dressed and standing by the front door as my father wandered into the living room in his underwear (again the underwear!) black socks and sleeveless t-shirt, asking, "Ruthie, where's that blue tie?" and my mother, through clenched teeth answering, "Which blue tie? You have twenty." is seared into my brain. And that, I am proud to say, I have also never inflicted on you!
I love watching golf but sometimes the frantic pace of it is disorienting. Give me a three day cricket match any time.