Tales from the first tee
Stories about my life experiences and others as I work at one of the premier golf clubs in Charleston, SC. Interviews with golfers around the world that have one thing in common...the pursuit of excellence on a golf course and everything else that happens along the way.
Tales from the first tee
Just Tales: Irreverent Rants on Life's Absurdities
Rich Easton explores life's absurdities through irreverent rants and personal tales in this month's episode of Just Tales. Listeners are treated to sharp observations on modern phenomena ranging from holiday commercialization to the curious trend of permanent jewelry and the experience of becoming "invisible" as we age.
• Traditional Thanksgiving turkey has evolved dramatically from a simple holiday meal to bizarre variants including turkey pizza, burritos, and even ice cream
• The awkward dilemma of what to call your in-laws – from using their first names to the uncomfortable request to call them "Mom" and "Dad"
• World Cup commentary highlighting the contrast between incredible athletic skill and dramatic flopping
• The questionable trend of permanent jewelry that cannot be removed without special tools
• How aging bestows the unexpected "superpower" of invisibility, especially between generations
• Two parables related to golf: loving the journey rather than focusing on the destination, and treating victory and defeat as equal imposters
Talk to you next month with more tales from beautiful Charleston, South Carolina.
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Welcome to another episode from Just Tales, a monthly hybrid of fictional and non-fictional stories that compel me to rant. There'll always be a golf story or two laced into my blog because, well, it's where I spend a good amount of my recreational time. So, whether you're a golfer or not, if you're a skeptic, doubter or open-minded, this is the place for you. So kick back and listen. Well, welcome to my morning voice. Again, in this episode, I'll share my thoughts on what do you call your in-laws. Take it easy the World Cup craze and the art of flopping Permanent jewelry. I mean, what's next? Invisibility, the superpower of boomers and young Gen Zers Two parables that I can always relate to golf. But first, the evolution of Turkey, no, not the country. The food during the holidays. Another Thanksgiving come and gone and for any and all of you that housed family and friends, planned your meal, shopped, cooked and baked your way into everybody's hearts, minds and stomachs, you've got a minute to breathe before the next holiday, but if you're a Black Friday shopper, you've cut that breathing space into seconds.
Speaker 1:Most every retailer, in efforts to beat last year's holiday sales, have to figure out how to improve upon something. The easiest and most used arrow in their quiver is adding holiday sales days. I mean, what does that look like? Halloween stuff for sales in August, thanksgiving stuff on display in October and Christmas stuff well before Thanksgiving. And it's hard to go back in time to determine who or what industry started this false start. But really who cares? If you think making America great again begins with the reestablishment of hard starts for retailers to promote holiday stuff, then you're smoking something with more potency than my stuff. These types of things don't tend to revert to the way they used to be Now 24-7 internet access to most anything, year-round Christmas stores, alcohol, beverage companies coming up with early drinks for the holidays I mean, who doesn't want a sample that peanut butter whiskey while planning for the holidays? Publicly traded companies that compare holiday sales to previous years. So how are you going to beat last year? I can't think of a company that wants to be first at cutting back holiday sales days, just because we need a breath between events. Holiday sales days, just because we need a breath between events.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, what did you eat for Thanksgiving? I know that was a shitty segue, but most of us, including my vegetarian and vegan friends, feasted on some type of turkey dish, mostly traditional. I decided to change it up a bit and cooked a torchetta. That's turkey breast pounded and rolled around prosciutto, parmesan, reggiano, garlic sage, thyme and rosemary. Between that and the garlic and bacon, smashed potatoes, it was a hit and a welcome departure from a full turkey with all the fixings.
Speaker 1:And for all of you who have listened to my podcast before, now is the time where I go into the history of turkey in America. Did you know that Swanson Corporation in 1952, in efforts to sell out a huge surplus of turkey, created the TV dinner and sold 10 million in the first year? Back then, americans were only consuming 1.7 pounds of turkey a year. Now, despite the avian flu that challenged the turkey industry to destroy entire flocks of turkeys drive pricing to almost double this year, our annual consumption reached upwards of 16 pounds a year. That's nine times greater than when Swanson started selling turkey off-season.
Speaker 1:Yet the anxiety of cooking a turkey and not screwing it up in front of family friends is right up there with the fear of public speaking, is right up there with the fear of public speaking. Why do home cooks feel so, judged for the once, maybe twice a year cooking experience at turkey? I mean, come on, ham hasn't gotten this bad a rap. Maybe it's the fact that it's the largest, most frozen protein we buy which adds more science to the process of de-thawing and cooking. Nobody wants raw poultry and turkey presents another challenge. If overcooked, it dries out. Nobody wants a dry turkey. So there is this element of allowing enough time to thaw without introducing unfriendly bacteria. An element of cooked stuffing inside the bird to absorb flavors is another challenge and the chance of overcooking to a point where everybody fights over the dark meat. I mean, if you're a dark meat fan, just to get something that's not dried out. You know it's funny. My grandfather always got one of the turkey legs. Everybody thought he was a dark meat guy. Years later he told us that he really didn't care. But our grandmother always gave him the leg so he ate it. Look, I thought my torchetta was a little left of center until I read about others detraditionalizing basic turkey.
Speaker 1:In Buffalo, new York, nick Argy, a pizzeria proprietor, likes to get creative with his toppings around Thanksgiving. Turkey gravy, mashed potato stuffing, corn and cranberry sauce is one of his creations on top of pizza. In Duluth, minnesota, at a Mexican restaurant, november is all about turkey burritos with all the sides rolled up in a tortilla. In New York City, at King David's Tacos, they make a November special of cranberry breakfast burrito with turkey sausage, sweet potatoes and eggs. That sounds pretty good. The trend just doesn't stop. At restaurants, though. Joan's Soda Company, known for its oddball flavor profiles, makes a turkey and gravy flavored soda, salt and Straw. An ice cream company with locations throughout the country developed ice cream flavors like pumpkin and ginger snap. All right, that's sweet, roasted peach and sage, caramelized turkey and cranberry sauce, and even mashed potatoes and gravy ice cream.
Speaker 1:Okay, folks, let me weigh in here. Anytime you create an imposter of something else, it loses something in the translation. Vegan dishes that try to resemble an animal protein make little sense for me. If it's not chicken or beef. Just call it what it is, call it something else. Ice cream flavors that try to resemble anything not fruity, pie-like or cake-like is just communist. And pizza with an entire Thanksgiving spread as a topping Well, that's a, not a pizza. All right, that media bite might have been a little too racy. So here's something everybody can enjoy. Let's sing the pizza song together. The pie is made with dough and then we throw it into the air. Into the air, yeah, soon, hey, some would say well, rich, what about your turcetta, smashed potatoes and homemade chocolate chip cookies? Nothing traditional about that? No, but that, my friends, was fucking awesome.
Speaker 1:What do you call some in-laws that pry too much or still try to influence your spouse, want to spend too much or not enough time with your kids, or that just, deep down inside, wish your spouse made a better choice when it came to partnering? Then there are certainly choice words that you'd like to call them, but you don't, because you're not stupid. No, I'm talking about the discomfort of calling them by either their first names or being asked to call them mom or dad. I think a lot of the discomfort comes from where and how you're raised, the age difference between you and them, your generation and the family culture. If you're raised in the South, you grow accustomed to calling adults by their first names, preceded by a miss or mister. I've been uncomfortably Mr Rich for the past eight years. It's like a scene from Reservoir Dogs.
Speaker 1:Hear your names Mr Brown, mr White, mr Blonde, mr Blue, mr Orange, mr Pink. Why am I Mr Brown, mr White, mr Blonde, mr Blue, mr Orange, mr Pink. Why am I Mr Pink? Because you're a faggot, all right, who cares what your name is. Yeah, that's easy for you to say. You're Mr White. You have a cool-sounding name If you're from the Northeast.
Speaker 1:It's common that in-laws change names along your relationship path from Mr or Mrs fill in the blank, whatever their last name is to a first name basis. Once they plead with you to call them by their first names, it usually takes two times just to make certain that the last time they asked you to call them by their first name they just weren't too deep into the sauce. Some cultures have a name of the father or mother-in-law, particularly after you start having kids. I had a Lebanese friend whose kids and grandchildren all called him Gido, which means grandfather.
Speaker 1:For some kids that grow up in a broken household who marry into a loving traditional household, it might be easier, when asked by your mother or father-in-law, to call them mom and dad than it is for others, and I fall into the category of others. The term mom and dad for me was reserved for the two people that raised me and gave me wings. When my in-laws asked me to call them mom and dad, I tried it on for size, but just about stuttered every time I said mom or dad. It just didn't roll off my tongue easily. So after a while I stopped using mom or dad when I spoke to them directly and used their first names when I referred to them speaking to others, like hey, that was Joe or that was Sally, two made up names.
Speaker 1:One day during a family holiday I had one drink too many and thought it would be very heady to let them both know. I was just more comfortable with their first names than calling them mom or dad. Both my parents were still alive at the time, so it's not like I was pining to say the words mom and dad just about to anyone. So while neither my mother-in-law or father-in-law looked sad or got mad, I could just sense that their body language suggested that what I just did was tantamount to letting out the loudest fart when they were saying grace before dinner.
Speaker 1:Anyone in that situation start off by calling them by their surname, preceded by a Mr, mrs or Miss, and take their lead. If you're uncomfortable with the name they want to be called, let them know shortly after they make their name play. If you're too worried about how you come off or how you make them feel by rejecting their preferred name, then just go the rest of your life not calling them by name at all. Just don't start your questions or your sentences with their name. Just get right to the sentence and let it flow like you're speaking to your mother-in-law hey, can I have that recipe for the incredible pie that you just made For your father-in-law? Hey, how'd you get your handicap so low? Now, those could be reversed depending on who's playing golf and who's doing the cooking, and if none of that works, I guess divorce is not out of the question. World cup action 2022.
Speaker 1:I didn't grow up playing soccer. When we lived in San Clemente, I had a chance to coach our son in soccer, commonly worldwide called football, and I knew just enough and not enough to be dangerous. During one of the games we were being outpassed and outshot, but our goalkeeper kept us in the match until the last minute when I pulled him and made him an additional striker the only recorded power play ever in youth soccer because little did I know it was against the rules, but I found out quickly when one of the opposing parents yelled at me you can't do that, at which point I just responded. But I just did. If they would have yelled, that's against the rules. I'm not certain what my response would have been. My point was that I don't know shit about all the rules of football, but that's not stopping me from watching the best footballers in the world compete for their nations. I mean, 3.5 billion fans just can't be wrong. To put it in perspective, american football has around 400 million fans.
Speaker 1:Now I have two key observations about World Cup. No one of them is not about Qatar and their differences of opinion on women's rights or LGBTQ rights from Western nations. No one of them isn't the no beer sold at or near the stadium. You know, I wouldn't want to be the regional beer rep for Budweiser when their rights to sell beer was rejected two days before the kickoff. And what am I saying? There is no regional rep for any alcohol beverage company in the Middle East.
Speaker 1:The two observations are the incredible level of athleticism exhibited by the best players in the world, only to be eclipsed by the incredible level of acting every time they feel like they've been fouled, or the ones that are fouling them act like how can you say this is a foul? It is a flopping extravaganza. First, the athleticism 95 minutes of sprinting, heading, diving and controlling a ball. The most interesting thing to me is her ability to see a play happen and execute it in real time, both on offense and on defense. I can't make an educated prediction on which country has the easiest route to the finals. There have been too many upsets already and, like I said earlier, I just don't know shit about the sport. But I'm going to continue to watch, to see these national heroes emerge and watch Alexi Lawless get emotionally charged when he explains how players and coaches need to rise to the occasion. I mean, this guy is like no retreat, no surrender.
Speaker 1:Look, I think every sport has their over-dramatized acts of display when they feel they're being violated, but football has the most obvious because players have been taught to over-dramatize their pain to influence refs. Influence them to give them the ball back and maybe give the other guy a yellow card. And if you're a non-football or soccer fan and don't know the rules, a yellow card is like getting that second speeding ticket that lets you know that one more and your license is suspended. The flappers are not the only actors, though. The supposed foulers are just as emphatic when the refs blow a whistle to stop play. Award the ball to the fouled victims. Award the ball to the fouled victims. The alleged foulers go into this like what me tirade in the ref's face. The funny thing is when we watch the play black, the playback in slow-mo, and we see the accused bury his elbow and the guy who was violated or push him to the ground without attempting to kick the ball or purposely grab or trip the other player in fear that they're going to get the ball and make a run for the goal, and then watch them complain to the ref like it never happened. That is priceless. It reminds me of every guilty criminal who claims they weren't guilty despite the fact that they have the smoking gun still in their hands. Look, flopping and entering a not guilty plea are part of the sport. From a non-soccer playing ex-American football player and lacrosse player, it just makes me see them a little algophobic. Okay, you could stop the podcast and look that one up. Despite the over-dramatization of cheating, fouling and protesting against such acts, I'm still going to watch the World Cup, primarily because my fantasy football team is just starting to suck. I mean, how can four top performers be injured at the same time? Anyway, the World Cup, I think it's worth watching.
Speaker 1:Permanent jewelry Did you know it was a thing? Now, remember the ring you couldn't remove because it was either too small to begin with or you just got fat fingered or both. You tried soap, olive oil hey, don't judge hot water, cold water almost anything short of amputating one of your digits. That feeling of helplessness usually guided you in the future to wear rings that might be slightly snug but not impossible to remove. My first wedding ring was so snug I had to have it expanded to allow me to remove it every time I played golf, which eventually caused me to misplace it until I just stopped wearing it. Yay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. All that being said, did you know there's a new trend of people getting hooked on permanent jewelry that requires a special tool to remove.
Speaker 1:Fans of the welded, soldered or securely fastened jewelry say they just love not having to think about losing their precious pieces or having to struggle with difficult clasps. I mean, these are bracelets, necklaces and anklets that cannot be easily removed. Imagine the hassle at airport security every time you walk through the x-ray scanner. If you're a frequent traveler and decide that permanent jewelry is a must-have, you have to deal with the overwinding and same-sex fondling that comes with American airport security. And why is it that other countries' airport securities just do light wanding and they just don't grope. Anyway, I digress. Permanent jewelry also becomes a problem in x-rays, cat scans and MRIs. I mean most of the time those are planned visits so you or your jeweler can take a tool to remove that permanent jewelry before you get scans. But often emergency health service personnel have to make a quick decision to remove your precious permanent pendant and they tend to cut it off. I mean some of these trinkets cost well over $5,000.
Speaker 1:Cryotherapy is another caution note. Where temperatures get below 200 degrees Fahrenheit that will cause a permanent burn mark on your skin. I mean, is this the new alternative to ink? Quite often people arrive at jewelers and pop-ups in pairs to commemorate their permanent adornment. So yeah, I think it's an alternative or maybe even an add-on to ink. The process of installing the permanence can be intimidating, as some of them are applied by people with welder's masks on and blowtorches. But for customers that want an everyday reminder about how cool they are, it's worth the risk, you know. So you get a little burnt, so you get a little stung.
Speaker 1:I see this craze as an alternative to needling permanent ink into your skin. Now I have some body ink In my day. We just called it a tattoo. Me and some other classmates on the Union College lacrosse team decided one day to do it as a bonding exercise. 40 years later, I can't remember their names, so it wasn't that good of a bonding exercise, although two of them got snakes tattoos because their last names began with an S I don't know Sanderson, stadisboro. I don't remember the guys. Who the hell remembers?
Speaker 1:I think when people get permanent anything, their vision is myopic and highly imaginative. Life happens sometimes at breakneck speed and we have to be flexible to react. Having permanent anything on your body affects your ability to have to deal with situations and people. That might make it harder to bask in the glow of happiness you had when you first memorialized something on your body. Yeah, so what the hell am I saying? You ask All right, my son applied for a job in Southern California as a waiter.
Speaker 1:He happens to have body ink up and down his arms on his neck. I mean, look, he's a musician. Everybody seems to be doing that now. At least that's what he told us. So he went in for this job and he went through the whole interview process and at the end they said you cannot have tattoos, you can't have permanent ink. So he couldn't get the job. So he made a decision one day, not knowing that one day somebody who was the doorkeeper, the ombudsman, was going to say go away, go back. Doorkeeper the ombudsman was going to say go away, go back. But if you get daily pleasure from adorning yourself with some type of art, I say go, do it. Just be mindful that whatever door closes on you because of your decision to get that body art, it might not be a door you wanted to go through anyway.
Speaker 1:Did you ever wish you had a superpower? This might seem to be a childish, sophomoric thought from someone who should have already figured out that superpowers are in the imagination of youth and Marvel comic movie producers, but I would attest that most all people of a certain age develop one power over time that we can all agree to. Most adolescent boys want a superpower of the strength of a thousand men or the ability to fly to escape danger or to save the day. It's like a survival strength to beat all foes and to be admired as a hero. Now I know I'm not alone in this because I've had the conversation multiple times with unsuspecting participants.
Speaker 1:In addition to that whole powerful, flame-throwing, flying superhero stuff. I wanted the power of invisibility so that at 13 years old, I can see what was going on in the girls' locker room. Hey guys, you're bullshitting me if you said that thought has never crossed your mind. Now they say you got to be careful, what you wish for, because now, over 50 years later, I'm experiencing that same superpower of invisibility. But, folks, it's not to see naked women anymore because, quite frankly, any internet search will do that. We just become invisible, and women can attest to this just as well as men, maybe even more.
Speaker 1:When you get to a certain age, you might not be. You might no longer be a babe, a hunk, sultry, smoky, slinky, seductive, hot, voluptuous, or a milf or a dilf. You, my friends, are invisible. This superpower is not bestowed upon you in a ceremony or all at once. It happens over time. A guy or a gal next to you gets the bartender's attention first. Heads stop turning when they've turned before. I mean, how many times have we seen, perhaps, our kids walking across the room and other people turn their heads? Or, you know, our kids might be oblivious to it, or worse, if they're keenly aware of it. I hope it doesn't define them for the future the look of a freshly bloomed flower changes over time, and when the bees do a flyby to reach that next bloom, you know things are starting to change. So, of course, here's my case in point.
Speaker 1:I was sitting at the bar at home team this past Saturday and got myself a great spot in the middle of the bar between two TV screens that were about to show top rivalry week football games. Now it's now 1215 and the games have just started. I was flanked by a group of millennials on each side. I had to raise my hand several times to get my drink refilled. Then someone behind me says hey, buddy, are you sitting there for the entire game? It's like my cloak of invisibility had just worn off and you know he didn't ask the same question to anybody to my left or to my right. I'm like that's interesting. Rude, but interesting. Now it's halftime and this other guy to my right says hey, whenever you're ready to leave, can I have that seat for my friend? I'm like what the fuck? My cloak of invisibility became a boomer magnifying glass. It just so happens that my millennial golf, buddy the llama, walks into the, into the, to watch the games and when a seat opens up on my left. He quickly claims it before the jerk on my right can react. The llama was also playing this long game with this milf to his left, so he was positioning himself for opportunities.
Speaker 1:But here's the thing as we age, we slowly morph into different stages, sometimes women more quickly than men, but certainly not always Just because of ovulation and birthing. Some people just take care of themselves regardless of whatever stage they're going through. But we all go through the stages. What we were in one stage becomes a faint memory as we transfer into the evolving stage. That just reveals our experiences.
Speaker 1:The superpower of invisibility is a real thing, particularly between one and two generations apart. But the interesting thing here is it's not a thing within one's own generation or within your family. I mean boomers, see boomers because of similar life experiences, maybe same hair color. The same would apply to each generation. It's like watching your dog spot another dog three blocks away. They share similar experiences. Or maybe they just smell each other's dog smell. I don't know.
Speaker 1:My point is this Whatever your generation, you will be invisible to two generations up or two generations down. I mean, you've heard the old adage of kids should be seen and not heard. That was never said by kids. It was said by at least one, if not two, generations up. And if that bothers you because you can't get a drink at the bar, ask the attractive millennial next to you to flag down the server. It works every time.
Speaker 1:Now I would just like to add a caveat at the end of this. I had this conversation with my friend we'll call her Miss M and she made a really interesting point. She said people shouldn't be invisible if they're interesting. People shouldn't be invisible if they have something to contribute, they have an interesting point of view or they do something special. Because who doesn't want to be surrounded and focus on people like that? So I'll say to Miss M I absolutely agree with you. So for all of you boomers that feel like you're invisible, do something interesting, be interesting, and you will see that you're less invisible than you used to be.
Speaker 1:And I'll end this podcast episode with two parables that I relate to golf. And hey, with two parables that I relate to golf. And hey, if they're not parables, don't bite my head off. The first one, a man who falls in love with walking goes farther than a man focused on a destination. Stories are told about journeys more than destinations, can you believe? I just watched Lord of the Rings for the first time this weekend. I mean, it was a well-told story about a journey where characters meet others, not even like them, that start to go along the way, and they develop a posse of believers.
Speaker 1:If you play golf, fall in love with continuous improvement. Not just the score you want to beat. It makes the journey unending. Which leads me to the second parable Enter ye. Who can greet victory and defeat as the same imposter? Winning and losing is illusory. Never feel like you're destined for either, and don't allow them to define you. They're both a result of something you, your partner or your competitors are doing or not doing. That day, and with that, I wish you a healthy and fruitful December. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon.