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
Bison Jam: When Family Vacations Turn into Awkward Life Lessons (From the archives 2021
Rich walks Sullivan's Island beach, highlighting the community cleanup efforts and introducing two humorous stories that capture life's awkward yet memorable moments.
• The "Bison Jam" story follows a family vacation in Yellowstone where a 10-year-old boy innocently abbreviates "Bison Jam" to "BJ," creating an uncomfortable teaching moment
• A father struggles to explain adult terminology to his son, resulting in the child's hilariously innocent response: "Why would anybody want to do that? That's just gross!"
• The "Bombastic Buttocks Bee Sting" recounts a Tuesday night golf league where an errant drive hits a beverage cart attendant
• What begins as a minor sting develops into a massive bruise, teaching golf etiquette lessons about BevCart workers being unintentional targets
• Rich concludes with a heartfelt recommendation of the film "CODA" about a hearing daughter in a deaf fishing family
• Sullivan's Island serves as Rich's creative sanctuary where most of his podcast stories are conceived
If you enjoyed these stories, please subscribe to Tales from the First Tee for more authentic, humorous, and sometimes touching narratives from the golf course and beyond.
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You're listening to an episode of Tales from the First Tee. I'm your host, rich Easton, recording from beautiful Charleston, south Carolina. I'm doing my Sunday beach walk on Sullivan's Island, one of the cleanest beaches on the East Coast, primarily due to the efforts of the local community Led by my friend Jeff Parrish and his faithful companion Elvis, and, of course, his mindful partner Jody, who I understand makes the best pepperoni rolls or some incredibly delicious snacks. So, jody, if you're listening, come on, girl, bring it, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up. If you're ever walking the island on a Sunday morning and you see people walking with these green bags, that's a result of the efforts of the community to enlist their own people to walk the beaches and keep them clean. I think it's great. We all find inspiration from different places and people. Sullivan's Island happens to be my harmonic convergence. Most of the 61 episodes from Tales has been written or fine-tuned at the island. So it's last Sunday and I'm walking early in the morning and I run into a friend that I had just met a few weeks back let's call him Chet Astoria While we were chatting at the COVID cabana, chet shares this story about a coming of age story with his son while they were doing a family vacation out west and I thought you know what?
Speaker 1:I just ran into him. I'm working on this story. Let's air this story, and it's a story I call Bison Jam and at the same time, I'll share a story about an incident that happened at the big game of the week on Tuesday nights at Charleston National. I mean, it's a story that had me and some of my buddies in stitches and it's a story that I'd like to call the Bombastic Buttocks Beasting. I I love alliterations. Anyway, here you go, bison Jam. This is a story about the things we tell our kids that make us feel better and confuse them even more.
Speaker 1:I've recently been introduced to a new sphere of friends that seem to like to have fun. Isn't that why most people come to Charleston? It's certainly why they stay. One of them, who I actually crossed paths with six years ago, his name Chet Astoria. Chet shares this great coming of age story with his 10-year-old son. Once that I heard that his son was doing a sports podcast. I want to know more about this kid, 10 years old, doing a sports podcast with his buddies, the future voice of his generation. Well, as the sage Buddhist monk once said, we shall see, we shall see. See. Now, I don't know why he said it twice. Maybe most Buddhist monks go deaf from that huge gong. Either way, it's effective, we'll see. So Chet's son let's call him Mike Get it Podcast. Mike, come on, man, keep up, listen.
Speaker 1:Mike's traveling with his family on an excursion in Yellowstone Park and came upon this herd of bison. If you've never experienced it, it takes your breath away. For most people that have never gone on a safari, myself included, and only know Big Game from the zoo, it's as real as it gets. You know you're protected by your vehicle, but those bovine are unpredictable. Mike likes to abbreviate things, and so Chet and Mike are going back and forth on what do we call this? What do we call these bisons? And they're looking at all these bisons. They're stuck in traffic. And Chet goes man, this is some bison jam. And Mike goes I got it, the Awesome BJ.
Speaker 1:Chet and Mike are going back and forth with different initials to describe this bison jam, and Chet and his wife and the rest of the riders in the excursion just start laughing every time Mike goes no, bj, awesome BJ. Chet's wife leans over to him and says hey, explain what a BJ is to Mike. We can't have him leaving this van talking about the awesome BJ in the back of the van. So Chet walks to the back of the bus next to the pisser it was described to me as a pisser only because no number twos. Number one there's no ventilation back there. Number two the walls are thin. No number twos.
Speaker 1:So now Chet's struggling to find the words to help Mike out and he just basically says okay, mike, a BJ is initials for a blowjob, and that is when a girl takes your penis and puts it in her mouth. Are you sure about that? And before Chet could finish his thought, little Mike just said why would anybody want to do that? You're not going to put that in your mouth, are you? You did. Okay, that's just gross. And the bus heard it and basically started laughing. First of all, cutest comment ever. Second of all, enjoy naivety while it lasts. And according to all the research I've been privy to Mike in seven years, you're going to know the answer to that. And third and most important, let's hope that Mrs Astoria doesn't feel the same way. The bombastic buttocks bee sting. The bombastic buttocks bee sting. Okay, golf fans, here is a golf story Two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:It's a Tuesday afternoon and I'm over at Charleston National, back in their practice area, and if any of you live in the Charleston area, charleston National, for a semi-private course, has the best practice facility in the entire county. So when I feel like hitting balls and I can't get on the course, I go back to the practice area. It gives me almost as much satisfaction. Tuesday night at 5 30, there's always a league and it's typically 60 to 70 guys come to play a two-man scramble and that becomes all prize money. And when they pay out first, second and third place skins and closest to the pin, achieving any of those puts you in a pretty good position to go home with some more cash than you came in with. But that's easily said.
Speaker 1:The way the teams are set up is when you combine your handicaps. It cannot be less than 15. And so you can't put two scratch players together. You can't put two threes or fours together. Comb combined handicap has to be 15 or greater, and so you get some really good players coming out for this, because there's a lot of cash and, plus, it's the only game in town on a Tuesday night and so for me it's been hard for me to find a partner that could bomb the ball so that we can get close enough so I could use my short game in my putting to win some holes, maybe win some skins.
Speaker 1:So I'm throwing my clubs in the trunk and I see one of our more popular BevCard girls. Let's call her Hermosa. Now if you could suspend your disbelief for a second, if Connie Britton and Carrie Underwood were to have a baby, it would grow up looking like Hermosa. But here's the thing she has her master's degree in education, teaches math and raised three boys. So she's more than just a pretty face. She probably has more years of education than most of the foursomes combined. But she is an Alabama fan. So, hey, nobody's perfect.
Speaker 1:So like always when we see each other, we exchange pleasantries, talk about what's going on, and then kind of move on and she goes to me hey, you playing tonight. And I'm like well, no, I just practiced and what I really need is a partner who could hit the ball a mile. And I kind of explain it to her and she just stops me in my tracks, she goes hold on a second. She says look, my son is a six handicap. He's been playing a lot and I think he'd like to play in this. He hasn't played in this before. Let me give him a call. I'm like, yeah, I'm up for that, sure. And she goes. He could hit the ball a mile and I'm thinking that's exactly what I need to play in this. She calls him, she hangs up the phone and she hangs up the phone. That's like such an old expression. So she gets off the phone and looks at me and she says, yeah, my son would like to play and his name is let's call him Ben. She goes yeah, ben, you know he's been playing a lot. He's been playing really well. He'd like to do this. And I'm like great.
Speaker 1:So I get in my car. It's now 3.30. I've got two hours. It's a hundred degrees out. I need to head back and just load up with liquids. I come back to the course a little close to five and I meet her son. Nice kid, early twenties. He just exited the food and beverage business and that kills you If you're doing food and bed for a while and most people that are listening to this that have done it it just wears you down and he got worn down. So he's now in transportation and distribution, which right now is giving him a little more time to play golf.
Speaker 1:And we meet each other and we get our scorecard and it's a two-man scramble. So we're both going to play our best shots. After you know, after we each hit and we get the scorecard and it shows it's a scramble and there are have to be 60 to 70 people out there, so at least one foursome per hole, if not two, and we end up at 7A. We're the first foursome to hit on the seventh hole. Now, the seventh hole at Charleston National is not where you want to start a scramble From the white tee boxes.
Speaker 1:It is 200 yards over water, with marsh on the right, sand traps on the right, 200 yards out, a very small green traps on the left, woods on the left, and so there's one place to hit the ball. You got to go right at the green because if you pull it you're up over this hill by these oak trees. Impossible to get up and down, impossible. I've been playing the course for seven years. I've never seen anybody get up and down from behind the hill because it's hard dirt and roots and if you hit it to the right, you're in the water.
Speaker 1:So we start off with the first hole. Seven, and typically to come the money. Um, in this Tuesday night league you've got to be at least four under par. Playing nine holes, four under par. So we play the first hole and he hits his up to the left by the oak trees. I dump mine in the water. Not a good place to start. We almost get up and down. But, like I said, I've never seen it and my imagination was not that strong. On the first hole we end up with a bogey. Not a good time to start. You don't want to start this. You don't want to get any bogeys if you're going to win.
Speaker 1:So then we go on to play the next eight holes. So then we go on to play the next eight holes, and I would tell you that we had birdie chances for the next eight holes. We were on in regulation for the next eight holes and we only got two birdies to put us one under and we were tied for 10th. But the story isn't about how we scored, although I think as a twosome we have promise for the future. The story is when we get to the third hole. So we played seven, eight, nine, and then we go to one, two, and now we get to the third hole. Now we are grooving, we are hitting some really good shots and I think by this time we're even par, maybe even one under, and we get to this hole.
Speaker 1:This is the most treacherous driving hole on the entire course it's only like 370, but it is a severe dogleg right. You cannot drive the ball straight. If you hit the ball straight, you go through the fairway, you almost go on to another fairway and then you're blocked by all these oak trees. To hit it to this elevated green on the right Can't hit there. You can't hit to the right because in this dogleg right they have all these oak trees and there's an alligator pit. I mean, there is this pond with gators and snakes and you don't want to hit it there. And so the best shot is to take a baby, draw up and over the trees to the center of the fairway and maybe have a 130 to 150 yard shot in. But it's not easy to do, it's daunting, it's difficult. Or you could take an iron and hit maybe 180 or 190 yard shot and then have 160, 170 to an up. That's probably the safe play.
Speaker 1:We get up to the hole and we could see we're waiting. We could see the foursome in front of us had had stopped and they're getting drinks. So hermosa is serving drinks to these guys in front of us. So we got a little weight and we start talking. It gives us time to talk on the t-box and we're playing against another twosome and I know one of the two guys. His name is Mark and this guy I know him from the course. He works there and a few months back he decided to enlist in the reserves. It's going to pay for his education. It's going to help him do a few things, originally from upstate great sense of humor and we always got along. And he listens to my podcast. So props to Mark, thank you, anyway. So we're talking and he's kind of telling us what his life was like in the reserves and how difficult it was. And he hadn't played golf in a long time, so he's a little rusty. His roommate could hit the ball a country mile. So now we're waiting and waiting.
Speaker 1:Hermosa's serving the guys in front of us. They then go hit their balls and now it's our turn to hit and Hermosa starts driving her cart up the cart path. Now she's only 230, 240 yards away from us on the left, not a place you want to hit, like. If you hit towards her, you're blocked out by the oak trees. So we happen to have won the last hole. So Ben and I get to hit our shot. Ben hits this beautiful shot up and over the trees with a baby draw. We're maybe 125 out. I hit a shot, almost hits the trees, ends up in the fairway. We're going to take his drive Better than mine. I mean I think we've got 125 out. Now it's Mark's turn and we're talking.
Speaker 1:Mark gets up and Mark decides to take a driver Dangerous play, like I said, there were so many bad plays with the driver there but he decides hey, I haven't played in a while, I'm going to crush this drive. And he gets up and he hits this drive and it starts off in the center of the fairway. So it looks like this thing is going to run way out there and way past and into behind the oak trees. It starts hooking to the left and it's hooking and hooking and we're seeing the ball start to hook towards Hermosa and it's getting closer and closer and we're yelling four, four, four and all of a sudden in the distance, we hear this sound. Four. And all of a sudden in the distance, we hear this sound, this click sound, and then we hear what seemed to be a plaintiff whale and I had to use that term has only been used in the OJ Simpson trial, as far as I know but there is a scream. Hermosa is like ah, ah, but it's like you know it's, it's like 240 yards away, so it's like that. And so Ben looks at me and he goes that's just my mom being dramatic, she could be really dramatic and I'm like, yeah, you know, women, guys are all laughing.
Speaker 1:And now it's our turn, now to drive up, to go see our drives. And as we're driving up to Hermosa, she's now out of the golf cart and she's kind of laughing. And we get up there and she goes look at this. And she points over Mark's ball is sitting in the golf cart and he played this Bridgestone with a big B on it. And we're sitting there, looking at the big B sitting there in the golf court, and she said your ball hit me in the ass. And we're like come on, no, it didn't, it didn't. She goes, look at this and she turns around, she lifts up her skirt with shorts, pulls them up so we could see a red welt on her left buttocks, ouch. And she goes this thing hit me. And then it went up in the air and it just landed here in the cart and we're like you okay, you okay, and she goes.
Speaker 1:She's laughing about it, because when you get hit by a golf ball and you don't get hit in the head or in some place that knocks you out, the first feeling is like a sting and then progressively it gets worse. So we're all laughing about the story and Mark looks at his ball. It's got a B. He goes hey, that was like a B, a bee sting. And I said it's a bombastic bee sting. And we're all laughing yeah, it's a bee sting into the buttocks. We're high-fiving it.
Speaker 1:She's not laughing that much anymore and he decides well, let me buy a drink. And he gives her the rest of the money that he had in his wallet and it's like I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And so now we get that, we're laughing about it and Ben is like hey, mom, are you okay? And she's like I'm fine, ben, I'm fine, we get on, we keep playing, we finish the round, we go up to the bar and we're kind of telling stories and Hermosa comes up and she says, hey, you know, thanks for playing with my son. And I'm like, hey, is everything okay? She goes, yeah, it really doesn't hurt that much.
Speaker 1:Ouch, fast forward 24 hours. I post a picture of her. I said just point to your buttocks, you know, don't lift it back up. We don't want, you know, I'm not sure you want the world to see that, but just point at your buttocks. And she kind of points, she's smiling, and she points to herself and I take that picture and I post it, and she sees my post and the next day she takes my post and she adds a picture and the picture was what her bruise looks like 24 hours later. So again, lifts up her skirt, lifts up her shorts and it is black and blue, holy shit. And it is no longer the size of a golf ball, it is two to three times the size of a baseball. I mean, this bee sting put a hurt on her, but her attitude was great. Her attitude was fine. I want to roll tight and roll, I want to roll tight.
Speaker 1:And so the lessons learned here are if you're a BevCorp girl lady and you can see golfers and you're within 240 yards out and you could see them and they can see. You believe it or not, you are a subconscious target. Golf is all about targets. It's what you put in your mind and I've talked about this in previous episodes. If somebody says, don't hit it in the water, don't hit it in the woods, don't don't. All your mind thinks about is that second thing the woods, the water. So golf, played right and played well, is very target focused, and so if you're a BevCart person and you are somewhere that could be a potential target, even though people don't want to hit there, there is a really good chance they're going to hit there. So my advice is stay back. Or, once people hit, then pull up. And my second lesson people from Alabama man, they is tough. And my advice to my friend Mark don't use a driver on that hole and if you do, just lighten up on your right hand, take it easy with your right hand. That's it, anyway. The bombastic bee sting. It was a beauty.
Speaker 1:Every once in a while I veer off the path of golf stories because I find something interesting, noteworthy, funny or heartwarming. I throw my thoughts into the stream of the media and, like a wet spitball, throw it against a blackboard. Sometimes it bounces off and sometimes it sticks, and I hope this sticks. My dear friend, tracy suggested we go to the movies the other night and go to the Terrace Theater on James Island and if you like old throwback theaters that serve alcohol, james Island and if you like old throwback theaters that serve alcohol, the Terrace is a really good experience. The movie she chose to see was CODA, c-o-d-a. Now I'm just starting to get my movie enthusiasm back again. I'm a huge movie fan and if you've listened to the podcast before, you'll hear soundbites from movies that just happen to pop up in my head while I'm telling stories. But I'm rusty. I haven't been on my Regal app for 18 months so I didn't know what CODA was all about. But I know Tracy pretty well. She never steers me wrong, particularly in the area of the arts and food. So before we went to the movies I decided to pull up a preview of CODA and immediately texted Tracy back and said I'm in, bring the Kleenex If we're lucky.
Speaker 1:Particularly as men. As we age, our compassion and empathy for others increases to a point where certain triggers influence tears. For me, the big screen has always been an effect on my emotions. I mean, who didn't tear up at the end of Rudy Rocky Tin Cup, the Karate Kid Seabiscuit, brian's Song, friday Night Lights, the movie and the TV series. Remember the Titans and Field of Dreams, where Kevin Costner asks his father if he wants to have a catch? I mean, come on. And recently, ted Lasso man. That is another tearjerker. And these are only the sports movies. This guy is literally a moron. I could do an entire episode on tear-provoking cinema, but that's clearly outside my level of expertise. No shit, sherlock. So CODA C-O-D-A it's an acronym for Children of Deaf Adults.
Speaker 1:The star of CODA, emily Jones, is a 19-year-old actress from England who could sing her heart out. The movie takes place in a fishing village in Gloucester, massachusetts, where a family that earns their living from fishing are all deaf the mother, the father, the son, except for the daughter, ruby, who gets up at three o'clock in the morning with the family, fishes with them professionally and then goes on to high school. And then, while she's in high school, she finds out that she could sing. She goes to a chorus class and the music teacher just finds that this girl has a voice and he's behind her all the way. This is the first movie of its kind to share the lives of a deaf family trying to make it in the world of sound. Academy Award winning Marlee Maitland was the perfect choice for the mother. Her worldwide recognition, I think, helped bring attention to the movie. But here's the thing she didn't carry the movie alone. The entire cast carried it, but Emily Jones as Ruby man, she drove it home.
Speaker 1:There's a scene at the end of the movie where she's auditioning for the Berklee School of Music and understand she had talked to her parents about wanting to do this. They didn't want her leaving the home. She was part of the four of them, she could speak, so she helped them with their family, business and everything in life. And the mom just didn't want her daughter to leave. But she's a strong-willed person. She believes that she needs this. She needs to leave the family and she's going to try and audition to a very difficult school to get in. I mean, their admissions percentage is really low, single digit, so it's hard to get in there.
Speaker 1:So now she goes into SING and she's got these adult faculty three of faculty members that are listening and they're giving her a hard time Like in every movie you've ever seen where somebody has to addition to something that's hard to get into. You know, whoever the committee is, they're really tough and they're really tough on her. And she starts singing. It's not going well and then all of a sudden she looks up and she sees her family up in the balcony that come to watch her. They can't hear a thing that she's singing, but they're going to come support her and watch her. And as she is starting off to sing to the committee, she sees her family. She looks up and she continues singing and belting out this Joni Mitchell song while she starts to sign. And now the faculty is looking up and they see that she's signing to these people and it makes, all of a sudden it changes their disposition. So she sings this song and as she's singing it, tracy looks over at me and I can't wipe away enough tears and she just smiles and she goes of course.
Speaker 1:Look, I'm a sucker for a well-written, perfectly acted movie and throw in a voice and I'm toast. So if you've got nothing to do and you're tired of the world shutting down because of this new Delta variant, go see it, because once you see it, you can't unsee it. You've been listening to an episode of Tales, released a little bit early because I'm hoping Jody hears it and makes those incredible pepperoni rolls or whatever that snack is that everybody's talking about. That everybody's talking about. I'm your host, rich Easton, telling tales in beautiful Sullivan's Island in Charleston, south Carolina. Talk to you soon, thank you.