be the ball

From time to time, JohnL and I join my rafting friends from Eugene on a three-day paddle down the beautiful and remote Rogue River in southern Oregon. Ask any kayaker and he/she will tell you that rafting friends are the best kinds of friends to have. These folks are epic hedonists and traveling down a river in their company is caramel covered happiness on a stick. Camp dinners consist of BBQ'd steak in a red wine reduction with sautee'd I don't even know what. Just one moment while we unearth the dutch oven'd chocolate cake. You prefer your margaritas blended you say? Let me just fire up the gas powered blender.

In order to ensure that suffering is kept to acceptable levels, we usually stay the second evening at a place called Half Moon Bar Lodge. This little slice of heaven sits in a field on top of a bluff looking out over the Rogue River. But if you want to come here, bring your PFD or a Piper Super Cub because the only way you're getting here is by boat or landing a plane on their cow pasture. Of particular note on their "runway" is a meandering golf course, each hole consisting of a truck tire rim buried in the ground.

After quickly hauling and stowing the gear, the more obnoxious elements of the party brew up some Nalgene bottles full of gin and tonic. Armed with toxic amounts of gin, we race over to the old whiskey barrel full of garage sale golf clubs. This golf course is not a course for keen club selection. There will be no evaluating the wind or slope of the green. You will not be consulting a caddy. You will take one club and like it. I, for one, prefer a good 9 iron. I find that the higher in the air the ball travels, the more time my head can swivel around like a bobblehead looking for it. And double-bonus: I never have to walk far to my next shot. 3 irons are great and all but if you drive the ball past a certain point into the trees, the bears might just be keen on keeping that ball for their own selves. Your call, Tiger.

We do have some other rules to our friendly competition. You will not keep your head down when you swing. Nor will you follow through. You will not keep silent during one's backswing nor drive through the ball with your hips. The first person that offers helpful advice on my swing will find an errant 9 iron wizzing past the bridge of their nose. Anyone caught keeping score after the third hole is clearly sober and is ejected from the competition. Or sometimes we just tackle them and rub buffalo grass in their hair.

What follows is only a distant, unruly cousin of golf. As the afternoon wears on and the Nalgene bottles lighten, it descends into a baser form of entertainment. Mostly, our tournament becomes howls of laughter and rolling on the ground as someone lets go on the upswing or whacks themselves on the toe. Massive divots are carved out of the ground in front of an unmoved golf ball. Occasionally we must break from the tournament to replenish our drinks. The more properly behaved members of the rafting party will setup a table somewhere on the grounds full of delicate cheeses and delightful cocktails. While they decant wine and discuss 401k's, our miscreant contingent wades through this offering like Sherman through Atlanta. After gorging ourselves on finger-scooped gouda and pinot gris right from the bottle, we wipe the crumbs off our faces with our shirts and express our gratitude with a large belch. "BUUURRRRAPPPP!" we pronounce as we take our leave and amble back to the course.

The bacchanalia spirals down throughout the evening in and out of my memory. I have snapshots of acting the right fool but the snapshot never comes with context or order to the events. The following morning finds me cotton-mouthed and feeling like a bag of hammered shit as I try to re-construct the jackassery of the evening. Did I really drop a full glass of gin on top of Nick's head in the sauna? Who threw up in the grass last night?

And where the hell are my pants anyhow?













(pics by JohnL and Tim O'Dell, thanks fellas!)