Congress has called the heads of big oil to testify next week. The result will be no progress on the oil leak at all, huge fines and warnings all around insuring that the price of gas will rise to ten dollars a gallon. Naturally, penalty tax hikes will be added for the consumer too, bringing the total fill-up price to twelve bucks a gallon. The Gulf of Mexico will be shut down all together and the sheiks in the Arab Emerites will have to move to Europe to be closer to the additional billions they'll hide in Swiss banks after they gouge us again this time.
Meanwhile George Soros will offer to sell his Brazilian oil here at premium prices, but lower shipping costs which is why he told Obama to sabotage the BP rig in the first place. Free enterprise -don't you just love it?
Since I need a break from writing about how government works, I'll add another short entry about Dick Lynch.
We used to play golf all year round, regardless of the cold months. If there was no snow on the ground and the temperature was above thirty, we'd go out. The only other factor was wind-chill. We learned that low temperatures themselves weren't so bad, it was the chilling breeze that really froze you. So at thirty degrees or more and no wind, there were days we'd play only in sweaters after we'd warmed up for a few holes.
So, one day Dick and I were playing Douglaston and it was pretty cold. Frigid enough to keep most folks away except for some other all-year loonies like us. For some reason, Dick who was more than a beginner by then, but not a consistent player, suggested we add something to the fun by making some kind of wager on our game. I told him I had enough to worry about just trying to beat my own scores and betting wasn't my thing. He kept suggesting lower and lower amounts per hole, until he got down to five cents. And then finally, just to end his pestering, I said "Okay Dick, a nickel a hole."
I won the first hole and told Dick, "You owe me five cents." He replied, "Let's go for double or nothing on the next one," to which I agreed. Then for the next sixteen, I won all the holes except a couple which we tied, but Dick kept doubling the ante. So, by the end of our round he owed me a bit.
As we headed back to the clubhouse in our golf cart, I told Dick the round had been fun and that he could forget about the bet, maybe we'd try it again some other time. He said, "Oh, no. A bet's a bet and I don't want to do that," and then he drove all the way back to the first tee. He got out of the cart, told me to come on, and proceeded to hit a tee shot. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me were going to play "Just one more hole. Double or nothing."
For I don't know how many holes more, we kept on going. Since it was now later in the day, and considerably colder, there were fewer others on the course. So if we caught up to another group, he'd drive around them and keep going until he found a vacant tee. A couple of times he crossed fairways if he saw no one playing on holes here and there. And this kept on for quite a while.
Now I don't how many holes we actually played that day in all, but I'd say certainly forty or more, and finally on a short par three I took double bogey five and Lynch made four. When he won that hole, still at double or nothing and by now a considerable sum, he said "We're even" and finally headed back to the clubhouse.
I remember that golf round because of the circumstances, the cold, the wind that came up and of course, the wager. But, most of all I recall how Dick Lynch reacted that day when he was losing. I think no matter what happened, even if it had begun to blizzard, he wouldn't have quit when he was down, even for only nickels. He probably didn't even know how to give in, it wasn't in his make-up. And, I'm sure, that's what the Oklahoma players saw when he beat them as did all those quarterbacks in the NFL that he intercepted. And that's one of the reasons why he was always so much fun to spend time with.
Now, I'm certainly not in Dick's league sports-wise, in football I couldn't even shine his shoes competitively speaking. But golf's another pastime, and I'd been playing the game lots longer than Dick, thus it really wouldn't have mattered had I thrown a hole just to get off the course and get close to a heater sooner. But, I wouldn't quit either. And maybe that's why we spent so much time together, because there's a lot to be said about mutual respect in competition.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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