Greenskeeper Shawn

I’m joining the foray into blogging.

So the other night my in-laws said they would bring some left over sod to us. We’ve been cleaning up a mess of random bushes and wood chips strewn everywhere left from the family we bought our house from. So I have a couple sections that are just dirt which have become somewhat of a dirt box for my boys. Well, we met my wife’s parents and younger brother at Hires for burgers and fries and even a milkshake. Mike and I were the only ones who had some of the wonderful concoction which was an Oreo & peanut butter shake. Clark almost laughed Diet Coke out his nose when Mike told the waitress the flavor. But hey, Oreo – good, Peanut butter – good, put them together – uber good. Em made fun of me later in the night for not eating like a real man (meaning crap like ice cream, doughnuts, and other junk; even though I helped with Mike’s shake. More on my eating habits to come – running 6 marathons in 8 months requires a slight change of diet).

So we get back and start unloading sod by our “dirt box”. Now, my ‘work shoes’ consist of retired running shoes (retirement comes at 300-400 miles on each pair – yes those are 2 0’s after each number and each pair may last about 5 months) which have lots of holes in them for ventilation. So I go change into my North Carolina (Tar Heels! - I'm trying to teach my scouts the proper way to play basketball) shorts and my Sorel snow boots. I know it’s June but it was overcast and I was tired of getting dirt in my toes.

So Em goes to the gym and the boys are left to play with their toys in the dirt. I had a bucket for each boy and we set out smoothing our dirt spot by moving piles of dirt to our other dirt hole. So I shoveled and they used little spades to fill our bucket, and then we’d dump it over by the house. Eventually my 2 year old, Tyler, came to me and said, “bed”. I guess I worked him pretty hard. So we went in and got them into bed and I came back out to finish.

Once I had it all in (by light of street light now that it was almost 10 o’clock) I started hosing it down to smooth out the sod and hope it survives. Here’s where the funny “ah-ha” moment came. Let me remind you what I look like. I’m in my Russell Surfboard shirt (from Newport Beach on senior trip 12 years ago), my UNC shorts, and my Sorel snow boots, and I’m just spraying water out of the hose. Almost without thinking I started laughing and said the following:

 “So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one -- big hitter, the Lama -- long, into a ten-thousand foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. And do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga...gunga -- gunga galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.

Now, in an effort to make this blog somewhat interactive, the first person to name who said this wins a prize! I’ll give you a hint – think greenskeeper, floating candy bar in a pool, and “it’s in da hole!”. Leave guesses in comments section and I’ll post the winner when we have one.