For the most part disc golf is an ordinary and uneventful sport. You take a set of scaled-down Frisbees to a scaled-down golf course and when you’re not teeing off or putting, you’re searching around aimlessly in the overgrown rough for an overpriced piece of plastic.
But today’s outing was different thanks to “The Murph” and a truck-stop diner called “The Pine-Cone.” Trust me, this is a pair that fully deserve the honor of an article before their names.
“The Murph”
Some of you know Rob and some of you don’t. But those who do, don’t have to be told about his Labrador companion, Murphy. Murphy is one of those youthful and energetic dogs that, due to some mystic force, obey every command they’re given with an attitude of unflagging glee. When Brian showed up this morning, I could immediately see that his car was full. Over-full, in fact, with good-old Murph sitting bitch in the back seat, his head towering above the rest. If the sun-roof had been open, he could have been likened to the scoobster himself, but darker and with better posture - or is it Dino who’s head goes through the roof? If so, then like Dino, but less pink and prehistoric. When Thom volunteered to lesson the load, I jokingly asked if Murphy could come… and before I completed the question, he was bounding towards me. So Thom and I took him into the parking garage where he ran back and forth in cluelessness about where his new master, whom he seemed to be heeding with the same happy loyalty of the old, was leading him. Like a person, he hopped into the back of my van and actually sat upright in one of the bucket seats. All that floor, and he chose a chair! I think I actually paused to see if he would buckle up. During the ride, he was so well-behaved, I almost forgot he was there until I checked the rear-view mirror to see his over-excited expression beaming back at me. At that moment, “the Murph” won a place in my heart. Either I’m really a dog-person responsible for two very un-doglike cats, or Murphy has the charisma of Tony Robbins.
“The Pine-Cone”
The Pine-Cone is a truck-stop located a ways North on Stoughton Rd (for you cuisine-curious Madisonites). The building is rimmed round with well-nurtured and carefully spaced hanging plants. It looks as if some doting mother had opened the place so that her beloved truck-driver son could get a home-cooked meal. Needless to say, “The Pine-Cone” stands out from the rigs. Inside, one immediately stands face-to-face with a case filled with over-sized (trucker-sized?) pastries. There were giant candy-apples, fritters the size of a dinner plate, and a crème-puff so tall, that when Rob purchased it, the clerk had to pack it in a half-shut Styrofoam take-out box held closed by a thin piece of scotch tape. Imagine a refrigerator in the trunk of a Saturn tied shut with bungee cords. The waitress was a surly woman who seemed to enjoy giving orders to young men such as ourselves like: “careful with that cream” and, having dropped a spoon, “would you mind helping a girl out.” Surely, this was no "girl". When the meals arrived, Rob and I were not served, and our waitress explained that the new cook, in demonstrating a remarkable lack of knowledge about the meal we call ‘breakfast,” had put the hollandaise sauce for Rob’s benedict on my corn beef hash.
All in all, I’d say it was a surprisingly full day for disc golf.
No comments:
Post a Comment