Whether Weather: Golf, Naked Old Guys, etc.

The conversation in the change room this afternoon went pretty close to this:

Old Naked Guy #1: "Well, it's June now and I guess we can only count on another three months of golf weather!"

Old Naked Guy #2: "Or less! I mean, you can usually count on July and August, but September can be pretty cold."

ONG #1: "What about that El Niño? We can get that."

ONG #2: "Or not. Global warming, eh?"

ONG #1: "Yeah, and it's confusing in the fall trying to find your ball on the fairway with all the leaves."

ONG #2: "I'd rather be confused on the golf course than confused at home with the wife!"

ONG #1: "Huh."

During evening walk at Stanford
Okay, so, there's more than a few themes here. And, okay,  the locker room is a semi-sacred place, and I shouldn't, perhaps, be replaying a memory of the conversation. But no identities have been revealed. And, even if you saw these guys, you wouldn't necessarily know them, because, well, if you've seen one complaining naked old guy, you've seen the next hundred complaining naked old guys.

And, yes, it was, well, small talk. But it was intriguing, too. In fact, as I eavesdropped, the eucalyptus tree somehow came back to mind. Shelagh has said that the now-iconic California tree is not native to the state, and where it takes root in its new world, biodiversity issues ensue.

And then from somewhere the thought struck me that it is folly to complain about not being able to play a game imported into a part of the world whose weather cannot long support it.

The naked old guys are good guys, and it is kind of ridiculous to take what is just innocent banter about the weather and make a bigger case about it. But it's also worth remembering that with so much of our city's negative-ish self-image tied to what many consider to be bad weather here, that there may not be, in the end, bad weather, as much as weather that doesn't fit what doesn't fit in it.

Just a thought that blew in.

Having said all of that, Edmonton is a pretty glorious place to golf this time of year. As I end this blog, it's 7:04 pm, and there's still enough time for a quick 18.


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