Aaahhh.............Autumn in New England is such a majestic event! The many beautiful colors and familiar smells! The wonderful memories from childhood of jumping into a leaf pile with friends and then going to the kids house who had the Cool Mom, for warm cider and doughnuts! Looking forward to dressing up for Halloween and trick or treating in your neighborhood with all your pals! Hay rides and apple picking, football games, bonfires and hikes in the woods! Aaahhh............Such fond memories so crisply imprinted on our minds that just a smell or sound or simply the feeling in the air can bring it all rushing back! Turning back the years with effortless precision, allowing us the brief illusion of going back to our youth! Aaahhh...........Like watching Bob Ross painting happy little tree's................aaahhh............So peaceful and serene.......................aaahhh....................aaahhhhhh what a load of bat guano!

 I arrived at Franconia Golf Course about an hour before our tee time. Once again I was the first of our group to arrive so I did some practice putting while I waited for my classmates to stumble in....I mean show up! Soon people began to arrive and we took time to greet each other and renew old acquaintances! Then the late risers started showing up and some of them looked like they never went home from the night before! Rumor had it that a few of them had slept in the parking lot in their cars! I had noticed several haphazardly park cars with steamy windows but figured it was some recently homeless people, what with the bad economy and all. Because it was a fall day I wore pants and a tee shirt under my golf shirt and was comfortable even though it was breezy and about 60 degree's. I noticed that many of the later arrivals wore shorts and I thought to myself "What a hardy bunch this is!". So, I'm talking with some old friends when I see these two old codgers heading our way. First I figure they must be a couple of panhandlers, in cahoots with the homeless people, looking for a hand out. Much to my surprise it was actually our old teachers from high school Mr. Courtney and Mr. Mazzarello! So I took my hand off my wallet just long enough to shake their hands and then quickly backed away excusing myself to get ready to tee off. I later found out that they were there because they had heard the class of 74 was in town and realized if they wanted to be safe they needed to keep us under observation around the clock! Wow 35 years later and the reputation lives on!

It was now our foursomes turn to tee off so I jumped on the tee first and got ready to hit my drive. I must admit that it has been a long time since I have had the first tee jitters but being in front of my classmates made me slightly nervous! I took a deep cleansing breath to calm the nerves, addressed the ball and with a flawless swing of the club drove the ball  solidly, hitting the lone tree 50 yards down the fairway dead center. Thankfully Chuck, Pam and Sarah all hit great drives down near the green so mine didn't matter! Unfortunately this is where things get fuzzy in my recollections of the events of the day! I don't know if it was the excitement of the day,  an old concussion acting up or possibly the breakfast burrito I ate was bad, but the rest of the day is a kaleidoscope of colors and activity and people! I remember pink, lots of pink, pink balls and pink sweaters and I even think I saw a giant pink flamingo. I have a hazy picture in my head of Chuck riding the flamingo while he drove the golf ball 300 yards down the fairway. There is another ridiculous recollection of Chuck scaling a 10 foot chain link fence that was topped with razor wire just to get to the cooler in which he had "swing oil", whatever that could be. For some reason whenever I think of Chuck I hear the opening guitar riff from Black Magic Women. If I can't get it out of my head soon I will have to seek help.  I remember it was starting to cool down and the wind was picking up. There were golf balls flying at us from all directions and from watching the other groups it must have been getting slippery because many were stumbling or falling down! I think the "swing oil" was making it slick for some!  By this time the cold had everyone trying to keep their balls warm by putting them in their pockets! The ladies were still playing pink balls but the guys in shorts had changed to blue balls! As wild as all of this sounds I have saved the wildest for last! I remember our group going down the 18 th fairway When suddenly I see Sarah jump out of the golf cart she and Pam were riding in! She then proceeds to do a series of somersaults, twists and back flips that would have made Mary Lou Retton proud! I remember wildly applauding her routine and was very upset when the Russian judge was the only one to not award her a 10! He said "She did not stick landing!" She certainly looked stuck to me! With that show over we finished the hole and went to the clubhouse to warm up and wait for the other groups to finish. Something had happened to the pink group behind us as they were at least 3 holes behind when we finished! I heard that Fred Ernsting was chasing down Clydesdale's getting autographs and free beer, so maybe that slowed them down. Somebody else will have to fill in the gaps in my recollections and hopefully clear up some of the nasty rumors. One last observation was that Gary Powers apparently did not learn his lesson years ago when he had that nasty Hoover accident in high school and came to school with all those neck bruises! That's right, the Hoover got loose again and he had another bruise!

I hope others had fun like I did and that we can do this again sooner rather than later!

                 My best to all,         PJNaz

You are the best Naz...that's what she said.   Outstanding recounting of the day.......with some very fine interspersing of some of our favorite sexual innuendos of the day....only our foursome would recognize....I'll have what she's having.

Thanks Chuck! I'm so glad my juvenile sense of humor was not lost on everyone! PJNaz