Pensée overlooking the Golf Course

Most of us don’t want to know about it because it hurts us and gets us angry, but there is a world of unbelievable need out there and much of it is in our own communities.
by Charlie Leck

I sat for a while yesterday, over lunch, with a lady who was a perfect stranger until we chatted for the half hour we had to dine. I was doing some volunteer work for the state’s golf association and this lady was a spectator, out to watch her grandson play golf. She’s retired and tries to do volunteer work as often as she can. She works in a food shelf for the hungry in the little town where she lives, in the western part of the state. She laughed at a big story in the StarTribune that day that reported the success of current farms and the hundreds of thousands of dollars that farmers are making annually.

“Their equipment is so big and efficient now,” she said, “that they don’t need to hire much help. The farmers might be doing well, but small town America is in pretty bad shape.”

She told me how busy the food shelves are in little towns all around – that it’s difficult to keep up  and it’s difficult to find the volunteers they need to stock the shelves and give out the food.

“Thank goodness people are so generous. So many people would be starving if it weren’t for neighbors who constantly give food and money to us.”

She had a big smile on her face and a few tears in her eyes. She was aware of the conflicting values that were tugging at us both.

“We have lines now. It reminds me of what my folks told me of the depression years. The people are proud and humiliated. They don’t want to be there, but they have children who are hungry. This is America, mind you. This is America!” She looked down at her plate and shook her head.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" She saw the the question in my eyes. "That we can eat like this, I mean."

We didn’t talk politics. We didn’t have to. We both knew that politicians are just consumed by their differences right now – so much so that they can’t see reality. They won’t work together to solve the nation’s problems. The politicians call it “hand outs!”

I told the woman that my wife and I have given more to food shelves in the last year than we gave in the previous ten. I promised to give more. We had a beautiful, immense lunch before us and we sat in the clubhouse of a beautiful country club and looked out over the vast playing field of lush, green grass. She had these tears glistening in her eyes and I loved her for it. I rose and thanked her for her work and told her I hoped her grandson would play well. I shook her hand.

She nodded and thanked me for volunteering my time to help with the tournament.

I’m off to Mississippi in the morning. For a few days I’ll be surrounded by brave and loving people. It will be a good occasion when we’ll gather and sing songs about injustice and inequality. We’ll hold hands and ask the immense question: Why in such a wealthy and bounteous place is their poverty and injustice?

How can there be such gloriously beautiful fields of wonder and amazing beauty on which we can so peacefully golf a ball and, at the same time, such staggering need. I love the golf fields passionately. I cherish the wonder of the game. I also cherish the volunteers who work so bravely to feed and care for the poor and needy. The contrasts all came together at my little table yesterday and the nice lady (I didn’t catch her name) touched me pretty deeply.

Pensée… a reflection or thought (dictionary.com)

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Why the Super Committee failed?

Here’s the truth about the Super Committee: It was destined to fail!
by Charlie Leck

Do you want the unvarnished story – the real deal – about why the Super Committee failed as we expected it would? If so, then read this exceptional story in the NY Times. It very clearly explains the reasons for the failure. Then – understanding that – you can go ahead and blame whoever you want to blame.

Don’t accept a lot of political hocus-pocus about all of this! The reason the Committee failed is simple. Republicans didn’t want to increase taxes on the wealthy and Democrats did.

Most economists in the nation agree that this is no time for government to cut spending. Doing so will only increase the desperateness of these economic bad times. This is the time to pour money into the economic engine in order to get it chugging away – but not borrowed money. Get people to work! That is the crucial requirement. The Republican plan won’t do that.

Democrats were not going to put their seal of approval on a plan that would cut, cut, cut and drive the economy into deeper recession.

Now the battle lines will be exceedingly clear in the 2012 presidential election campaign. Democrats will argue that the Republicans would not increase revenues in order to stimulate job growth and the Republicans will argue that Democrats have failed to manage the economy and stimulate job growth.

The simple question will be this: Who believes who?

The Republicans will have a pot of money to spend on the campaign. Remember? Corporations may now freely give unlimited funds to political candidates. Corporation executives are part of the wealthy elite. Most of them (though not all) do not want their taxes increased.

President Obama may break all the records in existence for campaign fund raising. He’s already stocking it up. Millions and millions of little guys will give him all they can afford.

In November, I think it will be close. However, if Obama wins the race but the House remains under Republican control, nothing will change.

If you’re a progressive and want to make a difference, contribute to Democrats who are running for election to the House of Representatives. If we get a strong House and a strong Senate, the Bush tax cuts will not be extended in January of 2013.

Do not forget for a second where and when this financial crisis began! It was during the Bush administration that the ugly housing crisis began. It was then that the banks ran into trouble and had to be bailed out to avoid a total crash.

I hope Republicans are made to pay for their total inaction over the last four years. They have virtually allowed the economy to fall into ruins in order to bring down the President of the United States. These have been ugly political times – by far, the ugliest of my life time.

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Gingrich leads in latest polls!
by Charlie Leck

You’ve seen it. You’re probably as surprised as I am. Newt Gingrich actually leads in the current polling on the Republican race. Amazing! At least he’s a bright guy – a little whacky, but bright. Have you heard his latest? He wants to put school children to work doing the janitorial work and other work around the schools. He says it would be cheaper than paying union janitors. Actually, I don’t think it would – not by the time you organize such a program and provide the supervision that the children would need. He wants to instill in poor, young people an ethic of work. There is some merit in what he’s saying, but the whole concept needs serious thought. We don’t want to lapse back into the era that preceded our child labor laws.

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Michele Bachmann
Bachmann is falling out of sight in those polls. Her only prayer is a big win in the Iowa caucus procedure; however, the other candidates are now getting themselves organized in Iowa and I think it spells the collapse of the Bachmann effort.

You're aware, aren't you, that Michele Bachmann has a book out. I don't recommend it (I'll bet that comes as a surprise to you). It's called Core of Conviction. Mother Jones Magazine, is fact checking it. They begin by saying, "There's enough to dispute in the first 13 pages that by the time she announces, on page 14, that she was born in Waterloo, Iowa, you want to ask for a birth certificate." My only advice is that you not get the book. You don't want to waste either your time or your money.

Plain and simple, Bachmann is fiction. Don't think of her as a true story. She's something she has dreamed up in her own simple mind.

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Golf Down Under
by Charlie Leck

It was a wonderful golf course (Royal Melbourne Golf Club) that the American and International professional golf teams played on down in Australia. I’ve never been down there. I’d love to travel there someday, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

The golf event was wonderful. Team golf is terribly interesting and compelling. Such sportsmanship and camaraderie. It makes golf special in my mind. I wish it was possible to make it a more common sport among children in all economic classes. There are some programs (The First Tee) that try to do this, but they just don’t get deeply enough into the areas they need to reach.

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Photos or Golf, 1985

Twenty-six years (26) years ago, I took a dream trip to Scotland to play golf. Why does it reinvade my memory now?
by Charlie Leck

This isn’t a blog to read! It’s one to look at.

Here are some pictures I’ve been looking through lately. I took them on a golf trip, but they are not necessarily about golf. They are about the courses we visited, however.

Young people gather on the beach at the St. Andrews Old Course

Cullane Golf Course, high above the Firth of Feif

On the wonderful Muirfield Golf Club course

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Winners, Learners and Losers

Katie Detlesen is a winner at both golf and life!


Golf is a Great Separator of Character
by Charlie Leck [8 June 2007]

Kristine Wessinger, the University of Minnesota women’s golf coach, was at the Minnesota State High School Golf Championship this week, watching a couple of possible recruits. She’s a charming woman and I predict great success for her and her program. I happened to be working the championship as a rules official (representing the Minnesota Golf Association). The weather was beating up both the golf course and the players. The players were also rushed and pushed by us and high school officials, in an attempt to beat some nasty weather that was “supposed” to be rolling in. I felt badly that I was going to have to ask the group that Wessinger was watching to take it up a notch in terms of speed. You hate to rattle any player’s game and, certainly, I hated to do that to a potential recruit for a college scholarship.

I apologized to the coach, explaining what I was going to do. Wessinger didn’t seem to mind and I gathered it would give her an opportunity to see how her “potential” reacted under the added pressure. This part of the story has a nice ending. The young recruit wasn’t rattled and responded to the request to play more quickly. She banged a couple of drives far down the fairways and stuck two approach shots in neatly close to the hole.

The winner of the championship, for the fourth consecutive year, was the golfing phenom, Katie Detlesen, from Minnehaha Academy. Over the two days, I had to ask her group to play a bit of speed golf also. Detlesen never flinched. One could tell she was a seasoned tournament player who was accustomed to this kind of request. She didn’t put any added pressure on herself. Though she quickened her game, she still made lovely, smooth, accurate shots with every swing.

Oh, how golf brings out the character of those who play the game. Other sports do it also, but none as much as golf. Golf tests the attributes of character that one is going to have to use in life’s quest for success and achievement. Detlesen may end up on the pro tour or she may not. As the kids say: “Whatever!” Her golf game is a pretty good predictor that she’ll be successful in whatever she chooses to do.

Following this championship, as I was turning in my radio and saying “ta-ta” to my supervisor, I ran in to a young girl who was crying her heart out about her poor play over the two days of the championship. I stopped to chat with her.

“It was the pressure to play so quickly,” she said.

Her parents chimed in. The officials had pushed too hard and had observed too closely. The girl wasn’t used to playing quickly.

I tried to explain the complexities of championship golf at higher levels – that pressures of all sorts would test one’s game. It isn’t only the golf course and one’s current swing. It’s all the outside interference, including galleries, officials, weather and the pace of play that, at times, seems interminably slow. The player who plays well at the championship level is one who learns to deal with and handle all these interferences to his or her concentration.

Probably, the parents had a good case. We, as officials, could have handled the situation a little more delicately. We were feeling our own pressures. Those anxieties were testing our own character. We probably didn’t respond as well to those pressures as we should have and we were put off our game as much as some of the players were. We’re accustomed to dealing with hardened tournament players, not youngsters who are new to the experience.

On behalf of all the officials, I apologized to the young competitor and urged her to keep playing tournament golf, even though her high school career had come to an end. If she does, she’ll learn to deal with all the strange, non-golf pressures that come with playing the game at the tournament level. The event was a great learning experience for this young lady. If she processes the experience correctly, she’ll benefit positively from it.