NEVER FORGET!
Here's a little sumthin'...
It's a pre-rap "list" song, sorta like Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere", but dressed up with a chorus and some video that actually identifies most of what's in the list he's reading.
It was recorded by a 1-hit-wonder group called "Reunion", which was comprised of Joey Levine as lead singer / list reader and some studio musicians.
Charted at #8 in 1974...
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| of course I had a lava lamp, it was the '70s...didn't you? |
...and why do you care about any of this?
Can't think of any good reason, other than it does name a lot of the music greats in a very short time and it's kinda fun.
And having a little bit of fun is ok, as long as you remember fun like cotton candy: it's a nice treat now and then but you can't live on it.
Don't say I never did nuthin' for ya.
Well, he done gone and dooded it.
<The Hickory Hacker>, aka Christian Williams, has managed to give Callaway Supersoft golf balls a gutta percha style line cut cover:
For us pre-1900 hickory golfers, this is truly cool stuff, and not just for aesthetic reasons.
The only "officially approved" - i.e., acceptable for hickory tournament play - gutta percha golf ball is sold by McIntyre golf.
Have to give them credit for trying to be period correct by using synthetic gutta percha, but their ball has 2 major problems:
One, it's outrageously expensive, around $16 per ball when you factor in shipping.
Compare that to a Callaway Supersoft at about $2.20 per ball and you get the idea.
As if that's not bad enough, even more troublesome is the fact it seriously underperforms when compared to gutty's used in the 19th century.
Using pre-1900 style clubs, at best you might hit a McIntyre gutty 180 yards...that's if you're Tiger Woods in his prime.
Most hickory golfers get 140 to 160 yards with them.
Don't believe those paltry numbers?
Well here it is, straight from the horse's mouth in an email from McIntyre golf.
It's in response to my question about how far you can drive one of their gutta percha balls:
Re: New customer message on May 22, 2023 at 8:00 am
to me
Terry-
140 to 160 would be typical. most gutty events with pre-1900 clubs have course lengths at 2200-2300 yard per 9.
McIntyre Golf Company
Keep in mind this is from the company whose ball is used in hickory tournaments all across the country.
They know how far people are hitting it.
So how far were golfers hitting "real" guttys produced in the 2nd half of the 1800's?
In Mark Frost's book, "The Greatest Game Ever Played"...
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| Eddie Lowery caddying for Francis Ouimet at the 1913 US Open, the main subject of Mark Frost's book. |
...he recounts Harry Vardon's victory in the 1896 British Open played at Muirfield in Scotland.
In particular he describes the 18th hole, a 447 yard par 4.
In Vardon's 1905 book, "The Complete Golfer", he reminisces about that same championship in 1896 and the 18th hole, describing it as "a fairly long hole - a drive and a good brassy."
He goes on to comment that while it's "...an easy 5, it's a more difficult 4", which makes perfect sense.
It's the last hole of a championship course, meant to be challenging.
To make par on the way out, Vardon's "drive and a brassy" would need to be something like 225 and 200 yards to be on in 2 - avoiding the nasty bunker guarding the green - to have a chance at a 2 putt for par.
So it's fair to conclude good golfers could hit a 19th century gutta percha 200+ yards.
By comparison, that means today's overpriced McIntyre gutta perchas underperform by 30 to 40 yards.
Kudos to them for trying to create an historically accurate ball using synthetic gutta percha, but what's more period correct?
The stuff you put inside it, or the way it actually performs?
I don't know any golfer who's more concerned about what's inside his golf ball than he is about the distance he gets with it from the tee.
At $16 per ball you'd think the folks at McIntyre Golf would be embarrassed by this obvious deficiency, but since they're the official ball recommended for <SOHG> and other hickory gutty ball era tournaments they just roll on.
They do so without me, however.
I may never play in a sanctioned tournament, but I can still enjoy pre-1900 golf using both clubs and balls that perform the way they did during the gutty era.
Very excited to get my mitts on a few of these brand spanking new HH guttys and come one step closer to playing the game the way it was "back when".
I'm going to skip this week's hickory golf update, having already bored you to tears with tales of the gutta percha wars, so let's 23 Skidoo:
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| when Larry first sent me this pic I missed Woody there in the middle of the tree |
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| no sooner did Larry and a friend get his dock in the water than a green heron decided to use it for some fishing |
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| an art deco figurine of an elegant lady...a "please don't beat me" gift to Karen for breaking one of her art deco figurines of an elegant lady |
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| and, praise God in heaven, never will be |
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| roses are blooming, top... |
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| ...and bottom |
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| you like flowers? we got flowers... |
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| ...can't wait until the tiger lilies, daisies, black eyed susans and hibiscus are in bloom |
This day - June 6th - is a somber day.
On this day more than 8 decades ago, across an ocean in a foreign land, thousands of young American men bled and died on the beaches of Normandy in a hail of gunfire amid the fog of war.
They did not want to be there on that day, nor did they know anyone personally in the country on whose shores they laid down their lives.
They would rather have been back home with their families and friends, planning a future where they would grow old surrounded by people they love.
But their country called and they answered.
Because they did, putting duty above self and making the ultimate sacrifice, you and I are free:
Free to do and be what they would have been and done had they not given their lives for God and country.
Think about that today.
Honor their memories.
Be thankful.
Be humble.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
- John 15:13
later, mcm fans...
