It’s Open time here about and I have a bit of a unique vantage point for all of it. I’ve heard it said that the Phoenix Open is the largest single outdoor sporting event in the world and it wouldn’t surprise me. Heck, I don’t think I can even come close to counting all those little blue outhouses they’ve got lined up everywhere. Buses roll back and forth along Bell Road filled to overflowing with folks heading to or from the tournament right alongside the property I work at and the line of people walking on the sidewalk the mile and more from their parking spots is non-stop from early morning until very late at night. Of course by the time the sun is beginning to set many of those same hikers are only occasionally walking on the sidewalk while the bike lane makes for a somewhat wider, if perhaps more dangerous, path to try to navigate. And yes there are the times when someone can be heard slurring the question, “Where the hell’s my car?”
Wednesday is a rather light day in comparison for the crowds and they will get larger, much larger. It was for me a good day to watch the folks heading west one foot in front of the other and consider the possibility that maybe next year I will join them. Over the years working where I do I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few of the golfers, some of the men and women, often times very beautiful women, working the booths and a whole bunch of the spectators and for the most part they have been fine folks one and all.
As I watched there was a young woman I noticed walking by herself and certainly walking with what seemed to be a very real and tangible purpose. Everything about her seemed to have come straight out of a fashion magazine because her dark hair looked to be perfectly cut and shaped for her face. Her lips seemed to almost sparkle from the lip gloss, her nails a red somewhere just beyond the color of a perfectly shined Red Delicious apple. She was wearing the sort of blouse that had gotten Tony Kornheiser suspended from his work for two weeks for the comments he made and a skirt that would have failed Mr. Seefeldts’ kneeling on the ground one inch above rule by about eight inches. The high heels had the desired effect I’m sure and I admit to admiring her posture and her walk as she went along down the street. And though I was an appreciative observer of the sight that had passed by me I am at times a practical man and I found myself thinking that those shoes were not the kind one would typically want to wear while following their favorite golfer around the course.
The time has long since passed for me to stop apologizing for enjoying the pleasures of a beautiful woman anywhere within my line of sight. Most will not believe me and many will simply reject my statement that lust seldom has anything to do with my love of the sight of a beautiful woman. I plain and simply have always felt that one of the most glorious and amazing pieces of art God has ever taken the time to create is a beautiful woman and His masterpiece is always the woman who is beautiful from the inside out. And so I no longer apologize for the fact that one of the great pleasures in my life is to have the good fortune to see a beautiful woman no matter the place or the circumstances.
The young woman walking away from me was certainly beautiful on the outside but I’d never know about the inside. It’s funny though how you can tell almost right away with a person simply by saying hello to them, looking them in the eyes and hearing them say hello in return. And the truth was that I’d already decided in my own mind that more than likely this woman might well have some work to do on the inside simply because the truth is you don’t go to a golf tournament done up the way she was without having something else as a part of the agenda.
Back a few years ago I’d seen a local TV station report on the women who go to the Phoenix Open and more precisely to the Bird’s Nest which is the huge tent that contains the nightly entertainment, the dancing, the rubbing of shoulders and the very large amounts of alcohol that are consumed by the folks who go to the tournament. The thrust of the interview was about how these girls actually plan months prior to the event and how the goal of the weekend for each of them is the same – to find a man. Not just any man mind you but a man with money. They didn’t even really care all that much whether he was single or married as long as he was someone who met their criteria which seemed to be fairly simplistic in that all he had to be was male and rich. Their wardrobes were picked with the weekend in mind, their appointments with their beauticians and stylists were timed to this weekend and they did their best to not miss a single thing when it came to this hunting expedition. They would be ready to claim their trophy and like as not he’d never see it coming.
I can’t speak for others but I feel I’m fortunate in the fact that I’m not a man who would find his identity these days simply having a young and beautiful girl hanging on my arm. Having said that I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the thought of such a thing would excite me and I wouldn’t shoo her away just for being young. The reason I’d send her on her was is because she’d still be a girl. She has so much yet to learn about life and living and though the naiveté and shear exuberance of youth might be alluring and endearing I’d much prefer the company of a woman.
I have watched and will watch many of these very same minded ladies walking along over the next days, walking past me and never looking my way because out of the corner of their eye they will have seen the work uniform and the hair in need of a more trendy cut. And yet as they walk by I will forget if only for a moment that I am no longer that twenty or thirty something young man who might have once upon a time very easily slipped in beside any number of those girls if only they were not off on their safari. And if but for a moment of forgetfulness I will imagine myself walking along beside one or another of these smiling, graceful, stylish young beauties and she will be holding my hand and I will be inhaling the smell of some magical elixir that has fixated me on only her.
Lately I’ve given more credence to the concept of a list of things to get accomplished before the time has run out for me. I’ve gone to an NHRA drag race and to a NASCAR race and I feel good having said I’ve done those things. Cars and speed were always something I loved and wanted to be a part of but never was and so this is as close as I’ll likely ever come. The list of things to be done has become somewhat commonly known as the Bucket List and mine I find hard to fill up for any number of reasons. I’d like to make an album one day, though I know that’s not what they really call them anymore, with my daughters singing along. Though I’ve rafted part of the Colorado through the Grand Canyon and entertained others on the journey I’d like to do both one day from the start to the end. I’d like to follow the changing of the leaves down along the East Coast of the US. There’s more I suppose if I sat and really thought about it for a while like just walking those streets back there in that little town in Wisconsin one more time and a few that I likely couldn’t do anymore no matter how much I’d want to like swimming in that old swimming hole one more time.
Sitting here knowing that tomorrow the sidewalk will be lined with people as they walk along toward the TPC Stadium course I’m thinking that maybe one more of those Bucket List things might very well be to join them for a day, to walk the course, to watch all the people in the crowd and to cheer my lungs out as someone makes one of those impossible shots they so often make.
With the thought of all of that comes another vision, a vision where I save all my nickels and dimes over the next year, lose a few pounds, get a stylish haircut sometime in February of 2011, make sure I’ve got some fine looking threads to wear and buy a ticket to The Bird’s Nest. Who knows, there just might be one of those beautiful women there with the same idea.
And whether you believe it or not here’s hoping she’s over forty five.
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