UNCLE J’S FAMOUS HALF GAINOR AND BACK LAYOUT DIVE

Always on our assignments around the world, one of our favourite times was of receiving visits from friends and family. The girls especially loved these times, because of the major dose of “spoiling” soon to be heaped on them. This memory is about one of those times and involves Deysi’s sister Lupe and her husband J. The last time we had been together was when they visited us in South Africa. I knew for sure that J and I would have some fun, play some golf and get in some trouble.

And before I begin, a memory of that time in SA creeps back into my head. It was of a game of golf, that J and I had been invited to by my neighbour B from across the street in Sandown, SA. We were invited to play at the Royal Jo’burg G&CC with a friend of B’s. J was selected to play with the friend and I was teamed with my neighbour. The neighbour was very competitive and a small wager was placed on the game. It started with my friend asking Uncle J for his handicap. J says “18“, and off we go. It just so happens that on that particular day J has the game of his life.

He not only shoots to his handicap, but beats all three of us net (handicap excluded). We are beat front, back, match and side bets. It was a clean licking’, much like a dog on a bone. My neighbour is not happy, he hates to lose and had now just been thoroughly abused. When we are shaking hands after the match, he looks sternly into J’s eyes and states “Son you are the best 18 handicap in the Southern Hemisphere” and he didn’t mean it as a compliment! Remembering this I knew Uncle J and I would be having a game of golf, somewhere. OK now back to the memory of Pennsylvania.

The visit starts out much as expected, with me working a few last days before some time off and Deysi showing our guests some of the local sights. Uncle J was a favorite of the girls, because he would basically play with them in the pool, whenever they wanted. It was during one of these play dates, that he made himself famous forever, in their eyes. On a hot afternoon when Ron, as usual was dunking Ange in the pool, and Ange was rewarding her with ever louder, high pitched, ear piercing shrieks. It sounded as if murder was happening in our backyard.

Uncle J, ignoring this bedlam, took himself to the other end of the pool and was practising his “Olympic” diving form, from our 1 meter board. At one point with the girls, half watching his performances, He goes for the olympic record of high dives. He jumps his big fit body about 1 additional meter high, blends that board until it is almost touching the water and is in the process of a getting into a full gainor with a back layout, when at about the same time, the board figures it has had enough of this world and snaps in half with a sound like a 10 gauge shotgun going off in a closed space, or CCCRRRRAAAAAAAAKKKKK.

Uncle J does not get the spring he needs for the full gainor, but does make the perfect back layout. SSSSSLLLLLAAAAAPPPPP, like a side of meat being hit with a baseball bat, he lands flat on his back in the pool. There was a second of silence and then the girls howl with laughter as a major tsunami crosses the pool. Uncle J surfaces with a look of horror on his face while the girls are near catatonic with howling shrieking, convulsing laughter. Ange through fits of uncontrollable glee says “please Uncle J can you do that again? I didn’t see all of it”.

This sends them into another paroxysm of howling laughter and makes poor ol’ Uncle J’s face even redder. It now is about the same shade as his back, where he had slapped it into the water. Poor guy felt so bad about this incident and wanted to cleanse it from his mind. However, not with these girls, you’re not getting a pass from something as funny as that. Whenever he seemed to relax after that, one of these little devils or the other begged him to repeat his dive! This would send him to the depths of embarrassment and them to the heights of “glee”.

As I said earlier, I had a couple of days work to do, as Deysi toured our guests around the local Pennsylvania area, but soon a long weekend came and we packed everyone, our bags, golf clubs and goodies into our car and headed for Myrtle Beach for a little sun, sand and golf. On arrival at our destination we found out that we had arrived during one of the biggest “biker” rallies in US history (at that time), with about 60,000 bikers converging on Myrtle Beach for a rally. I immediately had visions of mayhem and pillage in my mind. Sure enough I make a left turn instead of a right and find myself smack in the middle of about 1000 of the meanest looking dudes you can imagine.

Ron immediately wants to make faces at them from the safety of the car and has the window rolled down so she can offer some critique to this group. I had Deysi stifle her, as visions of “Walking Tall and Billy Jack” stream thru my head. I envision myself being pulled from my car and given an ass whuppin in front of everyone. Even then I had been conditioned by the evil media to fear and loath something that was no more than a gathering of people who liked to ride bikes and have fun! Anyway I survived my own fears and we arrived at our hotel in one piece. The girls headed, immediately, to check out the beach, while uncle J and I did some research for golf courses, suitable for our formidable skills.

Shortly after dawn the next morning, Uncle J and I head for the course. We had scheduled a morning and an afternoon game of golf for each day we were there. The girls did not care and really did not seem to miss us. They had beach and shopping in mind and all we were in their plan, were annoyances. So off we went. We are on the course early, no one in sight and we think “yes we will play alone and be done in 3 hours”. Not so fast, just as we are ready to tee off an elderly couple from Pittsburg ask if they can join us. Sure, why not we say, what harm can they be.

They introduce themselves and the lady tells me that she is 74 and can’t hit the ball too far anymore. “Not a problem” says I, “do your best and just have fun”. I step up to the tee, now I’m nervous because I have an audience watching me. I pull my trusty driver back and rip a swing loose that connects with my ball, bbbllllaaaaammmm! Its still going up when it passes over the first row of houses to the left of the course. Oh shit, I think. The elderly lady goes “oooooohhhhh, that was big”, and then gets into the tee box and dinks one about 100 yards straight down the middle.

It started like this and continued like this all day. I would hit some major crap, and she would bunt it about 100 yards each time straight down the middle. Halfway around ol’ Uncle J can’t help but to let out a snigger or two, and tell me “you know you are getting your ass kicked by a 74 year old lady from Pittsburg that can’t hit the ball 100 years?”. Gee thanks J, that was very uplifting. And so it goes, J riding beside me struggling to control his laughter over my plight and this lady just chipping away at my self esteem, 100 yards at a time. Geezus, I’d rather be shopping.

As it turned out we had no problem finding golf courses to play. At that time there were about 170 courses within the area of Myrtle Beach. On one of them they were selling golf patio homes for $60,000 each. We were intrigued, but neither of us ready to sink $60,000 into something like a golf villa, nnnnaaaaahhhh we’d rather wait until they were a 1/2 million $ (or more) each. Another of my wise investment decisions made. OK enough whining!

The girls were having a blast and barely noticed, or acknowledged our presence. They filled their days with beach, shopping, dining, beach, then shopping and more dining. Everyday we would find Ange and Ron playing with their mom and Aunt Lupe in the same place under the same umbrella on the beach. I am going to put some pictures of them in this post which will better describe their days. All too quickly it ended and we waved so long to the biker hoards and returned to Pennsylvania. Another dream like memory of our years on the road together.