Editor’s Perspective
A Little Help from our Friends
T
his is the most extreme weather ever! The world is coming apart at the seams. I’ve never seen this country more divided… and other pontifications. Or the opposite take: golfers (or fill in the blank with your favorite entertainment/entertainer) and folks of today are SO much better than those of years past. REALLY?! One of the blessings/curses of getting older is the road behind you is longer than the road in front. So if you take the time to stop and think, or cheat and Google up some facts, you may find that it ain’t necessarily so. Or, if you lived through a year like 1969 and just happen to be approaching a big anniversary year, 50 years later, you get these great prompts to drift back to the Age of Aquarius (like I said, Google it, whippersnappers). So let’s wipe our 2019 minds and hop in the tie-dyed VTC time machine. Whew… glad we get a break from that crazy summer weather of 2019. Let’s open the hatch and see how it feels on August 19, 1969. Yep, just as I suspected — it’s a nice cool summer evening in Nelson County. Those folks had it MADE back then. Does look a little like rain though. Somebody said something about the remnants of a nasty hurricane that hit the gulf coast a couple of days ago. (For the rest of the story: https://www.washingtonpost. com/weather/2019/08/19/virginias-deadliest-naturaldisaster-unfolded-years-ago-hurricane-camille/) Man! Glad the time machine turns into a hydroplane. Hey, this place looks familiar. Looks like we ended up on the mall in D.C. It’s cold and gray outside — we must have skipped into November. The half a million folks around us don’t look too happy either. They’re holding banners and yelling something about a war and stopping the killing of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. Some of them are still reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy last year. Let’s hope the Molotov cocktails don’t come out this time. Hey, I thought this was the generation of peace and love. Flip that switch and get me to a safer place. Now this is more like it! A dairy farm in Upstate New York is a perfect place to chill. Apparently about 400,000 other folks feel the same way. I don’t know about this music though. Some group called The Who. I guess they’re okay,
Mark Vaughn, CGCS Virginia Turfgrass Journal Editor
but I sure miss the Jonas Brothers. One thing is for certain, they won’t be playing WHO music 50 years from now. Oh no, it’s starting to rain! This isn’t gonna be good. Put the pedal down and get us out of here! That was close. You knew with all that mud, lack of food and water, and no shelter it was gonna get ugly. Wait — you mean people actually remained calm and shared what they had? Nobody shot anybody? It looks like the calendar has flipped to September 20 and we’re across the pond at some golf club. A sizeable gallery is around; let’s see if we can get some information. “Pardon me sir, I’m from the future. Can you tell me where we are and what’s going on?” With a puzzled look he exclaims “well Sir, you’re at Royal Birkdale and this is the final round of the Ryder Cup.” Ah… time to kick some Euro butt. We HATE those guys, don’t we? Look, there’s a young Jack Nicklaus playing with some pint sized Brit. Looks like the entire Ryder Cup has come down to this. If Nicklaus makes his seven-footer and this other guy misses, the Cup is ours once again. Jack drains it! Now miss that three -footer little guy! Wait a minute, Jack just picked up his mark and put his arm around the little fella. What — a tie? You’ve got to be kidding me! This is not how sports work. Get me outta here! Finally, back to 2019. So is it better or worse? Yes and yes. You know maybe the August heat and drought wasn’t so bad after all. And the folks I see out and about aren’t really at each other’s throats. Jack Nicklaus could really pound a golf ball with inferior equipment, but even more, he was a gentleman — win or lose. And yes, bad things happen daily, but when you think that 330 million of us share this land from sea to shining sea I’d say the percentages are really low. Maybe we should turn down the TV and social media a notch or two. Think a little more about what this industry has done so well for years, and what this issue of the VTC Journal is all about — cooperation. Or in the words of a fairly well known musical group (who happened to perform their last live gig from a London rooftop 50 years ago), get by With a Little Help From Our Friends.
Mark Vaughn
10 | Virginia Turfgrass Journal September/October 2019 www.vaturf.org
