Earlier this week I joined our Probus group for our first golf date.  Ordinarily we do this in March but….

No particular reason why I have not been out playing because around here the courses have been open.  There is a guy I know who tells me he already has 20 rounds in.

In my case, I had not played a round since last September.  But my buddy Ross, is the Golf Coordinator for our club and always wants to play with me, so I signed up.

We went down to Arrowsmith a golf course near Qualicum Beach.  A good course to start because it is an executive length course meaning only 3500 yards with mainly par 3s and a couple of par 4s and one par 5.  An absolutely beautiful day.  The great thing about this course is that it gently slopes down with fabulous views of Mount Arrowsmith (hence the name).

So we are in the first group to tee off because my buddy is the organizer.  Lots of people there to watch.

Many years ago when I lived in Markham and our hockey group (400 players) had the first golf party to end the season, it was traditional for all the guys to gather at the first tee and kibbutz those teeing off.  To this day I remember the pressure because if you hit a slice or shanked it, you did not hear the end of it with boos.

So there we were at Arrowsmith.  I had not ruined my swing by going even once to a driving range in preparation.  I teed off first.  Took a couple of practice swings and proceeded to hit the ball long and straight down the fairway.  Maybe not 300 yards, but a long way.

What you do in that situation is you calmly bend over pick up the tee and walk back to join your group.  After all that is the hit you expected.  The rest of my group did not do as well.

I would love to say the rest of my round went as well.  Let us just say it is a good thing I have a large inventory of golf balls.  But it is all about the opening drive.  A good day.

I just finished reading a good book called The Voyage of the Fox.  This was one of the 40 expeditions that went out into the NW passage to rescue or find the remains of the crews in the Franklin Expedition of 1845.  Well written book describing the hardships they faced.

This is probably the fourth book I have read either about the expedition itself or search expeditions.  Many men and ships were lost in the futile search.

By 1855 the government of England stated it was no longer going to finance expeditions to find Franklin as the cost in money, ships and men was too great.  Franklin’s widow sold off most of her property to finance one more expedition including purchasing a private yacht The Fox.  Again to no avail.

After reading it I mentioned to Pat that if ever I was lost in the mountains on one of my hikes and after search and rescue gave up finding me I hope she would not sell up the property to finance private search parties to find my body.  She said of course not.  As I turned away I realized that she answered that rather quickly.

They were a different breed of men in those days that would suffer as they did for exploration.

Pat and I have been watching a series of documentaries on the History Channel called Food That Built America.  Three 2 hour shows that document the famous families that developed businesses with food.  Heinz and the invention of ketchup, the fight between the Kellogg brothers and their fight against Post.  The histories of McDonald’s and Colonel Saunders are also covered.  Very interesting shows.

But there was a lot of attention to the Hershey and Mars families and the wealth they accumulated as they introduced candy bars to America.  We liked it so much we went out and bought a selection of famous historical bars and will enjoy them for dessert for the next few days.

There are two lessons that husbands are given on how to have a happy relationship with the bride.

The first lesson, and the most important, is never, never, never accompany your wife when she goes out to buy pants.  You do not want to be there when she comes out of the fitting booth and asks your opinion.  Just never be there!!!

The second one is, do not go shoe shopping with her.  Not that there are opinions that might get you punished as there is from the first lesson, but it is dead boring.  You could sit for hours watching shoes that look like every other one she has tried on.

Patty has been wearing the same pair of orthotic sandals for, going on 20 years.  These are sandals that she wears indoor.  As I remember very expensive at the time but they were getting to the stage that I could no longer repair.

This morning, we went off on a search, at the limited variety high-end shoe stores here in Paradise, for replacements.  No success. At one store I had to stay outside wearing my mask.

When we eventually got home and Patty was busy, I went on-line and searched for Mephisto, Birkenstock, Cambrian etc and found what I thought she wanted.  Downloaded a fitting sheet, measured her foot, and we ended up ordering a pair of Cambrian Agean sandals for her.  (not cheap)

I am a good husband, or as they say.. a keeper.