50 years ago... Inside... - Chattanooga Bar Association

6 Friday, June 13, 2008 HAMILTON COUNTY HERALD
Diversions
“He enjoys that perfect peace,
that peace beyond all understanding,
which comes at its maximum only to
the man who has given up golf.” –
P.G.Wodehouse
I was attending a party the
other night and Judge Tim Fox
pointed out that I haven’t written a
golf column in awhile. Even though
he feigned sarcasm, I could see in
his eyes he was really concerned.
I told him I had basically
“given up the game,” four words
that are probably as much a part of
the game of golf as the dimpled ball
itself.
As soon as the words left my
mouth, two attorneys and another
judge, with whom I had been know
to compete for and against on the
links over the years, expressed their
disbelief and disapproval with a
cacophony of catcalls and sneers.
Whatever.
Across
1 “Save the __ dance for me”
5 Boxing punch
8 Thick-soled dance shoe
12 Immunization letters
15 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
organizer
17 Actor Neeson
18 Ginger __
19 Does without creature comforts
20 *The Natural State
22 *After “The,” with 73-Across,
novel by 2008 inductee
23 “I can’t carry a __ in a bucket”
25 Biblical measure, as for the ark
26 What une plume writes on
28 “__ Lisa”
29 Genetic building block
32 *Spa City native inducted in
2008
37 Move backward
39 “Old King __”
40 When doubled, a dangerous fly
41 Magic phrase beginning
42 Stir-fry veggie
45 *After 20-Across, group into
which some get inducted
52 “Look!”
53 Really dry
54 Gas station product
57 Campsite hookup user
58 Be brilliant
61 *With 77-Across, memoir by
2008 inductee
65 Arlo, to Woody
66 Sea near the Caspian
67 __ the wind (run quickly)
69 Mozart movement
71 Certain frat bros.
73 *”Mountain __” (1964 Johnny
Rivers hit)
77 *65-Across’s opposite
79 Jane Eyre and V.I. Warshawski,
e.g.
81 Mel in Cooperstown
82 __ and potatoes
83 Go to __ (be immoderate)
84 Orig. texts
85 “At __” (military command)
86 Rock musicís __ Speedwagon
87 Ancient stringed instrument
Down
1 1968 British comedy “Only
When I __”
2 Moises, Felipe, Manny or Jesus
3 Rabbit’s tail
4 Try to advance a base
Are we there yet?
I swear to tell the
truth
By Jay Edwards
Anyway, apparently His
Honor Fox, while he doesn’t play
the bloody game, loves to read
about it. It is his secret passion.
Therefore Judge Fox, even
though I am not a lawyer, I still fear
and respect the black robes of justice,
and am thus compelled to submit
the following script as truth and
evidence of my final farewell to that
game that I once loved passionately,
but do so, thankfully, no more.
There is a new book out by
Carl Hiassen called “The Downhill
Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a
Ruinous Sport.” I haven’t read it yet
but the reviews it’s receiving are
pretty good. It’s supposedly about a
man who gave up the game of golf
in 1973, when “Richard Nixon was
hunkered down like a meth-crazed
badger in the White House, Hank
Aaron was one dinger shy of Babe
Ruth’s all-time home run record,
I Swear Crossword
5 Heller and Pulitzer
6 Singer DiFranco
7 “The __ to see you ...”
8 Scottish group
9 Trevi fountain cash
10 Acorn product
11 Auto-financing org.
12 1981 German-language film set
on a sub
13 Grievances
14 Having a will
16 Group of words
21 Asleep, as a foot
24 www.amazon.com, e.g.
27 “__ for Innocent” (Grafton
novel)
29 “This is where I __ the line”
30 Omaha’s st.
31 Business intro?
33 Mademoiselle’s school
34 Holler
35 Dog food brand
36. Steak or ground round
38. “Fudge!”
42. Colonel Potter, familiarly
43. GRF’s veep
44. From __ (at a distance)
46. Tulip chair designer Saarinen
47. Big name in sunglasses
48. Chiang Kai-__
49. Places where Torah scrolls are
kept
and The Who had just released
Quadrophenia.”
Now, some 32 years later, the
said hacker asks himself why he is
being drawn back to man’s most difficult
pastime, to the “game at
which he’d never excelled in his
prime, and which in fact had dealt
him mostly failure, angst and exasperation?”
His answer to that question is
that he is “one sick” you know
what.
Golf’s a hard game to figure. One
day you’ll go out and slice it and shank
it, hit into all the traps and miss every
green. Then the next day you go out
again, and for some strange
reason…you really stink. –
Anonymous
Hey, nothing lasts forever
right? I mean it was a pretty good
run I had, beginning my aggravating
quest for perfection and joy over
40 years ago. Now it’s time to hang
up my spikes (OK, there aren’t
spikes anymore).
Over the years I’ve played on
beautiful courses from Seattle to
Hilton Head.
I’ve made lasting friendships
but developed a chronic backache.
I’ve shot rounds over a hundred
and others under par. (Okay
twice, but still, do you know how
Hot Springs native gets hers! by Victor Fleming
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37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44
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Victor Fleming’s puzzles have appeared in many publications,
including the New York Times and Games Magazine.
50. Venus de __
51. Garden of __ (Genesis setting)
54. Performer’s goal, perhaps
55. Narrow passageways
56. Bar nibbles
58. Salt, on the Seine
59. Preceding
60. Request
62. Brief skyline unit
63. Application form info
64. Like some Jewish delis
68. 46-Down’s dad
70. Words of woe
71. The Red and the Black
72. Jokester Johnson of “Laugh-In”
74. “Tears __ Pillow”
75. Suddenly change course
76. Being, to Ovid
78. Mad Hatter’s quaff
80. File extension for installer programs
Last week’s solution
G I F T I B A R A C C O S T
A R E A R O L E C H A N C E
Y O U R E A H A M T O R S O S
E N D V I E D C A E N S
H E S M Y C U P O F T E A
R E F E R E E A S A L E
I C E R A F T R A S T U
T H E B R E A K F A S T C L U B
A O L E E R I E A O N E
S W E A R M E I S T E R
T H E Y R E B A D E G G S
R O S S I A T E E B U S
I N T O T O S H E S T O A S T
B E E P E D A L O T R H E A
E D E S S A S S R S B A R N
difficult that is?)
I’ve hit massive drives and
topped tee shots that rolled 20
yards.
I’ve cared for my clubs like
they were the Holy Grail and I’ve
broken a driver on the hardpan in
east Texas (as our new favorite
philosopher would say, “I beat that
ground like it owed me money.”).
I’ve holed out from 100-yards
and 4-putted from 5 feet.
I’ve felt invincible and desperate,
often on the same day.
So now, Your Honor, I’m giving
it all up. Who can blame me?
But golf has a siren’s call. And
perhaps, 32 years from now, when
I’m 83, if I’m still around, maybe I’ll
get one of my grandkids to come by
the house (or nursing home), and
climb the stairs into the dusty old
attic, and look behind the
Christmas tree.
There he should find some old
Taylor Made Burner Irons (circa
1998) with the rifle shafts, a Taylor
360 10.5 degree stiff shaft driver,
It is always good to hear
from readers. Especially those
from who’ve I’ve heard before.
The columns about Evan
Esar brought a few comments
from folks who knew the name
from crossword puzzles. And one
from someone to whom the name
had a different significance.
Professor Emeritus Arthur
Murphey, who taught me both
contracts and property law at the
University of Arkansas at Little
Rock School of Law in the late
‘70s, called to say that the name
of Evan Esar is etched into his
memory as of April 12, 1945. He
went on to say that he recalled
seeing Esar’s syndicated column
“Wit and Wisdom,” though he
did not recall specifically where
or during what years.
Prof. Murphey recalls
receiving a package, via the U.S.
mail, on April 12 in the year
that, months later, would mark
the end of World War II.
Unwrapping it, he saw that it was
a book he had ordered some
weeks earlier, “Esar’s Comic
Dictionary.”
This “Comic Dictionary”
would have been compiled when
Esar was in his early 40s. A three
and a half-page foreword by the
author himself reads as though he
may have been a professorial sort.
Consider this:
“The wit and humor which
constitute the contents of this
dictionary are of popular origin
and therefore unattributed. They
stem, in the main, not from professional
humorists or celebrated
wits, but rather from the world of
anonymity, from unknown persons
in all walks of life and
departments of activity. …
“It is axiomatic that the wit
and humor of a nation is an
unerring index of its spirit and
civilization. Because this work is
more comprehensive in subject
coverage than other books of
humor, and because its contents
are the briefer, more satiric types
of wit, it furnishes an unusually
the Kennex 3-wood (the brother of
that broken driver buried somewhere
in east Texas) and even the
52-inch (yipless) putter.
He’ll yell down to me that he
found them and I’ll say, “Good
boy,” as he slowly climbs down the
stairs with the old black bag slung
over his strong young shoulder.
Then maybe I’ll ask my grandson
if he wants to come along as I
load up the clubs into the car no
one wants me driving anymore. But
he declines, which would be for the
best really, because when you are
revisiting an old flame for the first
time in 32 years, you really should
have some privacy.
Then I pull slowly out of the
driveway, looking back once to see
Kathy standing in the doorway,
shaking her still-pretty head as I
pull out onto the street, in my
search once again for the smell of
freshly cut grass and that hard to
find trio of rhythm, tempo and timing.
❖
I Swear...
More on Esar
By Vic Fleming
clear mirror of contemporary
manners and morals. Excluding
its verbalisms and wordplay,
which have no sub-surface connotation,
this dictionary is a genuine
vox populi.”
Some of the entries in this
“comictionary” include:
Honor system. An educational
plan in which the teacher has the
honor and the students have the system.
Labor. It’s always within striking
distance of capital.
Knowledge. Knowledge is
power, if you know it about the right
person.
Poise. One woman’s poise is
another woman’s poison.
Relatives. 1. Inherited critics.
2. What the rich never lack.
Repeal. Husbands lay down
the law but wives usually repeal it.
Shirker. A person who is clockeyed.
Start. The trouble with many
people is that they take so long to
start to begin to get ready to commence.
In portions of the foreword
that I did not allude to, the
author explains his methods of
defining some terms, using exemplary
sentences with some and
offering cross-references on
some. It’s more than a bit complex.
But back to Professor
Murphey.
As he tells it, “after opening
the package, I was walking along
the street reading the book when
I heard a radio playing quite
loudly from my neighbor’s house.
I walked up the sidewalk to listen
more closely and heard that
President Roosevelt had just
died.”
I forgot to ask Art Murphey
whether Esar’s book was perceived,
by him and those in his
circles, as truly funny, witty
and/or useful. Perhaps it is
enough that his primary association
to Evan Esar is the death of
a great president.
© 2008 Vic Fleming ❖