My Pregnant Wife IV: The Golf Consiracy and Castor Oil

GoBucks ^ | 13 June 05 | Gobucks

[gobucks]

The priests of golf frequently state that just before you begin your swing, you should think your 'swing thought'. It is supposed to relax you, just before you swing, such that the result doesn't provoke the smirks, chuckles, and sympathetic looks from your golfing buddies. The only problem is that most golfers are unaware of the Golf Conspiracy.

The powers that be in the Pro Golf world are fully aware of the advantages of a priesthood of golf. Recall that priests have legal immunity. You can't sue a golf teacher for malpractice. Thus, as any golfer knows, you can't find two people who teach golf the same way. In fact, it defies description just how differently this black art of golf teaching is practiced, from guru to guru. I used to think it was simply something to be endured. Now I think it smacks of conspiracy.

Someone once said, there is no need for conspiracy if everyone is on the same page. Well, the golf teachers sure are. If they were REALLY interested in making better golfers, you would have heard something fantastic in the golf news: the percentage of golfers who break 90 keeps increasing year of year, 'golfer' being that individual who actually keeps a sanctioned handicap card.

But, wonders of wonders, you never hear about that do you? In fact, even though there are millions of suckers taking up this game every year, the total proportion of golfers who break 80 consistently never changes ... well under 5 percent of all golfers. The average handicap of 108, roughly, never changes, year after year. Why? An example from the priests is as follows: the 'swing thought'. What they tell you is that just before you bring the clubhead back, you say in your mind something like "take the clubhead all the way back".

There is one slight problem with this. It doesn't work. In fact, horrors, it actually creates a mental dissonance which just about garuntees the golfer will mis-hit about half the time. Why? Because words, ANY words, in the mind of a golfer are his mortal enemy.

Any golfer who actually can break 80 already knows this. But given such men usually have a deeply vested economic interest in keeping their 'friends' in the 90 range, you'll never hear them speak of the matter.

They know that the ability to image, that is 'think in pictures', while at the same time zipping shut and locking down that part of their mind which creates mental words, is one of the two primary 'open' secrets to being an effective golfer.

For example, any golfer has heard a million times on the downswing that you have to turn the hips 'out of the way' before you really whack it. The problem is that so many foolish men listen to this advice and think about it while they swing. In reality, plenty of photos of Tiger, Phil, Vijay, whoever-it doesn't matter, exist which show the front of BOTH hipbones, especially the right one, nearly facing directly down the line of ball flight well BEFORE the club head is anywhere near striking the ball.

Why is that? I don't really care. All I know is this: when I put that picture in my head, and conformed my future to that picture, I then swung back, held the club head behind me until I made my hips look like those millions of pictures, and then struck the ball.

Sweet God of Mercy. The sight of that glorious white arc cutting across the blue sky with the faintest whisper of wind around me all the while, then watching it dropping into the far-off emerald fairway, and rolling ..... astonishingly, the English language begins to reveal bona fide inadequacies to illustrate the sensation of watching that sight.

The utter increase in absolute power. The oddness of the 'lag' sensation as I make the hips move to their position, the weirdness of how golf remarkably transforms from a game into a dance...; and the BLISSFUL feeling when the brutal, sick, pent-up mass of frustration endured month after month, season after season finally, FINALLY drains away and is replaced instead by the feeling of 'oh. Is THAT all I had to do?' The washing waterfall of hope cascading down into my soul as I realize that, as God as my Witness, I can break 90, not just 100.

Which leads me to the question: why do the powers of golf persist in false teaching? Of course: that great, green, greedy god: money. By saying your cure to your golf woes is yours after you release your gold for the latest technology that conquers the green landscape, why, the powers of golf set up a perpetual money machine. The snake oil salesmen of yesteryear are cheering in wild approval.

It is a FANTASTIC racket, and I hope to make a good chunk of money within it myself, but not as a fellow racketeer.

My hope is that I break the conspiracy of silence that surrounds the 'mystery' of golf. For then, the elegant mirror it was intended to be all along will then be revealed, and the control freaks who currently set the cultural tempo, they and them, will grow into the Men they have always craved to be and falsely believe they already are. And then the bleating masses, who follow dutifully with their plastic bottles of Miller Lite from hole to hole, might just transform into creatures worth imitating instead of being worthy of mere envy.

But first: I have to break 100 off the blue tees. My average is 105 ...

Now, all that said, Castor Oil is a favorite method by which a woman who is overdue in her pregnancy can 'jump start' the whole process. Sometimes it is reported to work great, other times, it is reported to have no effect other than what the bottle says it will do: make plenty of appointments with your porcelin fixture ...

Mrs G.B., who as I have discussed in my other preg-wife threads, and I, finally, with the clock ticking down (the Midwife practice told us that we're reaching that stage when overdue is too overdue and something will have 'to be done') have chosen to try a 'traditional' method to 'help'. Castor Oil fails utterly if the cervix is not ready, but if so, it can indeed help.

Now, we have tried the standard protocols for reaching the 40 week mark, and no more. But we're well beyond the 41 week mark now. So, about three hours ago, a tablespoon down the hatch, and about 30 minutes ago, the second table spoon went down. Very, very interestingly, Castor Oil is one of those odd fatty acids everyone talks about these days. Mrs. Gb reports it doesn't taste that bad, but she didn't savor it I'll grant.

Castor Oil evidently is fully absorbed, and then puts the G.I. tract into a real tizzy, causing the releasing all kinds of 'prostglandins'. Evidently, that release is an essential trigger to the hypothalmus gland (in the brain), which then triggers the pituitary gland (in the brain) to release oxytocin (the same chemical hormone that is required for a woman or a man to fall in love interestingly enough).

The oxytocin travels to the uterus, and the contractions are supposed to start. It could be the placebo effect only, but Mrs. Gb just reported contraction number six, in the last 3 hours. I lovingly told her I wasn't holding my breath. (You see, I'm stressed right now, and I tend to get a pretty dry outlook on life when I get stressed.) She smiled at me, and returned to her puttering routine.

The tension ... well, as any golfer knows, tension is an exponential function when you are shooting close to three shots below your handicap and then your buddy bets you 100.00 you can't make that last putt on hole number 15. And then, bang: all your fuses blow, you yip the putt, your next drive sounds like a miramba for all the trees you strike, and you realize the 19th hole will not be beer this time, for it will have to be something much stronger. It can get real psychotic out there...

Anyway, I have a bit of time to muck around in FreeRepublic while Mrs. GB reports that her contractions may just 'happen' to be starting now. This of course would be the umpteenth time they have 'started'. In all seriousness, our time is a great time of joy. Our son, bless his heart, is in all likelihood going to be a great golfer someday.

But I'm content, for now, to simply look forward to singing him Happy Birthday today ... or maybe tomorrow ... or Wednesday, and hugging Mrs. GB all the while. Of course, I've considered bringing my laptop with WIFI capability to the hospital when we leave ... but, I don't think that would be a very good idea in practice.

[Alamo-Girl]

What a precious essay, gobucks! Thank you!!!

[raybbr]

The castor oil worked on my wife the second time. The first one took 60 hours of pro-domo and regular labor. The second - took six.

I report- you decide.

Prayers for a healthy child and mom. Enjoy your new life and family.

[GraceCoolidge]

I had my first at 35, so put me in the Geriatric Moms category. But my mom turned 39 the day before she had me. My maternal grandmother had 12 kids, and I think at least one or two were "change of life" babies, I think they were called. I believe she was in her early 40s when she had them (and this would be in the 1930s). I do think genetics plays a big role in all of it.

[AnAmericanMother]

No question genetics plays a big role.

All the women in our family have very short and easy labors. My mom "went natural" back in the 50s before it was fashionable in this country.

You should read Florence King on the subject of "change of life babies". It's a hoot.

[beaversmom]

Best wishes for you and your third baby.