A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity

“Mutantism on the March” : Chapter 109: Protests Against the 76 Montreal Summer Olympics

Jiber had been whisked off to Zortixia by Frizzy The Smicket Boy to face a trial for crimes against inhabitants of the galaxy so with him many problems disappeared. But deal with one struggle and defeat it another one appears. The United Mutations were fighting against the sinful expenditures Montreal was becoming heavily indebted for to promote the 1976 Summer Olympics. Give us a sewage plant. Give us an enhanced transportation system with the necessary adjustments to accommodate mutants. Give us jobs! The pleas of The United Mutations were left ignored which needed about 1/10^th of what was to be spent on this international showcase. It was time to favour the little guy and not the contractors and tourism sector. Economists were saying the cost of building the Olympic stadium was going to take 35 years to repay the loan used to build it. The Canadian banks and their lending syndicates were going to walk away with piles of cash for decades for this white elephant.

Dr. Zodiac was one of the most active campaigners against the boondoggle Olympics and formed Physicians Against The 76 Olympics” (PAO). Their goal was to highlight these vast sums of monies would have better been spent on improving medical care for all particularly for the disadvantaged such as mutants. The station wagoned and conservative medical monopoly was disenchanted and frowned upon these “Young Turks”. Sooner or later they would settle down and stop being like that rabid communist Dr. Norman Bethune.

The POA placed ads in setting forth their complaints against the Montreal 76 Summer Olympics in both English and French dailies;

“Attention Montrealer’s

We are a concerned group of medical practitioners operating under the name of Physicians Against the 76 Montreal Summer Olympics (POA). We stand opposed to the wasteful expenditures gushing forth out of taxpayer’s pockets now and for many years for modern Olympics created for profits and celebration of athletic abilities. Millions of dollars are being gobbled up by monstrous construction projects, architectural fees and a long list of administrative support functions. This wasteful sending is a mockery and an insult to Canadians who lack decent medical care, can’t afford medical and dental care and all because they are told governmental expenditures for these improvements is “too expensive”. Yet somehow money is found for erection of monuments of idiocy and profit. Is Mayor Droolpoop of Montreal seeking some type of historical immortality?

Droolpoop has justified the huge sums of money involved as helping to create a truly” international city” and foster an “international spirit. The spirit of the Olympics certainly has changed since their inception. Profit baggers pervert the games with palms outstretched for juicy contracts. Athletes are no longer natural athletes but highly trained professionals supported by their governments at great expense and trained 40 hours a week since childhood and most often doped up with performance enhancement drugs. Competition and medals serve as a measure of political superiority. For health reasons we demand that equal sums of money be spent for promoting the heath of all citizens which would reduce medical costs caused by obesity and diseases of the sedentary. Sports should be honoured not as a chance to make thousands on endorsements for the victors on sneakers and toothpaste but as an enjoyable and necessary form of healthful activity. Bring sports to the masses instead of creating an overly trained elite of doped up athletes. It would seem in this case governments are more concerned with establishing a reputation for themselves than in seeking the improvement of the health of their entire population.

The organizers say that the facilities after the Olympics will be “for the people”. Let’s face it only a small proportion of the population will be able to avail themselves of these facilities. The Olympic Village will be transformed into luxury condominiums instead of a true international treatment centre for mutants. No doubt sports and entertainment promoters now have a huge stadium to increase their profits as they pack thousands more of spectators in to drink fattening beer and unhealthy food in a sedentary fashion. Are we not then subsidizing the owners of sports teams and entertainment promoters? If there are games let them be simple and performed in existing facilities

Signed Drs. Hamill, Zodiac Doyon, Saleé, Bonato, Morginfaler, Steadan, Kotopoulous, Stein and Burveau “

RKS Wine: 2020 Meyer Family Vineyards McLean Creek Road Vineyard Chardonnay

In terms of Canadian wine from where I sit Ontario is touted as a wonderful “Cold Climate” Chardonnay producer. While I would not call the Okanagan in British Columbia “cold climate” I would say guys muscle into any claims that Ontario makes a superior Chardonnay. The Okanagan Chards I have tasted can kick butt to Burgundian and Niagara and Prince Edward County Chards.

Meyer Family Vineyards over the past few years I have reviewed them have a small but impressive portfolio of Chards which for the fraction of the price can surpass Burgundian Chards from whatever obscure and venerated village they are from. Burgundy is not godliness.

We try a Meyer Family Vineyards (MFV) 2020 McLean Creek Road Vineyard Chardonnay from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia.

On the nose this medium golden coloured Chard has really outdone itself! On the nose it is somewhat similar to the 18’s and 19’s but much more intense and powerful. A rip-roaring 20’s nose of apple, pear, quince jam, pineapple, Orri tangerines and Ataulfo mangoes. No it is not unlawful and careening out of control but confident and full of joy.

On the palate it’s long creamy finish attests to the excellent vintage. The acids are subsumed perfectly by some tighter fruit than is on its nose. It has initially a nondescript finish that rises its head like a “Boardwalk Empire” whisky hijacking catching you by surprise a few seconds after it is down the hatch. The finish is silky and long. The palate has loads of peach, mango, pineapple and pear galette.

Not that I can remember all the MFV Chards this is really the best.

It is lively without being garish. It is distinguished. It has class. It’s a modern Chardonnay miracle and should be inflated and be a float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in New York!

It is a wonderful wine to sip on its own. As for food I don’t think it has enough oak to accompany simply prepared crab and lobster in a garlic butter sauce. But for a shrimp/clam linguine loaded with garlic, white wine and parsley you’ll be in heaven and with a couple of glasses you might be toasting Bill Bennett!

Perhaps we are breaking free from COVID and can think of having unmasked villains over for a New Year’s Eve Seafood Dinner. Screw open a bottle of this for your garlic contaminated shrimp or clam linguine and your reservation for a New Year’s Dinner in the great beyond will be confirmed!

MFV have you outdone yourself? Suspicious Chard drinkers like myself are clamouring to charge the Okanagan bound Kabul jet to set up refugee camps in Kelowna to demand access to healthcare and MFV wines! Not wanting to bore you this was an excellent vintage comparable to the 2016 vintage.

And the price for this beauty is $30.43 Sometimes I say buy by the case. If you are loaded with COVID savings and want to help the economy of Canada this wine is a multiple case buy assuming of course if you love Chardonnay unlike me as poor pensioner making no money from wine reviews. While Canadian journalism sucks this wine jumps up and is ready for the ball dropping at midnight to welcome in the New Year.

The winery suggests cellaring for 7 to 10 years. But with such an excellent wine that is risky. I would respectfully say drink NOW until 2025. After that as a lawyer I say caveat emptor.

Not wanting to bore you with technical details the wine was fermented in 100% French Oak for 11 months of which 22% was new but as I tasted the wine the oak is way in the background. This may be a plus if you are an ABC person (Anything But Chardonnay) spawned by over oaked Chardonnays mushrooming from the 1980’s but on rapid decline in this decade.

Interested in ordering? Check out their website at https://mfvwines.com/

(Meyer Family Vineyards McClean Creek Road Vineyards Chardonnay, Meyer Family Vineyards, Okanagan Falls, British Columbia VQA, $30.43 (pre-tax), 750 mL, 13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 93/100).

RKS Wine: Can Meyer Family Vineyard’s 2020 Pinot Noir Cure My Golf Myopia?

November golf in Toronto can be very trying. Frozen fingers and runny noses. Shivers and a sense of quiet desperation to end the year in a blaze of glory like the fall leaves. I think I am up to 35 games starting in frigid April, through a sweltering July and August and now back in the frigid throes of late October and early November. Frost delays will now start to be a factor as they were in April. Due to impossibility initially and now inconvenience it was no Europe this year instead working as a golf Marshall at one of Canada’s busiest golf courses. On the refreshment cart and in the clubhouse, there is no wine? Plenty of beer and coolers. I would have expected some cans of Okanagan Mayhem wine!

A golfer may be akin to a grape. Like grapes they are delicate and sensitive to the weather. Their minds are controlled by a deficient brain that subjects them to mostly continual punishment of a poor game like a poor growing season. One can start with an early budburst of brilliant golf which can be damaged by a forest fire of smoke of poor games when yesterday you were brilliant basking in the sunshine. And if you are not careful the grey rot that besets grapes in overly wet conditions can start to fungify the golfer’s brain and create an unbalanced, volatile and acidic mindset.

Of course, being Mr. Mindful, every shot is a new shot and forget the past of a bad shot. But this cold weather and wet conditions have caused a rapid deterioration of my golf game and I think grey rot and not noble rot is starting to affect my brain. However opening up a sample of three bottles from my friends at Meyer Family Vineyards (MFV) in British Columbia ‘s Okanagan I see in a tech sheet that the 2020 vintage “was the best in recent years”. I seem to recall 2018/19 were problematic vintages. So if MFV can bounce upwards with a stellar vintage I’ll take stock of that and say with 4 more or so games left I’ll get my mojo back. If Mother Nature can favour vintners surely it can favour a fumbling golfer who today had more grey rot than noble rot in his game.

If 2020 was the best vintage in recent years my goodness how can the excellence of MFV’s be surpassed?

Let’s try it out.

On the nose this vintage seems to exhibit a bit more oak than previous vintages. The wine was sleeping in seasoned French oak barrels and puncheons for 8 months. To tone down the oak I would suggest decanting for an hour prior to serving. The aroma is unmistakeably that of Pinot Noir. There is very sweet strawberry, black cherry and freshly picked raspberry in a light smoky frame. On the palate the tannins are light but there is traction and presence in the mouth. Then there is some strange and novel twist in this vintage and that is a streak of violets and floral tones to the wine. I like this as showing a new character to the MFV Pinot Noirs wines I have tasted previously. There is also a bit of chalk which is also new. Could it be some of the grapes were from a newly acquired vineyard, Lakehill Road Vineyard in Kaleden? There is also some raspberry crumble. The finish is short.

MFV says drink through to 2025. I will not disagree with that. But I would add let it settle for another year to settle the oak somewhat. My take is that this wine is maturing in the bottle. MFV Pinot Noirs have in previous vintages been closer to French Pinots trending to delicate. This Pinot is a tad more assertive and has some top-level sweetness to it giving it a different character than previous vintages even though at residual sugars of 1 gram per litre this is a dry wine.

Now I mention sweetness and oak. Let me make this clear the seasoned French wood here should not be resulting in an oaky wine. This is a young vintage and newly bottled so it may be sleeping ready to evolve into something a bit different when it wakes up. I therefore have suggested let it sleep for another year before opening. And you may like a lightly oaked wine so feel free to open it now. It won’t bite! And I say sweetness but this is miniscule sweetness that does not detract from the high MFV pedigree simply gives it another dimension perhaps only in my mind as at less than 2 grams of residual sugar per litre you should not detect sweetness but my palate may be much different than yours. I rarely eat dessert or chocolates so it may be I am sensitive to what I perceive to be sweetness.

This is no ballerina Pinot Noir. But neither is it me trying to be overly aggressive at the golf course which I will say is a recipe for disaster.

While it will be pleasing to drink on its own I would say this Pinot Noir has the guts to compliment lamb or even a bit of a spicy Shrimp and Okra Gumbo. Also as field red peppers are just about at their end the wine would suit stuffed Red Peppers, local zucchini and mushrooms.

I will say this wine is crafted with love and perfection. By that I primarily mean acidity and tannins are perfectly balanced.

I am sorry about yakking about the wine so I will not bore you with too many technical details other than saying that the wine was sourced from 6 different vineyards in the Okanagan.

(Meyer Family Vineyards 2020 Pinot Noir, Okanagan Valley, BC VQA, Meyer Family Vineyards, Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, $26 (until November 28 when it jumps to $27), 750 mL, 13.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 91/100).

Check out their website for shipping details https://mfvwines.com/collections/pinot-noir

1,994 cases produced.

Chris Carson is the winemaker.

“Mutantism on the March” : Chapter 108 Dr. Zodiac Remembers His Encounters at the River Styx

The lightbulb flashed in Zodiac’s head something akin the attack of the mutant killer ants happening below his window in the streets of Montreal. He recalled many years ago being on the banks of the River Styx where he was weaponless in the face of a killer insect beast and the only object nearby was a duck egg which he hurled at the beast which then shrivelled and died. And the cure for the bite which he remembered from Turkish mythology was to drink a solution of crushed fisheyes and hashish. Would it work here? Well it was worth a try so he burst into the kitchen of The Ritz Marlton demanding all fish eyes be placed in a blender. He asked the night manager to open his safety deposit box and took out his 7 kilos of his private hash stash. The kitchen staff was confused but quickly hustled into action when Dr. Zodiac threw a pile of gold coins on a prep table. Seafood restaurants and suppliers were called and kilos of fisheyes quickly arrived. Eggs were hustled up by the hundreds as well but they were chicken and not duck eggs.

Dr. Zodiac rushed into the street with a box of eggs and threw them at the ants which when hit let out a scream of agony then shrivelled and died. Witnesses saw the effect of the egg on beast and rushed out to gather supplies of eggs which they pelted the killer ants with. The word spread through the media the power of eggs against the invaders and soon most of them had been terminated with extreme prejudice. However the human casualty toll was enormous. Mutants began the manufacture of the fisheyes and hashish solution which were placed in vials and a supply of hypodermic needles was secured to inject the antidote to killer ant bites. Mafia dealers were raided and police confiscated their hashish supplies. Fish wholesalers supplied huge quantities of fisheyes. In a matter of hours mutants and civilians co-operated to prepare thousands of doses of the antidote. But for many it was too late with 700 fatalities and 2,658 were in hospitals and countless more lying in the street had antidote administered by mutant volunteers. The mutants had saved Montreal! So much goodwill was created by their efforts to mitigate what could have been a massive tragedy.

Meanwhile Jiber was tracked down at the Altitude 737 Bar in Place Ville Marie watching the destruction of his killer ants and his dream of conquering the galaxy. Jiber was broken repeating, “It’s mine. It’s all mine!” Frizzy the Smicket Boy burst into the bar and handcuffed the babbling Jiber and transported him back to Zortixia to be tried for crimes against galactic inhabitants.

RKS Wine: Can We Be Friends with the Okanagan’s Frind?

As far as Okanagan, British Columbia wineries go they seem to be able to do no wrong. But the day will come one day! Until then all of us should enjoy the wines produced from these stellar wineries. Yes we have covered Crescent Hill, Oak Bay, St. Hubertis, Stag’s Hollow, Meyer Family Vineyards and Mayhem Wines all with resounding success.

There now is a new Okanagan Winery on my radar called Frind. Why not dig in and hope for the Okanagan’s hot streak to continue?

We start with a Frind “Big Red” which I presume is a blend but of what the label fails to reveal. It is blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon as I dig into their internet site which really I or you should not have to do.

On the nose black cherry, chocolate, tobacco leaf, blueberry and cherry pie. On the palate the tannins are moderate. But as for flavours on the palate nothing jumps out and captures my imagination to get metaphors and similes flowing in my description of this wine. Some rather weak-kneed cherry and blueberry but the Okanagan wow factor simply isn’t there. Has my Okanagan red hot streak been cooled down? NO sir. That streak has been too hot and consistent to be brought tumbling down by a single wine. And one wine should not frame an entire winery and its products. Tasting wine is a bit like golf. I have been hitting the 70’s a few times this year but today was a golfing disaster which I blame on heavy traffic, soggy fairways and rough and rushing down to take my first swing on the first tee and dribbling it a few yards. From then on it was struggle with what could go wrong went wrong. I asked my starter friend to simply rip up my scorecard after the game and he obliged. Ignorance is bliss. But enough about me what about this wine? It really threw me with some overripe grape sweetness on the palate. Somewhat like a nasty slice heading into the woods. The wine is a combination of an overly sweet California Cabernet Sauvignon with an anemic Niagara Merlot. The nose passes muster but on the palate a ho hum wine and being a great fan of the Okanagan that hurts.

(Frind Estate Winery 2018 Big Red, BC VQA Okanagan Valley, Frind Estate Winery, West Kelowna, British Columbia, $24.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 19931, 750 mL, 13.25%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 87/100).

Let’s move on to a Frind 2018 Chardonnay. The Okanagan can certainly produce some “ooh” and “ahh” Chards that rival Burgundian ones.

This Frind has a light gold colour. On the nose apple, pear, tangerine, mango and a tad of pineapple. On the palate this would seem to be fermented and aged in stainless steel. It is very clean with guava, peach with a bit of almond paste. The acidity is muted but it is there and I would say this is a foodie wine. As my better half says I can’t remember what I ate yesterday but I do remember a winter squash and spinach pasta bake which despite my laborious efforts was not a keeper recipe but I wonder if I had used organic butternut squash it would have been a hit. Over the years I have noticed organic pumpkins, sweet potatoes and squash are actually sweet and brightly coloured and more flavour packed. Here is the recipe and if you can find organic butternut squash or pumpkin give it a try https://smittenkitchen.com/2021/10/winter-squash-and-spinach-pasta-bake/

So I would say to you dear reader this is a foodie wine. There is no sense in ageing it. A rather bland wine not up to premium Okanagan standards.

(Frind 2018 Chardonnay, VQA British Columbia, Frind Estate Winery, West Kelowna, British Columbia, $29.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 19930, 750 mL, 13.90%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 87/100).

Passage of the Day from the Late Rebecca Wasserman-Hone Credited With Putting Burgundy Wines on the Map in America

“A wine is not to be discussed, it is to be drunk and give happiness and joy and a nice feeling to people. Sounds of appreciation are weightier than words. We grade by ‘oohs’ and ‘mmms’, six being the ultimate accolade.”

The Importance of Wine Tourism

Please refer to https://www.bkwinetours.com/ and to https://www.bkwine.com/

Photo is of the Douro Valley in Portugal (Robert K. Stephen)

RKS Films: “La Forêt de Mon Pere” (Into Dad’s Woods): The 2021 Canadian European Union Film Festival

“La Forêt de Mon Pere” is a Belgian film exploring the difficult and painful effects of mental illness on a family.

Jimmy (Alban Lenoir) is married with a wife and three children including 15-year-old Gina (Léonie Souchaud). Initially Jimmy seems eccentric as we first encounter him sitting up in a tree in the forest with his daughter Gina. He is inciteful and very attuned with the forest. A regular likeable guy. But his behaviour becomes more eccentric and indicative of some serious mental illness so his wife takes Jimmy to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and for what she thinks is a rest. It may well be she has committed him.

The short rest turns into days and his wife Carole (Ludwine Sagnier) and children miss him but there are no indications he will be returning soon. It would seem Jimmy is psychotic. Witness the cruelty and rigidity of this psychiatric institution where visits and interactions are restricted presumably for the “patient’s good”. The institution likes to keep Jimmy highly sedated so as Gina and her boy pal Nico break into the institution to rescue him Jimmy is so heavily sedated he is going nowhere.

At this point Gina realizes the extent of her father’s illness and breaks into sobs.

Jimmy did show up one afternoon at home to the delight of his family and on the spur of the moment decides to go on a two-day family vacation but increases the speed of the car the family is in then says he is going to kill them all which he does not as his family sings him a song that calms him down. Upon returning home the police are waiting for Jimmy to forcibly take him back not even having the decency to let his family say good-bye.

Mental illness can be cruel to its sufferer but it can be sometimes even crueller to the family and community.

While all indications Jimmy is lost in the forest of his mind Gina retains hope that he will return.

The acting is spot on with a solid cast. An impressive and sensitive effort of novice feature film director Vero Cratzborn. This 2019 ninety-minute Belgian film is in French with English subtitles, The 2021 Canadian European Union Film Festival is virtual and runs from November 12-28. You can check out the Festival’s website at https://www.cfi-icf.ca/euff

“Chasing Unicorns”: Canadian 2021 European Union Film Festival”

The 2021 Canadian European Union Film Festival goes virtual this year which means Canadian’s coast to coast can all attend.

“Chasing Unicorns” is both a satirical and comedic journey on the attempts of Estonians Õie (Liisa Pulk) and Tõnu (Henrik Kalmet) to create a start up that will make them wealthy. Given that there are over 500 start ups in Estonia and that Skype was an Estonian start up anything seems possible.

Õie is a former CFO of an Estonian bicycle helmet manufacturing plant. She has just been promoted to CFO but sexually harassed by her CEO she quits and pairs up with Tõnu a repeat start up failure in an attempt to create an algorithm that will create a self drive bicycle. The only initial capital they have, besides their dreams and ambitions, is € 2,500 from Õie’s father.

The framework of the film sets the 5 factors for a start-up that will make its creators wealthy;

Idea
Prototype
Investors
Bigger Investors
Exit (selling your start up and making a fortune)

The film follows the steps that Õie and Tõnu follow and the characters they encounter are often bigger than life if not caricatures. Bankers, venture capitalists, investors, lawyers and all manner of hustlers all looking for a cut on the big payoff day.

Their initial sales manager Norris is a bit of a comical character full of hot air and bravado but essentially an incompetent but he provides comic relief.

As they climb up the chain of success the investors and venture capitalists become more ruthless and less comedic. Off they head to San Francisco and the Silicon Valley to realize their Muskian dreams. They do find an organized sales manager in San Francisco that wants a huge fee of $450,000 to promote their deal and bring investors in. He needs the money to rebuild his heliport at his Aspen winter home!

While some of the characters they run into are greedy and ruthless some are bigger than life deserving of a hearty laugh.

Then they get a $20,000,000 offer to buy their company and they accept but having shoddy legal representation they agree to a 4 times liquidation preference meaning investors are paid off 4 times their initial investment leaving them with nothing or less than nothing as they have a €3,600 legal bill to pay. Was all this for nothing?

For Õie not really as she has made contacts and receives lucrative offers to stay with the lead venture capitalist to head up their Estonian office and from an Estonian bank to turn the now bankrupt bicycle helmet factory into a powerful international manufacturing enterprise. But there is Tõnu who has moved on to a new start up being creating a robotic dog.

What is Õie going to select as her future option? Given her taste for possibilities of fabulous wealth and her drive and ambition I think I know where she is heading. And her father’s €2,500 investment in their company is now rewarded with a $250,000 payout.

If you think Estonia is bush league in film production you are dead wrong. This is an eye-opening biting sarcastic and educational look at the life of an Estonian start up. It is highly professional, creative and well acted.

It is a 2019 film directed by Rain Rannu with a great Estonian classical, traditional and hip-hop soundtrack. Thoroughly enjoyable and with a perspective and sese of humour you will not find in an American film.

The 2021 European Film Festival runs from November 12-28^th. You can check out the website at https://www.cfi-icf.ca/euff

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” :So You Want to Become a Golf Marshall? Do You Have the Right Stuff?

Now if you look on the internet about being a golf Marshall the conclusion of aggravated golfers would be you have to be white, retired, overbearing and ill mannered. Pardon me what a load of bullshit! Do not let a few angry and pissed off golfers create an impression of negativity. I see so few internet-based comments thanking the Marshall for the critical function of keeping the pace going in a non-confrontational and polite way. In seven months of Marshalling, I have not received any negative comments. In fact, the comments have been all positive thanking me for my efforts to keep the pace at an acceptable level that make the golfing experience enjoyable.

Getting hired was easy. Submit a resume that shows in some way you have handled complicated situations and have good problem-solving abilities if you have no past Marshalling experience it helps to communicate that you are a golfer and know the course you are going to Marshall at well. In my case I have been golfing since I was 6 years old and had been playing the course I Marshall at for some 35 years. Between you and me if there was ever a professional event held at my course I would be the caddy of choice because I know, or I thought I knew, every angle and strategic approach to every hole.

So before you apply can I give you a bit of a primer on the skills and personality you’ll need to succeed and ENJOY your Marshalling experience?

You are a golfer: You are a golfer who loves the game. You have a good idea what a Marshall does. However you’d like to learn more and would welcome a training session on course so you can gain a better idea of what is expected of you.
You know the course: It helps if you know the course. All the Marshalls at my course have played the course for years. Knowing the course well is an asset as you may be asked by golfers new to the course how they should play the hole. Of course the more times you have played the hole theoretically the more astute your advice will be.
You have a desire to learn: No one is born a golf Marshall. Perhaps the only experience you have is being asked to speed up or phoning the Pro-Shop to complain about a jam up. Wait for the Marshall to arrive and explain the situation. You’ll pick up experience in your training session(s) and on the course as you see the type of problems you encounter. Dealing with the week-end pot heads and boozers and the often-clueless juniors. You’ll also learn from golfers and fellow Marshalls what they have encountered and how they deal with it.
You will have to follow the chain of command: I hate to say this you are on the low end of the golf club power structure. If you are paid at all the groundskeepers, garbage collectors and toilet cleaners are making more than you. And as a Marshall you’ll realize you have the best overall picture what is happening on the course but on the other hand you can’t be everywhere at once and occasionally the Pro-Shop will receive a complaint about slow play far away from where you are. That’s kind of like a slap in your face but treat it simply as another source of intel and even if you are in the middle of fixing up a jam elsewhere the Pro-Shop calls the shots as illogical as that may be. They are higher up in the power structure than a Marshall is. So it is best to say “Yes Master” and clean up what they but not you see as a priority.
You have a thick skin: If you do get gaff from a golfer simply smile and say you will try and address the problem. If you are subject to racist slurs like “Shove your fucking white head your ass” recognize these racists for the idiots that they are and report it to the Pro-Shop to deal with. Do not show hostility or anger lest you offend the “patrons” however big these assholes are.
You love chatting with golfers: Aside from hustling golfers along to the Gods of Pace you are a bit of an ambassador at a cocktail party saying hello and exchanging pleasantries. Establishing a human connection will pay dividends if you must hustle the people you have established a relationship with. My job starts as soon as I get out of the car and head to the course. As an introvert what has overcome me. “How was your game today?” “Are you looking forward to your game? “Suddenly Mr. Introvert has been transformed into Mr. Extrovert! But there are some golfers who really aren’t interested in chatting so you should be able to pick up on that and move on.
You realize there is some paperwork involved: For me it is an hourly recording of 9- and 18-hole times, course condition reports and interactions with golfers. This is the tool that management determines the pace and what you have done to get it running smoothly.
You are prepared to be thrown off track: Don’t assume that your role is solely on the course. On occasion you may be asked to ferry late golfers to their group, take first aid supplies to an injured golfer or take handicapped golfers to their car.
You realize you are part of a team: There are groundskeepers, starters, maintenance staff, Pro-Shop employees and cart girls you need to keep good relations with. They are valuable sources about learning about how a golf course operates. They are also human beings that like chatting with you about their concerns. In fact the cart lady and I had a chat about her Serbian place of birth which I had visited and she was so thrilled I get a bag of peanuts each day she is on the course.
Try and maintain your sense of being treated with respect: While it is not a good idea to criticize golfers if the starter tells you “To get your ass up here now” or a maintenance worker calls you an idiot for zipping down a hill on your cart this is unacceptable behaviour but it must be treated in a non-confrontational fashion and as you are a retired white man that should have his head up your ass you made it to retirement being able to handle unpleasant situations.
Show a sense of humour and show empathy and compassion: I will say it becomes easy to see a forlorn golfer and when I see this I will often say “Here is a Marshall blessed golf ball or tee and it will bring you luck!” One golfer I said this to came up to me and profusely thanked me for giving him a Marshall blessed ball saying he had then picked up his game with three pars and two birdies and could I bless a box of balls for him. A young lady I gave a pink ball which I said had to be used on the short par three 15^th gushed to me she scored the first birdie in her life with it. On Halloween I plan to give out candy to golfers. Small gestures can go a very long way! And yes it shows yet again a golf Marshall can make life better!
You are not in it for the money: I can’t say why you are interested in a job that pays miserably low wages if any. All the Marshalls at my course joke about the “wages” but enjoy the “free golf” which at my course is not really free as your salary of minimum wage is half minimum wage plus a round of golf for each shift included as a taxable benefit of your salary. In effect if you don’t play your “free golf” you are losing money.