2 more tee pads done this week.
We have 5 left to built then comes the smaller, but yet, still important tasks such as tee signs, waste barrels, brooms, etc.
Jason is talking about a November opening. I would like to see an October opening.
With extra help (even for 1 day) we could get this course open by October.
Help us help you get this course open earlier, (and make me right and Jason wrong. And who doesn't like to see Jason wrong )
Come join us on Sundays for some work and an awesome lunch.
we start at 9:00 and the address is 501 Old West Brookfield Rd, Warren, MA 01083.
Post of the year? He did talk about the signs being up until the end of the world.. would it be superfluous to suggest it would be the post until the end?
P.S. I'm still sour about falling behind in the sting race.
We now have 14 Tees done. There are 36 Prodigy baskets in the ground, 18 green, 18 blue. Two layouts on 18 holes, just to catch people up.
I have four stings, JJ has 17. But I could hit the jackpot this fall, when hornets wake up, look in the mirror, and decide to sting the next person who walks by. And don't tell me that hornets don't have mirrors. What is this, the Fact Police?
And the cutting, the initial "here it is" cutting? Nearly complete. Thank you God for Guy Lyman, the Man, the Myth, the Machine. I know I've arrived (at old age) when a tree needs to be down, and I tie an orange piece of ribbon around it. Then it's gone. The only signs are sawdust, a neat pile of firewood, and a nice small-footprint brush pile.
What a great thing it is to work with experts. Guy with the chainsaw, Gill with the teepads.
Otto on the tractor. "Otto-matic," said Guy. Otto indicated he's been hearing that all his life. I started my tractor life late, never truly gaining tractor confidence, and watching Otto tractorize a pile of dirt, or rumble tippily back and forth from the teepad we're building with buckets of piece stone, gravel and stonedust is a lesson in efficiency and speed. Between loads we smooth, wet and compact. Gill bosses everyone around. The tractor trails seem steep, treacherously rocky and uneven, but not if you're Otto-immune. (This is so begging for enhanced whimsy!)
Bill and Michelle Holmgren, the owners, moving the whole thing forward with machinery, supplies, time, effort, willpower. Lunch. Sunday workdays in Warren go like this for me. We work on the course, then I jump in the swimming pool, and then eat an enormous amount of really good food. Then we sit and chat, too full to get up.
So after about 14 months, we're closing in on being done. Then there will be a disc golf course, on which hundreds of rounds will be played, year after year. Simply put, it's worth the effort.
My little daydream for the gala opening would be a Newcomers Ball doubles tournament in November. Lick said he'd MC and do the scoreport. I'm sort of lobbying for that.
Anyone else think that's a good idea? Would people sign up?
We finished all 18 tees. They're very good tees. 5 x 10' Fly18 rubber on packed stonedust within a frame 7 x 12'.
So with the two sets of 18 Prodigy baskets (36 baskets) in the ground, and pretty much perfect tees -- big, flat, firm, level, grippy, ground level, and safe -- we must be done.
Well, we're not done, but we're pretty darn close. Gill and I got the timbers and hardware we need for the tee sign posts, cutting all the notches, "painting" the bottom two feet of each with driveway sealer. They'll be on my truck tomorrow morning and ready to go to Warren. Bill (actually Michelle) will be renting a post hole digger for tomorrow.
Gill has packed all the tools we need in my truck.
No doubt the effort will be epic, and instructional. A post hole digger, huh? I must confess I've never used one, which feels like an educational gap, one that will be closing in a matter of hours.
So much so that, after tomorrow, I'll be making it a point of making fun of people who don't know all the things that I'll know about post hole diggers. Sensing their ignorance, I'll launch into a truncated yet thorough summary of my post hole digging knowledge, adopting a professorial air, maybe even a slightly British accent.
Actually, we've had a post hole digger for years, one that looks, believe it or not, EXACTLY like Gill.
But evidently there's another kind of post hole digger that you rent at Home Depot, presumably one that runs on gas and doesn't look like Gill at all. And makes the job much faster, and much easier. Especially for Gill.
It's like doing what we used to do with manual tools, this time, I guess because we're older, efficiently. It's a(nother) new concept, one that has prevailed during the building of this course, with a tractor and ATV at our disposal. Thank you Bill Holmgren. Thank you especially for Otto, the true tractor guy of my dreams. Wait, not THOSE kinds of dreams. You people are disgusting!
Anyway, to everyone out there who knows me but won't know what a post hole digger is after tomorrow, I gotta say it's been really fun hanging out...
To pick up the thread, a post hold digger is a big two-person auger. One guy pulls the cord, the other operates the throttle. Gradually a jerky but efficient dance is accomplished. After two days, we had dug 2' holes and planted nice L-shaped tee sign posts. We even "painted" the bottom two feet that go into the ground with driveway sealer so they'll practically never rot.
Gill and I have a routine. He says something, like, "We should paint the bottom two feet of the sign posts with driveway sealer so they never rot."
To which I say nothing. After an a appropriately timed pause, I take on an expression of divine revelation. With eyes wide, I utter, "I think I just had maybe the greatest idea ever..."
And Gill asks, "paint the bottom two feet with driveway sealer?"
"Exactly!" I say with raised finger, entranced with the brilliance of my latest idea.
I'm trying to put together a list of all the people who worked on this course.
Here's my list so far. I need help with some names, some last names and probably some spelling. Plus it's really normal to forget really obvious people, so I'm sorry for forgetting obvious people.
We want to get the list complete and completely correct to put everyone who helped with the course onto a tee sign.
Becky Polenski
Bill Fullam
Bill Holmgren
Bill Perron
Bob DeCostas
Brent Sanderson
Chris Gagne
Emily Louvitakis
Gill Melendez
Guy Lyman
Jake
Jamie Perron
Jamie's dad and sister
Jason Southwick
Jay Petruzzi
Karl Molitoris
Kevin (Bill's Friend)
Kyle Moriarty
Martha Louvitakis
Michelle Holmgren
Michelle Holmgren
Mike Freeman
Mike Polenski
Otto
Person who helped build the picnic tables
Sam Henderson
Sarah Holmgren
Shane (your Shane)
Shane Rookey
T.M. Dyer
Two guys and a girl the day we built Tee 1.
Then we had an earlier Jake, I think, so two Jakes total.
Plus one of JJ's friends. I think his name is Pete. What's HIS last name?
Don't tell me I have to post this on Facebook! Dang.
Why won't anyone help me? Is it because I've abandoned God?
Just wondering. I haven't abandoned God, btw. Couple decades ago I did abandon religion, just because for me religions are various interpretations of God, or God's word, or our relationship with God.
One belief I share with the big religions is in one God. And even if this God is actually some oozing ethereal committee beyond our comprehension, that fits, too.
My other big religious belief is that people can't understand God, or precisely interpret God's actions. And that God's not listening, unless maybe -- and only maybe -- if you're praying really really hard.
But I love singing in church, even though my only visits are when someone dies.
My closest affiliation to any religion would be Unitarian, since I attended the First Unitarian Church in Worcester for some of my growing up years. One bad boy in Sunday School, clearly mischievous, said, "Look," holding up a Bible and pointing to its title. "The HELLy Bible," he said. This is my sole memory from Sunday School.
We never kneeled; there were no kneelers. No communion, no confession. And Jesus? Not literally the Son of God but a great man nevertheless, and certainly an inspiration.
I didn't realize my own true "religion" until a couple years ago. It immediately brought to mind a conversation I had with Dad after a semester of Philosophy 101. I peppered him with a series of "Do you believe in God?" questions until he admitted we of course can't know but asked, pointing to the trees, "What made all this?" WE didn't make this. Something must have made this."
I agree. You just have to watch a plant grow or a cut heal, or observe an insect or a fish for a whole minute.
Taoism. The belief in God based on observing nature. I just Googled it and it's actually a little more than that, but you definitely don't have to go to church.
So I'll just branch off into Marshall Street Taoism, the belief in God because the Red Sox came back 0-3 to beat the Yankees then sweep the Series. Plus trees and birds.
How should I title this? The Truth About God, or Why I Don't Facebook
And Todd Eddy. Todd Eddy. How great a name is that? Eight letters three syllables, you sound like an obscure tidal phenomenon. For donating big spools. Thank you Todd. You'll be added to the list.
No one's helping me put together this list, like, at all. Deserving people will be left off a permanent tee sign forever, their place in history lost.
How casually we sweep people aside. How quickly names are lost, like gravestones in forgotten cemeteries.
Amy Friend
Becky Polenski
Bill Fullam
Bill Holmgren
Bill Perron
Bob DeCostas
Brent Sanderson
Chris Gagne
Emily Louvitakis
Gill Melendez
Guy Lyman
Jaime Perron
Jake Sullivan
Jason Southwick
Jay Petruzzi
Josh Schnare
Karl Molitoris
Kevin (Bill's Friend)
Kyle Moriarty
Martha Louvitakis
Michelle Holmgren
Michelle Holmgren
Mike Freeman
Mike Polenski
Otto
Paul Perron
Person who helped build the picnic tables
Pete (JJ's friend)
Rick Belhumeur
Sam Henderson
Samantha Perron
Sarah Holmgren
Shane (your Shane)
Shane Rookey
T.M. Dyer
Todd Eddy
Woman who helped with Tee 1
OMG I'm running a tournament on Saturday. Used to run tournaments all the time. My last two tournaments: Newcomers Ball at Newton Hill, Newcomers Ball at Webster. Now the Newcomers Ball at 501. When you get old you develop patterns. I'm okay with that. It'd be good to keep this pattern going.
Having a tournament means the course is done, that we did what we decided to do a long time ago. That we persevered, and teamed together in myriad combinations. Making and fixing mistakes. And introducing a tournament ready course. It's a big deal, and I'm drunk and I'm proud.
So there.
The Holmgrens, the owners, made it really easy. Bill provided the equipment, the materials, worked like a dog himself, and made the key hires. Spent a small fortune. Michelle made sure we always got fed delicious and outlandishly enormous workday lunches. You know you're special when there are always deviled eggs.
And people joined the cause. Jaime Perron has been huge. Mike and Emily. Jake and the other Bill. Otto. Bad Martha.
Right about the time it started to seem like, sht, this is a heck of a lot of cutting...
I remember one specific point in my thinking of Warren as a disc golf course. That there were two guys with chainsaws, me and Bill Holmgren, to finish the course. And Bill's a year older than me. Seemed like a big mountain. People would ask whether it would be done THIS year.
I'd be like "Why don't you sk my fkn dk?!" Which may have come across as defensive.
I sensed the back-breaking rush to the finish line like we experienced at Newton Hill and Webster. Four days a week at the end, right before the tourney. It was at Webster that I really felt the toll, started to realize my body's limitations. That my whole right side was a too-taut banjo string, from my calf to right below my ear. Twang.
Then a magical moment. Guy Lyman shows up at Pyramids. Haven't seen him in years. Met him in December 2009, right after the big ice storm that destroyed Pyramids. He shows up as a volunteer to restore us to playability. He had an outstanding work ethic, and I hired him for one day a week to do the hardest physical jobs, including chainsawing. Although, at the time, he was a disaster with a chainsaw, with an amazing propensity for dulling the chain.
But since 2009, Guy got the bug, and became the indispensable disc golf course workday guy, logging sweat and hours at Tully, Royalston Fish & Game, Orange.
And Guy says he wishes he knew how to make a living building courses, cause that's all he's been doing for free, and like a madman, since his wife died the year before.
I hire him immediately. I like him a lot personally, just the way he is, but I hired him because we had a bunch of big, hard stuff to do, and because Guy is a tremendous machine. So I ask Bill Homgren to hire Guy Lyman for two days a week, too, and he does.
Jay you killed it. The layout is unreal what a course! I still think your a dink and your still my bitch but bravo.
NEFA#1035. PDGA#46509 Northampton Ma 1x. Tully is my bitch...Old layout course record: Tully Ma 48. Dueced hole 15 at Hylands. BOOM!! "Retired from the sport."
NEFA#1035. PDGA#46509 Northampton Ma 1x. Tully is my bitch...Old layout course record: Tully Ma 48. Dueced hole 15 at Hylands. BOOM!! "Retired from the sport."
)
