As I trekked through the brush, shaking the snow out of my boots, I wondered why I felt the need to choose the light blue disk instead of the bright orange one. When I finally spotted it I may as well have been in Russia, with Palin yelling "Howzit goin' neighbor?" I reached down to grab my disc and looked in the direction of the basket... or at least where I thought the basket was. I decided to try my newly learned Tomahawk technique, in which one throws the frisbee sideways in order to weave through and over trees. I chucked the disc only to chip another piece of bark out the tree in front of me. The wood was scarred by the wild throws of other folfers, sap coating the tree making it shine in the winter sun.
That day, blue mountain was completely covered in ice, our only protection being the half-inch layer of powdered snow laying on the ground. Well, the snow more just covered up the ice patched instead of saving us from them. We were the folfing four... no... that was horrible...
Any who, the group consisted of my dad, Bob, our friend Jonathan, Glenn, and I (Rusty). Jonathan and Glenn were the Seniors here, while dad and I were the Greenhorns. I had never played folf before in my life. We where invited by Jonathan to play last Sunday, while Barb and Speaker watched Jonathan's baby girl, Zora. We drove out to pick up Glenn, then headed for the course. When we arrived, dad and I saw some a nice group of people walking back and forth on a nice, slightly downhill, trail. We both got out and headed directly for the trail.
"Where are you guys going?" Jonathan asked. We where mistaken. Our trail was the one that went up the face of that cliff we had parked next to. Dad almost had an asthma attack just looking at it. We began to cry, and one of Glenn's 'Yak Tracks'-- a small rubber 'slipper' with metal coils you slid onto your boot--busted and wrapped around his ankle. I was having a bit of fun, doing some rock-climbing in the middle of the winter.
When we all reached the top, we began a ritual of sorts; each of us grabbed a disc, flipped it. The odd one out went first. I prayed to the, um, FOLF GODS, that I wouldn't go first, I needed so see what disc everyone else used, and how they threw it. But of course, I was the only on with an upright disk. They then proceeded to find who when second, third, and last.
I stepped up to the tees, and threw it is the basic 'backhand' form, when you tuck the disc into your forearm, and whip your wrist for some power. The disc faded horribly to the left, wedging itself into the powder, which of there was little enough to let us slip on the ice, but plenty to cover an innocent folf disc.
We continued through to course, and I eventually switched to a 'forehand' throw, the one we all wish we could throw. It was odd at first, because instead of fading to the left, it falls right. I got it after a while, and started throwing some pars, and only a few double bogeys.
We finished up the 17th hole, and began our hike to the last hole. We wandered over to a small hill, which we needed to descend before we could make our next throws.
Jonathan warned it would be icy, but I decided to test it out. I got into a snowboarding position, staying low to the ground to keep a low center of gravity. I started to slide down what seemed a trail, slowly moving along by shuffling my feet. That’s when I really took off.
I slipped onto my butt and started sliding down the hill like it was the water slide a fairmont hot springs. My hands where flailing in the air, the frisbee bag sailed down the hill, landing at the foot of the incline. I managed to slow down, only to hear a “LOOK OUT!” From my dad, who was sailing down right behind me. He plowed over me, while my leg was shredded by a frozen pinecone.
I turned to see Jonathan destroying a rotting log, sending lumber flying in every direction, as he avoided some innocent barbed wire. Dad proceeded to slide into a bush, while Glenn did summersaults in mid-air.
We finished the last hole, and found our way to the parking lot trail. When we got there, we found that we needed to get down the cliff we had crawled up earlier. I went first, again, looking for pine needles as a sign of dirt aka not ice. I made it down, simply to find dad’s coffee cup had exploded on the ground where it hit when he slipped right behind me. I crawled under the car to grab the lid, and gave it to Bob.
Despite the injuries and bruised emotions, we came out on the up and up, and are ready for the next outing!
Photo Update from the Last Couple Weeks.
16 years ago
