Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

-1 F

The Goodyear time and temperature sign along Route 21 by the bowling alley flashed a -1 F at about quarter to 10 tonight on the way back to the city. Driving south, before the Super Bowl game, which we went to watch with Mick and Betty at their place and eat a sit-in-front-of-the-TV meatball sandwich and french fries dinner, I saw something that ... and I'm searching for a word to describe what I saw ... let's say, disturbed me.

I have been wearing a hoodie the last few days as one layer of clothing for my treks outside with the dogs in sub-zero and close-to-zero temperatures. It is fucking cold, "dangerously so" as the TV newsman described it tonight as we rode the elevator with the dogs on the vertical way to our respective floors. As an aside, I am indebted to the person who invented Gore-Tex, which might be the same guy who invented the internet, and to Matt for leaving his Patagonia hooded shell I have been wearing as my outer layer introducing me to the material, since the wind has been whipping in off the lake the last few days, giving "wind chill" real meaning.

Heading south, passing the Goodyear time and temperature sign, the car up ahead in the right-hand lane was moving at some speed below my speed limit; so, I moved over into the passing lane as I was overtaking it. Up ahead in the passing lane, not passing anything but just moseying along, were a white, non-descript van, the kind of van for which we are supposed to be on the lookout because all terrorists drive them, and, in front of the van, a white pick-up truck, which was suspicious in that it was carrying a single piece of drywall, which looked like it might fly out of the bed.

Of course, the car I was starting to pass sped up, which is normal for pricks driving the roads of America. So, I hit the gas a little and pulled up alongside the car. In the driver's seat, looking straight ahead, intent on running me into the back of the van in the passing lane ahead of me, was a guy. He wore a hoodie, a white hoodie. He had the hood up over his head.

And on his head, over the hood, he wore a baseball cap, a dark-colored baseball cap. He wore the baseball cap over his hoodie's hood.

I have seen guys wear baseball caps and pull a hood up over the cap; and if you're at a football game or watching a game on TV or if you're at a late-October or early-November World Series game or watching a game on TV, this heady attire, which is restricted mainly to the manly set, can be frequently seen.

But the guy wearing his baseball cap over the hood was ... disturbing. I mean, if you wear a baseball cap, it usually fits snugly on your head. In cold weather, some baseball players, even going back to way before the turn of the century when I played, wear balaclavas with their caps over them, but that's not what I witnessed this evening. Even if you're into the gangsta look, the hat over the ears, the hat (because it's no longer a "cap" by definition of the baseball gods) kind of fits.

Here, driving in his car next to me, intent on running me into the back of the non-descript white van, I had a guy wearing his hoodie hood over his head -- and the baseball cap over the hood. Disturbing ...

Insane winter golfers don't even do that.

Posted by Bill at February 4, 2007 11:56 PM