Carnival season is here and with it the urge to dress in costume, flaunt open-container laws and generally upend the natural order of things. And so we found ourselves recently at the Walnut Creek frisbee golf course; with a golf bag full of booze, dressed like morons and about to do the only thing that could embarrass our gangly group further: throw frisbees in public.
By the end of the first hole Devin alone was on the green. Tommy was so deep in the rough that only his tam o’shanter was visible through the rhododendrons. Jeff Senior’s drive had landed him ankle deep in a leech pit; while Jeff Junior hung from a pine bough with his errant disc just out of reach. And Felipe the dog-yoked to the beer cooler and blocking the fairway-refused, as usual, to do anything.
So established, this Montesorri school-picnic atmosphere lingered through the round and reached an apex on the final hole when a freak breeze carried two of our disks over the park’s reservoir, where they landed with a splash next to the ominously roaring dam intake. Jeff Senior, Tommy, Bryce and Devin responded nobly-by turning their backs on the lake to haggle over the scorecard. Meanwhile, Jeff Junior, Tom and Felipe found themselves inexplicably in the icy water and swirling towards imminent conversion to hydropower-all in a daft attempt to resuce $4.95 worth of frisbee.
Safely ashore and the final score was revealed, with Devin taking the round. Costume honors for the day went to Bryce and his Saint Andrews-meets-Salvation Army affair, assembled entirely from the women’s clearance bin. Despite Bryce’s outfit it was the perfect carnival procession: Under the sun, with friends, and sixteen beers deep before the noon whistle.
- Tom Hughes
