The First Day……….

……or life from the underside, and how I became a socialist.

Employment as Event Staff at the Buick Invitational certainly left me shaking my head at the disparities in life.

Oh, I grew up at a golf course. I can talk par, birdie, birdie, par with the best of them. I know a sand trap from a tee, and a lie from a wedgie. But my arcane knowledge helped me only a little bit yesterday as I stood ostensibly moving traffic next to the north Skyboxes.

People paid a lot of money to sit in Skyboxes above the herd. Food smells wafted down toward me as I stood at the head of the stairs by the Skyboxes. The clink of glasses grew louder as the afternoon progressed, and the smell of alcoholic beverages waved in and out by me on the sea breezes. Unfortunately, in this set of stands, five feet away and below them sat the hoi poloi. As each threesome moved into range, their gallery climbed up to watch the final chip shots and putts on the 18th green.

My job, if I should care to understand it, was to stop all pedestrians from walking in front of one, single, sky box. They paid a lot, you see, to sit there. Yes, there were ten Skyboxes, and yes, only one objected to the masses crowded below them. Never mind that the fire department just wanted us to keep everyone moving, I had to illogically move them only one direction.

I was at the head of one set of stairs with an exit right next to me. Two hundred yards, yes it was a long walk, down at the other end of the stands, far, far away from the direction any one wanted to go, was the second exit. I was to turn these departing hundreds away and have them walk those many yards to the other end of the stands so they could then return my direction at ground level.

They argued.

What can I say. I agreed and let them by. It was ridiculous. The one group was steadfast and insisted that no one walk in front of them yet there wasn’t anything I could do but duck when the herd headed my way. The herd became a crushing mass when the Tiger Woods gallery or Statler’s gallery crushed in then crushed out again.

So I wasn’t a very good employee. Not at all.

Until mid day, I stood at the head of a long flight of stairs looking over the fairways out to sea. The day was clear and bright and beautiful beyond imagining.

“Is that Georgette?”

I turned and looked.

“Jeanie?”

And it was. My first college weaving teacher. There she was looking a little better dressed than most but just like herself. We enthusiastically talked kids and art, and projects while golfing enthusiasts wandered around us. She married a multimillionaire. Much better than being a starving lawyer’s teacher wife and artist, I had always thought. How I admired her. No, he might have millions, but he drinks.

“Everything’s a trade off,” she said sadly then introduced me to her broker who was young and handsome.

I hugged her, and later hugged her again when she left. I didn’t like her broker who was one of those smooth men waltzing with clients in the Sky boxes while getting them drunk. He remembered my name.

I welcomed the beautiful women, and the uniformed men in their polos, tan kakis and short hair. Only one beard all day. Company presidents. VPs. Big shots with tight bodies and full hair. Lots of hair. And as the day went by, talk. Louder talk. One is not supposed to crowd the putters with sound, but the men and women in the Skyboxes were impervious to the players and kept drinking as the hours neared darkness. Their talk grew loose and loud into the chill air and they never saw the men near the greens with their hands raised for silence.

Waiting on them, serving their drinks or dishing up their food or moving the populace on in front of their boxes were those who had not. Had not the money to eat this day. Had not the money for uniforms or babysitters or even bus fare to this far away golf course in the North County. They had also to ride the buses for two and a half hours just to get up here and wait on the beautiful men and women. Another two some hours home in the cold night air. Most of them had cell phones, priorities in this no money life. I did not. After missing my direct bus, I took one that meandered backwards and forwards finally leaving me only one mile from home. Near a pay phone, thank you. Thank you Dear G for dinner.

They didn’t need me today. I’m home drinking water for my kidney stone before after and during the making of a Valentines stuffed heart for my G. He’s worth more than diamonds any day.