How (or Where) You Spend Yr Other 72 Hours

My galpal Layne and I slipped ourselves out of our weirdo Elwoodian suits last weekend and reclothed ourselves in the rad fashion of Bloomington. Spoiler alert: this post has nothing to do with fashion!

We buddied down with my main pal Darrin and like we do, we got chit-a-chatting about Life and Living and What Are We Doing? He said some cool things about people being constrictors about Work and Knuckleheads of sleep, but really what matters is what you do with yr "other 72 hours*," meaning the ones you don't use sleeping and working. (*number based on if you're one of those 8 hrs of sleep and 40 hrs of work/week kinda ppl.)

The Best Hum I Know

I spend my 72 doing stuff like watching King of the Hill and playing disc golf and writing/reading poems and trying to get Layne to like me more (probably to the opposite effect). All this I can clap my hands at, back in my face, because they make me happy and less shitty (or at least not more shitty) and HEY LOW HARM(-ish).

But man, that sweet hum of disc golf, that's where it's at, that's where I'm at most, both physically and in my head, the sport that kept me getting out of bed, out of the house when I felt like a malfunctioning fog machine, the sport I turn to four or five times a week to relax, to get out, to yap with my fellow dg enthusiasts.

I'm no super-stud dg specialist, but I dig dig dig it and hey ain't that enough?

I'm a good putter, probably from all that extra practice in my first year on the course, my playing pal back then one of those always 15 min late kinda dudes, and me, back then, of the always 10 min early type, so boom, almost a half hour of putting a few times per week. I have these stringy arms and am kinda goofy-footed, not to mention two throwing shoulder dislocations over the past year, so I've never been one of those WOW zing far kinda guys. I try to cuddle my discs, get to know how they feel, then toss them out there, get some good putt looks, approach shots on a string.

I "grew up" on the Muncie course, that BIG park on the city's east side, hulk trees and bumps, seedy river creeping on a couple holes. I became a real disc golfer when I started playing the Elwood course, newly extended to a full 18, tech course cut out of a dump, plenty of punishment, brush and saplings, a rusted fender to send yr plastic soaring.

I play disc golf to see the zings, chatter with the real people, get to stomp around in the woods/park for a couple hours, watch my body launch those pretty colors through the sky.

Hole 15

Bloomington's course at Crestmont, really the only worthwhile course of the three in Bloomington (Surprising that hip town hasn't built something better into the side of a wooded hill), is not a course where I go to be challenged. It is one of those courses I play because each hole is a reminder of what is cool about the sport, a varied course, nice nature (rolling hills, cool trees tucked in bunches), little punishment, a bunch of ppl of various levels smiling and throwing, 18 holes of fun.

I've played it a half dozen times before, way back in the beginning to now at my best, and what I've always appreciated about it is how each hole seems to have an over-hang branch shading the pad or a hill equaling major uncertainty, an add-in that intimidates and can set you around the other way if you blink like a bonehead.

But like I said, little little punishment. Even if you hit the hulk tree that caught yr eye, even if you couldn't scale that southern Indiana hill, yr second shot will probably be a highly playable 150 ft shot. It lacks the zing-required fairways of Muncie or the nature traps of Elwood. Yet there is something super endearing about those little spots, those wicked blips.

Hole 12

The most challenging part of this course is the last four holes, up and down hills, back and forth through the chunks of woods before dropping you back at yr car. No bomb shots still, but awesome use of hills and growth to create important lines, like 15, where you feel king atop the course, then you gotta slip through a gap two pads wide, both control and snap gotta be check-marked to cut in, through, and down this hill, like 18, a 250+ anhyzer up a hill, my arm more rubber than expected at the end of the round.

Despite the low challenge of this course, I still really get stoked to play this course because it has some serious ace runs, a variety of drive requirements, and is a good choice to take new player-pals for their early rounds.