DID HE OR DIDN’T HE?

JANUARY 23, 2019 – Awhile back I was hiking across my usual terrain in Little Switzerland . . . the golf course in nearby Como Park. Near the foot of the hill I call “St. Moritz,” I encountered a lost golf ball. I know it was lost because no golfers were anywhere in sight.

Initially I resisted picking up the ball and adding it to my collection of several hundred golf balls.  A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t!” Actually, it was my wife’s voice.  Then I heard my own voice say, “You’re so OCD!”

Exactly. Here and now, I told myself, was an opportunity to break the tradition . . . er, habit . . . er, disorder . . .without resorting to therapy or medication.  “Just resist!” I heard self say.

ME: Sure.

MYSELF: Say it like you mean it.

ME: Sure!

MYSELF: Actions speak louder than words.

ME: Doesn’t not picking it up count as action?

MYSELF: Yes, but how do I know you’re not going to pick up the next golf ball you encounter?  I mean, one ball against the hundreds you’ve found and taken home is not a convincing percentage.

ME: Okay, then. How ’bout I take this golf ball, walk it to the top of St. Moritz and then throw it ceremoniously as hard as I possibly can to rid myself once and for all of my compulsion for picking up every lost golf ball I encounter out here?

MYSELF: Now you’re talkin’ . . . about action!

I then picked up the golf ball and hiked straight to the top of St. Moritz.  From there I had a bird’s-eye view of Little Switzerland—the Matterhorn behind me, the Jungfrau to my left and the Eiger beyond that; Lake Geneva in the other direction and farther on, Como Lake and on its western shore, the pavilion, which I call Milano—especially at night, when it’s all lit up. With golf ball in my right hand, I yelled into the winds, “Here goes with the throw, the end of my compulsion to collect golf balls!” I then took five quick, long strides and . . .

. . . threw the ball as hard as I possibly could.

However, it had been awhile since I’d hurled a snowball, let alone a baseball.

MYSELF: Lousy throw. If you want to end this OCD business, you’re going to have to make a more memorable throw.

ME: You’re right.

I knew Myself all too well.  I scampered down—way down—the  side of St. Moritz and retrieved the golf ball. I repeated the symbolic throw—twice more before satisfying . . .  me and Myself.

As I turned to hike down the other side of St. Moritz, I heard Myself mumble something.

ME: Say what?

MYSELF: That was a brand new Titleist Pro V1. . .”

ME: I know.

MYSELF (After a beat): You’re not going to just leave it behind are you?

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© 2019 Eric Nilsson