NUMBER 126
Another volunteer job, this time at the PGA Championship at the Ocean Course, Kiawah Island, South Carolina the week of August 5. I went to training on Saturday and it was the first time I have been to Kiawah Island. It also took me about an hour to drive there. I went down a long two lane road with beautiful Moss-covered trees.
looking empty. I enjoyed the drive, but when I arrived at the Island, I could not believe how beautiful it really is with villas, beaches and one of the most extreme golf courses in the world. Large and beautifully designed homes; with landscaping that’s out of this world and awesome beaches. It was an amazingly charming drive and I loved it.
Got to the Golf shop where I would be working and there were people everywhere doing everything to get ready for Sunday. The cashier training was short and afterwards, I met a few of the Library board members also volunteering and we had lunch. Got my hat, shirt and passes and was ready to go. Started on Tuesday and noticed on my drive that traffic was getting heavy. Not too much, just heavy. My first day was calm and I got a chance to see some of the golfers practice. Tiger looked good with his cute self. As you can tell, he was the only golfer I really knew, but the others, at least to me, practiced well. Some of the pictures are from the PGA website, I couldn't get that close to Tiger, he was surrounded by millions of people.
In order to get there, first after the start of the PGA, no one was allowed on the island, except homeowners or workers. So you had to park at the next Island, Seabrook, which was really a short hop and skip. Once there, you parked your car on the largest field next to Fresh Fields Village. Fresh Fields is a shopping center between Kiawah and Seabrook Islands with expensive stores and a organic grocery store. Reminds me of the Tyson Corner mall in Tyson, Virginia; expensive and chic. There were at least 300 greyhound size buses to take you from the parking lot to the Kiawah Ocean Resort, which was about a 25 minute ride, but driving through that island was magnificent to look at.
Once you arrived, you had your badge scanned and entered in the front. There was the Golf shop and other big tents of the Mercedes dealer, concessions, VIP tents, about three of them (to get in there cost $500, damn!!), and a practice area for the golfers. The first three days it was hot as hell and a day or two it rained like cats and dogs and some playing was delayed. I would leave my house at 11am to get to my shift by 3pm. Why, because each day that went by, the traffic got heavier and heavier and it was already taking me an hour and half, now it was going up. So I got smart and left at 11am, knowing I would not get off until 8pm and by that time, the parking lot was close to empty and my drive was just under an hour.
Talk about BIG Money, where I worked at, in the Golf Shop, people were buying $55.00 baby golf shirts, $92.00 golf shirts and etc, while pulling out $1,000 and $100 dollar bills. Mitten’s (Mitt Romney) people, or close enough. And the men. There were single, married, young and old men everywhere. I kept posting on face book for my single friends to come down and pay the entrance price (ranging from $50.00 to $150.00) and get you a rich man. The elder woman who was my baggier in the shop was drooling over these men and she was married.
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| I just love the PGA!!! |
They were tall, short, beer belly, black, white, Hispanic. Built like one of the Expendables actors, like Arnold, Sylvester, Bruce, only younger. I even tried to talk to Tiger even though I know he only likes them young, blue eyed and blond. Couldn’t get a word in about maybe being introduced to my daughter? Hey, she is young, black and beautiful, But oh, well, I can least look at him, the other golfers and all of those men. All of those gorgeous men!!  |
| Isn't he so handsome, didn't win, but he won my heart!!! |
I cannot provide you with specifics on how the game was played, because I’m not a fan nor do I know the game well. After this juncture volunteering at the PGA, I’m beginning to like golf. If only to look at the men
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| So much walking to see them play!!! |
I really enjoyed myself. I loved the view, the people I met, the golfers, the paid and non-paid volunteers. Yes, many people paid the $250.00 to volunteer. They received a whole tent to gather, rest from the heat, free food provided during their assigned shift, entrance into the tournament every day with two guest passes, a backpack filled with free items, bottle water, coffee each morning and a pretty stripped blue shirt with white cap. Us non-profit volunteers, got a white PGA shirt, white PGA cap, free food at the concession stands only (hamburgers, hot dogs, ham and cheese sandwich with cheap chips or pretzels and a bottle of soda or water) only on days we were assigned. Both of us got a $10.00 discount, which was not a big dent, but better than nothing. The paid volunteers were also drivers of the golfers and their families from the Sanctuary hotel, massively expensive, to and from the course. They would stand outside to hush talkers, take cell phones, which were not allowed, nor cameras allowed, while the gofers were playing and other fun things. Me, the non-paid volunteer, I was working the golf shop.
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| It rained a lot!!! |
Hey, it was also good because I still got a chance to meet and talk to the gofers and their families, caddies and more men than I could stand. I’m going to take up golfing. Why the hell not, more men, more men and more men to look at. Probably can’t doing anything with them because they are probably looking for a young, brainless child/woman and that ain’t me.
On to books:
RHONDA JACKSON JOSEPH - Ms. Joseph contacted me via e-mail. I met her last year at the National Black Book Festival in Houston. I’m still upset that I missed it, but damn sure going to try for next year. In 2013, it’s October 24-26 at Fallbrook Church, not the Doubletree Hotell in downtown Houston last year. I’m thinking too many complaints about parking which caused too many authors to show up and not enough customers.
It was so nice of her to contact me and of course, I’m going to promote her books from now on until I get her so many customers, she won’t know what to do. I brought them all and I think you should too.
CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT - $4.95 - - - Cishawn and Tonzell both know what they want from life. Cishawn wants to be able to maintain her independence while pursuing the career of her heart. Tonzell wants to be able to grow his fledgling business without the distraction of a relationship. When the time is right, each wishes to find the perfect mate: for Cishawn, that would be a man who appreciates and supports her independence. Tonzell wants an old fashioned woman like his Granny to build his life with. The problem is, Cishawn’s quest for independence serves as a blockade between her and potential mates. She cannot be what Tonzell needs her to be, and that is the needy, damsel in distress who is looking to be rescued. Can Tonzell accept not being the noble rescuer?
THE ACT - $1.95 - - - Melanie Durst just about has her nest empty. However, the widowed mother of three grown up daughters soon finds herself the object of the girls' matchmaking schemes. In an effort to waylay these actions, Melanie joins forces with a handsome regular customer in her store, Tyson Brown. What begins as a farce to get her daughters off her back ends up being the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Sounds like a Lifetime movie, but those are good too!!
A DOG OR SOMETHING - 99 CENTS -
A Dog or Something
Tisha Randall wants a boyfriend. When a likely specimen walks into her pet store to purchase “a dog or something”, Tisha nearly turns him away with her disdain for would be animal owners who neglected their charges. Upon further review, Tisha realizes the man had a different type of void in his life, very possibly the same one that afflicts her.
My Best Friend's Girlfriend
Aliyah and Andre have been best friends since childhood. Will they be able to build on that foundation and make a go of a proper romantic relationship?
Got to get one in for Black History Year
You know I volunteer at all kinds of book fairs and I will mention the John Island Book fair next wee, but here’s a book by an African American author I never heard of, until now.
JOHN RIDLEY - LOVE IS A RACKET - Paperback $2.87 (don’t forget about the shipping which is usually $3.99)
Review from Publishers Weekly (It’s not regular that you see African American authors in their pages) and I did not know he wrote so many. I guess it’s time to start looking for his other books, I love this part of my job!!!
Ridley's second novel (after Stray Dogs, 1997) brings panache and a kooky premise to a familiar setting. Jeffty is an African American L.A. grifter whose hustles inevitably fail, whose screenplay everyone deems ""beautiful"" and whose plot to wring money from old-time movie mogul Moe Steinberg is as quintessentially Hollywood-gothic as a mansion on Mulholland Drive. Jeffty concocts the scam of a lifetime to enact revenge on his bookie, Dumas, whose goon breaks Jeffty's finger.
Sadly for him and for us, Dumas proceeds to bump off Jeffty's best chance of making the payback money (and the story's most interesting character): Nellis, a wife-killing junkie who wins fortunes by applying Zen techniques to poker games. Jeffty is left to run his scam using a beautiful street girl, Mona, who bears an uncanny resemblance to James Dean's dead, sometime girlfriend, the real-life movie star Pier Angeli. It seems Steinberg may have orchestrated Dean's death in order to get close to Angeli. Jeffty's sure that when he sees this perfect replica, dressed up in 1950s clothes, Steinberg will refuse her nothing. While the swindle plays out, a cop called Dentphy pressures Jeffty to inform on Dumas. By the time the scam and story reach their climax, the characters don't know whom to trust and neither do readers. The preposterous plot is less important than Jeffty's voice, saturated with classic noir self-mockery and convincingly compromised morals. Even if Ridley ignores such glaring questions as why he keeps a gun he never uses, or why Dumas leaves Jeffty alone long enough to carry out his plan, die-hard fans of neo-pulp will forgive these slips with hardly a second thought.
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