The Stand--Part II

Sorry, folks... I have fallen behind in my quest to keep you informed about the adventures of the the "Arizona Kid". When we last got together I regaled you about what a great time I had caddying and walking "between the ropes". Then came my second parking lot experience at the LPGA tournament on Friday and Saturday... I was scheduled to work Friday and Saturday (6am-6pm) and arrived at the "command center" at 5:30 am for assignment. A little background about the tournament is necessary before we continue. For years the tournament was sponsored by Safeway Supermarkets and played at Superstition Mountain Golf Club. Safeway dropped their sponsorship this year and the golf course went into receivership and was changed to Papago Golf Club at pretty much the last minute. A local winery picked up the sponsorship and the venue was prepared for the tournament. So, the general parking area became a open field about 10 minutes from the golf course. No pavement, just trampled weeds and dirt. And here, the nightmare begins again...

For those of you who don't understand the literary reference of the title, "The Stand" is a novel by Stephen King about the end of the world and the ultimate battle of good and evil. In this case, the stand is a battle of staying on your feet in blistering sunshine (no where to hide) for 12 hours and getting the people into non-marked spaces in straight lines as quickly as possible... But this time, there was a new villain introduced... I'll call him "Mud Man". Because the parking lot was a dirt field and because cars were driving back and forth, the amount of dust blowing around could choke an army... "Mud Man" was a tanker truck of water that rode around and sprayed the ground to keep the dust down... and made the parking lot a mud pit! By the time I finished my sentence (I mean shift), I was about four inches taller from the mud caked on the bottom of my shoes... And the best part of the job was that the only bathroom (a lone porta-potty) was about a quarter mile away and you had to radio to get someone to take you there... So Friday at 3:30 pm the flow of cars is slowing down and the supervisor comes by and asks for volunteers to leave early (shorter sentence for good behavior and time served)... needless to say I took one for the team...

Saturday was the typical case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians... We had twice as many parking lot dudes and dudettes but every one of them (except me, the worker bee) had the ultimate way of parking cars... (I didn't know that parking a car required a degree program).
So, whenever one of the "chiefs" took a break, the system changed... Saturday was more of "The Run" than the Stand... They had me running around directing cars all over the place... I enjoyed the change but the footing was pretty treacherous thanks to Mud Man... I felt like I was working on a chain gang on steroids! But I did meet some interesting folks...(met Se Ri Pak's uncle through an interpreter---South Korean, and Paula Creamer's aunt and uncle--she didn't play because she got sick in Mexico the previous week). I did the "chicken without a head" routine for about 5 hours from 7 to noon...(keeping the pedestrians from incoming cars and avoiding the spray of Mud Man). The sun was beating on me like a rented mule and the "break" mobile never showed to take me to the "potty"... (I ended up in some scrub bushes while the shuttle buses rolled on by---do you think they knew what I was doing in there?).

At 12:30, the cars just stopped coming... maybe two or three at a time but not the steady flow. The "break" mobile finally showed and I went up to command just to get out of the sun for a few minutes... While I was there getting my skin temperature to drop, the supervisor asked me again if I wanted to leave... I graciously said that I would do it and allow others to stay (GET ME OUTTA HERE!). So I packed up my Jets cooler, knocked the mud (about 3 lbs) off my shoes and drove as quickly from there as my Jeep could go. The things I put myself through to entertain my blogging constituents!! I felt like a Cheeto (baked to a crackily crunch). All in the name of "will work for greens fees"...