Fashion nonsense

I could buy a pair of pants at Saks Fifth Avenue or three shirts, pants, a tie and shorts at Kohl’s.

… For the first time in I don’t know how long I went clothes shopping. Not just buying a t-shirt here and pants there. I mean I bought a lot of stuff.

The reason I haven’t been clothes shopping in a while is because whenever Christmas rolled around and my ex-girlfriend asked me what I wanted so she could tell her family, I’d say clothes. So I’d make out with clothes.

Well, that is no longer happening. So I ventured to Kohl’s just to buy pants and got so much more. I was able to find a black neck tie, something I’ve been looking for but could never find. Solid colors, that’s how I roll.

I’m just doing my part to stimulate the economy. Although, I think lower energy prices will do that a lot faster. But what do I know.

… The PGA U.S. Open took place over the weekend and I saw a player I used to cover when he was a freshman and sophomore in high school. He qualified for the Open as an alternate and when a player withdrew, he was entered.

Currently, he is a star golfer for Oklahoma State and won the Ben Hogan award for best college golfer – becoming the first freshman to win the award.

So you can imagine what I was thinking when, at the end of the first round, he was in tie for seventh place after shooting a 1-under-par 70. Not only that, he was a better golfer on that day than players such as Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods. How many of us could wish we could say that once in our life?

The next round wasn’t as great, but he still made the cut and played the entire weekend finishing in a tie for 60, still better than Singh and defending champion Angel Cabrera who didn’t even make the cut.

I’ll be honest; this player was going to be my ticket to the ESPN show, “Sportscentury” until I was fired. He is a guarantee to be on that show. He was an amazing high school golfer winning the CIF-Southern California Regional by going 10-under-par. The next year he helped lead his team to a second place finish at the State meet by shooting an even-par 72 at Poppy Hills in Monterey – all with having the flu and throwing up that morning.

I hope he keeps being successful.

… Recently I went back to my home town newspaper website to find out that high school graduations had taken place. I had also found out that my high school, West, also has a completed football field complete with field turf and all-weather track with stands. It looks amazing.

One of the comments was someone who had taken aerial photos of the football field. Next to the field was a swimming pool, something that wasn’t there four years ago. This also got me looking at Google Earth to see more aerials of the high school. Although, the photo is from 2004, the school looks nothing like it was when I was a student.

All we had when the school was started was one building with 30 classrooms, a library, cafeteria, administration building, and athletic building. There was a football field, but it was just thrown together. By the time I left, there were just trailers to help the overcrowding, but nothing else.

Seeing all these changes also made me wonder how the country K-8 school that I went to – Delta Island – was doing. Of course from above, it still looks the same. So I went to the school website and found things had drastically changed. The school had been annexed by the Tracy school district a couple of years ago. Between here and there, the school had become K-5 with its students that in the 6-8 grades going to a junior high, something I never did.

The school was opened in the early 70s and always had a member of my family there until I graduated from the eighth grade in 1992; of course I had to spend the last six years there with no family. I also didn’t like the principal that was there for seven of the nine years I was.

I would have done anything to get out of there three years sooner if I could’ve. But I feel like I missed out on a somewhat normal childhood. Everyone, for the most part went to junior high. So I wonder how that experience would have changed me in anyway. I didn’t really care too much for my high school experience. Had I gone to Jr. high, would I’ve adjusted better and had an easier time making friends.

Or had I always been ahead of my time, so to speak.