24 August 2007

Big Bertha



I did not get in the pool until late. I was the fourth resident of Big Pink to take the plunge. It had been a gray day, dank, and not inviting. There had been a late afternoon business affair in Ballston, at the lovely Willow bar and restaurant. The Willow replaced an earlier watering hole that produced a serviceable drink and edible food without flair; you could always find a place to sit at the bar, so it was a useful back-up to the more lively clubs if you needed a quiet place to talk.

Willow strives for a lot more, and the happy-hour crowd transiting between their cubes in the new office towers and the residential spires clustered around the Metro seem to appreciate it. The wood is

When I finally I did get to the pool and plunge in, Andra the Czech lifeguard was eager to talk. He had been alone for most of the day. He likes to practice his English and his time here is short. The pool with be closing soon, and he has some grand plans to travel to Philadelphia for the weekdays after the formal closing.

He will be back on duty on the two “bonus” weekends that we fought management to fund through the big petition drive and mass turn-out at last month's Board Meeting.

Still, it is a little melancholy to see the summer on the way out, the Czechs preparing to fly away like the swallows of the season.

Andra had a long cardboard box at the lifeguard table, which I noted as I walked on the pool deck. He could not contain his excitement. The box had contained three golf clubs, one for each of the three Czechs who have worked the pool this season. He showed me the new Big Bertha three wood with pride, explaining that golf equipment is very cheap here in America, as is everything by Czech standards. All of his countrymen have loaded up on golf equipment here, which they could not afford back home.

The Big Bertha fairway wood is not wood, at all, of course. It is an imposing piece of machinery composed of titanium and carbon fiber. Not quite as bulbous as the Driver produced by the Calloway Golf Corporation, the three wood has a sleek head with pronounced grooves on the bottom. The shaft is graphite and loaded with coils of snake-like energy, and the grip is supple and inviting.

He showed me his swing as I paddled, peering at the parabola in the growing gloom on the pool deck.

All he needs is a cap and a fancy golf bag and he is good to go; the last two weeks of work here should do the trick.

Where he is going is back home to Prague. Andra has his Fall schedule and will be back in class in four weeks. He is studying sports physiology at the State University, which is a fancy way of saying he wants to be a gym instructor or personal trainer.

He wants a life that will be spent outdoors. He belongs to a small golf course about forty minutes by bus outside Prague; it is an optimistic club that wants to build a second nine in the future. It is a hilly course, not far from where the Czechs like to ski and snowboard.

That is dependent on snow, naturally, and there has not been much of that of late. There are many changes that are impacting the life outdoors in the old Habsburg Empire.

The Habsburgs had come to Prague 1526, and briefly moved the seat of power to Vienna. Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, moved his court back to Prague in 1583, partly in reaction to the proximity of the Turks, who nearly took Vienna in 1683.

That was a near thing indeed; only the ineptitude of the Pasha, the arrival of the valiant Poles, and the near-miraculous interception of a Turkish tunnel saved the day. A gigantic black powder bomb was disabled at the last second, saving the city walls, and leaving the Turkish army open to attack from the heights.

Thereafter, the Christian West was in ascendance and the Muslim decline that lasted until about fifteen minutes ago. Andra is very proud of Prague, which has been completely restored since the Germans and Russians turned it into rubble. Rudolf II would recognize it once more, when he knew it as the European center of science, alchemy and magic.

Andra leans more to the latter than the former, since he has trouble with mathematics. A lot of us do; Statistics was the bane of my days at school, and that deficiency I'm sure is what held me back from a Nobel Prize in Economics. But many Europeans share that problem, particularly in multiplication.

The Czechs are the some of the worst multipliers in a Continent that is having number problems. Currently there are 1.28 children per woman in a reproductive age, which makes the Czech Republic's fertility rate one of the lowest in the world.

There are many factors that contribute to this inability to replace Czech citizens. One is the liberation of women, which is a good and positive thing. Another is a rising income, which makes young people of both sexes defer the rigors of parenthood. Still, a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In the rest of Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement.

Some places, particularly German and Italy, are well below that.

Taking the trend line out into the future, by 2037, there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. Despite the problem with math, the Czech population has been increasing in recent years, due mainly due to immigration. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them. Many of those arriving are Turks, who are not tunneling under the walls, but rather walking in the front door over the welcome mat.

There are those who are alarmed by the inevitable change, but someone has to do the work, right? Andra is not particularly concerned about that. He is more intent on remembering that golf is a left-handed game, and trying to force shots with the dominant right arm is a recipe for disaster.

The Big Bertha is a remarkably forgiving club, due to its broad striking face and sophisticated under-weighting of the body.

He is excited about having an answer to a critical problem at a good price. I paddled thoughtfully in the darkness, the reflection of the underwater lights casting ripples on the pink brick.

I refrained from recommending that he take some Turkish language courses along with his English, and perhaps add a few credits on geriatric sports. There is plenty of time for that.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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