Hitting from The Middle Tees

 Hitting from the Middle Tees

[Content Advisory: Some of you out there on The Wall also spent time as students in my various classes. Remember those days when I would start out in one direction, move through “What is he talking about?” And end up at “Weird, but interesting.”? Well this might be one of those times. Hang in there. DrS]

While having dinner last night it came out that one family member was having a “milestone birthday,” which, among other things, would allow him to tee off on the middle tees at the golf course up by their lake cottage over in Michigan. “What does that mean?” asked my wife. Not a strange question given that her exposure to golf has been gleaned from quick glances at the TV while passing through the living room, enough to convince her there was no reason to pause.  

Still it made me realize that it was a bit “golfist” to assume that everyone would know what “Middle Tees” meant. Was it like the Middle Ages? Middle Earth? Middleweight? Middleman? And since l am using it in the title of this post, it behooves me to at least attempt a definition. So briefly, here goes. A golf course consists of 18 holes, long stretches of lawn leading from the “tee box” to the “green” where the “flag” sits in the “hole” which actually is a small hole (4.25 inches in diameter) in the ground of the green into which the golfer wishes to hit his or her ball.  Obviously there is more to it than that but that is sufficient for our purposes since we are only with the tee box. 

The tee box is usually divided in three areas each progressively closer to the hole: the “back tees” furthest from the hole and hence reserved for the best players. Everyone on “televised tournaments” hits from the back tees. The “front tees,” which are those closest to the hole - sometimes significantly so - are reserved for participants who for reasons of age, gender, or other issues are deemed worthy of some sort of benefit. And then we come to “the middle tees.” I think of being allowed to “tee off” in this area, often located midway between the back and front tees, as an acknowledgment, or reward for dedication to the game as one often “ages into” permission to tee off from here. This was the case of last night’s milestone birthday - 70. 

So “hitting off the middle tees” in golf - and in life - isn’t so much a case of “try it from up here, old guy,” as it is a reward for having reached a particular plateau, while still realizing that age brings both rewards and rational limitations. Having already passed this particular milestone I occasionally think about instances where pre- and post-middle tees in real life are most obvious. 

One that often springs to mind is a trip to San Francisco to deliver a paper in the early days of my teaching career - so I was in my late 20s or early 30s. I remember hiking up into the hills above the city, and pausing to appreciate the view out across the city, past the Golden Gate to the bay and the Pacific beyond. Part of my appreciation stemmed from the realization that I could walk from my present location to anywhere in the vista spread out below me. I was limited only by time. Now, “hitting off the middle tees,” I realize that is no longer the case. I could probably get from here to there, but it would entail cabs, Ubers, cable cars, or some combination thereof. The legs were just not going to make it. And that was OK. That’s why I was here on the middle tees and glad to have made to this point in life.

There are other middle tees realities that I have become comfortable with - like puppies and parrots.  Let me clarify. We share this domicile with a wonderful 13 year-old black lab named Vito Muso (saxophonist with Stan Kenton in the late 1930s). If you know much about large breed dogs, you know that Vito is approaching the upper limits of life expectancy for the breed. And while we hate to contemplate that eventuality, we are somewhat comforted by the fact that no lab has had a better life. Three humans fuss over his every need, food, exercise, medical. We stop and pet him every time we pass him by. He often blocks my way, lying down, wagging his tale, demanding a longer rub down. I naturally oblige. Or he will camp on the kitchen floor in front of the treat stash until Christine, the official treat dispenser, caves in and gives him his treat - or maybe two. A truly blessed doggy life. But when he does hop off to chase tennis balls in the sky, none of us would even contemplate replacing him with a puppy. 

The obvious reason is that - while no dog could ever replace Vito - even a perfect puppy would be playing from the back tees. Full of Vim, Vigor and Vitality as 3V cola used to brag back in the late 1950s. Christine and I will be playing from the middle tees while Smitty will be way out there swinging from where the 90+ golfers get to tee off. None of us will be able to raise a puppy. 

Parrots come with similar baggage. I have always been fascinated by African Grey Parrots. Smart, winsome creatures. But knowing that they are often smuggled under terrible conditions, and that they can live to middle tee ages themselves - 60 to 80 years! - makes me walk on past the pet store.

Which got me thinking. Back in the late 1960s as Ph.D student at Wayne State one of my favorite classes was Communication Theory taught by Dr. Raymond Ross. In my mind the neatest thing about Dr. Ross’ class was building communication models, when, truth be told, we got to just make up models of how communication worked. While we were often more than a little “off point” it was an excellent way to figure out how we could better understand the process. It is a process I have returned to all my life - and often far afield from just communication theory. 

Most obvious and of greatest current importance to me is the model that can depict Distilled Harmony. I have played around with some fancy depictions of Distilled Harmony, but for the moment let this simple straight line model suffice:

Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony-> Enable Beauty-> Distill Complexity -> Oppose Harm.

Which is just one, prioritized, way to represent the various stages of Distilled Harmony, my model of how we should approach life. To reach Distilled Harmony (Inner Peace, a State of Grace, Nirvana, call it what you are comfortable with) you begin with a general attempt to foster harmony in your everyday life and then pull the other subsequent elements of the model into your life as possible. 

Well it struck me that using the golf tee box as a metaphor for the stages of our life and the kinds of legitimate options each position on the tee represent was really another communication/aka life model or metaphor. And so, as my wife is fond of saying “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” here is my first cut at blending “Distilled Harmony” with the “View from the Tee Box Life Model.”

The first thing that obvious is that the two models don’t line up. That is because Distilled Harmony is by far more encompassing than Tee Box. No surprise there since Distilled Harmony has been “under development” for 30 years or so, while Tee Box just came to me after dinner the other night. But Tee Box does bring, I think, some valuable insight.

E.g. you cannot just “think” your way into another tee box. You work your way there. You spend most of your life hitting from the back tees, learning everything that will be valuable in life, and then putting all that into practice. Inventing stuff, teaching, practicing medicine, studying law, improving agriculture, protecting the environment, doing art, whatever. The Tee Box model gives us a pretty wide range for hitting off the back tees, essentially until you are 70.  The potential blend with Distilled Harmony is the notion that we really don’t come to a clear understanding of harmony until we are approaching what western culture considers “retirement age” - 65 or 70ish. 

So let’s try this on: Hitting from the back tees for 50 years or so enables you to gather a vast amount of information in your field, perhaps in several fields. Starting in the 1600s we used to call folks like these “polymaths.” They are excellent at Trivial Pursuits and Jeopardy. But perhaps not the person you might turn to when faced to serious personal problems. They “might could,” as we say in the South tell you who had written novel A, or invented thingamiggy B, or was the first human to walk on Mars, but would have no idea how any of that worked out. And that is why after spending 50 or 60 years hanging out in the back tees we turn our attention to the issues of the middle tees, because there you increase your chances of finding, not just information, but wisdom.

Let me quickly point out that reaching 70 is no guarantee of finding wisdom. Any glance at the news these days would seem to argue the opposite, but it is in the middle tees that we can find guides, mentors, examples of wisdom that have stood the test of time. It is a more gentle tee box. One less defined by loud harangues of certainty. More inclined to quiet reflection. 

Having now spent a few years hitting off the middle tees I can report that it too, carries no guarantees of wisdom. I occasionally find myself stumbling into some stunning instances of foolishness, and occasional flashes of unintended arrogance more appropriate to the exuberance of the back tees. However, the view from the middle tees does allow one to recognize those stumbles more quickly and to learn from them - perhaps approaching the wisdom expected here on the middle tees. It also can awaken a desire to make amends, if that option remains feasible. Sadly, the view from the middle tees often forces one to realize that sometimes the desire for reconciliation arrives too late. 

So you sigh. You learn. And you trudge along the weary path to wisdom, where, strangely, these awkward insights also reveal the route to Harmony and joy.