Good Morning.
Don't ever count anyone out. On Sunday afternoon, Tiger Woods won the PGA tour championship after not winning a single tournament because of personal issues and back surgeries for more than five years - 1876 days to be exact. The crowd was
almost uncontrollable. As he walked toward the eighteenth green in his Sunday red shirt and black slacks, the huge throng spilled onto the fairway behind him, almost swallowing him up, and followed him until he reached his ball that he'd landed
in a bunker. The fans backed off enough so he could chip onto the green and finish up with a near miss putt and a tap in,
and then they went haywire. I went through a period of being rather upset with Tiger but I'm glad he's back. I'll put up with his girlfriends that come and go and his occasional displays of temper to watch him play his extraordinary kind of golf.
Richard Nixon, vice president under President Eisenhower, was another comeback story, but his, of course, didn't end particularly well. He narrowly lost the presidency to Kennedy in 1960, then lost the governorship of California in 1962
and made his famous statement that nobody would have him to kick around anymore. Then he got the Republican nomination for president in 1968, beat Hubert Humphrey, and was reelected in 1972 in a landslide victory against George McGovern, but he blew it during the Watergate mess and eventually had to resign in ignominy. I never liked Nixon, but I felt bad for his wife. She always looked kind of sad.
Diana Nyad, at the age of sixty-four, successfully swam from Cuba to Florida, without a shark cage, after failing four times
because of weather and jellyfish. Marlon Brando, after establishing himself as a super star in movies like On the Waterfront
and A Streetcar Named Desire basically disappeared from view until he was cast in The Godfather and created the unforgettable Don Corleone. Frank Sinatra spent years doing gigs in Las Vegas after being a teenage idol but came back in the early 1970s. I liked his voice the second time around better. It had a maturity to it that seemed more suited to his signature
love songs.
I also think of Prince Charles who was a lousy husband to Diana and never quite ended the thing with Camilla. After Diana's death he was open about the relationship and eventually married the old girl in a civil ceremony that was blessed by the church after the couple reportedly did a little bowing and scraping, not easy for a royal. Charles has become a great deal nicer in his older years, never more so than during Harry's wedding to Meghan Markle when he walked her down the aisle and later escorted her mother, a black woman, into the sacristy with what can rightfully be called a real tenderness. I'd
love to have a spot of tea with Charlie and I find Camilla rather amusing with her big hats, but I didn't like either of them for awhile.
We have an interesting governor's race underway in my state. The Republican candidate is the state's lone member of Congress, an attractive fortyish woman who wears big hoop earrings with her jeans and cowboy hat when she rides a horse. I find that curious especially since she's not on a horse just to cut a TV ad aimed at the rural vote. She actually lives on a farm and knows horses. Her opponent is a young man who was injured in a rodeo accident and gets around in a wheelchair. He's a banker and a state legislator and he can ride a horse too, despite being paralyzed. I look at him and shake my head, knowing how horribly he was injured and how incredible his attitude must have been to help him deal with his misfortune. I live in one of the reddest states in the country, but this guy, if the polls are correct, may actually have a shot - and should. At least I'll get someone who likes horses and that's a good thing.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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