The Wooded City

Boise
L' Boise
The wooded city

It's really not so wooded. Don't get me wrong, there are trees there, but not trees to the degree that one might call "wooded" or even "woodsy." It is a burgeoning metropolis nestled in the bosom of the foothills at the edge of the great inland dry plains. It is a city finding it's way, popluated in apparently equal measures of college students, cowboys, and high-tech worker-bees.

My fabulous friend, Mary, lives there. We did lunch. Mary is one of those shiny people who should have been a movie star in the 1930s. We ate fabulous food, and had a fabulous time. We even spotted the mayor. It was great to see Mary, just like old time, but really, she should move to Portland.

The family circus then set up the big tent at the monkey's uncle's house. Well, aunt and uncle, but, well, you get the point. Anyway, it was there that I first encoundered Belle the Wonder-Dog. Able to leap into trees in search of squirrels, she is also able to wag her tail-stub fast enough to send it back in time. Einstein would need to devise entirely new theories just to quantify this puppy's wagging capacity. Like a cartoon, she left dust contrails behind her as she buzzed a circuit across the dry river bed.

The monkey and the wonder dog got along famously. So well, in fact, that Daddy and Uncle had time to sneak out for some long-awaited disc golf. Finally. As some of you may recall, one of the original premises of this blog was that I'd discuss disc golf. Alas, there have been no entries, until now.

As a disc golf venue, Boise is in it's infancy. There are very few courses open to the public, but the sport is growing, and I predict that soon there will be a veritable plethora of courses from which to choose. "But Brian," you may ask, "what the hell is disc golf? Is that like frisbee golf or something?"

Shut up, you ignorant goat. Disc golf is the greatest outdoor activity since sex in a tent. The sport was invented by "Steady" Ed Headrick, who happened to also be the inventor of the modern Wham-o-brand Frisbee, but the sport is NOT PLAYED WITH FRISBEES. Rather, it is played, using golf-like rules, with aerodynamically designed golf discs. Score is kept like golf, or it may not be kept at all. Good karma directly impacts your game, and karma is gained by doing good works. (picking up trash on the course, returning found discs to their owners, etc...)

Uncle drove us to his local course, and we had to break a few traffic laws to get there. (The Man was keeping us down) Once there, I firmly established the fact that I haven't played in over a year. It's all good though, because, it's about being out on the course, throwing discs... (or so I tell myself) Uncle proved to be well-practiced and quite good. Daddy upheld his long standing practice of hitting trees.

The course, while being quite neat and clean, seemed to be built through the middle of a boggy swamp. While having completed the 18th hole (basket) we backtracked in search of the ubiquitous missing disc. I wandeered slowly out onto the mossy surface of the bog, testing the firma of the terra as I went. All seemed well, until I felf the give beneath my right leg. Down I sank, quite literally up to the knee, into the black tar-like mud that smelled almost as good as death. I feared a fate like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles, until my foot found purchase on some sub-mud foundation. So ended my short-lived 2005 disc golf season.

Stay tuned for more of Howler Monkey autumn tour 2005 from the highways and byways of Idaho, with more on resort politics, the Fosbury flop, the long-promised naked cheerleaders, and Sen. John Kerry...