Seattlest Pix 09Nov21
Touch Me, I'm Sick
Seattlest Pix 09Nov22
Manifold Motion's Miscellenea II Wraps Up Tonight
Around The -Ists This Week
After an exhaustive search of the city and the surrounding internets Seattlest has finally located the site's first patron saint. It's this random guy, Charlie Schaubel, a middling golf pro who's wanderings happend to place him in Seattle at times over the course of a long and random life. His greatest accomplishment? Making golf sound cool.
Check him out in this excerpt from Part 3 of the short auto-bio.
Marlene sends me a couple of hundred bucks, which is enough to get me there. I was totally wired – I drove five days without a radio and had nothing but thoughts running through me head.I get to Seattle on a Saturday night, and move in with Marlene, whom I’d known for only two weeks. “Livin La Vida Loco.” Four days later we’re in the process of bidding on a two nine-hole courses and a driving range located about two miles from her house.
We win the bid by a hair (0.5 percent) from some guy who was going to turn the clubhouse into a Laundromat. He wanted to set it up so people could do their wash and hit golf balls. We had $2,000 between us (more like Marlene had two grand), and we were leasing two golf courses and a rundown driving range from the Seattle Parks Department.
We had no golf balls for the range or any equipment for the courses. I could say we somehow or other pulled it off, but I think some things are just meant to be. You can see this only after it’s all over.
So here we are, one big happy family, Marlene with her two kids, Matt and Dione, and me and my daughter Jennyfer, all living together on the beach in Seattle. We do the Disneyland trip and all the other stuff families do. For me, $2,000 is now walking-around money.
Onward and upward, from glory to glory. In 1986, I had to step in and make the “Putting Chipping” tape because some big-name pro couldn't make it. You can still buy that tape over the Internet.I started the Coke Celebrity Tournament, which is in my resumé. Played golf with many Seattle celebrities, including former Supersonics’ coach Lenny Wilkens, University of Washington football coach Don James, Jack Sikma of the Sonics, Seattle Times columnist Emmett Watson, and many TV people.
Going from Heaven to Hell
Jimmy Self gets Tim Simpson to use the Puttband and he wins the PGA Tour’s New Orleans Open, where he gives credit for his great putting to the Puttband. This is big deal because now Simpson gets to play in the Masters the next week. He promises he’ll use the Puttband on the practice green at Augusta National. So Jimmy and I decide to go to Augusta and, sure enough, Simpson does use it on the green. We get some press and go home happy.
I arrive in Seattle on a Monday at the top of my teaching career. Four days later, Marlene and Matt are sitting in back of Cadillac while I drive them to the hospital in the middle of the night. A few hours later, on April 15, 1989, Matt dies at age 7 of congestive heart failure at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital.
That was a turning point for “Good Time Charlie.” You never get over something like that, though time does heal many wounds.
Over the next two years, my mother dies and I get a divorce. Then they cover up Interbay with dirt from the Sonics’ new arena. My daughter moves out and I am left with Fred, my white German shepherd, and this big house. So I sell it and take a year off to get my head straight.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Post a comment (Comment Policy)