Last Tuesday, around three in the afternoon, I caught myself staring at a wall in our office at Horizon Hobby. Nothing was on it. I was just staring. The thought arrived clean and unwelcome: I don’t really have a thing.
Not a thing I do. Not a thing that’s really mine.
I have fifteen years in at Horizon. I am, by trade and paycheck, in the hobby business. Planes, helis, cars, trucks, boats. Every day, I walk past gear that thousands of people genuinely love. Every day I walk past it. I have never flown a beginner plane, and I have zero desire to do so. I have built a beginner truck kit with instructions (and lots of help) to test it for someone like me who has never built a vehicle before. It was fun, but I could never have done it on my own. I have never raced, except during a company event. It just isn’t my thing, even though it is the thing for thousands of enthusiasts.
So here we are. Fifty-something. Still healthy enough to start something. Smart enough to know that “hobby” is a stand-in for a bigger question: what do I want my Saturdays to look like for the next twenty years?
I gave it some thought this week and made a list of some potential fits.
Running was first because running was first, period. I ran cross country at Illinois College. First four-letter winner the program ever had. Team captain senior year. There’s a part of me that still hears Coach Rosenberg’s voice right before finding the starting line, still feels the October chill on my arms, still thinks of my body as something that can traverse more than a few miles at a decent clip without complaint.
That body is gone. The knees won’t have it. The ankles won’t have it. I tried a comeback half a dozen summers ago, just trying to jog a bit, and I limped to work. That door closed gently on my aspirations for a return to running.
I miss it. I won’t pretend I don’t. I’m also not going to pretend that adding pain to my week qualifies as a hobby.
Although I dismissed it pretty quickly, I had to at least consider the radio control hobby seriously. I sit thirty feet from the engineers who design this stuff. I could walk down to the warehouse right now, and somebody would set me up with a starter rig and walk me through it on lunch. The barrier is exactly zero.
And yet, after all this time, I have never once felt the pull. If a hobby is going to take hold, it has to come from within the person, not from convenience. Otherwise, everyone who works at a brewery would be a homebrewer. I do kind of wonder what that ratio actually is?
Vinyl was next. I started a couple of years ago. Picked up a couple of records to add to my high school and college collection. A few I genuinely loved that I did not own. The math gets bleak fast, though. Thirty bucks for an album I already own on streaming seems not quite worth it. Plus, I’d want a turntable that’s nicer than the one I currently own, then the slow creep of “maybe I should look into better speakers.” The payoff is real but small. The cost is real and not small. The activity itself is mostly sitting and listening, which I already do. There is a joy in holding a vinyl record, but I’m just not that big of a collector.
The guitar tempted me. Guitar still tempts me. There’s a romance to it I can’t shake. The image of myself ten years from now, sitting on a back porch and playing something my wife would want to hear. That’s appealing. Guitar is indoor, though. Guitar is solitary. Guitar takes a long time to get any good at, and I’m not at a stage in life where I can promise an hour a day to anything.
So. Golf.
Golf checks every box I didn’t know I was building a list for. It’s outside, which my body and my head both need. It’s exercise without being punishing, and social without being draining. My Dad plays. My daughter already plays better than I do, a state of affairs I find both humbling and wonderful. The idea of standing on a tee box with both of them on a Saturday morning in July, with the course peaceful and quiet, is a real reason to be there together. For me, it’s the whole point of having a hobby.
Here’s an amusing aspect of choosing golf… I already have clubs. They were a gift decades ago from somebody who said, “You’ll use these eventually,” with the calm certainty of someone who knew. The bag has been in the garage a long time. The clubs are a little worse for wear, but they’re mine, and I’m pretty sure they work.
So, what do I actually need before I can play? Less than I thought.
A glove. Probably two, so one’s drying out while the other’s on my hand. A dozen balls I won’t cry over losing. (I will lose them. I’m at peace with this.) Tees. A divot tool. Spikeless shoes I can wear from the car to the cart without changing. A few range buckets before I subject any other human being to me on a course. Maybe a few goes on the putting green. Lastly, a few lessons to make sure my natural swing and stance won’t leave me wincing after nine holes, and who could probably fix all the bad stuff.
That’s the entire list. A few hundred dollars all in. Less if I’m patient about the shoes.
I don’t have a summer plan, but I should at least go to the driving range once or twice a week for a month. Just the range. There’s no pretending I’m ready for a course. Next, start playing nine holes on weeknights when the course empties out around six. Once I feel comfortable, I’ll see if I can put a real round together without losing my mind on the back nine. By the end of the summer, the goal is one round with my Dad and my daughter, all three of us walking and playing the same tees. If that round happens, the summer is a success. The score on the card doesn’t matter.
I think the thing I needed was permission to pick something that doesn’t have to become a personality. I don’t need to be a “Golf Guy.” I just need somewhere to put my Saturday mornings that isn’t the couch.
The clubs have been cleaned and are currently in my trunk. The glove I’ll grab on the way home tomorrow. Scheduling the lessons is the next logical step.
I’m anxious and excited at the same time. That’s probably a good thing,
Be seeing you.
