Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
The title of this blog is the famous chorus from the classic 1969 song “Lodi” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
I use the title to commemorate that, on my wife’s and my way south to where we live in the winter, La Quinta, California, we always stay about halfway in the beautiful town of Lodi.
We used to stay at a I-5 roadside motel near Lodi, but one year we ventured five miles to the East and found the town. A great “fiind.”
Written by famous musician John Fogerty, the song tells the story of an aging or down-and-out musician whose career has stalled, leaving him stranded in a small California town playing local bars with no money for a bus or train ticket home.
According to Google, Fogerty has admitted he never actually visited Lodi when he wrote the track. He simply looked at a map and thought it had “the coolest sounding name.”
Despite painting the town as a dead-end musical purgatory, the song made Lodi famous worldwide and became an embraced part of the city’s local culture and events.
We have seen that, too, as we stayed here over the years. Great restaurants. Great wine tasting establishments. Welcoming vineyards.
It is great small town with an amazing advantage – it is wine country, so we always sample the region’s produce.
So, when I say “we are stuck in Lodi again,” I don’t imply anything negative with the word “stuck.” For us, it is always positive.
