May 13, 2024

“Why can’t they be like we were

Perfect in every way

What’s the matter with kid’s today?”

That’s a very good question. Every generation has had its own seminal events to deal with. The Greatest Generation had The Depression and WW II. Baby Boomers saw the enactment of the Environmental Protection Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Roe vs. Wade, and lived through Viet Nam and Woodstock. Today’s young adults were born in nineties and the aughts so it is worth taking a look at their life experiences before we make any critical judgements about their character or try to guess how they are going to vote.

The Columbine High School shooting occurred in Jefferson County, Colorado on April 20, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked in and massacred 12 students and one teacher, and injured 20 others before committing suicide. Since then, we have had a steady stream of mass shootings at schools, Sandy Hook probably being the most infamous. As a result, this generation has practiced active shooter drills in school for their entire lives, and, at the same time, watched the NRA get ever stronger and more influential.

Time magazine ran a story in 2022 titled “Climate Change Became Politicized in the 1990s. It Didn’t Have To Be That Way.” These Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers have experienced a world where temperatures are rising, storms are getting stronger, droughts are getting worse, glaciers are melting, oceans are warming and rising, populations are being displaced, coral reefs are dying, species are disappearing, and more. Young adults are extremely sanguine about their environmental future.

Americans owe $1.74 trillion in education debt. Among all borrowers, the average student loan debt in 2023 was $38,290. 47% of the total outstanding federal loan debt is held by 10% of borrowers, who owe $80,000 or more. The student debt problem started in the 1960’s when Gov. Ronald Reagan of California cut funding for higher education, and raised tuition. At that time, public higher education was virtually free. Today, funding for higher education is closer to 13%, forcing students and their families to make up the difference.

This is the COVID generation. Many of these young adults spent a good part of their high school and college years in lock down and on Zoom. They lost social contact with their peers. 33% reported job loss, reduced hours, or taking leave. Youth were twice as likely to report losing their jobs compared to adult workers (19% v 10%). According to Forbes, young adults are having a challenging time finding good, well-paying jobs. The job market is extremely competitive, as more and more Americans attain college degrees. Furthermore, employers are requiring unrealistic professional experience for entry-level positions, making it difficult for recent graduates to compete in the job market. Job listings often require three to five or more years of relevant experience.

The average price of home has gone from about $120,000 in 1990 to $425,000 today. The average young adult believes that buying a home is just a pipe dream. With mortgage interest rates hovering around 7%, the real dream of owning a home is even more remote. This group has lived through the Great Recession of 2008 where many people saw their life savings and their homes evaporate.

Young people see people in their 60’s and beyond living the dream in retirement while they are required to pay into a Social Security system that may be quite different when they get there. They see seniors retiring to Florida, living in places like The Villages, playing golf, and essentially reaping the benefits that were bestowed on them decades ago via educational subsidies, good-paying jobs, and affordable housing. Joseph Coughlin, in his book “The Longevity Economy,” discusses the aging crisis that countries like the US and Japan face. Japangave rise to the slogan “Hurry up and die.”

A national poll released by the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School indicated that, among 18-to-29-year-olds, more than half said that they will definitely be voting in the Presidential election this Fall. The poll also found that there was broad support for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Economic concerns continued to be top of mind for young voters, and their confidence in public institutions continued to decline. Which way they will vote is anyone’s guess even though polls see a major tilt towards President Biden. However, I think what they are essentially saying and feeling is a pox on both your houses.

Paul Chiampa

May 2, 2024

There is a terrific and heartwarming show on HBO-Max called “The Dog House-UK.” It originates from a place called Wood Green, which is an animal charity in Cambridgeshire, England that takes in hundreds of disowned or neglected dogs every year. The show, now in its fifth season, follows the work of dedicated staff members, who are committed to matching their abandoned dogs with loving owners and a forever home. People come from all over England with their own back stories to find their perfect match. Some people are looking for companionship after the loss of a loved one. Some gay couples are looking for a puppy in lieu of having their own children. Some people are hard to live with, and know that only a dog will give them unqualified love. Some people already have a dog, and the dog needs a companion. And some people are just dog people, and cannot imagine living without a dog.

Dogs of all shapes and sizes wind up at Wood Green with their own back stories. Some are there because their owners had been hospitalized or had passed away. Some had been abandoned. Some were raised for racing, and, when their racing days were over or they were injured, were set free. Some dogs couldn’t get along with young children. In some cases, the owners could not afford expensive medical treatments. Some dogs had a thing for cats. And yes, some were difficult to train. There were as many reasons to bring a dog to Wood Green as there are breeds of dogs. It is heart-wrenching to see owners, who are no longer capable of adequately taking care of their dogs, having to turn their dogs over to the animal shelter. While they know they are doing what is right for the dog, it makes the selfless act no less agonizing.

What the owners did not do was shove their dogs into a gravel pit, and blow their brains out because of bad behavior, an inability to train the dog, or because the dog had become inconvenient or burdensome. As it turns out, people don’t do things like that. Monsters do, and it turns out that Kristi Noem, the Governor of South Dakota, is such a person. She shot and killed her fourteen month old puppy because the puppy was not acting appropriately as a hunting dog. She bragged about it in an upcoming memoir as an indicator of how tough people have to make tough decisions. And I thought that tough people just made tender chickens.

My first thought when I heard the unbelievable story was the scene from the movie “My Cousin Vinnie” when Marisa Tomei chastises Joe Pesci about being concerned about what pants he was going to wear on his hunting trip. “Imagine you’re a deer. You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water… BAM! A bullet rips off part of your “ bleeping” head.”

Some people theorize that she was just trying to impress The Boss (Donald, not Bruce) in the Vice Presidential sweepstakes. With this episode in the books, I think that, ironically, that dog won’t hunt. It is amazing the lengths that people will go to ingratiate themselves to Donald Trump. The list of people that have gone to jail for this man in lengthy and growing. Hundreds of January 6th obstructionists, Michael Cohen, Allen Weisselberg, Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, and Rick Gates to name a few have gone to jail, or been pardoned by Trump. At the end of his term in office, Trump was handing out pardons to his sycophants like doggie treats. Ironically, Trump is the first President to not own a pet of any kind since Chester A. Arthur. Even Nelson Mandela, who Trump likes to compare himself to, owned a dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback. However, to be fair, there is no evidence that Jesus Christ, who Trump also compares himself to, owned a dog.

Pope Francis, while consoling a “distraught little boy whose dog had died,” told him “Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.” This doesn’t mean that the Pope was saying that little puppies have souls and will go to heaven. What it does mean, however, is that anyone who would senselessly shoot a puppy is absolutely soulless.

Paul Chiampa

… While you’re strolling down the fairway
Showing no remorse
Glowing from the poisons
They’ve sprayed on your golf course
While you’re busy sinking birdies
And keeping your scorecard
The devil’s been busy in your backyard

April 30, 2024

From the movie “My Governor Kristi”:

Before going hunting, Kristi Noem, Governor of North Dakota, asks her husband which color of lipstick she should wear. Her husband responds:

“Imagine you’re a fourteen month old puppy. He’s prancing along, he spots a a squirrel and chases after it, scaring away the deer you are hunting. You get pissed off. The puppy spots a little brook, he puts his little puppy lips down to drink the cool clear water, and BAM! You rip off a part of his head with a fuckin bullet. His brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask ya. Would he give a fuck what color of lipstick you were wearing?”

April 4, 2024

It’s nice to be back from the place whose only reason for existence is the weather. Fortunately, the weather did not disappoint. We took a boat tour on Sarasota Bay, had cocktails on a rooftop bar overlooking the ocean, and otherwise did what retirees do in Florida, complain and spend money. As a Massachusetts resident, I have a real problem with Florida’s business model, which is to take all of the assets accumulated in states like ours, and have them transferred. Florida needs to figure out a way to create its own wealth that doesn’t involve tourism and encouraging retirees to change their residencies. But I digress.

Traveling around and through Florida is a cultural experience and education, and makes one grateful for living in a place like Massachusetts which is not perfect by any stretch of imagination, but at least we are not the butt of “Massachusetts Man” memes. Just traveling is a chore. The thought of having to run out to buy a loaf of bread sends chills down one’s spine. Congestion is rampant, and one could die of older age waiting for the light to change. If you like strip malls, you will be in heaven. Otherwise, it’s hell. And did Florida invent the suicide lane to prune the elderly?

The first thing that I noticed in entering the state was the proclivity to fly the Confederate flag, and not just any Confederate flag. I am not talking about the type of flag you might hang from your own flagpole. I am talking about flags that look like the size of a football field. The message is clear, and it is frightening. On the plus side, Florida still supports free speech…to a point.

In a state that prides itself on being in the Bible Belt, there were signs everywhere that were less than Christian. I saw a bumper sticker that attacked “Joe and the Ho” and was framed by AR-15’s. One bumper sticker said “God Bless Trump.” It is apparently okay to put images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary on bumper stickers and window decals as well. There was the typical, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Trump,” but it wasn’t clear what he was being blamed for. As it turns out, “Real Men Love Babies.” Who knew? There was one billboard that went by too quickly, but it said something about immunity, impunity and illegitimacy. It could have been about Trump, immigrants or abortion. Who knows? The Trump stamp seemed to be everywhere. Trump has an affinity for the people of the Orange State, and they have an affinity for the color orange.

Governor Ron DeSantis is fond of saying that Florida is where woke goes to die. After it retires, I guess. He stared into the face of COVID, didn’t blink, and joined forces with the anti-vaxxers. Guess what is making a comeback in Florida like an aging crooner at The Fontainebleau? Measles. “Leading the nation again, Florida successfully balances personal responsibility, parent’s rights, and public health.” When DeSantis wasn’t extolling the virtues of getting measles, he was cracking down on social media saying it was the government’s responsibility to control free speech, specifically the speech that was unkind to him and his kind. He threatened to resume charter flights to Martha’s Vineyard. He relaxed child labor laws because children were not working hard enough, and he reached a settlement with Mickey Mouse. Lastly, he was pushing, as if it needed to be pushed, the Florida legislature to impose a six week abortion ban. Wow! With a track record like that, he should consider running for President.

Spring Break was more like Jail Break this year. College students from all over the country go to Florida every year to do stuff they would never think of doing in a real state. Things got so out of hand that Miami officials asked students to move up the street to Ft. Lauderdale. Before you know it, they will have to go to Daytona Beach, and what could go wrong there?

Not to be entirely negative on the Sunshine State, Florida is cracking down on drivers, who linger in the left hand lane. The left hand lane is for passing, but you wouldn’t know it in Florida. These people need to be rounded up, put on a plane, and sent to Nantucket.

My favorite sign, however, appeared on the message board of a local high school. It simply said, “Be Kind, Be Respectful, Go Indians!”

N.B. In the spirit of full disclosure, for the record, and in keeping with journalistic ethics, I was a Florida resident for nine years.

March 25, 2024

“I, Donald Trump, take you, Ivana, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

“I, Donald Trump, take you, Marla, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

“I, Donald Trump, take you, Melania, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.” (to be continued)

“I, Donald Trump, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me god.”

“I, Donald Trump, promise to practice honesty and not mislead customers. I promise to adhere to qualities of fairness. I promise to operate with the highest level of integrity, which entails acting honestly and ethically when dealing with all parties to reduce controversy and avoid going to court. (Real Estate Code of Ethics)

“I, Donald Trump, certify that the Trump Foundation meets the IRS requirements that the foundation annually distributes income for charitable purposes; limits its holdings in private businesses; has provisions that investments must not jeopardize the carrying out of exempt purposes; and has provisions to assure that expenditures are for tax-exempt purposes only.”

March 24, 2024

We have all had personal seminal moments. Seminal moments are things such as books, works, events and experiences that have had a great influence on one’s life. It could have been the day you graduated from high school or college; the day you got married or had your first child; the day you had your first hole-in-one. These are moments that you will never forget. You can recall vividly almost everything that happened during those events. Everything else may be a blur, but those events stand out in sharp relief.

Seminal moments happen in the public sphere as well. Unfortunately, they seem to be happening less and less because of the balkanization of information. Our experiences are become unique because we separate sources of information and news feeds. Seminal moments in our country’s history are the moments that we came together. These are moments that we can remember where we were, what we were doing, and who we were with.

On a beautiful Friday afternoon on November 22, 1963, I was attending a football rally at Malden Catholic for our big game against Catholic Memorial. We were gathered in the courtyard when the festivities were interrupted by an announcement. President Kennedy had been shot. Anyone who was alive at that time can tell you everything about that day, and the days that followed. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, Walter Cronkite, the school depository, the puff of smoke, and more. We came together as a nation in our collective horror and mourning.

For many months in 1963, adolescents around the world were playing the music created by four young men from Liverpool, The Beatles. On February 9, 1964, they made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Ed Sullivan Show was already the TV show that every American watched on Sunday nights where we saw and heard everyone from Maria Callas to Topo Gigio. On that Sunday night, almost all Americans huddled around their black and white TV sets to watch what would become a cultural phenomenon.

In the 60’s, the United States was in a space race with the Soviet Union. They launched Sputnik, and it was off to the races. President Kennedy made landing a man on the moon a national priority. In the summer of 1969, on July 20th at 8:17PM to be exact, the world watched as Commander Neil Armstrong descended the ladder from the Apollo 11 lunar module, stepped foot on the moon, and said, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It is a day seared in the memories of anyone who witnessed this great achievement, and it brought a country together that was dealing with assassinations, the Viet Nam War, and civil unrest.

August 16-18, 1969, was billed as three days of peace and music in upstate New York. It was Woodstock. All the best rock groups of that era would be there. The promoters were totally unprepared for the onslaught of over 400,000 people, and the New York Throughway was closed. It was a different kind of seminal moment in that if you can remember being there, you probably weren’t. I was there with my girlfriend, and we still have the tickets to prove it.

On October 19, 1987, I was working for Shearson Lehman Brothers on the 101st floor of Two World Trade Center. It was a Monday. The stock market dropped 22% that day creating worldwide losses of $1.71 trillion. It was totally unexpected, and was only dwarfed by the Great Recession of 2008. There were many reasons for the crash including portfolio insurance hedging, but those of us in the business and anyone with a stake in the markets will remember the feeling of helplessness as the markets went into free fall.

If you are a Red Sox fan, with deference to Carlton Fisk, there are two dates etched in your memory, October 2, 1978, and October 27, 2004. In 1978, I was in a friend’s apartment with a bunch of guys who were taking a break from work to watch the Red Sox-Yankees, play-off game. All I can say is Bucky “Freakin’ Dent. On October 27, 2004, the curse of the Bambino was lifted forever as the Red Sox swept the Cardinals in the World Series.

On September 11, 2001, I was in my office in Winter Park, FL going through my daily routine with the TV on in the background. Everyone was soon glued to what was happening and what would become the deadliest attack in U.S. history. The United States and the world would never be the same again.

On a day in March of 2020, we were on the first week of a month long trip to Florida when all hell broke loose. Wherever you were, you had a similar experience. COVID was officially out in the open. Plans were canceled. Everyone headed home to shelter in place.

Seminal moments, whether joyful or tragic, can bring us together as a country. We need more seminal moments like the moon landing and The Beatles, and fewer of the likes of 9/11 and COVID. Seminal moments are hard to predict, but they are predictable in that there will be more of them.

February 23, 2024

Harvard is certainly on a losing streak. If it were a gambler at the MGM casino, it would be tapped out. Fortunately, Harvard has over $50 billion in chips so it won’t be leaving the table any time soon. Harvard, along with the University of North Carolina, lost its affirmative action case at the Supreme Court. This was a case that affected all institutions of higher learning. President Claudine Gay was forced to resign presumably after accusations of plagiarism, but it was probably more for answering a politically-motivated question with a weak, academic and legalistic response. She apparently thought she was debating the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The President of the University of Pennsylvania lost her job as well. Sadly, the question was posed by Elise Stefanik ‘06, who obviously failed or never took ethics and moral reasoning at Harvard. More recently, Harvard administrators have had to deal with faculty and students posting anti-Semitic comments.

Former Harvard President Derek Bok wrote an extensive piece for the alumni recently titled “Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard.” It details Harvard’s missteps, the political environment it finds itself in, the internal forces at play, and some of the issues it needs to address, and how to address them. Harvard, as do many universities, needs to deal with issues of elitism, alumni privilege and legacy, free speech and academic freedom. It is accused of having a liberal bias. It needs to responsibly invest and administer its $50 billion endowment while continuing its capital campaign and supporting financially-strapped students.

Harvard isn’t perfect. It never was, and never will be.  It has always been a lightning rod for major issues. It was at the forefront of the anti-war movement in the 60’s along with Columbia, Cornell and Kent State. It ushered in affirmative action in 1969 at about the same time it offered both men and women the same educational experience. It has had to deal with the push to eliminate energy-related companies from its investment portfolios. As with most institutions, it is an ongoing work in progress. Criticism is healthy as is self-reflection.  What really bothers me, however, are the motives of some of the people that wage these attacks. I do not for one minute believe that all of these critics are well-meaning people.  Many of these people have worked assiduously to tear down almost every institution in America.  They have worked to discredit the media, the judiciary, the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA, the military, law enforcement, the electoral process, school administrations, libraries, the scientific community, and the NIH and CDC. These people don’t want a democracy. They are hell bent on establishing a theocracy, the latest manifestation of which is the ruling in Alabama by a Q-Anon friendly judge that the destruction of embryos is tantamount to murder. They don’t want to fix Harvard. They want to destroy it and all institutions like it, and replace them with the likes of Liberty College, which gave us the Jerry Falwell sex scandal, Bob Jones University, and Hillsdale College.  Their agenda is not to provide an education that is “fair and balanced.” Their agenda is to replace a liberal education with a religious-based, conservative dogma. Harvard is a liberal university. Being surprised that Harvard is liberal is like being surprised that there was gambling at Rick’s Cafe. Harvard cannot be any more liberal today than it was in the 60’s. It is certainly more diverse. It is better balanced today between men and women; between whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians; between domestic and international students; and between students from different socio-economic backgrounds. I don’t think that Harvard has become more liberal as much as the rest of the country has gotten more conservative. Over the years, we have seen rollbacks of women’s rights, voting rights, and environmental rights. We have seen the rise of Christian Nationalism, and white supremacy.

Harvard should continue to evaluate itself in a thoughtful, sober and deliberative way, keeping in mind that it’s mission is to provide a liberal education, which welcomes all points of view. It should not make changes staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun being aimed at it by MAGA theocrats looking to impose their religious beliefs. I prefer the open source, liberal education that universities like Harvard provide with all of its flaws and imperfections. Liberal institutions like Harvard and its leaders must pass the test.

Paul Chiampa ‘71

February 20, 2024

If you know who Eugene T. Maleska is, give yourself a pat on the back for being an aging puzzler. Eugene Thomas Maleska was an American crossword puzzle constructor and editor. He edited The New York Times Crossword Puzzle from 1977 to 1993. He was to crossword puzzles what Ukrainian Charles Goren was to bridge. If for no other reason, we should fund Ukraine as a thank you for what Goren provided to our American culture. Maleska, who earned a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard, was succeeded by Will Shortz. Shortz has a degree from Indiana University in the invented field of enigmatolgy, and continues as the puzzle editor to this day.

I was struck recently by an article talking about how a professional sports team used the solving of various New York Times puzzles as a bonding experience. One of the players acts as the commissioner as he oversees the solving of the Mini Crossword, Wordle, and Connections, which are among the seven puzzles the Times offers in its Puzzle Pack. It is difficult to go to any social gatherings these days, and not overhear people talking about the day’s puzzles. I overheard one person bragging at Treehouse Brewery one day about how he had solved Wordle in one attempt twice.

The queen of all of the games is the New York Times Crossword. The New York Times initially regarded crosswords as frivolous, calling them “a primitive form of mental exercise.” The first puzzle ran on Sunday, February 15, 1942. The motivating impulse for the paper to run its first puzzle over the objections of its publisher appears to have been the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The thinking was that the American people needed something to occupy themselves during blackouts.

One of the most prolific crossword constructors off all time was Jules Arensberg, whose daughter, Lyn Silverstein, lives in East Longmeadow. Arensberg never graduated from college and worked at the post office. However, at a time before the internet and without readily available resource material, he constructed crossword puzzles for the New York Times for over thirty years. One of his Sunday puzzles was recognized by the newspaper in its 50th anniversary issue dedicated to the crossword puzzle. “He was among the first to employ compound words, phrases, and imaginative definitions designed to lift puzzle solving from its humdrum literalness that stressed memory instead of brainwork.”

I started doing the daily crossword puzzle in the 70’s as I commuted home every evening on Metro North. It was a great way to unwind. Serious puzzlers solved the puzzle in pen. Pencils and erasers were for amateurs. The puzzles get more difficult every day with Monday being the easiest, and Saturday being the hardest. Sunday is just a larger version of a Thursday puzzle. On Sundays, my very young daughter would crawl into my lap as I was doing the puzzle, and then scribble all over it, shrieking with laughter. She is now a regular solver. One of the great puzzles of all time was constructed in 1996. It came out on the day of the Presidential election. The clue essentially asked, “Who won the election?” The puzzle could have been solved by answering either “Clinton” or “Bob Dole.” This puzzle was noted in the Will Shortz 2006 documentary about competitive puzzle solving titled, “Wordplay.”

Solving the New York Times crossword puzzle has become a magnificent obsession for me. It justifies the five years of Latin that I took in junior and senior high school. Much to my chagrin, solving crossword puzzles is not going to stave off Alzheimer’s according to Lisa Genova in her book, “Remember.” According to her, “There is no compelling evidence that doing puzzles or brain-training exercises does anything to decrease your risk of Alzheimer’s. You’ll improve at doing crosswords, but you’re not building a bigger, Alzheimer’s-resistant brain. You don’t want to simply retrieve information you’ve already learned because this type of “mental exercise is like traveling down old, familiar streets, cruising neighborhoods you already know.” Bah, humbug.

On the other hand, puzzles are great for dealing with insomnia. People of my vintage often suffer from not being able to sleep soundly through the night. There are many reasons, which I don’t need to go into here. Sleep-challenged puzzlers know that the next day’s crossword puzzle becomes available online at 10:00PM (6:00PM on Saturday’s and Sunday’s). It’s a great way to exhaust the brain so you can go back to sleep. After all, how else would you know that “Isere,” besides being a “river in France” and a “department in France,” is also the name of the ship that brought the Statue of Liberty to the United States.

Paul Chiampa

February 15, 2024

The New York Times had a recent article about how to apologize correctly. Often we try to apologize, but we only make matters worse because apologizing involves vulnerability. Some of you may not get the New York Times for reasons I cannot fathom so I cannot send the article to you. Let me summarize the article with an all too familiar example.

1. Express Regret. Don’t say to your partner “I want to apologize for losing the match.” Just apologize. Say “I lost the match.”

2. Explain, keep it brief, and don’t make excuses. Don’t say “I missed the putt because you gave me a bad read.” Just say, “I missed the putt.”

3. Acknowledge any harm you’ve caused. Say “Because of me, we lost the hole, we lost the match, and we lost all semblance of self-respect.”

4. Say you’ll try not to do it again. Say “Next time, I will read my own damn putt.”

5. Offer to repair. Say “If the measly $5 means that much to you, I’ll take care of it.”

6. Ask for forgiveness. Say “I hope you will forgive me, and I hope you will find another partner?”

And they say there are no sorries in golf.