So I spent my summers from roughly age 17 to 21 working at a city golf course in Baton Rouge. At first I was a cart attendant, which is to this day the best job I’ve ever had. I put the golf carts out when needed, cleaned and charged them when they came in, and picked up the flags at closing time, but otherwise I sat in a cart under a tree reading a book. (Eventually they promoted me to course marshal; it paid better but wasn’t nearly as awesome, which is a lesson in ambition.)

My favorite memory of this time is from a day I wasn’t working, however. It was my day off, but my kid brother was playing golf at the course, and he called me to breathlessly report, “Willie Nelson is here!” This made no sense. Willie Nelson was famous, and this course, for all I love it, was a course teenagers could walk on weekdays for $10/month at the time. But it was true. Willie Nelson was in Baton Rouge for a concert, and for whatever reason, his tour bus pulled into our humble municipal course to play a round.

Now, I was young enough to try to stay cool, but Willie Nelson!

An unconventional voice and a man I cannot imagine young (even in that older video, which must be 70s/80s, he’s weathered): Willie Nelson is a treasure.

So I raced over to the course and hopped in a cart. I caught up to Mr. Nelson on the 17th tee. It’s a par 3, and Nelson hooked his tee shot. I waited for his group to finish teeing off, then got out of my cart and, the biggest dork on the planet, walked up to him. “I just couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t take this chance to meet you,” I blurted. He shook my hand and smiled, said a few kind words, then headed up the fairway to try to save par.

Have a lovely evening, Avocados!