So when do you think the last in the past golf scramble was held at Springbrook at Christmas time? For sure there have been golf rounds played in the area on Christmas in years gone by, but we are not talking a one-day hit wonder.

Oh no, fair weather golfers, the good folks at Springbrook, Interlochen and probably some other courses kept the carts all warmed up and threw open the course for play — for days at a time.

For the hardy golfers who took to the links, Bravo! for keeping the season going way beyond what anyone would consider normal.

Fortunately for us, we left for Arizona early enough to avoid any of the unpleasant weather in the center of the country. In 14 years we’ve only had to alter our route once, and that was just a one-day jog to less stormy weather to the south.

Meanwhile, we floated into town with historic rainfall hitting the Tucson/Green Valley area, up to 2.75 inches in some places. That’s a lot of rain falling in one day but as we note out here in the desert, we can use all the rain we can get.

None of that can hold a candle to the mess that was the weather system that was moving through the Plains with rain, ice, blizzard conditions and just plain crummy weather.

It’s almost like Mother Nature takes note of major holidays and then decides what kind of nasty weather would be most proper for the season, from pre-Christmas torrential rains and flooding in the Southeast to blizzards in the Dakotas and Nebraska (which get plenty of blizzards as a matter of course).

Years ago, friends lived in Boulder but home was East Detroit, and it didn’t matter if it was heading home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or heading back to Boulder there would always be bad weather somewhere between those two cities.

Fortunately, the ski resorts were able to lay down a fair amount of snow before the warm weather hit ensuring at least some skiing, but if you enjoy cross-country or snowmobiling you were just out of luck. At least one Facebooker suggested it was time to break out the mountain bikes.

Never fear, however, as snow will return. Perhaps not as much as an average year, but even I can’t remember a year of no snow.

Me me me

A friend has a business named All About You, but in Donald Trump land it All About Me.

Several unnamed sources close to Trump confided to Rolling Stone that the ex-president said “it’s not right” that the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) hasn’t given Trump a share of the nearly $38 million it raised between 2021 and 2022. One source told the outlet that Trump believes AFPI board members like former National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, former Small Business Association administrator Linda McMahon, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former White House domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins are making a “killing” off his name.

Now I might be missing something here but I don’t see the word Trump anywhere in the America First Policy Institute.

Rolling Stone got all incensed in October claiming that he was entitled to the funds, it was his (blank) money.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, AFPI is prohibited from making any donations in support of a political campaign. And because Trump is running for president in 2024, any payment from AFPI to Trump could be viewed by the IRS as a political donation. Additionally, IRS rules state that 501(c)(3) nonprofits must operate in the public interest and not for the private benefit or profit of a single individual.

As you can imagine, Trump doesn’t much care about such niceties, it’s just show me the money.

For its part, the AFPI said it is fake news, that Trump had even appeared at fund-raisers and other events.

If you think Trump would show up for engagements and yet still want a cut of AFPI’s contributions you be correct in assuming it’s just Donald playing me, me, me – I’ll take half and you can have the rest.

— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Kendall Stanley: What the?