A few days ago, my aging dumb-phone was overwhelmed with a barrage of text messages, all worded the same:  Billy Jack is Dead.

There are quite a few folks aware that the character of Billy Jack was my hero and role model and they wanted to sympathize with me.  Joe, my best buddy from high school, (Known as Jo-dell in Rockbottum Land) assured me he was handling the news in an honorable way, by wearing a black tee shirt, blue jean jacket and walking smartly around the house singing "One Tin Soldier".

The news hit me hard, for several reasons.  It is concrete proof that my youth is long gone.  The individual that influenced my life more than any other had indeed proved to be mortal, which meant, I might be also.

But the most painful reason was Billy Jack, the best ever example of the Mid-Level Golf Course Superintendent, might now be forgotten, slipping into the dark mist of my ever closer senility.

Billy Jack taught me how to deal with irrational Green Chairmen.  Surely you remember the scene where the Green Chairman's spoiled brat son poured flour over the crew workers in the snack bar? Billy showed up, uttered the phrase used most often by the GCS every day, "I try, I reallllly try" and then beat the living dog out of the Green Chairman's son.

(I actually did that, I just had to wait two years and catch the little tyrant on the field of a get-up football game.)

Remember the scene where the evil Green Chairman, along with the entire green committee, the pro, the food and beverage manager, two bartenders and a cart boy, surrounded Billy in front of the clubhouse and a huge fight ensued?  The Green Chairman got kicked in the face.

(I regret I never accomplished that one.)

My favorite part of the film was when Billy Jack caught the evil Green Chairman's spoiled son with his Corvette off the cart path and gave the little jerk the option of driving into the lake or getting a dislocated elbow.

Billy Jack had the perfect GCS uniform, too.  Instead of the silk three piece suit that just invites trouble, Billy Jack looked like a man.  If I had worn that wide-brimmed hat my entire career, I probably wouldn't have had to endure so many of these MOHs surgeries for skin cancer.

In addition, simply toting around a lever action 30--30 carbine might have suppressed many of the more superficial complaints that emanated from the pro shop, the locker room and the board room.

Before you write in to tell me Billy Jack was not real and was actually Tom Laughlin, a liberal guerrilla filmmaker of the renegade variety, consider this:  The film Billy Jack remains one of the highest grossing films of all time--adjusted for inflation--and was not released through the traditional Hollywood chain.  That says a lot.

Billy Jack was real.  He was no more Tom Laughlin than I'm . . . Ludell.