The Assters: A Slice Of Americana

When you’re Charlotte’s most celebrated and lusted-after Internet personality you’re going to have a huge social circle. To satisfy the masses I try not to focus on a certain group of friends, but what I found on the Internet yesterday was so hilarious that I had to break the first two rules of HF. I apologize in advance to everyone reading this who isn’t one of the two people who will find it funny.

I have a group of friends who golf, differentiated from my other group of friends who golf on XBOX and only XBOX. The previously mentioned group is hilariously retarded, "retarded" being extremely conservative and generous. Every year they have a three-day golf tournament between themselves called "The Assters" (get it?). It’s a huge event, the agenda consisting of three days of beer, golf, and beer. Of all the excuses we give ourselves to drink for three days straight, The Assters is certainly the most regal.

Anyway, I was on the Internet yesterday, checking out http://www.worldofquotes.com/ to find the best phrase to use to tell people to reach for the stars, believe in themselves, and take the "I" out of team. As I was browsing the list of quote topics I was shocked to see that one of them was, you guessed it, "Asters."

I knew The Assters was huge among my friends, but I had no idea it was so grand that it inspired a handful of America’s literary superstars to immortalize it in timeless prose. I clicked on the link, curious to see what Ralph Waldo Emerson had to say about a golf tournament named after the area from which farts come.

As was expected from such renowned artists, the three quotes listed on the site perfectly captured the heart, the glory, the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat that one could only find at The Assters. Here are the three quotes, analyzed, interpreted, and broken down into their true essence by the historians here at Homemade Fireworks.


Quote #1
"Chide me not, laborious band! For the idle flowers I brought; Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought."
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

To realize just how poignant and prophetic this quote rings, one has to break it down and examine it phrase by phrase. Like The DiVinci Code, the story isn’t told by the quote: it’s hidden in the quote itself. Let’s take a look:

"Chide me not, laborious band! For the idle flowers I brought;… -- Okay…this sentence doesn’t really belong here. Take it out.

Every aster in my hand goes home loaded…: Exactly.

…with a thought." That part doesn’t belong either.


Quote #2
"The Autumn wood the aster knows, The empty nest, the wind that grieves, The sunlight breaking thro' the shade, The squirrel chattering overhead, The timid rabbits lighter tread Among the rustling leaves. "
Author: Dora Read Goodale
Source: Asters

This sentence is a gay as a sentence can possibly be without actually including the words " hot butt sex." What interests me here is the source. Apparently this quote was spoken at The Assters itself, which means it could only have been said by one of six people. Read the quote again. Grieving winds? Squirrles chattering overhead? Only one man talks like that.

Quote #3
"The aster greets us as we pass with her faint smile."
Author: Sarah Helen Power Whitman
Source: A Day of the Indian Summer (l. 35)

Ah yes. "The aster greets us as we pass with her faint smile." The Assters is indeed a glorious spectacle to behold. No sporting event captures the gamut of human emotion quite like this, and no words could capture its royal prestige better than these eleven. Like America and the Millennium Falcon, The Assters is definitely a girl. She faintly smiles upon us and welcomes us as we walk from hole to hole, a PBR in one hand and a big old bunch of the American Spirit in the other. When you look upon The Assters and its noble participants, you are gazing upon a little something I like to call "beauty." The Assters is a gift from God. A drunken, dick-joke filled gift from God.