​Personal Transportation Devices (PTD) fascinate me. Cars, bicycles, scooters, golf carts, our legs. Humans in our mobile modern messy world choose to get around in many ways. And those ways continue to evolve as cities grow more crowded, streets congested and ease of movement shrinking.
 
Electric scooters are a big thing these days. Commuters, millennials, vacationers and others hop on in the inner core of cities to get around quickly and efficiently. It’s that “final step” PTD that gets you from mass transportation to your final destination in areas where parking is unavailable, too expensive or traffic is constantly blocked. Problems need to be ironed out on a couple of fronts, but the scooters hold promise in reducing car and traffic flow, something most people can relate to.
 
On the golf course, it’s a different story. Your PTD is your feet if you walk the course, or a two-person cart if you choose to ride. Until now.
 
Last weekend, as I was biking outside Hartland, WI, I came across a local golf course at the top of a hill. It wound through a neighborhood, and as I pedalled around one curve, I saw a golf cart and a one-person scooter heading down the cart path to cross the road.
 
The scooter moved more quickly. The golf clubs sat in front of the driver. He shot across the road and into the woods towards the next hole.

I turned around on my bike and caught up with two women in the cart and asked about the PTD. “Did your club just get that one-person scooter? Is it electric? What’s been the feedback?”
 
I’d heard about these scooters before, but never seen one in action, and the responsiveness as I watched the driver head across the street was quite impressive.
 
It seems the course had ordered four of the PTDs to try out, and responses had been overwhelmingly positive so far from those who’d used them. “Easy to handle. Well balanced. Good acceleration.”
 
Pretty cool stuff and I like the idea for speeding up play on the golf course, so each player can head individually to their ball and take their shot rather than crisscrossing holes back and forth to each of your partner’s balls in a two-person cart. But,…..
 
I thought a bit more about it, particularly that golf is an individual AND a social game. We play to hang out with our friends, enjoy nature, and share time. Going to a one-person scooter defeats some of that purpose.
 
The more I thought about it, the more my ambivalence rose. I get it if you play by yourself and want to speed around the course and get home for chicken pot pie. By all means, grab the scooter and take off.
 
But if it’s your regular four-person Saturday morning tee time, and you’re jazzing your opponents and want to tell your best jokes to your riding partner, the one-person PTD ain’t gonna cut it. You need to take that dinosaur two-person cart or use your legs as your PTD.

You have to figure the one-person golf scooter will carve out a niche, like many other PTDs in the years ahead. Sometimes you innovate and sometimes you stay with the tried and true.

​One thing I’ve learned over the years is that mustard makes an excellent marinade. Not everyone agrees with this. But, even for the detractors, if you sneak it in and baste your meat with that special yellow sauce without them seeing you, the results shine.
 
“What did you think of the meat, Stella?
 
“It was delectable. What did you put on it?”
 
“Ha, a chef never tells.” Indeed.
 
The first time I had a steak slathered in straight yellow mustard was 25 years ago when we lived in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Our neighbors had us over for a barbecue. The husband was from a northern European country and he had his own ideas about barbecuing steaks, which included spreading yellow mustard over the meat.

“Yuck,” I thought. But willing to gave it a try, when I took a bite, the taste was delicious. Somehow the mustard taste did not even slightly overwhelm the taste of the meat, instead enhancing it, like a good red wine. From that point, I was sold on the mustard marinade merits.
 
We don’t eat steak often. But when we do, it gets the yellow basting, along with other special spices I’ve learned about over the years. I brush it on, covering the entire ribeye, including the sides. Let it sit for 10-30 minutes so it seeps into the meat.
 
Over the years, I’ve alternated what type of mustard to use and this keeps the taste of the meat hopping. The old standby is your basic yellow mustard you put on ballpark franks. Squirt it on, spread it around.
 
Recently, after emptying the container, I chose to go a different route. At work, someone won several containers of a local mustard, kind of a spicy mustard. “Hmmm, better give this a try.” It too was a success, garnering praise.
 
In Wisconsin, though I’m not sure where this place is because I don’t remember where I read about it, there is a “Mustard Store.” That’s right. All they sell is mustard.

There’s mustard from Sweden, Germany, Austria and Brazil. Specially spiced mustard from Belgium, South Africa and Australia.

And, of course, multiple versions from all over Wisconsin, celebrating it’s German and Polish roots. Some are spicy. Some contain wild mixtures of other ingredients. Who the heck knows what goes into them, but I WANT TO VISIT THAT STORE and bring home samples.

I don’t know when I’ll get there because first I have to figure out where it is. Google will help me. Then I need to get motivated and take a trip there, which will probably require some other reason to visit the community and check out the local sights and wares.
 
Some day this will happen. Until then, I have two mustard varieties in the frig to finish off. They serve us well.
 
Recently, a sweet honey mustard has risen to the top of my marinade list. No one knows but me. I drizzle it on, grill the steak, and the positive comments come in.
 
“This is so good. What did you do different this time?”
 
It’s mustard, folks. But you don’t need to let on that you keep experimenting, trying something new, looking to perfect your marinade for that marvelous grilling mix.