On the bright side, Designated JJ and His “Real” Friends are back from their 7-rounds-in-5-days Golf Trip. Catch up — it’s good stuff — by clicking “ALL POSTS” at the top of this effort. And SportsTalk with JJ and Bonzai Ben, in tandem, are together again on 1130 AM The Tiger at 5 p.m. weekdays.

But…

On the not so bright side, Toys R Us will be gone by Friday. Everywhere. Maybe the store beloved by young and old will return in some form or fashion. But for now, pfffft.

The Fisher Price farm set was the first thing I bought from Toys R Us, the North Pole of toys stores designed for the crowd of 12-and-under, a bunch with major toy wants and needs — but not much of a wallet game.

Didn’t matter. There was always a sucker like me who’d whip out some loot to make a little boy smile.

The Fisher Price farm set had the cow, the fence, the barn, and the chicken with a square hole in its belly so it could sit on the square fence post. (Fisher Price thought of everything.) The whole farm outfit, roughly an acre, cost about 9 bucks, 12 bucks if you got the cow your kid could milk. (Joke. Not for reals. Although what does it matter now?)

I was a Rookie Dad then, and had no idea how inexpensive toys were. I could have stayed in there all day. (This was pre-video games.)

Bought Casey’s first bike there. The duck you pull and its wings go ’round and ’round and slap the floor as you walk. The colorful plastic telephone that talked back to you. The plastic golf cart and gas pump. The battery-powered Corvette, red — now we were getting big-time! — that we rode up and down the driveway. And up and down the driveway. And up and dow….

Bought a wagon there too, a Red Ryder, that I pulled my little man in, before he learned to “drive,” around and around the block. For the past several years I’ve planted flowers in it. Sadly, it rotted out. Early this spring, I had to throw it away…

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Above: The final putt is made in the annual golf trip. 

The final day on the trip to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail was (a) relatively uneventful — which is just how we wanted it — and (b) not even on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

Instead, it was spent in Mississippi, but if you can ignore that geography shank, then so can we.

The day started in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and rest assured that the Autobahn doesn’t run from there to Philadelphia, Miss. If you ever want to know what rural Alabama/Mississippi looks like, let me know. I’m up to date on cornfields, peanut farms and soybeans. I can tell you there is no shortage of rural Baptist churches as well. And I can tell you that we’d still be driving in circles if it weren’t for Google Navigation (only one missed turn).

I love Philadelphia, Miss., for two reasons and one of them is Dancing Rabbit golf course. (The other reason will be detailed later on Designated Writers.) Dancing Rabbit is built on the ancient Choctaw tribal lands, which might explain the cute name. There are 36 holes, but we only had time for 18 of them. We basically had the place to our lonesome, finished 18 and headed back home.

If you are ever in Philadelphia, Miss., and like to play golf, you should play it. If you like roulette wheels and dice tables, there’s a place for you to play next door as well.

It was another great trip for the four of us. Laughable moments happened throughout all three days, including the second-to-last shot of the trip when my partner hit Earth with his putter instead of his Titleist. That was a laugh costing me $2. Well worth it.

This is the sixth year to make the RTJ trip and it never fails. Blisters, sore feet and shanked shots are all part of the deal. But so are great and lasting memories, and that’s what it is all about.

‘Til next year!