Take Me Out To The Ballgame!

It took six years in Myrtle Beach for me to get out to the minor league park and see a baseball game.  My friend, Paul, suggested we should go and we had a good time on a beautiful night Wednesday.  The Myrtle Beach Pelicans are an affiliate of the National League Chicago Cubs.

They were playing The Charleston River Dogs, an affiliate of the American League, Tampa Bay Rays.  Actor Bill Murray is a co-owner and his exact title is Director of Fun. The main owner is Mike Veeck, the father of "Night Train" Veeck, my fourth favorite rider that I wrote about in my book.

I thought I was going to get a break from being around a dog at home, but this a picture of the Bat-Dog, "Woof". I don't know the dog's real name.  The dog works for the Pelicans and brings the bats to the girl in the picture who gives the dog a treat.  The dog got a lot of treats last night.

Below is the Pelican mascot, Splash.  He/she did some dancing on the roof of the dugout and tossed out some free t-shirts.  He/she has really big feet.

I had a healthy dinner of two hot dogs and French fries.  They would not take my money of course and just accepted my credit card.

It was a good game which the Pelicans won 3-1.  After the first couple of innings it moved very quickly.  There were close to 3,000 people in attendance.  Below is a picture of what are view was right behind the home dugout.  The netting protected us from the foul balls and there were a lot of them.  I might do this again sometime.

Visiting A Museum?

 How many museums are there in the world? If you guessed around 55,000 you are in the ballpark.  There are museums of all kinds, but there may be a few you have never heard of.  Check this out:

1.  In Toronto, Canada is the Beta Shoe Museum that has shoes dating back 4,500 years.  You can look at Egyptian sandals and Elton John's silver platform boots. If the shoe existed, it's here in this museum.

2. Cupnoodles Museum in Ikeda Japan? It sounds like a joke, but it is real. You can make your own cupnoodles package and there's ramen trivia which I would not do well with.  There is also an Instant Noodles Tunnel which shows 800 noodle packages from around the world.  I'm pretty sure I've never seen eight noodle packages, but 800? And yes, if you're hungry while you're looking, you can buy cupnoodle packages while you're there.

3. Kattenkabbit Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  If you like cats, you're going to want to see this. Here you can see cats in every possible art form you can imagine.  They say that you can also see real cats in the museum just lurking around. (I'm pretty sure dogs are not welcome here)

4. The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia is a real museum that focuses on your exes and your stories and items that your ex did not take back.(You can dump them here)  The museum is run by a couple who, you may have guessed it-they used to date.

5. If you're into water, The Cancun Underwater Museum in Mexico, is perfect for you. There are 500 life sized sculptures that you can view underwater when you're diving through the museum.

6. Everyone is going to love this one- Lindt Home of Chocolate in Switzerland. If you enjoyed going to Hershey, this is bigger. There's a chocolate fountain, an interactive museum, and a tasting area for everyone to eat chocolate.

7. Wynwood Walls in Miami, Florida, is the world's best graffiti and street art museum.  In this museum you can see more than 100,000 spray cans, 75,000 gallons of paint, and the work of 100 artists to show the very best of street art. The below picture is not from there, but it's street art.

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Feeling Like a Kid at Home Depot

 Last week was the 44th anniversary of the first two dates my wife and I had in New Jersey.  Even after 44 years, there are things that we think very differently about, like Home Depot.  My wife loves shopping and is a terrific painter and can put together just about anything. When she's in Home Depot she is a kid in a candy store. 

On the other hand, I dislike shopping immensely and I have trouble putting together two slices of bread for a sandwich.  Being in Home Depot for me is a kid saying, "Can we go home now?"

This is a sample of some of the things we thought about but didn't say, last Thursday when we went to Home Depot after going out for breakfast.

ON OUR WAY TO HOME DEPOT:

MY WIFE: I can't wait to get there and see what they have.  I have my list-this will be fun, fun, fun!

ME: I wonder how quickly we can get out of there. Can I tell her I'm going to stay in the car? Maybe I'll say I'm not feeling well?

WALKING INTO THE STORE:

MY WIFE:  I wish I could spend an hour here, there's a lot more things we need.

ME: At least we have Home Depot stock. There is nothing here to look at, it's just a bunch of stuff.  Wait, I recognize something, that's our new electric lawn mower that I just used for the first time.

BUYING PAINT

MY WIFE: We need to get the paint so when we go home we can empty most of the garage and I can re-paint the floor now that my car isn't there.

ME: We have eight cans of paint in a closet, can't we use one of those? Probably not, but the woman at the counter said we can come back after we finish shopping to get the paint! Do we have to? That is great. Why is it every project I don't want to do starts at Home Depot?

BUYING DIRT

MY WIFE: I need more dirt to plant more things-more dirt, more dirt.

ME: We have a backyard filled with dirt, why do we have to buy it? When we get home I have to bring it to the back. Thank god there's only one bag and it's not mulch.

AT THE REGISTER

MY WIFE: If I could just spend thirty more minutes here.  He looks bored out of his mind, at least he came in with me.

ME: At least it didn't take an hour, I couldn't take much more.  I probably should have stayed in the car. I can't believe she really enjoyed this. I do enjoy seeing her happy. Maybe if she wants to go back to Home Depot next year I'll go with her again.

Tired of Mowing The Lawn?

I never looked for an excuse when it came to mowing the lawn.  It was some exercise and it was easy and so I did it. But one couple in Vermont decided to stop mowing the lawn and the result has been incredible.  Neighbors are not complaining, instead they are enjoying it.

The couple came from Long Island, New York and had five acres of property in Vermont.  It took a whole day to mow and trim and during the pandemic a local suggested they plant a wildflower meadow.  They spent a couple hundred dollars, got rid of an acre of grass(Makes me think of the movie "Field of Dreams" where he dug up his crop to build a baseball field), got rid of stones, tilled the land, and put down a fifty pound bag of wildflowers with 27 species.

In the spring of 2021, "Baby's breath came first and then "red and yellow poppies, pink catchfly, bright orange sulphur cosmos, red columbine and purple foxglove." (I have only heard of poppies) This meadow became spectacular and the only thing missing was "The yellow brick road" for Dorothy to travel on.

Another acre of land has been seeded by a neighbor and they now have millions of wildflowers that are being loved by the whole town.  I wonder what would have happened if they didn't like taking the garbage out?

What Is A Mom?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the mothers out there.

I'd like to tell you that I spent a few days laboring over this and trying to find the right words, but the truth is that I wrote this pretty quickly with the words that came to me.

Everyone unfortunately is not lucky enough to have a terrific mom like my sister, brother and I had.  She seemed to always have a big smile on her face and she was constantly doing something in the house.

She didn't have the easiest childhood growing up in Newark, New Jersey.  I think she probably kept her childhood in her mind as she raised three kids in Edison, New Jersey.  I think she wanted our childhood to be better than hers and it was.

For those of you who had very difficult relationships with your mom, you probably kept that in mind when you had children-you wanted your relationship with your children to be so much better.

(As I'm writing this I have some music on.  Albert Morris just sang "Feelings" and Eric Carmen is now singing, "All By Myself." That's not helping me write!)

What is a mom?

She's someone who does everything for you when you're a baby and wants to continue doing that as long as she can.

She's someone who dresses you "the right way," or at least how she wants you to look.

She's someone who will make your favorite food maybe chicken, or her incredible cranberry bread.

She's someone who takes care of you on good days and bad, in sickness and in health.

She's someone who was always proud of you and would brag about you to anyone and everyone.

She's someone who loves you.

I've watched my wife Monika, be a great mom for our three kids. I've tried to compliment her and help her as best I could, like my dad did with my mom.  Happy Mother's Day honey.

Below is a picture of my mom and dad a number of years ago.  I like to think that the past three years they've been together again as they were for over fifty years.  Happy Mother's Day mom!

What I Learned On My Fabulous Weekend

 Some random things for you:

POOPED ON THREE TIMES:  I have done a lot of driving, but on this trip I experienced something I've never seen.  My wife was sleeping and a bird pooped on the front window.  It wasn't a lot, but it doesn't happen very often.  I ran the wipers and it was almost gone. Five minutes later it happened again and I was really surprised.  Ten minutes later, the bird that had to be following us, did it again.  I'm very confident that will never happen to me again.  Maybe, it's your turn?

KNOCKOUT ROSES: My wife educated me about the above flowers.  They were pretty, but I don't think of roses as being knockouts. 

THE GENDER REVEAL: We were at the baby shower for our daughter-in-law, when all of a sudden someone said, "It's time for the gender reveal."  I watched almost everyone walk out of the room and had no idea where they were going.  By the time I got outside I was in a terrible place to take pictures, but I did it anyway.  This is just before our son kicked the rugby ball which produced the pink smoke which meant they were having a girl.  

A PORPOISE PLANT? This was hanging at my wife's aunt and uncle's house.  They do look like a porpoise or fish, but it's still a weird name for a plant.

420 FRIENDLY: My wife educated me again by explaining that this means that you are a person who accepts people who smoke pot.  Is that the best they could do to explain it? Ok, I guess I am, but I didn't know it until she told me.

KFC SIGN: We made a stop and I looked over and saw the message on the building of the KFC.  It said, "MADE THE HARD WAY, MADE BY HAND." I've never seen that before and I thought it was an odd message. But, they have been doing it since 1940 and it's chicken so that's okay with me.

A COMPLICATED SHOWER: Maybe it's just me, but when I go to take a shower I like it to be easy. This was one of our hotel showers, but it reminded me of a pinball machine.  Was the water going to come out of both places? Which spray was better? Do I remember how it works now? Of course not, but I just wanted you to see this.

WHERE DO PIMPLES COME FROM?  My wife of course told me it was fast food like burgers, hot dogs, French fries, and sodas that are to blame for pimples. It makes sense, but I don't think I've ever heard it before.

THE BIG BURGER: The Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, New Jersey advertises a few big burgers. The Zeus burger has seven pounds of meat and feeds up to 14 people.  You can order the kit for $144 to make this burger yourself.  The Mt. Olympus burger is a total of 50 pounds and the Eighth Wonder is 105 pounds total.  If you and your group can finish it within a certain amount of time, it's free.  I have not tried this and I will not be trying this.  It would be fun though.

A Head On Collision

I like to post about positive, unusual, and uplifting things, but sometimes it's challenging to do that with some stories. Last Tuesday afternoon I did some food shopping in my wife's Subaru, since she was not feeling well.  It went very smoothly until I pulled up to a red light to make a left turn a mile from our house.

I had just arrived there when all of a sudden a small, blue Nissan appeared in my lane and hit me head on.  The picture below is our totaled car.  It's important to note that the impact was in the middle of the front of the car and not to the right where the driver should have been driving in his lane.

The best part of the story is that my chest is very sore, but okay.  The air bags all came out and our emergency call system came on and I had someone calling 911 immediately. Two people stopped to help me and one got my phone so I could call my wife.  My legs are fine and one arm had a bad cut which is healing well.  I didn't hit my head or my legs and my back and neck are okay too.

I did go to the hospital to get checked out.  In the ambulance with me was the 74 year-old man who was driving the blue car.  He seemed to be in even better shape than I was.  At first he said to someone he was hit from behind, but that wasn't true.  He then said he didn't know what happened.  You know it's never a good thing when you clearly see the entire face of a driver right in front of you.  His car also hit another vehicle after hitting mine.  It's possible he moved into his left hand turn lane and then drove right through the light into me.

Everyone I came in contact with was terrific.  They were very helpful, professional, and thorough.  The State Patrolman interviewed me in the hospital and told me that the other guy was given a ticket for running the red light.  He also said that the air bags come on when a car is going 35 mph or more.  I wasn't surprised, he looked like he was shot out of a cannon. The officer actually drove me home and I got to sit in his front seat with his computer pictured below.

Finally, our food was saved by my wife.  Some of the containers were bruised, but not as much as I was.  She had some blackberries all over the car and told me, "I got them all, except one on the ground I left it there." I had a little box of pop tarts that was open and I thought one of the bags of pop tarts had actually "popped" out of the box, but they were all there.  The best news is that the rotisserie chicken was not bruised and it tasted great the following today.

Almost a week later my chest is still sore, but improving.  I have some beautiful colors spread across my belly from the seatbelt.   The car is totaled and our claim is being processed-Geico has been terrific.  A couple of rules for everyone to follow:

1. Always wear a seatbelt

2. Never run a run light.

3. Always be very aware of your surroundings when driving.

My Most Memorable Rider Comments From April

They were talking about this great special at Outback Steakhouse. I said, "You have to stop, I'm going to have cottage cheese for lunch today." He said, "It's about time you went on a diet. You're pushing the weight limit in this car."

"When you head back to the North (From the South), your friendly battery runs down quickly." 

She texted me, "I'm on the beach side, rockin' cool black pants and a sunburn." 

I told the couple who knows me, "I've been married for forty years." He said, "It sounds like a life sentence. I think 25 years is legally a life sentence.  You could have killed her and have been out already."

She definitely had enjoyed herself on the beach with some alcohol and pot. She pulled out a dollar bill, turned it over and wrote, "Be safe going home and be particular."

The college student was not drinking when she came up with this creative story, "I'm an old man in disguise. I'm really 82 years old.  My name is Bob-it's short for Bobby. I worked for Kroger for fifty years and never got a raise. The spirit of the old man will always be in this car."

She: "When I was eight years old my dad was a nursing administrator. For two years I worked nine hours a day, five days a week, doing some inventory and payroll."  I asked, "Did you get paid anything?" She: "God no."

When I told them I was going to give them a gift, (My list of comments) he asked, "Anthrax?"

He and his wife live in Florida with their two kids under ten, "To celebrate my 50th birthday we're doing 50 states in 50 weeks with our flexible work schedule."

One day after a Canadian assured me that some Canadian bills DO NOT smell like maple syrup, (which several people have told me), two Canadians said, "The $100 bill definitely smells like maple syrup and they were impregnated into the bills." (It is a real, fourteen year-old myth)

 He: "My friend became a truck driver across country and put on eighty pounds in ten months. His favorite stops are Burger King and Arby's. I offered to buy him a small fridge to put healthier foods in it, but he turned me down."

When she just retired people would ask her what she was doing and she would say, "I'm enjoying my front porch."

He: "Charleston is like an interactive museum."

He: "In The South you have to work to live, it should be you have to live to work."

After having several people from Boston who did not say "car" with a Boston accent, the woman from Boston told me, "I think the accent is dying out."

She: "I had an Uber driver who had about 50 green, Christmas air fresheners hanging from the ceiling. They were all identical."

Minnesota has been voted the friendliest state in the country in the past.  From Minnesota, she said there is a saying there, "People will give you directions to anyplace but their home."

He: "I learned from my grandfather when we were hunting deer. When I said it was hard to do, he said, "Nothing worth doing is easy." I always say, "Is anything easy worth having?"

She has around thirty clients for her cleaning business. Me: "Do you work with someone else?" She: "No, no, I need all my money!" (Eleven children ages 1 to 26)

She: "I used to be a lawyer. " Me: "What are you now?" She: "A lot less stressed."

He gets off of his security job at 7:30 am. I asked, "What do you do when you get home?" He: "I grab a couple beers and decompress, it's my happy hour."

He knew someone who had a business that his kids had been stealing from him. "He told me that he wants his ashes put in the toilet since his kids have been shitting on him his whole life."

When I asked the little boy, "How old are you?" He quickly said, "10!" His mom laughed and said, "He's four."

"Bringing her "Southern Charm" (her boyfriend from the South) to New York for the first time to LaGuardia Airport, the young woman from New York told him, "Don't look at anyone, don't smile, follow me, keep your head down and pick up the pace. If you can't pick it up, go in front of me and I'll move you and don't pet the police dog. I don't have time to go to the hospital because he bit your hand off."

 MORE RIDER COMMENTS

The bar manager said, "I had three job offers, The Ozarks, Martha's Vineyard, and The Rockies. I'm leaving next month for the Rockies."

I said I had a library of over 400 hundred books and he replied, "You have to do something when you don't have a TV." (We do now, after five years)

He: "Myrtle Beach is the Northern Florida."

His wife left Iran a long time ago and he says, "The best way to visit Iran is not to buy a ticket."

His name is Jesselee and he said, "I've researched it and there are only two people on the planet with this name and the other one is a comedian in California."

When I asked her how it feels to be retired, the accountant said, "I don't have to think anymore, you just don't care."

He said, "Charleston hasn't changed in 35 years, it's refreshing."

Taking the couple from Canada to the International Film Festival, I asked them, "Are you hear to see any film in particular?" She answered, "His."

Young military guy: "I was just hanging out, carrying around as a kid in high school, but the military gets that all out of you."

She: "We've been dating four years. If it takes him ten years to propose, he's my man."

I asked the man, "What do you?" His wife said, "He's a man of leisure." (Retired)

She said, "My weakness is shopping and seafood."

Restarting her life and considering missionary work, she said, "I want to make the world a better place, I want to make a difference."

She told her southern boyfriend, "This is Newark, a different king of hell."

The two best friends are getting married in August and one who is going to Italy and Greece said, "I'd rather go with her than my husband."

An elite high school basketball player in New York, "I played against Dr. J, Connie Hawkins, Dave DeBusschere, Nate Archibald, and Willis Reed gave me a chipped tooth."

"I'm not a bartender, because I'd rather have a life."

"I'm in Yacht management."

She moved out of New Orleans recently and said, "I think they recruit out of jail for the city government."

From Pennsylvania he said, "The country's largest buffet is Millers Buffet in Lancaster, Pa." (It really is)

"My name is Cyncerie and I have 13 Kids."

She: "My real name is Oz, it's a Turkish name."

"Life is so delicious."

She told me, "I have a 210 pound dog."

I told him I saw a school bus run a red light recently and he said, "Someone at work today told me they were hit recently by a school bus that ran a red light."

She: "I tattoo brows and it usually costs $600-$700 for the four hours."

He is convinced about this, "All sports is run by the Mafia."

The social worker said, "Some people don't know their lonely."

I asked them how they met and he said, "Playing kickball, we were on opposite teams."

ABOUT MY MANNEQUIN LILY:

"My mom has 15-20 mannequins, each with a different hair style. She puts them in a case and carries them to clients she has."

The college student from New Hampshire explained, "My mom bought a mannequin head and put it in our refrigerator and asked my younger sister to get something for her in the fridge.  We move the head around the house scaring each other all the time."

"You have hell-like security. Tell your girlfriend to stop looking in the back of the car."

"My mom has five mannequins that she uses for clients.  I have one that I call Susan."

"The head got me."

He said, "I thought she was a reminder of your wife, some men are very attached to their wives." Me: "I've been attached for forty years."

ABOUT ME AND MY CAR:

He said, "This is like a time traveling machine."

He said, "This gives me more faith in humanity."

She: "I'll remember this forever."

"I've never seen anything like this."

She: "This was a great way to start my morning."

The bride to be said, "You're teaching me more than I've ever learned in my life."

"This feels like the best Uber ride ever."

"You made my day great!"

In the mental health field, I asked her if she had an analysis of me and she replied, "I would need to ask a lot more questions."

The social worker said, "You're like an undercover social worker."

The young guy was getting out and said, "This is one helluva car sir."

She: "You may be the best Uber driver ever." Me: "May?"

"I love this."

"It's beautiful, I love this."

"You should be in the papers."

"So cool I got to see you(the car) in the daylight."

"You're the most interesting driver I've ever had."

"What a great ride."

Giving me a big tip, the man from Brazil said, "You are a very nice man."

"You're the best."

"I've been in a lot of Uber's, this was my favorite Uber."

"This was amazing-it was so much fun."

He said, "This was fabulous."

"This is so cool."

"This is the best ride I've ever had."