Before we left Oregon on Sunday, May 31, DK received a call from our nephew Nate in Phoenix. Earlier in the week, Nate and fiancee Ali’s house had been broken into. Besides the usual theft of electronics, the thieves stole some heirloom jewelry and rings that had belonged to Nate’s grandmother (DK’s mom). Boy, it’s one thing to steal money, a stereo, and televisions which insurance can readily replace. But it is just so damn thoughtless when low-lifes make off with totally irreplaceable items that so affect the victim emotionally. Disappointing … very, very disappointing.
Okay, back to the blog stuff. State #32 for AB1 was Washington. We camped in Poulsbo, a beautiful little seaside town overlooking Liberty Bay. On our R&B day, we leisurely walked the eight-block downtown area, then topped off the night with the entirely forgettable “Aloha” movie. The female lead was Emma Stone, our cute girl who got her theatrical start right in Scottsdale at Valley Youth Theatre. Unfortunately, even her substantial acting chops couldn’t save this one. To get the bad cinematic taste out of our mouths, we went back to the camp and watched this months installment of the “Star Wars” series: “Star Wars 2: The Attack of the Clones.” I think DK stayed awake.
In addition to watching a segment of my favorite movie series, Diedre also rolled up her sleeves and made it a doubly great night by making my all-time favorite chocolate treat, toffee. I’m telling you, this stuff is REALLY good!
I pretty much thought my days of toffee-decadence had been lost to the ravages of the diabetic-diet-restrictions, but NOOOOOO! I was wrong yet once again. My clever wife somehow figured out how to make toffee with appropriate substitutes. She claims it’s “sugar-free,” so who am I, an avowed chocoholic, to disagree? Of course, if it is true what she’s saying about a “healthy toffee,” well, I can only surmise one thing:
SHE’S A WITCH!!
J’cuse!
Tuesday was our big day in town as it was to be the grand finale of our quest to see major league baseball games in all 30 stadiums. Our plan to avoid the big-city traffic and parking woes was based upon our taking a 30-minute ferry ride from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. Unfortunately, we misjudged the traffic on this smallish island and in a mad scramble, managed to be the last two people to board the massive ferry. We raced on with no tickets, convinced by a poorly thought-out web site that today was a free day.
It was not.
Oh, the ferry IS free to get to downtown Seattle. But if you’re one of those weirdos who wants to go home at the end of the day, and apparently many people do, well, that’s when they hit you up for the big bucks. Medicare card holders go for half-price, so that’s one thing good about growing old (although I’m still half a year away from such happiness). Still, it’s nice not having to worry about paying to park, and the ferry guys don’t do full-body searches unless you want them to.
As we were sitting on the ferry looking at the Seattle Mariners’ baseball stadium off in the distance, who of all people should spot us but none other than our good friend from Scottsdale, Glen Scott. I mean, this was a humongous ferry that handles 100 or more cars and a couple of hundred walk-ons, so what were the odds that Glen would not only be on the same ferry as we were, but would also spot us on this brief, 30-minute boat ride?
Glen filled us in on the tricks of the ferry trade, then we parted ways when we landed as we would be seeing Glen and wife Susan later in the week.
DK and I immediately headed off walking into a bit of Seattle history. Oh, I know you’re saying, “What wonderful place will these two zanies stumble upon next? They’ve already been to the site of the Wright Brothers first flight, they touched the oldest house in the country in St. Augustine, FL, and they’ve even stood on the spot where in 1861, the first shells flew at the start of the Civil War. Oh what, oh what do they have up their historical sleeves now?”
Well, I’ll tell you … it’s really BIG! … Yes, we made our way down to the famous Pike Place Market to see … oh, I’m so excited … the first ever … wait for it! …
STARBUCKS!!
Yay.
Okay, so although the Pike Place Market opened in 1907, the 1st Starbucks goes back even further, I think. (Uh-oh! Be careful whenever Alexx adds “I think” to a sentence. It usually means you’re off for a merry ride!—DK) Back in England during the 11th century, William the Sleepy was waging war against the Roman Legions of Julius Caesar. William, looking for a respite after a particularly tough battle, sought an area which might be free of dinosaurs. In the exact spot where we stood at that moment eating artificially made Krispy Kreme donuts was where WTS came upon a ramshackle hovel owned by a small man named “Starius Buckius” (Latin for “Expensive-brown-water-maker”). Starius offered William some of his strange brew which he called “kaffee.” William tried it, immediately woke up, and raced back into battle were he was promptly beheaded by one of his own men who did recognize the man with such fire in his eyes. The time was MCMLXXI (in the year of our Lord, 1971 A.D.).
Wow!
We had a joyful afternoon seeing the sites at the Market: Diedre found a wall made of nothing but chewed bubble-gum; I found a genealogy shop where I was able to make contact with an ancient relative and learn why I’m just so darned going at “Trivial Pursuits”; we were able to scare the heck out of all our loyal softball Facebook friends when I feigned (sort of) a heart attack walking up the incredibly steep hills of the area; and then a bonus for DK occurred when I dragged her into the Seattle Antiques Market. Normally, she hates going into these kind of places, but here, she happily stumbled upon the January 14, 1957, issue of “Life” magazine. It’s the one that has our Cave Creek, AZ, friend, Dee Dee Wood, on the cover dancing in the original Broadway production of “Li’l Abner.” Note that Dee Dee is the subject of one of my plays, “DDDancer,” a dancer’s musical, which is still waiting for some big-shot producer to snap it up (just in case any of you big-shot producers are reading this). We’ll get Dee Dee to autograph it when we get back to AZ in October.
Okay, I know you have all been waiting along with us for the last three years in anticipation of this day. Well, it’s finally here! We attended a baseball game that night in our FINAL major league stadium!
HUZZAH!
There I am with a giant baseball glove statue with a hole in it … please don’t read anything into it as acommentary on my fielding ability. Note the Ken Griffey shirt I’m wearing. It’ll go great with my St. Louis Cardinals Stan Musial T-shirt as well as my Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente one. Note that I only get sports shirts of players who have retired so that they can’t do anything on or off the field that will prove embarrassing to me (See Diedre’s “Sammy Sosa” jersey for an object lesson here). It didn’t hurt that Griffey Junior wore number 24, since that’s the number I wore on my high school and college basketball teams and on every softball jersey I’ve worn in the past 47 years or so.
In seeing the Seattle Mariners game at Safeco Field, that meant we have been to games at all 30 major league stadiums, plus eight other ones that no longer exist (No, we haven’t seen a game at the Roman Coliseum … we’re not THAT old!). And in all those games, not once were we rained out. And we knew we were good here in Seattle, because even though the city is known for its rain, its newish stadium (first game in 1999) has a retractable roof. So that guaranteed us our 30th and final major league baseball stadium.
Next up … all 450 or so minor league ballparks.
At that night’s game, they gave out bobblehead dolls of Mariners’ third-baseman Kyle Seager. This gift, which now proudly takes its place on AB1’s dashboard along with the bobbleheads of Cincinnati’s Pete Rose and the Colorado Rockies’ star Dante Bichette as well as a statue of Diedre favorite cartoon actress, Betty Boop.
It was yet another wonderful stadium (Actually, the Tampa Rays ballpark was the only one of the 30 to disappoint). It boasted the major leagues’ largest video scoreboard at a whopping 11,425 square feet. That almost assuaged the pain of a Mariner 5-3 loss to the always hated New York Yankees in 11 innings. The Mariners center-fielder Austin Jackson was an island of efficiency in a Mariner sea of ineptitude. He reached base all five times while getting 40% of his team’s hits. It was not good enough.
A baseball aside here: we’ve noticed in the last few ballparks that the concessionaires selling product in the stands are often not yelling out what they’re selling, but are instead holding up pictures of what they have to eat. It makes for a much quieter, gentler ball game.
The next day after recovering from our “30-stadium baseball tour” hangover, we headed to the lovely seaside town of Port Townsend to meet up with longtime friends, Dyanne Sheldon and Jean (yes, another Jean-see Portland, OR, blog for this reference). I initially met Dyanne at our first parks and recreation jobs in the early 1970’s in St. Louis Park, MN. I was the knot-head city athletic director and she was Park’s first ever naturalist. The city had taken an old abandoned golf course, one where I used to play as a youngster for 50-cents per nine holes, and with Dyanne’s capable administration, had turned it into a class A nature center.
It has always seemed to me that Dyanne knows absolutely everything about nature and the wilderness. She even memorably identifies all birds by their calls; I can’t remember the name of one certain bird, but Dyanne taught me to recognize it by noting that its call sounds as if it’s saying, “Quick! Three beers!”
Port Townsend is mainly a fishing town, but we were there for the camaraderie. We lunched at the intimate Ichikawa Sushi Bar where the pleasant but somewhat pushy waitress wormed her way into our team picture. The last we saw of Dy and Jean, they were off and running to catch their soon-to-depart ferry, the last one of the day.
Okay, we have now arrived at Thursday, June 4, day #42 of our trip. This year’s journey is officially ¼ over sometime today after lunch. To celebrate, we took a 3-mile walk that reminded us (Okay, “me”) of the Ewoks’ forest planet in “Star Wars 6: Return of the Jedi.” If you want to run out and rent it to watch, I can wait … NO? All righty then. Your loss … moving on.
Glen Scott, whom you met earlier on the ferry in this tome laughingly called a “blog,” would be celebrating his 68th birthday tomorrow, so we were meeting Glen and wife Susan for dinner that night. I first met Glen in 1997 at his 50th birthday party; DK had become friends with Susan Scott at their mutual jobs in Scottsdale (they were both either high-powered executive educational software sales vice-presidents or they worked at Denny’s … I forget which) and had wangled an invite to the massive soiree at Pinnacle Peak Patio (That’s the famous western restaurant where if you wear a tie in, it promptly gets cut off. They’ve got about 10,000 severed ties hanging from the beams). Along with my St. Louis Park pal Randy “R.J.” Johnson, we had just driven 1,750 miles in two days in a rented truck transporting DK and my life-goods to our new home in Scottsdale. So of course, the first thing we did when we got to town back in ’97 was to write a birthday song for a man we had never met. A groggy RJ and I quickly penned “Sweet Neat Glen” to the tune of “Big John.” The gist of the song was that Glen is a bit of a neat freak … he even has his canned vegetables alphabetized in the cupboard.
Susan is the “energizer-bunny” who accompanied Diedre on her bucket-list conquest of hiking up and down the Grand Canyon this Easter while Glen has become my best Arizona pal during these past 17 years. The Scotts recently bought a 2nd home on Bainbridge Island in the Seattle area, keeping a small place in Scottsdale to come back winters and visit the grand kids. Glen is currently the president of his homeowners’ association, a position he was offered just minutes after moving in. I’m pretty sure that’s the same way the Czars took power in Russia in the 1600’s.
Glen is more or less a benevolent despot, although he does refer to his HOA neighbors as “my loyal minions.” Once a month, the HOA has a clean-up day where they pick up bottles, cans, and old copies of “Popular Mechanics” polluting their area. Reportedly, Glen stands high above the workers on a stand as he paces with his shotgun while wearing mirrored sunglasses and munching on hard-boiled eggs. Occasionally, he can be heard to announce, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”
We enjoyed a wine-infused walking tour of their home and neighborhood by the water. Then it was off to dinner at a lovely seaside restaurant where the waiters actually wore shoes. Pretty classy!
Friday saw DK and me split up … only temporarily, I’m pretty sure. While she was off hiking with the Scotts, I opted for one more ferry trip back to downtown Seattle. I walked over to the city’s fanciful Olympic Sculpture Park, then made my way up hill to the Seattle Center where the World’s Fair was held in 1962. I managed to make contact with the Space Needle, the city’s instantly identifiable symbol. I learned that the idea for the Space Needle began as a sketch on a coffee shop placemat. So that’s a reminder – save all your doodles!
In the evening, trying to keep the balance between baseball parks and theatres close, we made our way to the Jewel Box Theatre in Poulsbo. Now in their 14th season, the company presented “The Red Velvet Cake War,” promoted as a “southern baked comedy.” It was just one step up from the murder-mystery drivel I write. Still, fun was had by all.
Okay, it’s Saturday, June 6, our last day in the greater Poulsbo, WA, area. Being very excited about yet another horse making a run for the Triple Crown of Horse Racing (Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes), Diedre Kaye dragged me off to “The Plate and Pint Bar” to watch the Triple Crown finale; I, as you might surmise, had wanted to stay home and watch “Downton Abbey,” but sometimes you just go along to get along. At least they had the world’s best jalapeno poppers.
We excitedly watched the favorite, “American Pharoah” as he won the 147th running of the Belmont Stakes in New York to take the hard sought after Triple Crown of Horse Racing and end a 37-year drought. AP was the first horse to win it all since Affirmed last did it in 1978. Of course, that’s just the blink of an eye when compared to the Chicago Cubs and their last World Series title: 1908.
Yeah, you just knew I had to get baseball in there somewhere.
After the race, we ended our Washington stay by spending some time with Glen and Susan at Glen’s place of employment, “The Rolling Bay Winery” where we met the owner. Glen’s actually retired from his first career in textbook sales. Here on Bainbridge Island, for his work at the winery he is compensated not by a paycheck, but by bottles of wine. And that’s the way he likes it.
My wife, who has an “ery” thing going on (you know, winERY, distillERY, brewERY), wanted an equivalent to my baseball stadium pictures, so here she is with her idea of great art. I call it: “Lady and Kegs.”
Next up on our globe-trotting menu: Coeur, d’ Alene, Idaho.
Keep your spuds up!
Inigo Montoya, a brave, Dark Ages swordsman, was heard to utter on more than one occasion:
“Hallo!
My name is Inigo Montoya!
You killed my father!
Prepare to die!”
He was, of course, one of the main characters in the wonderful children’s movie (with enough sophisticated humor to keep adults involved), “The Princess Bride.”
I bring this up to let you know what we’re up to when we’re not living our fabulous RV lives seeing great sites, meeting important people, and washing dirty clothes by pounding them with a rock in nearby polluted streams. No, when we’re not doing all that good stuff, we’re driving AB1 from one campground to the next, 300 miles and five hours at a time. And while I’m driving, Diedre keeps me from nodding off at the wheel by having me help her answer crossword puzzles, quizzing me on baseball trivia, reading select “Sports Illustrated” magazine articles, and reading aloud or listening to books or books-on-tape.
For this year’s literary challenge, we started by having Diedre read As You Wish by Carey Elwes or as we like to refer to it: “The Making of ‘The Princess Bride’ Movie.” It’s one of our favorite cinematic works. If you get a chance, rent it, especially if your kids/grand kids are visiting. We especially love Mandy Patinkin as “Inigo Montoya,” Andre the Giant as “Fezzick,” and Billy Crystal as “Miracle Max.” As soon as Diedre’s done reading it to me (hopefully by the time we get to Minneapolis), we’ll crank up the old gas-powered VCR and re-watch the movie with the knowledge of the inside stories the actors talked about in the book. I can’t wait.
Anyway … we got back on the road Sunday, May 24. The day’s travel contained the best scenery we’d seen so far starting north of Redding, California. And it was what we planned for this year. In 2013, we were mainly RV’ing to see friends and family in the upper Midwest; in 2014, touring the south and the east coast became one big history lesson as practically every place we stopped had some significance to either the Revolutionary or Civil wars. But this year, 2015, is going to be all about the scenery, the beauty of nature in and around the seven to eight national parks we’ll visit. And it’ll start with Oregon, the 31st state we’ve visited and camped in (overnight stay needed to qualify) during our two-and-a-half years of RV’ing. We’re shooting for all 48 lower states (Delaware is going to be the tough one) plus quite a few Canadian provinces. Have fun with us as we go our merry way. You can even keep score at home. It’s so easy, even St. Olaf Junior College grads can do it.
Loyal blogophiles may recall two years ago our visit with softball friends Jim and Carol Ericksons in Mount Pleasant, MI. Unbelievably, there was actually no “mount” in “Mount Pleasant,” although there was a lot of “pleasant” in the good folks of Mount Pleasant. So it really shouldn’t have surprised us when we landed in Klamath Falls, OR, and found out that … yes, you guessed it, there were no “falls” in Klamath Falls. What next, no pyramids in Cairo, Illinois?
Monday was “Memorial Day,” so we put out our limited red, white, and blue décor and celebrated the day accordingly. In the RV-park-mentality, what more could say “Memorial Day” than doing two weeks worth of laundry and then trimming one’s beard (mine, not Diedre’s)? Seriously, they have an incredible laundry room here: 10 washers and 10 dryers. I did my four wash loads in the time it normally takes me to do one at home. Other RV life tasks included replenishing our meds/vitamins trays and then some amateur grocery shopping. The festive day ended with a night out at the movies. We viewed the George Clooney non-epic “Tomorrowland,” and then in keeping with the tone of the movie, we had a late-night romantic dinner at Denny’s.
The next morning, we left on a day-trip away from the friendly confines of Klamath Falls and journeyed an hour away to the marvelous Crater Lake National Park created in 1902. The place was so darn scenic that Diedre determined it HAS to be the site of her annual family reunion when it’s her turn to host in 2018. The iconic Crater Lake Lodge, built in 1915, will be her projected site-of-operations. We’ll see how long that lasts.
CLNP is an incredible combination of mountains, trees, water, and, of all things, snow … in late May! Wherever you look, there’s a combination of at least two and often three of the aforementioned. The marvelous Crater Lake surrounds a scenic small island that we determined we must visit next time.
CL is the deepest lake in the U.S. at 1,943’; it’s actually the belly of an erupted volcano. No streams run into the lake, so there’s little sediment to cloud its waters. It makes for a wonderful photograph when the clearness of the lake perfectly reflects a wonderful mirror-image of the snow-capped mountains above. Speaking of snow, you can see that Diedre couldn’t resist the temptation to pelt our nature photographer with snowballs.
We finished our wonderful day at the park with a hike to Discovery Point. It was a lovely walk atop the rim surrounding the lake.
On Wednesday, May 27, before our drive to Oregon City in the Portland, OR, area, we walked over to the aptly named “Starvin' Marvin’s” cafe for breakfast. The food was good and there was lots of it. While eating, I noticed three old guys stumble in, John Deere hats and all, but they didn’t seem to know what to do. One guy pointed, the others shrugged, and slowly they wandered around aimlessly. Diedre confidently nodded to me and said, “See! They don’t know where to sit without their wives here to tell them!”
Here’s an interesting (at least to us) bit of nomenclature trivia. You may remember back in the L.A. blog when I mentioned my Uncle John’s funeral. At the time, I had found out about the ceremony’s particulars from my cousin “Jean” (Mona). I had gone to the funeral with my mother “Jean” (Mom) while Diedre called her sister “Jean” (Goldie) on her Smart-Phone “Jean” (Genie). Are you noticing a trend here? And then on our second night in Oregon City, we went to have dinner at the home of Diedre’s cousin who, of course, is named “Jean” (Gee Gee). Note: all the “Jeans” nicknames are in parentheses; these are imperative, or we’d never know of whom we were discussing.
On Friday, Gee Gee graciously took us on a tour of yet another scenic area, the Columbia River Gorge. We first hiked to Latourell Falls, then made it to the wonderful double-decker Bridle Veil Falls. Everywhere we went, there was more new natural beauty to behold. And it wasn’t all waterfalls either. On our way home, we drove on three sides of the very recognizable Mt. Hood.
Warning: another one of “Alexx’s Asides” is imminent. Take shelter immediately.
One of my habits is to always carry pennies to cover sales taxes. In Oregon, I didn’t notice it at first, but it eventually occurred to me that every time I paid for something, the amount was never an odd, penny-requiring amount. When I mentioned it to Gee Gee, she nodded and then with the wisdom of Yoda, explained this phenomenon with a story about the person from Washington state who came to Portland and bragged about all his state had to offer. When he was done spouting off, Gee Gee smiled and then offered just three little words in defense of her home state of Oregon: “NO … SALES … TAX!”
On our last day in Oregon, we decided to see Portland, again under the kind auspices of Gee Gee the Guide. We started healthily by visiting the spiffy Lake Oswego Farmers Market. The gals kept me from getting too bored by having me get my picture taken with the world’s largest (my guess) pair of Groucho glasses. Honestly, it’s as if they had a five-year old child with them.
From there it was on to downtown Portland for a walking tour. We crossed several bridges and made our way to the Portland Saturday Market, the largest continuously operated open air market in the U.S. It was a lot of arts and crafts. Nearby there was a carnival running, so we ambled by to take a look. But it was only when we came across this sadly misguided, pro-diabetes Pepsi sign that we knew it was time to move on.
To Washington … with dispatch!
Losing an RV day due to last week’s trip to Wisconsin for my uncle’s funeral cost us our overnight stay in Fresno … darn. But don’t worry about us staying entertained. We’ve got eight people in the area to visit, plus I'm swimming from Fisherman's Wharf to Alcatraz on Friday. It's a fundraiser for diabetes I think. Do you know where I can pick up some extra lard?
One of my best friends lives in Rio Vista, CA, where we would be camping. I’ve known John “Duppy” Lamb since 1958 when we were on the opposite sides of an energetic snowball fight. The fight may have started because of John being called “Duppy.” I’m not sure. As a little boy, John loved watching the cowboy shows on TV; a particular favorite of his was George “Gabby” Hayes. John would go around announcing, “Me Gabby,” only his pronunciation made it sound more like “Duppy” than “Gabby.” The nickname stuck.
On Monday, May 18, we made the elongated 391-mile drive to Rio Vista, an outlying sub-suburb of San Francisco. After a quick set-up, we met Dupp for dinner at The Point restaurant on the Sacramento River where we began all our catching up.
Dupp is a most interesting guy. Like Job, he’s put up with a mountain of travails in his lifetime, yet he never loses his optimistic spirit and “can-do” attitude. While serving as an attorney for the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s corp, Dupp and his wonderful and pretty wife Glenda had three boys to go along with Glenda’s daughter. But shortly after the birth of their last son, a tumor was discovered in Glenda’s brain. After an operation, she was never the same and soon ceased being able to be a part of her family’s lives, leaving Duppy alone to raise four kids under ten-years old while working a stressful job in the military. But he persevered, determined to give those kids all he had.
Several years later he married Faye. The kids grew up and moved out and on but always had a touchstone in their dad to help with the difficult decisions. In retirement, Dupp and Faye threw themselves into fundraising, doing marathons to raise great sums for the American Cancer Society.
And then just about a month before we were to visit the Lambs, wife Faye underwent heart bypass surgery, the same procedure I had done three years ago. More obstacles for the two of them to overcome, but together, they did. Faye is still battling but seems to be recovering pretty well. And Dupp is … well, as ever, he’s still our “Duppy.”
Not being sure how much time would be available to the Lambs, we made our schedule for the week, but Dupp and Faye were determined to not let her operation derail our visit. We got the local town tour with Duppy Tuesday, later joined by Faye that night at the campground for one of Diedre’s home-cooked … well, make that “RV-cooked” dinners. We talked well into the night.
Then again on Wednesday, we joined the Lambs for pizza in downtown Rio Vista. A very interesting friend of theirs, Hans, joined us. He had played basketball for Boston College back in the 50’s and had almost beaten Jerry West’s strong West Virginia team in the NCAA tourney. The three guys talked basketball as the ladies practiced their yawning.
Later that night, we got home in time to watch the final “Late Night with David Letterman” show. I go way back with Dave, watching him with all the other “goons” during his midnight to 1 a.m. slot after Johnny Carson. It had always bothered me that Dave didn’t get the “Tonight” show when Johnny left. I pretty much blamed Jay Leno for being a weasel, so from the night Johnny left on up until Jimmy Fallon took over, I refused to watch even one minute of the Leno “Tonight” show. I’ll miss Dave, especially his younger, zanier years, but it was time for him to move on.
Thursday, May 21, was our big day in San Francisco. We would be visiting the 29th out of the 30 major league baseball stadiums to see a game. Not wishing to deal with the legendary San Fran traffic, we confidently rode with Dupp to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station where we would be riding the rails to the Giants day game with Dupp and then meet up with his oldest son, Jordan, at the marvelous ocean side AT&T Park located, appropriately enough, at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. Having lived in Northern California for most of his adult life, we assumed Duppy would know all the ropes for riding the BART … and of course, we would be wrong. This may have been his first time on the BART; I’m not sure as he wasn’t admitting to anything.
Somehow, we Three Stooges made it to the downtown area where, along with 41,840 other rabid fans there for the Giants 350th straight sell-out game, we made our way along the ocean sidewalk to the ballpark.
Doing our customary walk-around-the-outside-of-the-park before our equally customary –walk –around –the –inside –of –the-park pre-game rituals, we admired the Giants history which goes back to the 1890’s in New York City. There I am with plaques of Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry, all Hall-of-Famers.
Additionally, there were the obligatory statues of Juan Marichal and Willie Mays with which I posed. We even got out behind the right-field wall where the kayakers paddle about in the bay waiting to retrieve any well hit home runs by sturdy left-handers.
Once inside the park, we went on our search for this stadium’s best concession. Ballpark foods have a “Top Ten List” as rated by “TenBest.com”; San Francisco’s “Crazy Crab’z Grilled Crab Sandwich” holds down the number nine spot, so we decided we had to have one.
Our review: it’s easy to hold, it’s got seafood in it, and it’s delicious … it was also $17, which we were crazy to pay. Of course, what do you expect from a duo who drives all over the country checking out baseball stadiums.
DK, as is her wont, had studied up on all the teams we would be seeing this summer before we left Arizona so that she could be wearing the correct team color-combinations at each game. Today she was in Giants’ orange and black.
We made it up to the third deck for our standard ballpark picture, only this one had a special guest photographee (Dupp) included in it. Just expanding our horizons.
In a great game featuring two of the best left-handers, nay, probably the two BEST pitchers in all of baseball, Giants’ World Series hero Madison Bumgarner pitched San Fran to a 4-0 win over their arch rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers and their perennial Cy Young winning pitcher, Clayton Kershaw. Bumgarner even rubbed salt in the Dodgers’ blue-blood by smacking a home run in his first at-bat.
If you take out the sentiment of seeing games at the 1912 Fenway Park in Boston and the 1914 Wrigley Field in Chicago, we unanimously decided this had to be the best stadium we’ve seen … and we only have one left to visit. Seattle, you better have your game face on for us when we visit in 12 days.
Afterwards, Jordan led us on a cross-country walk to the fine “Lefty O’Doul’s Bar” for some post-game libations. Lefty was a fine baseball player from the San Francisco Seals minor league team as well as the New York Giants in the 30’s. After retirement, he opened up his bar which has persevered ever since. DK and I have made it a tradition that whenever we’re in San Fran, we always make a pilgrimage to Lefty’s. There, I order some beers and two giant corn-beef sandwiches while DK she picks out a booth. It’s a different booth each time; Lefty’s walls are covered with photographs of all the great baseball players, most of them from 1900-1940. My job then is to tell DK a story about whichever player’s picture is featured most prominently in our “booth-du-jour.” And I’ve never failed to relate an appropriate tale. Today’s booth featured the 1908 Chicago Cubs, winners of the World Series that year (and the last one the Cubs would see for 107 years and counting).
So for today’s booth story for DK, Dupp, and Jordan, I chose a dramatic recital, from memory, of the epic baseball poem, “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Enjoy:
“These are the saddest of possible words:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of bear Cubs fleeter than birds:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
making a Giant hit into a double,
words that are weighty with nothing but trouble:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Applause, applause, applause.
Not to be outdone, Dupp then told the story of how he used to keep his rambunctious, young boys in line. When they would misbehave, he did NOT have to discipline them with a spanking or a time-out. He would simply inform them that if they didn’t shape up, he would go to his closet, don his old bell bottoms and clogs he wore constantly in the 70’s, and would then show up at their school announcing that he was their father. It worked every time.
On Friday, Diedre and I attempted the BART downtown trip once again, only this time alone. We got our 3-mile walk in as we made it out to the iconic Pier 39 near Fisherman’s Wharf. I had never been out to see Alcatraz Island, and once again on this trip, I would still not get there. The closest I got was a picture of me and Al Capone’s old digs taken from Pier 39.
DK and I then went our separate ways … oh, just for the day. She returned to BART to go uptown in order to take a Pilates class while I wandered over to “The Cartoon Art Museum.” Yes, I’m still a kid. They were having a special showing of a comic series called “Darth Vader and Friends.” I mean, cartoons AND “Star Wars”? Does it get any better than that? The series of framed art depicted Darth Vader raising tykes Luke and Leia as if he were a traditional father. The exhibit was very colorful and portrayed a lot of quite funny scenarios.
Diedre’s Pilates class was taught by Laura Kirkeby, the beautiful daughter of DK’s best Minnesota friend Jennifer Kirkeby. Jennifer is a longtime playwright and actress. She’s extremely funny. To visualize her on stage, picture Carol Burnett on steroids.
Daughter Laura, along with her sister Amber, are both college grads with degrees in dance/choreography. They are incredible hoofers, so amazingly agile in that way young people disgustingly have, and have both done their fair share of acting.
I remember back when they were little, about seven and five, we had them on “The Kaye and Stuart Show,” the variety cable-TV program DK and I wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. It aired in over 100 cities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Anyway, Jenn would dress the little girls up like two old ladies, calling them “Millie and Molly.” Then when Diedre and I were doing our idiot show, we would periodically cut away to a shot of the two of them. There they’d sit with the most disgusted looks on their faces. Millie (Laura) would pompously turn right to the camera and announce, “I was TOLD this was going to be entertaining.” And an equally bored Molly (Amber) would nod in agreement, then plaintively ask, “Is this almost over?” They stole the show every time.
It was so great catching up with Millie … I mean “Laura” … now as a beautiful young woman making her way in the world of dance. We found a great little Thai place for lunch just blocks away from the Pilates studio where we could all get caught up. You know, the children of our friends, along with DK’s siblings’ kids, have become our de-facto kids (along with Charlie, Casey, and Samantha) and we absolutely love seeing them become so accomplished in their new adult lives.
On our last day in Sandy Francisco, we were off on a road trip to see friends in the Napa Valley. On our way out of town, we spotted Rio Vista’s many windmills. Of course, they were not quite like the quaint windmills surrounded by tulips typically seen in Holland. Rio’s windmills actually bore a closer resemblance to the monsters in “War of the Worlds.”
We headed north an hour to the lovely little town of “Yountville” in Napa Valley. There we would have dinner with my old college basketball buddy Howard Deichen, his wife Jamie, Howard’s brother Jim (maybe the funniest business executive ever), and Jim’s wife Kathy, a big-time theatre producer and actress in the San Francisco suburbs. You may remember Howard and Jamie from last year’s Atlanta blog when we spent our only night in three years of RV travel NOT in AB1 as we camped out in the luxurious spare bedroom in the Deichen mansion. Howard, after a wonderful career in business, and Jamie are now in the process of building their dream house high on a mountainside in wine country. We took a sub-road trip to their marvelously scenic lot where Howard explained their architectural plans to us. My main concern was where our bedroom would be.
The house will, incredibly enough, include a 9-CAR GARAGE! Yes, Howard is a big-time car collector. Last year we saw seven of his classic cars at their Atlanta home. But since their dream home is still in the planning stages, they only have three of their collector cars with them at their rental in Yountville while the rest are in storage. Howard describes the ones they do have on hand thusly:
-a Jaguar F-Type, 550 hp, super-charged, 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, ¼ mile in 11.6 seconds at 122 mph, top
speed 195 mph;
- a Ferrari 599 HGTE Fiorono, the reigning Ferrari super car from 2008-14, 640 hp, V12, 0-60 in 3
seconds, ¼ mile in 11 seconds, 0-150 in 14 seconds, does 210 mph;
-and, of course, Jamie’s old truck (100% restored), a 1954 Chevrolet 5-window pick-up; Howard
has no idea what its 0-60 time is.
And I collect baseball cards. We all have our “thing.”
We then walked to dinner through the local “Tobacco Free” park. The six of us had dinner at Lucy’s, one of the top restaurants in the country. You could tell it was really one of the swells: when you ordered your meal, it was easy to notice that the clown’s head was solid gold.
Classy!
All right, we’ll pick it up next week as we hit the Oregon Trail. Stay tuned.
Okay, back to the blog stuff. State #32 for AB1 was Washington. We camped in Poulsbo, a beautiful little seaside town overlooking Liberty Bay. On our R&B day, we leisurely walked the eight-block downtown area, then topped off the night with the entirely forgettable “Aloha” movie. The female lead was Emma Stone, our cute girl who got her theatrical start right in Scottsdale at Valley Youth Theatre. Unfortunately, even her substantial acting chops couldn’t save this one. To get the bad cinematic taste out of our mouths, we went back to the camp and watched this months installment of the “Star Wars” series: “Star Wars 2: The Attack of the Clones.” I think DK stayed awake.
We had a joyful afternoon seeing the sites at the Market: Diedre found a wall made of nothing but chewed bubble-gum; I found a genealogy shop where I was able to make contact with an ancient relative and learn why I’m just so darned going at “Trivial Pursuits”; we were able to scare the heck out of all our loyal softball Facebook friends when I feigned (sort of) a heart attack walking up the incredibly steep hills of the area; and then a bonus for DK occurred when I dragged her into the Seattle Antiques Market. Normally, she hates going into these kind of places, but here, she happily stumbled upon the January 14, 1957, issue of “Life” magazine. It’s the one that has our Cave Creek, AZ, friend, Dee Dee Wood, on the cover dancing in the original Broadway production of “Li’l Abner.” Note that Dee Dee is the subject of one of my plays, “DDDancer,” a dancer’s musical, which is still waiting for some big-shot producer to snap it up (just in case any of you big-shot producers are reading this). We’ll get Dee Dee to autograph it when we get back to AZ in October.
There I am with a giant baseball glove statue with a hole in it … please don’t read anything into it as acommentary on my fielding ability. Note the Ken Griffey shirt I’m wearing. It’ll go great with my St. Louis Cardinals Stan Musial T-shirt as well as my Pittsburgh Pirates Roberto Clemente one. Note that I only get sports shirts of players who have retired so that they can’t do anything on or off the field that will prove embarrassing to me (See Diedre’s “Sammy Sosa” jersey for an object lesson here). It didn’t hurt that Griffey Junior wore number 24, since that’s the number I wore on my high school and college basketball teams and on every softball jersey I’ve worn in the past 47 years or so.
Next up … all 450 or so minor league ballparks.
The next day after recovering from our “30-stadium baseball tour” hangover, we headed to the lovely seaside town of Port Townsend to meet up with longtime friends, Dyanne Sheldon and Jean (yes, another Jean-see Portland, OR, blog for this reference). I initially met Dyanne at our first parks and recreation jobs in the early 1970’s in St. Louis Park, MN. I was the knot-head city athletic director and she was Park’s first ever naturalist. The city had taken an old abandoned golf course, one where I used to play as a youngster for 50-cents per nine holes, and with Dyanne’s capable administration, had turned it into a class A nature center.
Glen Scott, whom you met earlier on the ferry in this tome laughingly called a “blog,” would be celebrating his 68th birthday tomorrow, so we were meeting Glen and wife Susan for dinner that night. I first met Glen in 1997 at his 50th birthday party; DK had become friends with Susan Scott at their mutual jobs in Scottsdale (they were both either high-powered executive educational software sales vice-presidents or they worked at Denny’s … I forget which) and had wangled an invite to the massive soiree at Pinnacle Peak Patio (That’s the famous western restaurant where if you wear a tie in, it promptly gets cut off. They’ve got about 10,000 severed ties hanging from the beams). Along with my St. Louis Park pal Randy “R.J.” Johnson, we had just driven 1,750 miles in two days in a rented truck transporting DK and my life-goods to our new home in Scottsdale. So of course, the first thing we did when we got to town back in ’97 was to write a birthday song for a man we had never met. A groggy RJ and I quickly penned “Sweet Neat Glen” to the tune of “Big John.” The gist of the song was that Glen is a bit of a neat freak … he even has his canned vegetables alphabetized in the cupboard.
