I Left My Heart...in Ballard County

I'm reposting this from three years ago in honor of the day..

Monday September 15th is the 30th anniversary of a day that set my life (happily) on a drastic change.

I was a fledging programmer at what was called Martin Marietta then (now USEC) and living in an apartment in Forest Hills. I had gone over to my buddy Jeff Lawrence's trailer (known to this area as Dr. Jeff on WKYQ). He asked if I had plans for the next evening. I said no thinking we were going to have one of our regular marathon Trivial Pursuit matches. He says "Well, you've got a date". I was aghast. "I've set you up with someone I work with at Trader's Mart" (Trader's Mart is a long defunct want-ad kind of paper). He told me I had to go because I wouldn't be allowed to hang out at his place the next night so I reluctantly agreed.

The next day, I went with my friends Keith "Corky" Johnson and Jim Hill to Massac State Park. I sat on the bank of the Ohio River looking and thinking "What kind of idiot goes out with a girl he's never seen before?".

The hour approached and I headed out to meet her at Trader's Mart in my 1983 Trans-Am. All I knew is her name was Donna Woods and she'd be in a black Olds Cutlass.

I got there and the car was there. I watched the door open with apprehension. Out stepped the most beautiful brown haired brown-eyed girl I'd ever seen. I almost couldn't speak. I finally said "I'm Stuart, do you want to see my driver's license to prove it?". She actually laughed at my bad joke.

She wanted to go to McDonalds and eat so we did. She had a quarter pounder with cheese and I had a Big Mac. I saw some guys I knew and I think they were in shock when they saw me out with this beautiful girl.

She wanted to see Grandview USA at the Paducah Drive-In. I was glad to go there since I worked there for years each summer until I started working full-time at Martin Marietta. My boss (who recently passed away) Richard Phillips was at the ticket booth. I guess he was so shocked to see with such a pretty date that he let us in free. He also told me to go to the concession stand and get free drinks and popcorn. Donna told me later how impressed she was when I brought out drinks and a large brown bag full of buttered popcorn.

The whole date cost 5.00 (including gasoline). She even shared my frugality beliefs! I was enthralled...

The night went great and she even agreed to see me again.

The next morning as I was getting ready to go to church, my phone rang. The caller introduced himself as the "Ballard County Sheriff" and he needed to talk to me about an incident last night. The girl I had gone out with was from Ballard County. My main experiences with Ballard County were to go to the "Game Preserve" (as my Uncle James called it) to camp with my family and a visit to the "Green Palace" (which was really really Green) to watch Lone Oak play in a district basketball tournament. I remember all the kids there blew duck calls the whole game. Anyway, I thought "Oh man, she didn't make it home and now I am the last one to see her and the main suspect". It turned out that they had picked up a couple of guys I know as they came off the Wickliffe bridge and they wanted me to vouch for their identities.

For reasons I'll never understand, she kept going out with me. We've been married 28 years. She still laughs at my bad jokes. I've worked at "Martin Marietta" for over 30 years. We drove that black Olds Cutlass til it wouldn't run any more. I've lived in Ballard County for 26 years now. I still order a Big Mac when I go to McDonalds. And I couldn't be happier....

Jim Brosnan

I was doing my usual morning review of all of my news feeds in Feedly when I came across a link on the St Louis Post Dispatch web site that I had no idea about. Jim Brosnan had passed away at the age of 84. Brosnan was a pitcher for the Cubs, Cardinals, Reds and the White Sox in the 50's and 60's. However, he was much more well-known as a writer.

When I was a teenager, I used to frequent used book stores. One day, I picked up a book that looked interesting called "Pennant Race". It was a diary of the 1961 Cincinnati Reds pennant winning season chronicled by a pitcher named Jim Brosnan. It was one of the best books I ever read sports or not. It predated Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" by a decade. It was a great book for a baseball fan giving all sort of inside information about the game, player/manager relationships and some of the things that go on in baseball behind the scenes (without being vulgar like Bouton's book). I found out later that there was a previous book called "The Long Season" that chronicled Brosnan's 1959 season with the St Louis Cardinals (and after he was traded that summer) and the Cincinnati Reds. I remember checking the book out from the library. I tagged my younger brother with the nickname "Rooms" taken from Brosnan's book "Pennant Race". Brosnan called his roommate Howie Nunn that. Years later (with my original Pennant Race book long gone), I bought both books and read them over and over again. Brosnan's hope of making the 1961 All-Star game and his disappointment of not being chosen by Pirate manager Danny Murtaugh come to mind even now as the All Star teams have been selected. I have even enjoyed looking at Baseball-Reference.com to see the boxscores of the games Brosnan describes in his books and how accurate his writings really were. Brosnan was a very intelligent man mentioning numerous books he had read and being given the nickname "Professor".

Brosnan never wrote any more books like these (unfortunately). The White Sox tried to put a clause in his last contract that he not write any more such books and rather than agree to that, he retired. He stuck to writing though authoring other sports books including children's books, but none seemed anywhere near as good as these two were. He was a groundbreaker of the baseball book that is commonplace now. I'll most likely have to pull them down soon and re-read them again.

Commissioners Box...

About five years ago, I was introduced to a section of Busch Stadium that I would suggest that every Cardinal fan do at least once. I was buying tickets that year and when selecting "Best Available", I was presented with something called a "Commissioners Box". It at least looked interesting so I bought two tickets. We got the tickets in the mail in a special envelope and were pleasantly surprised to find what all came with that. First, you get a parking pass that allows you to park in the VIP parking lot right across the street from Busch Stadium. Then, you get to come in when the gates open and stand on the dirt part of the field and watch batting practice for an hour. You get a photo opportunity in the dugout. The seats were excellent. You also get food from a special menu included that is delivered to your seat for free throughout the whole game. It consists of the usual ballpark fare (hot dogs, popcorn, soda, brats, peanuts, Cracker Jack, etc). There are also other items like cotton candy, pretzels, turkey sandwiches and licorice. We loved it and every year since, I get a game with these seats.

Last year Josh and I had seats on the front row of the Commissioner boxes. It was the first time I've sat on the front row for a Cardinals game. All of us sitting on the row had to be reminded to not put things on the rail and not to lean into the field of play. We ate our fill of food plus saw the Cardinals win, so we really had a great time. This year, Donna went. We had front row seats again. They added several kinds of Ted Drewes ice cream to the menu. I had some of that of course. That added stuff like fish tacos and a crab cake, but I stuck with ballpark food. They've also added Pretzel sticks. These are the warm soft pretzel sticks you can get with either salt (me) or cinnamon and sugar (Donna). I got to see my old buddy Lance Lynn pitch again. He looked like he was going to be bad Lance by giving up two runs in the first but finally buckled down. The Cardinals were shut down until the 6th when Shane Robinson doubled in two to tie the game. The Cardinals scored single runs in the 7th and 8th. Trevor Rosenthal shut the door in the ninth and the Cardinals had a 4-2 win.

There are a few things to remember. You need to be in line when the gates open so you be on the field for batting practice. You'll see the visiting team because the Cardinals are already done with theirs. The Cardinals are not in the dugout when you get your picture taken. Finally, we ran into a different issue this year. Several very young girls would try to sneak into the section with baseballs to try and get autographs. Our servers would keep them out as best they could. I finally realized their dads were sending them down thinking they had a better shot at autographs.

These seats are expensive. Now that the Cardinals use "Dynamic Pricing", the cost can vary widely. If you go on a weekday and when they are not playing a "premium opponent", the price isn't too bad especially given what all you get. If you are a Cardinal fan, I strongly recommend you try doing this at least once.

That Scottish Place...

I was not at all surprised to see this on Yahoo Finance the other day

McDonalds profit falls

I have frequented McDonalds all my life. I remember going to my allergist in Lexington as a young boy. On the way out of town, we stopped at this restaurant they didn’t have in Paducah. It was a McDonalds. When I was at PCC, we ate multiple times a week at the McDonalds on Jackson Street. We even had one of our friend’s girlfriend bring us food to our Physics Lab. Our professor protested, so we started bringing him a Big Mac and he was OK with it then. I went on my first date with a beautiful brunette with brown eyes and she wanted to go to McDonalds. She got a Quarter Pounder with cheese and I got a Big Mac. I married that girl. The boys and I went all the time when they were growing up. I love when they have the "Rolo McFlurry".

If I couldn’t figure out where to eat when I traveled, I knew I could stop at a McDonalds and get a decent meal for a good price. Well Ladies and Gentlemen; this is no longer the case. The last several times I went to the McDonalds on Jackson Street, it took me over 15 minutes to get our food. The last time we went, I ordered a Big Mac Meal and Donna got the 2 Filet-O-Fish sandwiches for 4.00. It took 20 minutes to get our food. The man next to me grumbled “I don’t why I come back here, it always takes forever”. I certainly could empathize. I actually complained on their web site. I got a call from the local regional manager. The first thing she did was say “Well, if you have a complicated order it can take a while”. I told her what we ordered and told her that obviously wasn’t a complicated order. She finally admitted that no order should take 20 minutes. She said “we’ll certainly review our processes there”.

So, on the way to see Josh in Wisconsin, we stopped at a McDonalds at Mendota Illinois. It took over 15 minutes for us to get our food again. And, it wasn’t even that good. So, I’ve made a very tough decision. I’ve decided that we won’t be going to a McDonalds for a while. If I am going to have to wait 15 minutes or more, I may as well go to another restaurant – even a sit down restaurant. We did figure out on our way back home that this does limit where you can stop and eat. McDonalds is by far the most common restaurant you’ll see on Interstate exits.

Oh and about that reference to “that Scottish place”. It’s from the movie “Time after Time”. Malcolm McDowell plays HG Wells and has travelled to the future. He eats with Mary Steenburgen and says “Much superior to that Scottish place where I breakfasted.”. As she looks at him with confusion, she finally figures out he ate at “McDonalds”. I think I’ll try some other places to eat as well.

Miller Park

As some of you may know, Josh accepted a job with Epic Software in Madison Wisconsin and started working there in January. After helping him move in, we hadn’t been back up there since. Donna (of course) wanted to come up here every so often to see him. So, I began to plan when we’d come up. I realized that the Cardinals play in Milwaukee three times a year. So, we arranged trips to Madison around those dates.

I bought tickets to a game in each of the series in July and September. They were much easier to get and quite a bit cheaper than comparable seats at Busch Stadium. For the first series though, I went through StubHub and bought Diamond boxes. We ended up with two seats on row four right behind home plate. I got them for 75.00 each. Comparable seats at Busch would have been at least double that.

The game was on Monday, so when Josh got off work, we headed for Miller Park in Milwaukee. It’s about a one and half hour drive from Madison. Most of the drive is on I-94 and the stadium is right off the Interstate, so it’s an easy drive. Josh slept most of the way and I listened to XM radio. There was some traffic getting to the stadium, but it wasn’t horrible. Miller Park has huge parking lots by the stadium. It costs 18.00 to park next to the stadium and 10.00 to park what would be equivalent to a couple of blocks away. You can guess which option we went with. We walked to the stadium and headed inside.

The temperature outside was a cool 38 degrees, so the retractable roof was closed. It was certainly not warm inside but certainly bearable with a light jacket. Josh had brought three coats which would come in handy as you’ll see later. Our seats were as good as I hoped. We were right behind home plate behind the protective screen. It was as close as I’ve even been to a game behind home plate. I grabbed a polish sausage at the concession stand. It was OK but the price as high (as always at a MLB park). As an interesting tidbit, Miller Park is the only MLB stadium where the hot dog isn’t the top selling sandwich – it’s the bratwurst there. The crowd was of course much less than would be at Busch on a Monday. The stated attendance was 27,000 but I don’t think there were that many there.

We settled in to watch the game. Lance Lynn was pitching for the Cardinals. Most Cardinal fans know that you never know which Lance Lynn you’ll get – Good Lance or Bad Lance. The Brewers were also on a nine game winning streak and in first place ahead of the Cardinals. The prospects didn’t look really good. Both pitchers did well for the inning. In the 2nd, Cardinal shortstop Jhonny Peralta lifted a long high fly towards center field. Josh and I both thought it was “too high” but it carried over the center field fence and the Cards were up 1-0. Lance Lynn continued to pitch very well and ended up striking out 11. His only real trouble came in the 5th. He issued a two out walk and then Schafer laced a double to right. The 3rd base coach held the runner at third. I (and the Brewer’s fans around me) found this a curious decision with the pitcher coming up next. Garza then struck out to end what would be the only real threat of the night for the Brewers.

The key inning was the 6th. Matt Holliday led off with a single and then Matt Adams laced a gapper to the wall. Holliday lumbered (that’s exactly what it looked like) toward the plate. The Brewers made a great relay to the plate to nail him. With Matt Adams on 2nd, Allen Craig hit a grounder to 2nd. Their 2nd baseman made a great throw to nail Matt Adams (who appeared to not expect this) at 3rd. Peralta singled to right to set up a two on two out situation for John Jay. Jay got two strikes on him. Josh asked me what would happen next. I predicted a strikeout. Josh said “Nah, he is going to hit a home run”. I told him that there was no way John Jay would do that, he never did things like that. The words were barely out of my mouth when Jay ripped a long drive to right for a three run homer. This brought much laughter from Josh and the Brewers fans around me, but I didn’t mind at all. This pretty much sealed the deal. Lynn went 7 strong innings and Carlos Martinez threw two perfect innings to close the game – 4-0 in favor of the Cardinals.

When we got outside, it was snowing. Our car was covered in snow. Josh had brought the multiple jackets to wear so he was fine on the walk back. It was a rental car and didn’t have a scraper so I had to resort to the hack of using a card in my wallet to clean off the windows. We got out of the stadium pretty easily. The roads were a bit slick in spots – we saw several cards off the road. I took it easy and slow and we got back to his apartment about midnight. We had a great time. The Cardinals had won but the best thing was Josh and I spent a lot of time at the game just talking. That’s one of the great things about a baseball game. The environment is much better for conversation than other sports. We have tickets for July and September. I am looking forward to warmer weather and seeing what the stadium looks like with the roof rolled back.

Game One

It's been a funny season for UK basketball. There was all sorts of hype about the "greatest freshman class ever" and "40-0". This team has not really seemed to gel all season long. I attribute that to two things - no true leader emerging and point guard play. At least this year, Kentucky was going to be in the NCAA tournament. They were given what I feel was a terrible seed - an 8. I had to leave home before the entire NCAA tournament bracket was announced. Josh was watching and would text me where UK would play. I was honestly hoping for Milwaukee so we could see him. He texted me "St Louis".

You see, I bought into all this hype about the team. In October, I figured that UK would be a number one seed. The closest pod to Lexington for the first two rounds (I don't count that play-in mess) was St Louis. The closest Regional site was Indianapolis. So, I bought three tickets for each of us - for Jonathan, Josh and I to go. I even got hotel rooms in each city just in case. Well, Josh went and got a job in Madison Wisconsin so he couldn't come. Fortunately, Jonathan's fiancee' Cheyenne is a big UK fan, so she was definitely up for going. I had honestly thought that UK would never end up in St Louis, so I was ready to sell the tickets and cancel my reservations. Fortunately, everything had worked out.

So on Friday, the four of us (including Donna) headed for St Louis. We ate at Chick-Fil-a in Paducah. The trip went fine except that our usual rest stop stop at Rend Lake was closed for some reason. We got to our hotel (Pear Tree at Union Station) just fine. I had reserved two rooms and had forgotten that I had reserved suites. The rooms had plenty of space for us. The Pear Tree had also added an interesting piece to their check-in. You now have to sign a statement that you will not have a party in your room. I think that's great - some may disagree. The young lady checking me in told that if we could anything like that going on that we should let the front desk know. While we were gone to the game, Donna heard a ruckus in the hallway outside her and Cheyenne's room. When it didn't let up, she called the front desk. Within a few minutes, everything was calmed down.

The hotel has a restaurant in it called Syberg's which I've eaten at a few times. It has good food but I noted that they no longer had my go to meal of chicken fried steak. I settled for a bacon cheeseburger. I just got the food to go and we ate in one of the suites. We decided to leave when we were done so we could catch the Wichita State game before the Kentucky game. The games were at the Scottrade Center (where the Blues play). The walk from the hotel was no problem, it only took about ten minutes. We conversed with a couple who were there to see Wichita State play. When we got to the arena, there was a huge crowed waiting to get in. They appeared to have only one main entrance open. The Wichita State game had already started by the time we got in. That was not a big deal for us but it was to the many Wichita State fans waiting to get in. We finally got in and headed for our seats.

It turned out we had floor seats in the end zone. We were really close. Jonathan even remarked "you can see the players sweat from here!". We settled in and watched Wichita State blow out Cal-Poly. Wichita State had a lot of fans there, even more than Kentucky. We watched the Kansas State Band file in and sit immediately in front of us. They were entertaining to watch. Their signature song seemed to be "Wabash Cannonball". I always thought Wabash was in Indiana? They did some sort of wild gyrations each time they played the song. Jonathan actually did it along with them once earning a laugh from the security guard. The Kansas State mascot is a Wildcat. It is however, a wildcat head with a human body. It lead me to ask "Can't they afford a whole costume like we can?". He was quite animated and did a good job.

The game began with Andrew Harrison going to the free throw line to shoot two free throws. The acoustics were absolutely terrible and you couldn't hear anything the announcer was saying. I found out later from Donna that a Kansas State walk-on had dunked in warm-ups which you cannot do within 20:00 on the clock. The game got going and it was very physical. It was one of those games that frustrate me to no end. For a while, nothing was a foul than everything was a foul. Kansas State had a big power forward who continually bulled his way to the basket and wasn't whistled for a foul until the end of the game. Kentucky got up by as many as twelve and Kansas State whittled the lead down to six by the half. They nailed a three to cut the lead to three. Kentucky would get a small run and Kansas State would come back. They got a close as two but never could climb all the way back. Kentucky finally got up by 13 with about a minute to go. Kansas State got a turnover and a couple of threes (one double pump three) and got the lead down to six, but UK ended up winning by seven. Julius Randle had another double-double to lead the way.

We got back to the hotel about 11:30pm. It took me a little time to wind down but I finally did and went to bed. We got up that morning and made it back home without incident.

Now Kentucky gets the undefeated Wichita State Shockers. Can they win? They'll have to play a lot better than they did against Kansas State.

Trivia...

I have always had an interest in trivia. I love to read at any opportunity I get and I learn all sorts of trivia. I’ve loved the TV show Jeopardy even from the Art Fleming days. I was thrilled with the release of the game Trivial Pursuit in the early 1980s. I played many a game of that with my friends. Both Jonathan and Joshua participated on the Academic Teams at Ballard Middle and Ballard Memorial. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous. They never had anything like this when I was their age and I would have loved it.

I have noticed over the past few years the increasing occurrence of trivia nights or games by various groups usually for charity. I’ve never participated in one until recently. My work colleague and friend John Witte invited me to a trivia contest that was to benefit the Challenger Learning center. I accepted the invitation having no idea what to expect. I arrived to a packed room that I later found out had 43 teams of six each. I saw my friend (and legal counsel) Chuck Walter. He had the boys former teacher (and A-Team coach) Steve Quartermous on his team (who we call to this day Mr. Q). I knew that was going to be a formidable team and they ended up winning. Our team finished fourth which I thought was really good.

Here’s the basic format. Each team has six to eight members. There are ten rounds of ten questions each. Each ten question set follows a theme like Sports, History or even more specific categories like 70’s Music or Paducah Trivia. A narrator reads the question which also appears on a screen. You write down your answers on a sheet of paper. Some contests also allow you to have mulligans. These allow you to mark a question with a “mulligan” which means it will automatically be counted correct. You are given a minute or so after the questions are read to turn in your paper. The team with the most correct answers wins. You have to make a guess before you start as to how many questions you’ll get right, this serves as the tiebreaker.

Last week, Chuck called me to invite me to play on a team he was getting together. It was a benefit for the New Pathways Children’s Home (which I am familiar with) that was held at Broadway church of Christ. I was all for it this time and agreed to be there. This one didn’t charge an entry fee. You made a donation for the Children’s Home. With this donation, you got five “mulligans” to use. We started and did pretty well. We thought the questions here were a bit tougher than the previous trivia tournament we were in. I was able to contribute some answers so I felt good about that. We got to the final round with a three point lead and the final category was “Technology”. Of course, the pressure was on me to come through on that one. We got enough answers right to end up winning. We ended up getting a trophy made appropriately enough of “Smarties”. It’s what you see above.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed participating in these and hope to get the opportunity to do some more.