Prologue
I realize that a lot of you are very busy, so here is a quick summary of our trip:
Four of us went. We range in age from 38 to 39. (We are a narrow demographic. Or is it a cohort? I forget.)
We saw baseball games in Rochester, Harrisburg, Reading, Baltimore, Frederick, Altoona and Erie.
We endured heat, rain, bugs and Americans.
Pennsylvania has a lot of trees.
We don't ever want to live in the United States.
There. If Junior is threatening to put the butter knife into the living room wall socket again, or if your boss is telling you to get back to maximizing shareholder value, you now know all the important bits of our trip.
For details, please continue...
June 13, 1999 - Rochester, New York
Since we are all not as young as we used to be (who is?), and at least two of us are tall people with occasional problems with lower back pain, our vehicle of choice for this trip is a Ford Windstar with four captain's chairs. Hey, you only go around once in this life.
The Ford Windstar has many modern conveniences to delight the demanding traveller. I list them here:
Two cigarette lighters.
Individual fan controls for the front and back seats. (Okay, the back seat controls don't work, but it's the thought that counts.)
Separate car stereo volume controls for front and back.
Reading lights in the back seat, which can be used to surprise, irritate and/or blind the unsuspecting driver.
Not one but two recessed sunglass holders.
And, last but not least: cupholders. At least four adjustable cupholders, and possibly more. We may not have found them all. There are cupholders seated in dashboards, nestled in door handles, and concealed in seat arms. New cupholders would often appear from nowhere when least expected (i.e. when trying to get out of the van).
I am convinced that in the unlikely event of a multi-vehicle temporal anomaly (i.e. a crash), the van would cushion its occupants by deploying cupholders instead of air bags.
Our routes takes us down the QEW to Fort Erie. We encounter approximately 3000 bad drivers on the way; the low total was due to it being a Sunday morning. On the way, we pass the Oakville Ford plant, which is officially designated "The Home of the Windstar". It is our van's equivalent of Snoopy's Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. Our van's ancestral home is filled with thousands and thousands of minivans just like ours, all of whom will no doubt be snapped up by eager Tory-voting suburbanites. (You have your prejudices, I have mine.)
America is eager to welcome us into its bosom. There is no toll on the bridge to the U.S., and the customs officer at the border doesn't even ask to see our birth certificates. Do they know something?
Because we don't have any days with long driving distances to cover, we can afford to take scenic routes. This means that today we can travel on the Lake Ontario State Parkway instead of Interstate 90. (I-90 is the most boring road I've ever seen.) "Scenic", in this case, means:
the lake;
er, more of the lake;
still more of the lake;
some really nice houses that overlooked the lake.
The Lake Ontario State Parkway is virtually deserted. The only other occupants are cyclists, who seem to think nothing of travelling dozens of miles on a hot spring day. (These are the only fitness-conscious Americans we see on the entire trip.) We pass a pioneer cemetery, the American Mission For Opening Churches (use the doorknob, Padre), and Lewiston, Home of the Peach Festival.
Dave B remarks that he hasn't seen any American flags yet. This is kind of startling, as they are everywhere; I don't know how he missed them. We spend the next two hours pointing them out, until he tells us to stop already.
Billboard:
STILL HURTING FROM AN ABORTION?
1-888-9-RACHEL
We arrive in time for a late lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, a restaurant in a local mall. There are free beverage refills, a well-stocked salad bar, and a very friendly waitress named Joelle who seemed to actually enjoy talking to us. (As opposed to being professionally pleasant because your job forces you to.) She asked us to think of her while at the game. Cheers.
Another billboard:
We need to talk - God.
We reach the ballpark at high noon, well before game time. Rochester is the world headquarters of the Eastman Kodak Co., who own much of Rochester, including the ballpark parking lot.
Inside, it is hot. Very hot. The scoreboard thermometer starts off at 95, and peaks at 97 just before game time. It's so hot that the ink from the plastic bag I am carrying leaks all over my arms, my legs and my nice new pair of khaki shorts. Stupid me - I forgot that you always have to turn bags inside out in hot weather. Rats.
The game featured three interesting promotional ideas:
Each fan is given a designated player to root for. If your player hits a home run, you win a pizza. Our man was Tommy Davis. He didn't come through.
An Oreo stacking contest. Two fans were led out to a table set up at home plate. They were told to stack Oreos into a single column, and to race against each other to see who could get the highest stack. The winner got to eat all the Oreos. (I made that last part up.)
Before the game, Derrick May, a Rochester player, signed autographs with a Bic pen. Bic is apparently the official autograph pen of the Rochester Red Wings. (You will also be delighted to know that Munro Ambulance is the official ambulance of the Rochester Red Wings.)
The only highlight of the game was that I missed an opportunity to grab a foul ball. It ricocheted off the upper deck and bounced down the stairs right beside me. Unfortunately, I turned the wrong way and missed it. Rob bugged me about this for the rest of the game.
My notes for this game include the following: "C'mon Calvin - a little Pokey-Hokey!" I have no idea what this means.
After the game, we drove twoards Corning, New York. We passed Triphammer Road and Presbyterian Road, and I spotted my first kudzu of the trip the curse of the South).
We ate at Boomers in Corning. The menu featured smothered chicken, fried chicken, tortured chicken, and chicken put to death painlessly by lethal injection. You could also order two sizes of steak: an Andrew (12 to 16 oz.) or a Nicole (6 to 8 oz.). Burp.
June 14, 1999 - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Our journey today took us into Pennsylvania, which seems to consist entirely of forest. The locals probably can't grasp the concept of deforestation in the Amazon, since they can't imagine a region running short on trees. Nor can they imagine gas shortages: gas is $1.02 a gallon here. Wow, that's cheap. Everybody around here drives with the air-conditioning on in summer, including us. Climate change doesn't seem real, somehow.
And along Route 15, Pennsylvania is ripping apart the countryside to make room for yet another freeway. Sigh. America loves its cars.
In unrelated news, we bought Happy Ice this morning, and passed by Scoogie's Dairyland and Clyde Peeling's Reptiland.
Road signs:
BRIDGE MAY BE ICY LIBERTY TOWNSHIP - PERMITS REQUIRED
This last seems to be Unclear On The Concept. We also passed a KFC all-you-can-eat buffet, conveniently located right next door to a U-Haul outlet, as well as Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium, which turned out to be a football stadium.
Other notes:
There is a copy of the Statue of Liberty in Dauphin, PA.
The Susquehanna River is very wide and very shallow.
Three separate radio stations were broadcasting Rush Limbaugh.
Every motel in the neighbourhood offers AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) discounts.
We arrived in York in the early afternoon. We have enough time for me to go for a walk. I set out even though there's a light drizzle out; hey, I'm tough, I can take it. But then it starts raining harder, and harder, and still harder. And harder than that, even. It turns into a downpour, and then past downpour into torrential. After a while, I just think of it as a mobile shower - once you're soaked, you can't get any wetter. I get back to my hotel room, and change my clothes completely. At that moment, the rain stops. Hmph.
The ballpark in Harrisburg is located on an island in the middle of the river. It's a beautiful park, and we have seats right in the front row on the first-base side. Many of us order some Riverside Red, which is some of the nicest beer I've ever consumed. Life is good.
Today's promotion offers a lucky fan a choice between a large box and a small box. He chooses the small box, and wins a partially-eaten birthday cake. Yum.
In the late innings, we discover the disadvantage of locating a ballpark on an island. Islands mean swamp, and swamp means bugs. By the seventh inning, mayflies are buzzing everywhere. They get in your eyes, your clothes, your food, and your hair. By the end of the game, every step crunches dozens of bug corpses, and the squishing sound is relentless. I liked the park, but I will never go back.
My new favourite baseball name is Kelcey Mucker (the home team's DH). And the club's first baseman, Tommy Peterman, desperately needs a tailor - he has the worst pants in baseball. They look like they're three sizes too large for him. He'll never make the majors looking like that.
Quote from the day from Rob, after a small child outruns the club mascot in a between-innings promotion: "If I didn't believe in the integrity of mascot races, I'd think that race was fixed."
June 15, 1999 - Reading, Pennsylvania
Our temporary home base in York is close enough to Reading to leave us with most of the day to ourselves. We spent the morning playing catch in a high-school field. I still have the worst throwing arm of the four of us.
In the afternoon, I walk into York. I pass Prospect Hill Cemetery, which dates back to 1742. The cemetery is so old that many of the oldest gravestones are in German. (The oldest date I could distinguish dates to 1826. This seems recent by comparison, until you realize that this is 41 years older than Canada.)
Downtown York is boring, and inordinately proud of its age. The buildings have been carefully, almost fussily, preserved. On the way back, I pass the poor part of town: here, the sidewalks have been dug up for repairs and then filled in with gravel. The moral: location is everything.
One saving grace of York is that I did find a cool deli to eat lunch in, though.
In the late afternoon, we get back in the van to drive to Reading. We figured there'd be no problem finding the park. We didn't realize that the highways in Reading are so complicated. There's Route 322, Route 222, Business Route 322, Business Route 222, Route 422, and so on and so on. That sounds confusing, and it is. We miss our turnoff twice before finding the right route.
We eat dinner at the Stadium Restaurant. The food is mushy. The menu features pictures of stadiums (stadia?). One of the pictures is of the SkyDome. Home!
The game features a promotion I've never seen before: Bingo Night. Each fan is given a card with bingo numbers on it. Each number corresponds to a possible play in the game: for example, if the right fielder hits a ground ball to the opposing second baseman, this might be G 46. After a slow start, I get four in a row - one more, and I win bingo and valuable prizes. (Well, maybe a T-shirt or something - the important thing is that I win.) Unfortunately, I can only get the final winning number if the catcher hits a triple. And Reading's catcher, Clemente Alvarez, doesn't look like he has much speed.
But, late in the game, Alvarez hits a ball up the right-field gap. Alvarez rounds first. He gets up a full head of steam towards second. I rise out of my seat and wildly cheer him on. Alvarez rounds second, with thoughts of going on to glory - and then stops! The lazy slacker! Loudly, I urged Alvarez to eat his Wheaties, do more wind sprints in future, and hustle, for God's sake. Sheesh.
June 16, 1999 - Baltimore, Maryland
As we drive south to Baltimore, we pick up a radio preacher advising his flock to invest in oil in Israel. (The reference is Revelation 9:1, if you're interested in Biblical investment advice.)
As we approach Baltimore, the sign reads:
Camden Yards Exits 5 Through 1 Have You Considered Light Rail?
We should have realized that parking was going to be tricky but, naively, we continue on. After all, we've been told that there is plenty of parking near the park.
Unfortunately, this is an afternoon game, which means that all of the plentiful parking is occupied by commuters. We drive for an hour, searching for a spot. Harry, behind the wheel, gets crabbier and crabbier, and who can blame him - stop light delays on Baltimore streets are about twice as long as their Toronto equivalents, and there are plenty of them.
Eventually, we find a parking lot with plenty of space available. We soon find out why there's plenty of space - it's a pay lot, and there's no attendant on duty. After half an hour of searching for an attendant, we wind up driving to the train station. From there, we take a cab to the waterfront and the park, stopping at the same stop lights again on the way. That's how we spent our morning.
Baltimore harbour has been restored, and now is a spanking new tourist trap. The newly remodeled buildings are a Hard Rock Cafe, an ESPN headquarters, and - joy! - a bookstore (Barnes and Noble). The unusual prominence of a bookstore may be because Baltimore bills itself as The City That Reads; we don't particularly care about the motivation, as we're just happy to see the bookstore. (Many of us need books almost as much as we need food.)
Camden Yards, the Baltimore ballpark, is nice, but not as wonderful as we'd heard it was. True, it does have natural grass, a view of the local skyline, and an old-style clock on the scoreboard. But the plaza behind the park, between the restored warehouse and the outfield fence, is only accessible to ticket-holders, the park atmosphere is vaguely corporate, and the fans only applaud when the scoreboard tells them to. But, to be fair, the food is really good: you can buy barbecued sandwiches at Boog's, next to the warehouse, and their turkey sandwich is one of the most wonderful taste experiences of my life. (And the others tell me that the food at Babe's is even better. It boggles the mind.)
The game was pretty good, but I would have enjoyed it more if the Orioles weren't playing. I am not exceptionally fond of the Orioles.
After the game, Harry accidentally drives the wrong way on a one-way street, which scares the living daylights out of him.
June 17, 1999 - Frederick, Maryland
Breakfast today is at Denny's. (Breakfast many days is at Denny's.) We all eat gargantuan meals: Grand Slams, Lumberjack Slams, Farmer's Slams, Coronary Slams. The cholesterol consumed is enough to kill several laboratory rats. Many of today's breakfast products are manufactured by Rutter's: "the name you grew up with."
Our route today takes through bits of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. We pass the following establishments on the way:
Dick's Macaw World Heather Mee's Honey Bee - Gifts and Whatnot
along with my favourite:
Sigafoose Chiropractic Life Center
Today, we have time to stop at Gettysburg, the site of one of the Civil War's most memorable battles. At the time of the war, Gettysburg was a sleepy little town of about 1000 people. It was overrun for three days by hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides, who fought house-to-house battles and fired millions of shots at each other. The fighting was so fierce that, even today, Civil War bullets are not exactly rare antiques: the Gettysburg souvenir store was selling them in open boxes by the counter for a dollar each. The rain of bullets was so thick that Union bullets frequently collided with Confederate bullets in mid-air; I found this difficult to believe until I saw a pair of them, fused together, on display in the museum.
Rob said that Gettysburg would be more enjoyable if it was clothing-optional.
After passing through Jefferson County (A Certified Business Location), and recrossing the Susquehanna (3'2" deep, or so it seems), we arrive at the ballpark. Today is Stark Farm Night at the park, and the game proceeds along quite zippily, due to the absence of hits, runs or any other offensive behaviour. The teams go through four innings in 52 minutes, and six innings in 1:29. (It normally takes three hours or more to complete a game.)
During the game, the PA announcer calls out seat locations; the lucky occupants are prize winners. We win a dinner for two (Saturday night only) at a local restaurant, but don't realize it until a man in the next section points it out to us. Since we're leaving town, we give the prize to the man. (Sometimes goodness is rewarded. Well, occasionally. Okay, just this once.)
My new all-time favourite baseball name, supplanting Kelcey Mucker, is Esix Snead. He is leading the league in stolen bases.
During the seventh-inning stretch, fans aren't asked to stand and sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", as usually happens, but are instead asked to wave their keys in the air to support their hometown Frederick Keys.
After the game, two stadium staff are handing out schedules outside the park entrance. One is a cute young woman, who tells me that she and the other staff member (not female and cute) are in a contest to see who can give out the most schedules. An idea strikes us both: she starts handing me dozens of schedules, one at a time (you've got to follow the rules), thus rigging the contest in her favour. What the heck.
June 18, 1999 - Altoona, Pennsylvania
Today's radio surfing turns up another obnoxious on-air personality; I didn't catch his name, but you can call him at 1-800-655-MIKE. His topic today was the relationship between a 21-year-old 95-pound woman and her spouse, a 750-pound 41-year-old man who had just won the lottery. This relationship, and its motives, seemed to outrage 1-800-655-Mike, who hasn't quite grasped the concept of "mind your own business". (Which is why he is a syndicated radio show host, of course.)
I've been five days in America now, and my vowels are now starting to twang, as if they have a will of their own. I can't stop them. I'm a little frightened: is it possible to lose one's Canadian identity in less than a week?
Today's route takes us through some hilly side roads in West Virginia. Lots of hills. Harry says it's like driving in a video game. Even though we are in the middle of nowhere, the houses look well-kept, and the people look prosperous. Almost everybody has a satellite dish (so that they can pick up ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Classic, sugar-free ESPN, and caffeine-free diet ESPN). That's what a strong currency will do for you, I suppose.
The gas stations in these parts are named Sheetz.
Bumper stickers on nearby car:
Ban Guns - Make The Streets Safe For A Government Takeover Get Them Out Of The UN - Bring Our Boys Home
Something tells me that this man is not likely to emigrate to Canada.
After driving on the Bud Shuster By-Way and the Bud Shuster Highway, we reach Altoona. The ballpark is within walking distance of our motel, so we have plenty of time to look around. I decide to go for a long walk.
Walking in Altoona proves more difficult than I realized, as none of the main streets have sidewalks. (No one in America walks anywhere unless they have to - that's what cars are for.) Some of the side streets have sidewalks, but strictly on a house-by-house basis, depending on the preferences of individual home owners. Some houses are fronted by old sidewalks that haven't been maintained in over a generation, and have been lifted and cracked by decades of frosty winters until they look like miniature mountain ranges. Other houses have perfectly-maintained sidewalks that lead absolutely nowhere, as the next-door neighbours haven't bothered to build any. America can be a strange place at times.
At dinner at the Olive Garden (harmless Italian food), a waitress upends a plate of macaroni and cheese into the hair of an unfortunate diner. I'll bet she got less than the standard gratuity.
The Altoona ballpark features a spanking new, immaculate parking lot - which is reserved for VIP's, and thus is off-limits to us.
We have good seats in the lower deck, with a view of an ancient roller-coaster behind the right-field fence. The only bad thing about the seats was the annoying fans behind us, including one loud, obnoxious person named Randy who shouts "hey batter batter batter" the whole time.
Game notes:
During the game, the umpires made a bad call on a double play, and the PA system started playing "Liar" by Three Dog Night. They would never have gotten away with that in the big leagues.
If you think life is going badly for you, consider the plight of Brian McLamb. McLamb, at game time, was hitting .050. First time up, he hit a line shot to left-center field, but was robbed by a leaping grab by the center fielder. Sometimes, life is not fair.
Announcement: "To the person who lost the Rolex watch: the time is now 9:12."
June 19, 1999 - Erie, Pennsylvania, and then home
On our way to breakfast, we spot the following sign in front of a bowling establishment:
Bowl in Pro-Am Get a sledge hammer
One can only assume that they have their finger on the pulse of their paying public.
Our route today takes us through the Allegheny National Forest. The forest's official slogan, as displayed at the park entrance, is "Land of Many Uses". Oh, thank goodness - all of these trees have a practical, functional reason for being. For a minute there, I thought they were just beautiful or something. But then, there are rather a lot of trees, and I am kind of sick of them. Maybe they have a point.
We eat lunch at another Ruby Tuesday's, for the sake of closure. This Ruby's also has a salad bar and free drink refills. Some things in America are good.
Using Dave's wonderfully non-deterministic directions, we find our way to the park. As usual, we have seats 7 through 10. We always have seats 7 through 10. We are 7 through 10 type of people.
The Erie ballpark looks like it's going to be a hitter-friendly venue: it's only 312 feet to the left-field corner, and 350 feet to the wall in left-center. (Normal values are 330 and 380.) Of course, the game turns out to be a pitcher's duel. It takes less than two hours to get to the bottom of the eighth. Not that any of us are complaining - we all want to go home.
Today's in-game promotion features the human dot race: two people are dressed in gigantic foam-padded costumes that make them look like giant dots, and are told to race each other to win a valuable prize. Today's entrants are a married couple racing against one another who aren't taking the contest too seriously. They spend most of their time trying to trip one another up and get in one another's way. I predict a long future of wedded bliss for the two of them (honestly).
Erie is an Anaheim Angels farm club, and their shortstop tonight is Gary DiSarcina, who is down from the big club on a rehab assignment. You can tell he is a big leaguer because he looks like one - he's cut half-moons out of his outer socks so that part of his inner white sanitary socks are showing. Minor leaguers don't go to that much trouble to try to make themselves look good out there.
On the way home, the four of us sit quietly in the dark, listening to a Brian Eno various tape and marvelling at the Robert Fripp guitar solos. When we cross the border, we all take a deep breath and relax, and we feel as if a giant weight has been lifted off our shoulders. It's good to be back home.
One thing a week in America has taught me: people who claim that there aren't any real differences between Canada and the United States are lying. The differences between the two countries are subtle and hard to spot, but they are there. It's like a camera that's just a little bit out of focus - you don't know quite what is wrong, but it's enough to drive you nuts. The United States of America is a nice place to visit, but I never want to live there.