If you have read a few of my recent posts, you know that I have written about my family’s departure from Hawaii on our way to Tacoma en route to North Dakota and the East Coast. I was ultimately headed to the East Coast to Fort Lee, Virginia to attend the Logistics Executive Development Course. The stops in Tacoma and North Dakota were to visit relatives. Oh yeah, the stop in North Dakota was also to retrieve my red Chevy van. You may have read my post about the really rough landing that my luggage experienced. To be brutally honest, my luggage was beat to hell. My luggage looked like it had been beaten by a bunch of gangbangers with chains and clubs to within an inch of its life. Well, after I settled all of the claims for my lost, damaged, and destroyed luggage with the airline and the Army, my family and I relaxed and enjoyed some vacation time with our relatives. The last thing on the agenda while we were in Tacoma was to celebrate my son’s birthday. After we had celebrated my son’s birthday and visited all of our friends and relatives that would see us and visit with us, we decided it was time to head for North Dakota. We got to North Dakota without a hitch or an itch for that matter. But there were a few hiccups. For example, my brother Jethro was supposed to show up to pick my family and I up at the airport. Well, that didn’t happen. Then, my brother Ron picked my family and I up and we stayed at his house for a couple of days. We went to the county fair where I got trapped on the zipper with my niece. Yay. Then we went to my parents’ house to pick up my red Chevy van so that we could travel to Minneapolis and on to Fort Lee, Virginia. Of course, we couldn’t leave my parents’ house without first hauling off some of their unwanted trash. Naturally, they gave it to us in the form of “gifts.” You just gotta love it. Gift horses. Ain’t they the shit? Well, we arrived at my brother Craig’s house in Minneapolis (well, actually, Champlin, Minnesota) and hung out with my brother and his wife. We took them to dinner at a restaurant that evening. The next day, my brother Craig and I took my family to a Minnesota Twinkies game. Now, if you remember from my previous story, the Minnesota Twins are affectionately known by the locals as the Minnesota Twinkies. And, my brother Craig worked on the Metro grid for Northern States Power. Coincidentally, the Metrodome, which no longer exists (by the way), was located on the Metro grid. What is a Metro grid? Well, a metro grid is basically an electrical power distribution system for a greater metropolitan area of the city. As a result, he was able to park in the substation next to the Metrodome for free. He took my family and I to the game early so that we could attend batting practice. When we showed up for batting practice, there was practically nobody in the entire stadium. There were maybe fifteen people in the entire stadium. Most of them were sitting well-spaced out in the near outfield. The closest people to us, other than this old spinster who was busy knitting, were about 100 feet away. My brother Craig assured my kids that they would catch some flyballs that were hit into the stands. Oops. There was just one small little problem. My brother didn’t bother to bring any baseball mitts. And my baseball mitt and my daughters baseball mitt were in our household goods that were being shipped from Korea. Thus, I didn’t have any baseball mitts. I thought my brother was going to bring some baseball mitts to catch the balls. But did he? Oh, hell no. And every damn ball that was hit in our direction seemed to be hit straight toward the little old spinster who was knitting in the bleachers behind us. And I will be goddamned if that eighty-year-old grandma didn’t catch every single one of the flyballs that was hit in her direction. She was knitting in the bleachers, mind you. I don’t know how in the hell she saw those balls coming. I think she had one of those little spy receivers stuck in her ear. You know the kind. The kind that the Secret Service wears with the little wire that runs down the back of their neck. And I think that every time a ball was about to be hit in our direction, somebody would radio to that little old lady and say, “Get ready it’s on the way.” Otherwise, how in the hell did she know exactly when a ball was headed in our direction? It was just totally weird. My kids, who could normally run 100 miles an hour, were outfoxed by an eighty-year-old spinster wearing Coke bottle glasses who was knitting in the bleachers. As a result, they didn’t get a single got-damn baseball. And of course, it was all my fault that they didn’t get a single got-damn ball. Forget the fact that that eighty-year-old spinster probably just happened to be the mother or grandmother of one of the players on the team. And every time she caught a ball, she just dropped it into her knitting bag and kept right on knitting. She was probably knitting a blanket for her precious boy who is out there playing baseball to keep him warm at night. Not only that, but she also probably got into the game free. That really sucked. Well, on the bright side. I did successfully replace my Minnesota Twinkies baseball cap that I had left hanging on that hat rack in that restaurant in Jinhae, Korea. And other than the fact that my kids didn’t catch any flyballs during batting practice, we enjoyed a nice baseball game without any other exercises in futility.
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