I’m glad to report that the turtle (the size of one of my hubcaps – and I’m truly NOT kidding) which was crossing east to west Rt 83 today, made it successfully across the road. For those of you familiar with this road between Midlothian and Hawley, you understand the amount of traffic on this road at any given time of day and what a remarkable thing it was to not be hit. Outside of sea turtles, this was the largest turtle I’ve ever seen in the wild. It cost me a warning ticket since I got out of my car and held up traffic in order for it to pass. One of Lake County’s finest was in the northbound lane waiting, but it was SO worth it. It was simply an amazing thing to see at a moment I wasn’t expecting it as I was lost in thought about other things that seemed vastly more important. Isn’t life just like that sometimes? As I was watching it lumber along, singularly focused on reaching the swamp on the other side and oblivious to all that were waiting, the thought crossed my mind that sometimes our burdens and perils pale in perspective to others. It was a timely message, at least for me and just wanted to share it.” -end–

This store’s a couple of miles out from the city center, about equidistant from the governor’s mansion and the hood. Put it this way, there’s a bakery next door, a small-engine shop down the block, and a Jaguar dealer across the street.

I go there because I don’t get any wine-seller attitude, no strange terminology, none of that I-am-an-anointed-sophisticate-and-you-are-laughably-ignorant business that wine snobs and fly fishermen… pardon me, fly fishers… seem to enjoy. They sell a lot of remainders and odd lots by price; I just stroll in, look at the shelf that fits my situation (three for $10.99, $15, or $21), pick out some interesting labels, and stock up. Some of what they have I’ve seen in other stores at four or five times the price, some I wouldn’t clean paintbrushes with, but you take your chances.

Most baseball parks used to be idiosyncratic but over time they’ve all been replaced with soulless monstrosities filled with corporate boxes.

What made Tiger Stadium such a great stadium was that seating began almost ontop the playing field while the upper deck offered such a great view it was better than television. The downside to all this was that the numerous support poles in the lower deck area created a lot of obstructed-view seats. But as long as you knew where they were and bought tickets early you could avoid these seats. The park itself was a marvel with close in walls in Right Field but endless depths in Center Field. If you played the field right it was a hitter’s paradise. If you couldn’t work the corners you were an easy out.

But it’s all over. They’re tearing down the press box, itself a wonderful place were foul tips could bean the broadcaster. I liked the plan of tearing off the upper deck and convert the stadium into an exhibition field for school and college level playing. But there was no money for it. The place will be scrapped clean and left till someday an investor wants it. Pigs will fly before that happens. There’s a lot of crap – buildings – which have been given historic designations. A lot I couldn’t care less about. Tiger Stadium, how ever, was other keeping.

(Except, maybe, for the restrooms where there were no urinals, only a horse trough to pee into.)

I wanted to add my two cents’ worth re: bad neighbors, upthread a ways.

Tonight got a delightful earful from the head of a household I avoid like the plague because they’re dysfunctional, ask prying questions and are much too presumptuous in all regards. I manage to keep them at arm’s length for the most part, just by being short with them and cussing gratuitously. Well, the unemployed alcoholic freeloader who’s been crashing there the last few months hadn’t been doing any chores. So they were on his case and he got on the riding mower and took a few laps, taking out a driveway reflector in the process. Head of household is near blind, probably fairly deaf and most certainly what I would call dumb. One time he crashed a vehicle through a showroom window when he took it in for service. Watching him back out is always delightful, reflectors or no, because he’s senescent as hell and doesn’t know what he’s doing. Except, evidently, when he’s got a bug up his butt, because he outright bragged that he retaliated for the mangled reflector by crashing his minivan into the freeloader’s Jeep, ha, ha, ha. So this is the backstory of the screaming matches and people storming off burning rubber that I had to endure on an otherwise lovely Sunday afternoon. And from quite afar, I might add.

Another thing I like about Ebert is the way he pops in and out of comments, like Nancy does. I don’t read commenters on other blogs besides these two, I’ve tried others but they don’t hold my interest.