Road Trip: Take the long way home

     It was time to leave Omaha and we were driving in a different route than the one that brought us to Omaha as we would be dipping south through Kansas, driving across Missouri, and into southern Illinois before rejoining our original route in Indiana which would take us across Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania briefly and then home.

We were taking this route for two reasons.

First, it allowed Cherie and I to add Kansas to the visited states list and to visit the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library.

Earlier in the trip, we had considered day trip drives to the Truman Library on one day and the Eisenhower on another but we decided to do the Eisenhower version on the way home as it was a little farther away than the Truman Library.

This would be a fortunate decision as the path to the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, turned out to be one filled with two-lane highways and lonesome towns, and I'm sure that I would not have enjoyed that trip a second time to return to the hotel!

Roughly three hours later, we arrived in Abilene and the Eisenhower Library.

The Eisenhower Library isn't a one-building unit as in the Truman version; rather, it's like a college campus with separate buildings holding the library, museum, boyhood home, a building holding Mr. and Mrs. Eisenhower's graves, and the gift shop.

The gift shop is the first building that you see and is the closest to the parking lot, so after taking a look around there, we walked across the campus to the museum, where we were greeted warmly by someone inside, welcoming us.

As I moved around the museum, I recalled that there had been a few renovations through the years and even though the renovations were fairly recent, it felt a little dated which was odd since the Truman Library is actually a few years older.

The exhibits weren't old, the facility just had a dated feel to it, and I couldn't shake why it did.

After the tour, we took the above photo of the statue located in the middle of campus and walked towards the front area, considering a tour of the boyhood home but we didn't want to wait for the tour and moved to the building with the President and First Lady's tomb.

This was where things really felt dated and the building had the smell that you sometimes have when you move into buildings that are filled with old items.

I found the musty smell a bit overwhelming and left quickly for the gift shop, where I bought a magnet and a few items for others and escaped back to the road.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that I was disappointed with the Eisenhower Library, that would be a stretch but while I would consider visiting the Truman (and maybe the Hoover) Library again in a few years, I'm not sure that I would need to return to Abilene to visit again.

We moved toward Kansas City, with our only stop at a rest area McDonald's for a box of Chicken McNuggets that Cherie and I split, passing by Topeka, Lawrence, and Manhattan ( home to the University of Kansas and Kansas State).

Traffic was a bit tight in Kansas City for a while, which stymied our plans to stop and eat, but we did drive by Kemper Arena (the home of the old Kings and Scouts), Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs, and Kaufman Stadium, the home of the Royals.

From the interstate, we could look directly into Kaufman and peer into the field.

Kansas City is reportedly moving toward a new facility in either downtown Kansas City (Ugh) or another interstate-friendly park across the state line into Kansas, so if I ever make this trip again, I have Kaufman marked down as a priority!

After we crossed over Kansas City, we stopped at our third Brass Armadillo and I found a Kansas basketball program from 1986 and a few things to put back for Christmas.

The most interesting thing at this Brass Armadillo was this "delightful" statue of Oscar the Grouch,
which is not only strange, but it's incredibly creepy looking!

It was about five feet tall and at $295.00 was quite a steal (sarcasm included)

We decided to hold off on eating again to get as far as possible before it got dark in an attempt to leave Missouri for the night and we managed to do that as we finished our day in Greenville, Illinois at a Comfort Inn with a takeout from a nearby Domino's.

We took our time the next day, moving across Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, before stopping in St. Clairsville Ohio for the night.

I might have been able to make it home with a little under four hours to go but the sun was starting to go down and as I would have been getting tired, we would have reached the longest, darkest, and most desolate part of the trip, so we decided to stop for the night.

We walked around the mall that is on-site with the hotel, ate lunch at Quaker Steak & Lube, and finished our trip in the afternoon, arriving home with a waiting Rachel and Posey.

It was the longest trip that I had ever taken in miles and the second longest amount of time away from my house in my life and I'd like to thank Cherie for putting up with me and having such a good time together, Ryan and his family for welcoming us and all of their logistical help, and to Rachel for staying home and taking care of our Posey.

So, three months after it's over, I've noted everything for posterity.

My grandson is now over three months old, and something might come as a surprise to you.

It's hard enough being away from your family in these times when communication is easier and cheaper than it has ever been since the beginning of time.

You can pick up the phone and pay the same amount to call anywhere in North America, and it costs the same as calling your next-door neighbor.

With the internet getting better and faster daily, visual communication is also easier and cheaper than in any time known to man.

And I can only imagine the difficulties in timely communication at any other time, so I feel somewhat fortunate.

Yet, it feels somewhat strange to me.

It doesn't feel real.

I love getting Archie's pictures and updates, and Ryan has been excellent at keeping us informed and as involved as we can be.

But it still doesn't quite feel different, and maybe it shouldn't, I'm not sure.

It'll be an interesting journey, and we are barely out of the starting gate.

Now that the Omaha series is completed, I'll try to write a bit over the next month or so on my two baseball trips of length (Ohio and Tennessee) and maybe my day trip to Somerset New Jersey for the AA Patriots.

Hope you enjoyed reading this series. 

Cleaning out the inbox- Non-Sports Passings

The passings list in the inbox continues to grow and in this edition, we will be (mostly) sticking to the recent non-sports passings of note.
I'll have a sports version coming soon.

Goodbye to Rene'Auberjonois at the age of 79.
The veteran actor was a regular on three television series and film for decades but is best remembered for his role as the prissy "Clayton" on the sitcom "Benson" and for his performance at the shapeshifting
" Odo" on the Star Trek series- Deep Space Nine.
The roles were so opposite that I wondered if Auberjonois could convincingly pull off the role of a security officer, but he was masterful in the role of a key cast member for the entire run.
Auberjonois also played "Father Mulcahy" in the "MASH" film in 1970 was the inspiration for the series.


Goodbye to Caroll Spinney at the age of 85.
Spinney was the voice and hands behind Big Bird and TRS favorite Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street from the program's 1969 beginnings through 2018, although Spunney's 2018 performances were not televised until last season for Sesame Street's 50th anniversary.
Spinney almost left the show after the first season because he wasn't satisfied with the less than strong pay for working with a show involved with PBS in its infancy.
That was, of course, the first and only season that saw Oscar the Grouch as orange rather than his green fur that started in the second season and continues today.


Goodbye to Michael J. Pollard at the age of 80.
Pollard, a talented character actor, is most remembered for his role as C.W. Moss in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde", being the leader of a gang of children on a planet where people die in their teenage years from a plague in an episode of "Star Trek", and as the homeless fellow that freezes to death in "Scrooged".
Pollard also played an inventor in another TRS favorite action film "Tango and Cash" and as "Bug Bailey" in the 90s flop "Dick Tracy".
Pollard was also credited by Michael J. Fox as the inspiration for Fox adding the "J" to his name for professional reasons.

Goodbye to D.C. Fontana at the age of 80.
Fontana was a key person in the original "Star Trek" as a writer and editor on many episodes with writing credits on ten episodes.
Fontana would adopt the name "D.C" as a manner of being gender-neutral in a time where the female writer had a far more difficult time having their works judged fairly and therefore being able to spell scripts.
Leonard Nimoy credited Fontana for coming up with much of the Vulcan culture that was the foundation for the Spock character during the original series network run.
Fontana would later serve as the associate producer on the early 70s Saturday morning "Star Trek The Animated Series, write episodes for "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine", and novels for the genre' as well.

Goodbye to William Ruckelshaus at the age of 87.
Ruckelshaus was the initial administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was started by the Nixon administration in 1970, before being moved to the FBI as acting director and then to the justice department as the deputy attorney general to Eliot Richardson.
It was in that role that saw Richardson and Ruckelshaus resign in the "Saturday Night Massacre" as the duo refused to fire Archibald Cox, who was the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation.
Ruckelshaus led the charge at the EPA to ban the pesticide "DDT", implemented the Clean Air Act. and sued the Jones and Clark Steel Corporation for their companies dumping vast amounts of chemicals into the Cuyahoga River, which caused the Cuyahoga's toxic damage and included the famous river fire.
Ruckelshaus would return to head the EPA in the Reagan administration and would receive the Medal of Freedom in 2015 by then-President Obama.

Goodbye to Randy Colley at the age of 69.
Colley wrestled as several characters throughout his career but is remembered by most as "Moondog Rex" in the then-territorial WWF.
Colley held the WWF tag teams titles with two partners "King' ( Sailor White) and "Spot" (Larry Latham) for four months in 1981 as the Moondogs under manager Lou Albano won the titles from Tony Garea and Rick Martel in March and dropped them back to the same team in July.
Latham replaced White in the middle of the title reign, which may have been shorter than planned due to the switch, due to White being unable to enter the United States for reasons that have had several rumors, yet nothing established as certain.

Colley would have two other interesting times in the wrestling business with the first being as "The Nightmare" as a masked wrestler managed briefly by Sir Oliver Humperdink and then "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, held the top title in Mid-South Wrestling, the North American title.
The Nightmare held the North American title for just under four months, defeating Terry Taylor to win the title and losing it on a Louisiana Superdome show to Dick Murdoch.
Colley would return to the WWF as part of a new face-painted team called Demolition and Colley has been credited with the idea of the team in which he partnered with Bill Eadie, who is remembered as the Masked Superstar as well as Demolition.
The story goes that at the first television taping for the new team and the second event as a team, despite the paint, dyed hair and trimmed haircut, fans immediately recognized Colley and began to chant "Moondog"!
The fans recognized Colley again at the next television taping and the decision was made to remove Colley from the team and replaced him with Barry Darsow, who had been wrestling for the NWA as "Krusher Khruschev".
Through the years of shoot interviews and podcasts, I've heard several people that were employed in the WWF front office claim that many of their fans didn't know of the wrestlers in other companies, which I guess is why they figured they could get away from Demolition as a similar-looking team to the NWA's Road Warriors to start with, but I never bought that reasoning for the most part.
However, the one thing that made me think they might have had a point is the Demolition issue.
Fans recognized Colley because he had wrestled for the WWF before, yet they didn't seem to figure out that Darsow was formerly "Khrushchev", despite being on a national television program on WTBS for a few years.


That completes the non-sports passings (plus one) for now.
No boxing this weekend, but we do have four playoff football games with the PPM and although I don't provide regular coverage of the New Orleans Saints, I have written playoff coverage in the past and I may do so this year as well.
I also have a sports passing post and yet another regular cleaning of the inbox, so hopefully, I can get caught up some time this week.

Grouchy Observations

Time for a few grouchy observations,although they might not all be grouchy,I'd bet most will be!

Let's start with today's House of Representatives new health care bill that would make changes to the ACA.
I've never been a fan of the ACA,not because it was federal health care (we do have a thing called Medicare after all),but because it didn't go far enough (I prefer some sort of single payer system that either pays for or mostly pays for services) and I hated the individual mandate that forced you to buy health insurance.
However,other than those two caveats,I'm not thrilled with yesterday's revamp-not because it wasn't needed (it had lots of things that needed tweaked),but because it seemed to fix very few (the mandate was eliminated along with the fine that was levied for not having insurance) of the things wrong with the ACA and the ridiculous high five session on the White House lawn for a bill only halfway passed looked very much like a bunch of guys patting themselves on the back for leading a game at halftime.
All of that said,the Democrats were far from heroic looking with their singing the 1969 Steam hit "Na Na Na Hey,Goodbye" to the Republicans in the Congressional chamber.
Considering the situation for so many losing (or reducing) their health care,that struck me as very immature and not thinking of the big picture at that moment.
No one walked away from that situation looking clean and to me everyone lost...

ESPN "laid off" several of their on-air and writing employees and it seems like they are shrinking coverage (on air) of baseball especially,but a little on college sports and football,while increasing their programming on the NBA.
I'm not sure how that plan is going to work out,but there are a few of the employees that got the axe that I'll miss especially.
Jayson Stark has always been one of my favorite baseball writers,Dana O'Neill and Andy Katz did a great job covering college basketball,I liked Jaymee Sire when she was doing Giants pregame before ESPN,maybe she'll be able to return there,Dr.Jerry Punch,Ed Werder and Len Elmore seemed like they had been with ESPN since they installed the first satellite in their respective roles.Dottie Pepper was a great golf analyst and I'll miss Danny Kanell too as the major anti-SEC voice on the network.
My issue is losing Sire (and Sara Walsh some as well) and yet keeping Jonathan Coachman and Neil Everett (personal preference not a fan of either of those two) around.
There were a few names cut that I won't miss-particularly Ohio State troll Mark May,PBC host MarySol Castro,Britt McHenry (she of the "Don't you know who I am" rant in a garage a year or two ago and failed multiple time MLB general manager Jim Bowden,but for the most part I wonder about paying people not to produce content when you could pay them to actually work...

One final observation on Star Wars/Kent State on May 4th.
I find it hard to believe that far more people spent time on social media talking about Star Wars than an anniversary of an incident such as Kent State in 1970.
This is especially questionable considering the times that we live in,the President that we have and the amount of protests that are occurring all around the country about so many various issues.
I'm certainly not making a claim against fun,look at the vast majority of things that we write about here,but I did find a little of the Star Wars hype tiresome and I would think that some time could have been spent looking back at a pivotal event that showed just how important the right to protest is and how easily one can lose that right..

Back later tonight with the boxing challenge and if I have time perhaps the promised new entry for the Forgotten Superstars series...

Grouchy Observations.

Sitting here watching the last few innings of the Pirates and discovered that I had five things in sports today that made me rather grouchy.
And considering that Oscar is my favorite Sesame Street (Feel free to send me your Oscar the Grouch memorabilia) character-it was easy to decide the theme and picture for this post...

Let's start with this morning's post on the Lexi Thompson robbery in the ANA Inspiration yesterday.
The more I think about it,the more ridiculous the whole thing seems.
The LPGA is always a niche' tour that is in a constant struggle for attention and today they are getting plenty of it-for all the wrong reasons...

Georgetown hires Patrick Ewing?
Two notes:First,name me the long list of successful college coaches that have never been a head coach anywhere or coached in college at all?
Take your time,I'll wait.
If you were going to hire Ewing,why fire John Thompson III?
Not exactly breaking new ground in Georgetown...

The NHL is not participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics,which means if any players want to play,they need to insure themselves and have their teams permission to play.
The NHL involvement was the best part of the winter games,helped to grow the game and showed that the game's growth came before profit for once.
The league dangled the Olympics in front of the players union as a carrot to help make a deal and the players didn't bite.
Is there anything that Gary Bettman touches that doesn't turn to fertilizer?

Opening day for most of the league and nothing spells baseball season more than watching the Pirates than tuning in and hearing Greg Brown as the voice of the Buccos.
The worst in local baseball announcers and just hearing that voice makes me reach for the remote to either mute or change to the opposing teams network,
I think Bob Walk's decent enough,but Greg Brown? Bleech.

Wrapping with the Pirates and I've made my feelings about interleague play well known,but it really hits home on opening day with the Pirates playing Boston.
Since the move of Houston to American League play,there is at least one interleague game every day,so an opener for one of my teams was inevitable.
It just feels so spring training to me when it occurs this soon...