Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:47:22 -0700
From: Charlie Ford <cford@mindspring.com>
To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com
Subject: Cleveland, in the Second Place

Although my first five days in Cleveland were somewhat dismal and rainy and
chilly, the City has taken on a better personality for me.  If you would
have said this would happen a few days ago I would have told you that you
were crazy and full of muck.

The fact is that the last post reflected my feelings about as slow as they
could be shown upon.  I wasn't depressed but I was quite contemplative and
slow with my actions.  Rain does that too me sometime.  I wrote "Seattle
Pondering's" in the same environment, accept on the otherside of the
country.  How the Seattle gang doing Mikey?

I was not feeling any specific trauma or anything like that.  I was just
alone, and that is when things and thoughts tend to come to light in a way
different than when you are with people.  Of course there is a difference
in being "lonely' and "alone".  When your lonely you tend to let sadness
overcome the direction of your thoughts, and you become tied down with the
negativity.  I wasn't there by know means.  I was happy as a lark, only a
really slow lark.

I think another feeling I was seeing was the frustration of once again
being "out of touch".  Out of touch in the sense that I could not check my
e-mail, or make phone calls at will.  I also had very few folks to talk
too, with the most conversation happening on my way to the bath house and
passing a fellow camper and saying hi.  Nice the encounter may be, but
definitely not as fulfilling as one in my situation would like.  Besides, I
am a person that has never met a stranger, as the old saying goes.  I
suffer from the gift of Gabb.

I did meet a couple of nice folks to talk too.  On Saturday morning I went
to have breakfast at a little cafe called Judy's just down the road from
the Park.  It was there that I met Dan and Meridith.  Two young people that
were very interested in my trip and the fact that I was from out of town.
they dropped byt he bus and we talked alm ost all evening Saturday night.

Dan is a computer printer repairman, and Meridith is in college at Kent
State.  She and he hope to be married in the next couple years.  I hope
they do well and have a lot of good adventerous living in store.  they say
they want to travle around the country some time.  I recomended that they
live that dream out, and keep a diary while they do it.  Good luck you two.
Thanks for the conversation.  Make it work, not enough couples do these
days!

On Monday morning I moved my lodging for the Punderson State Park to List
member Neil O'Donnells home in Shaker Heights.  This district is one of the
older in Cleveland.  The 'Shakers were a sect of religious belief, that
sort of committed suicide with their beliefs.

This suicide occurred as a result of one of their core beliefs, they
believed that men and women should be celibate.  Of course any stooge would
know that no sex at all means no offspring at all, therefore leading to
know sect at all.  I hd to laugh when I heard this thinking of how the last
couple left might have felt.  I bet they went straight to bed and wore
themsleves out, wondering all the while what new religion they might become
a part of.

The frustration the planners must have realized when, in the end, they saw
that there most honorable plans for "righteousness" had failed them and had
foiled their plans to take over the world, much like Pinky and the Brain.
But they did leave us, as their legacy, some really good furniture to
enjoy.

Neil and Lori have some pieces of this fine furniture.  They have a shaker
rocker, and a shaker coffee table.  Each piece shares a rustic simplicity
that is pleasing to the eye and the surrounding house in which it sits.
Nice furniture it is and quite functional the same.

These are also great folks to be around.  Niel and Lori have two toddlers,
Katie and Colleen that are just amazing to be around.  They are so small
yet so bright and interactive.  I haven't spent a lot of time around small
children but I think I could get used to it.  It totally changes a persons
mental state, sometime bad, sometime good, but always in wonderous
curiosity.  How do they come up with the things they come up with?

On Sunday evening the Indians played the Marlins in the 7th and final game
of the World Series.  I watched it on the radio as I couldn't pick it up on
my little 6 inch TV set that seems to be biting the dust at this juncture
in the trip.  I will have to find another at a pawn shop.  I don't know
that I can live without a TV set.  Actually I am sure I could, but I don't
want to.  The TV sort of keeps me in touch and offers some solace to the
long cold boring rainy days.  Many of which I am sure I will suffer in the
coming two months.

This was the 49th year of the Cleveland Indians existence.  I am not sure
how many times they have been to the Series, but I know they lost to the
Atlanta Braves in 95, with the only win coming in 48.  I watched Braves
game and was rooting for the Braves as I always have and always will.  It
is my alma matter.

This year I watched the Braves get beat by the Marlins, maybe the best
purchased ball club in all of Baseball, and turned it off and asked myself
who I would support for the Series.  After some deep contemplation, I
realized that I felt the Indians should win it.

I felt this mainly because I don't think the Marlins deserve such a high
honor.  I don't think a group of guys, bought and paid for, can call
themselves a team.  I think they are as store bought as any club in
baseball.

The Indians on the other hand have suffered blood sweat and tears to get to
where they are.  They have grown their "team" from the ground up, and none
of them are stars that shine without the other players alongside them.  the
city has some of the most dedicated fans of anywhere I have ever seen.
They have been patient with this 'team and have stuck by them through thick
and thin.

Today, on Tuesday after the loss on Sunday, the fans are in the streets.
They are on the Square in downtown Cleveland and are celebrating being
'second'.  It is estimated that about ten thousand people are in
attendance.  I will have to say that this city celebrates second place
better than any city I have ever seen.

Baseball is a game of increments.  It is a game of short goals and large
leaps to success.  It is the only game that is not stopped when a clock
runs out, or is given a half-time.  The game itself is as close as a game
can get to life itself.  You can relate it to business, or home, or love,
or hate.  Hey.....Meatloaf wrote a song about it, Kevin Costner starred in
a movie about it, and who doesn't know about the "Babe', or Lou Gherig, or
Willie Mays.  It is our game, it is diverse, and is best played on real
grass, with the sun shining overhead.

It is a natural game.  It relies on the wit and cunning of the men playing
the game.  It doesn't require a lot of brawn, or weight, or bloodshed.  It
does require a will to have fun, the need for speed, and a lot of critical
thinking.  Sometime it requires patience to wait on the right pitch, or the
ability to see the ball in mid flight, and make the quick decision to
swing.

The pitcher has to be pin point in his aim, and the batter has to try and
read where that pitch might fall.  the manager has to know all of the
stats, the habits and the weak spots of the opposing team.  The players in
the outfield have to be constantly aware of what the infield is looking
like yet has to communicate all within itself as a sub-team of the larger
team.

Next year the Indians vow they will be back in the Series.  Of course so do
the Marlins, and the Braves, and the Yankees.  But all in all when all is
said and done, only two teams will be there.  they will once again play for
all the marbles and hope that their offense and defense rise to the
occasion and bring home the trophy.

The fans at home will sit and hope and wonder.  They will curse and praise
and complain, and say things like "damn, that was STRIKE!", or "Blind Ump"
etc..  For a little while, one more time, we will watch and be removed from
our little lives in our little tin boxes, and be transfixed on 18 men
playing a simple, yet complicated game.  Damn.............I do love
baseball!

The weather has cleared up now, and the sky has turned a nice blue.  the
wind is still a bit chilly but not to awful bad.  At least it is not
raining.

The Mothership and Gus are doing fine.  Gus is trying to deal with me not
being around all the time.  He expects that he can, and will go, absolutely
everywhere with me.  Sorry, but I refuse to take him in the john with me
for the morning constitutional.  There is only room for one in the stall.
he complains a bit by barking and howling like any good hound would do, but
slowly he is quieting down.

I will be here a couple more days, but then I head on North.  It looks as
if the weather might cooperate all the way to the east coast.  But if it
doesn't I will deal with it.  You can't complain much about what you can't
control.  I guess weather is sort of like your team playing in the World
Series, you just have to be satisfied, and work with the outcome as best
you can.

Thanks for tolerating the ramblings.

Charlie Ford


"79" Transporter, dressed for the road
The Mothership

 The"Turning 40 Nostalgic VW Service Tour, and
Search for the Beginning of Wind".

http://www.slurpee.net/~keen/charlie/charlie.html

"Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set"