Erie, PA

It was a good couple of days back in the hometown. The visits always seem way to short. Even though very few of my friends from high school are left in Erie I always run out of time to see the people I want to see. The last two statements seem incongruous but are none the less true. In the years since my graduation and move from the North Shore I see my family in Erie more and more. In the absence of my friends I visit the family of my friends, specifically their parents. I do not want to make it seem that the visits to either of the groups, family and family of friends are somewhat less enjoyable, in fact more enjoyable.

I guess over the years Erie has been the place I go to charge my batteries to remember who I am and were I came from both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The visits with the people in Erie gave me such a mix of emotion. I feel lament, delight, appreciation, love and many other emotions too numerous to mention and too specific to write. My thoughts of regret and what ifs are quickly obfuscated by memories of my wistful youth. I realize that this is odd rant given the usual tones of my writing. But in the end every trip to my home town and its memories of family, friends, adventures, sports, girls, education, crushes, and coming of age make realize that my youth and the place it occurred enjoy a rarified air in the American story.

A Few Photos

Big Mike with a power tool, a very rare sight.

AJ, the newest member of the family.

JJ, the oldest greatgrandchild

The club gathers at club Goat

Pete and the Finnish!

(Paivi, Pete, Temu, and Timo)

After a night out enjoying a few beers with the Stephany twins I spent the bulk of the day floating around my aunt and uncle’s pool hanging with family. Later on in the evening I joined my Parents, aunt and uncle, and the Fins for a trip to the Oakwood Tavern to meet the Rys parents and Mr. Speros, (parents of my high school friends). It was a great meal and great company.

Erie, PA

We got into Erie today in the late afternoon. Overall it was a pleasant drive except for the torrential downpour for about 15 minutes. Visibility was nil. I thought we were going to have to start rounding up animals in twos. When we did get we headed for the Bestwicks’ house. I have written about them before but in short they are some of my parents’ dearest and longtime friends. Our families have shared many an adventure. One that just come to mind is the time that when both families were on vacation in Cape Cod. I will spare the specific details but I ended up in woods after being “over served” and was the butt of jokes for the rest of the vacation.

We hung out with them for a while then headed to my aunt and uncles house. My uncle Ron and Aunt Kitty have a beautiful home and with their three boys scattered across the country they have plenty of room and are hospitable enough to let our crew stay there. In fact they are so gracious that they are also hosting my family’s exchange student from Finland and her husband and youngest son.

Paivi stayed with our family nearly thirty years ago and has essentially become another daughter to my parents and an older sister to me. She married a great guy, Timo and they have three kids, Nora, Niko, and Temu. Well we have visited them and they have visited us over twenty times since Paivi lived with us. Paivi’s brother Tommi even stayed with us for a summer and I visited them in Helsinki when I was studying and teaching in Poland. They have visited my parents in every place they have lived since Erie, which is no small task considering that includes six homes, three states, and three countries.

When the arrived we ate some pizza and watched the last game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Unfortunately the Pittsburgh Penguins did not win but a good time was had by all.

Here are two views of the bay off of Lake Erie near my aunt and uncles house.

Lima, OH

The Lima visit was great but it was marred by a trip to hospital by my Grandma Kerr (my mom’s side of the family). My Grandma had stayed home form the K of C because she was not feeling well and when we returned she felt it was best to go to emergency room. After a long night the doctors thought it might be her appendix. So she had it removed. Well then it turns out that was not the problem. So there was another procedure done. So in the end it turns out that the doctors feel that it was severe acid reflux. So in the end it was a three day hospital stay that gave us all a scare. I will take that over a completely justified hospital stay any day. I wish it had not had happened but I was glad we were there to help out.

Other than the obvious troubles for my Grandma it was still a fun visit. I got to see a lot of family that I do not get see as often as I would like. We went to my cousin Mitchell’s graduation party and had a blast visiting and catching up with the family. It was short and I wish could have visited more but such is life.

One thing that I love to eat when visiting Lima is to have their famous Kewpee Burgers. It is hamburger chain that is unique to Lima. The chain used to be larger and had some branches in Michigan. In fact it was the Kewpee chain that was the inspiration for Dave Thomas and Wendy’s. The Kewpee burgers are superior, in my chubby and humble view, to the Wendy’s burger. Enough talk of food.

This is a Kewpie Doll

Their advertising slogan is: Hamburg pickle on top, makes your heart go flippity-flop!

We took off on Wednesday to make the trek to Erie, PA. It was a drive that had been made too numerous times to count.

Lima, OH – Middle America

After a leisurely breakfast the family, minus my sis, hopped in the family roadster and headed of to the heartland of America. Our stay in Chicago was short but fun filled. Taking a page from George Costanza, we left on top. The Burning has George obsessed with leaving people wanting more of him. Predictably, it backfires immensely leading to the standard hilarity often involved with arguably the greatest character in TV’s history.

You could make an argument that Chicago is one of the best places in to be in the summer. People are out all day long and there is always something going on. I may have to look into Chicago being a future destination for a summer of Pete. I know sis was glad to see us there and also glad to see us go. When you have Pete’s entire clan staying in a one bedroom, one bath condo, you have a good time but also have crowded conditions. Anyway thanks to Chicago in general and my sister specifically for helping start the summer of Pete in a spectacular manner.

After a very good breakfast sandwich at a neighborhood joint called, Over Easy, we packed up and headed east. We left Chicago and headed across Indiana to Lima, OH the hometown of my mom and the birthplace of my sister. The drive was a pleasant one. I was able to listen to CNN’s coverage of the DNC rules committee conference to decide the fate of the Florida and Michigan delegates. My mom has Sirius satellite radio so we were able to pick up pretty good reception of the meeting for most of the drive. There were lots of haggling, grandstanding, and precious little common sense. The extended nomination process has been a mixed blessing. On one hand the length of the Democratic Party’s nomination season has served as a great Civics 101 lesson for America. I think that the United States now understands in a much better way how fantastic and odd our process is. I also think the nastiness of that same race has given the Republicans a great game plan to beat the Dems. When this thing is all over I think Hillary Clinton is going to kick herself for a long time over the idea she got some very bad advice and hired some folks who did very poor planning. Here are my reasons Hillary will lose (LOST) the nomination.

1. She voted to go to war. Hillary votes against the war back in 2002 and Obama does not have the moral high ground on the very unpopular war and Hillary beats the snot out of Obama and rest the Democratic field.
2. I think she was way overconfident about her position and totally underestimated the grassroots operation of the Obama team, this was totally apparent in states that there were Caucuses. There was no reason a person as politically connected as Hillary and her strategy team should have looked sooo inexperienced running a caucus. Texas was the prime example.
3. Hillary’s team planned to win the first half and thought everyone would go home afterward. To take the sports analogy to far. For the Obama campaign to win the nomination they had to have and execute the perfect game plan, and they did just that. We are talking the movie Hoosiers, NC State beats Houston, or Villanova beating the mighty Georgetown Hoyas.

* On a side note, I think the pundits have totally underestimated the new voters that the Obama campaign has registered and mobilized. I think the general election results will surprise some people.

I, as usual, digress. Once we arrived in Lima we headed to the K of C (Knights of Columbus) with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandpas for some pork tenderloin sandwiches. The K of C is built right next to Lima Central Catholic were my Mom graduated from and my Dad later taught. It is a brand new one and is local hangout for the catholic folk of Lima. A round of drinks for eight people was around $16. It was a good time catching up with the family.

Chicago, IL – A perfect day?

Any use of the word the perfect or best is usually hyperbole but yesterday came quite close. What made the day special was the fact that it was the first day of summer vacation. Here are some details that allow me to banter about the phrase “perfect day”.

Slept in, for me that is about 8am, then leisurely coffee drinking for about an hour. There was no official plan for the day, just some loose plans to bum around. I convinced my Dad to go to the Indiana Jones movie at the 10:30 showing. It was about to rain so there was little else to do. I loved the movie but admittedly I am Indiana Jones fanatic. I would rank the movie right above The Temple of Doom, but squarely behind The Last Crusade; with Raiders of the Lost Ark, clearly occupying the top spot. The ending was on the cheesy side but hey what do you expect. It poured rain while the movie was going on but by the time it was over it started to clear up.

The Indiana Jones films played a major role in my love of History.

We debated what to do next and we finally came to the conclusion that we should head towards Wrigley Field for some lunch. I was still up in the air whether to head to the Cubs game that was starting later in the afternoon. We had a few beers and a sandwich. While we were eating the Cubs went down 4 to 0 in the top of the first inning but the sun was starting to come out so I scalped a ticket from one of the bartender’s buddies for 10 bucks. The ticket was cheap to come by because who else wants to by a ticket to a game that the home team is down four runs and there is threat that severe weather?

Here is a video clip of the infamous 7th inning stretch at Wrigley!

By the time I walked across the street to Wrigley that sun was shining and I realized that I had a ridiculously good seat. The Rockies tacked on three more runs in the second inning. By the sixth the Cubbies were down 9 to 1. The way I figured it was crappy game but the day was beautiful, so who cares right? Wrong, the Cubs staged a momentous comeback finally scoring six runs in the bottom of the seventh to take the lead for good. Wrigley was rocking!(Video)

Cubs win 10 to 9!

The Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago

After the game I took the L back to Keri’s neighborhood and met the family up on the Huettenbar a great local tavern in Keri’s neighborhood. My Dad, who declined to attend the game, had already befriended a small group of people who were at the bar. After sharing a few beers and stories the whole crew went to Mayfest. Keri’s neighborhood, Lincoln Square, has a big German festival in May with German music, food, and of course beer. A grand time was had by all. I met up with some friends from Erie who now live in Chicago and friends Cullen’s, who rudely decided to go to France while I was in Chicago. The Festival shut down around 10pm and we all slid over to a great Irish tavern called the Grafton.

The Huettenbar in Lincoln Square

The set up for Mayfest, sehr Deutsche!

The crowd outside the tent, the whole neighborhood was packed.

So in the end my day entailed Indiana Jones, a couple of beers for lunch, a nine run rally by the Cubbies, and a German festival with old and new friends. Not bad for the first day of summer vacation.

More photos of the day