Television Break

Quick, what color are her eyes? Christina Hendricks and some vintage undergarments play head secretary Joan Holloway on AMC's "Mad Men" every Sunday evening.

What's on TV?

I must say, I've not been watching as much tube as in years past. We're not paying for HBO or Showtime or Cinemax, so series like Hung and Weeds and Entourage aren't on the DVR. What have I been watching?

• MadMen, AMC: Back for the third season. The show's moved ahead to 1963, and the firm has been sold to the Brits, who don't know what to do with it. Dick is still scum. Peggy is asserting herself not only in the office, but in her personal life as well. And Joan. . .well, she's as Joan-o-licous as ever. Hoo-ya!
• Trailer Park Boys: From the Canadian Maritimes comes a "docudrama" about the dysfunctional members of a trailer park, with all the tatooed tramps, drunks, drug addicts and miscreants you'd expect. Exclusively on Channel 101 with DirecTV. I just stumbled onto the show with an episode where the boys attend a model railroad show, where Guns N'Roses guitarist Sebastian Bach was the featured guest. The boys ran off with the highly-prized "Patrick Swayze Express" model train which they later used to smuggle pot into the U.S. Okay--doesn't make much sense. But trust me, it was HI-larious.
• MLB network: All baseball, all the time. Classic games, documentaries, games of the week, clinics as well as prime-time updates and analysis of games in progress. It's turned me into a basebal junkie.

The Trailer Park Boys. That's Bubbles in the middle, the model railroader of the group. Gee, could ya guess?

Now Playing on DirecTV

Meanwhile, i've taken up the pursuit of reading the Porno Movie listings on the DirecTV program guide each day. It's. . .well, er, I'll just call it interesting. It takes real talent to distill the essence of a movie to just a dozen words or so, but I'm guessing these descriptions are pretty accurate. I'm not making these up. Today on DirecTV, for instance:

• Strap on Adventures :The tight bond between girlfriends is explored.
• 34DD: Big & Natural : Sexy tarts reveal giant, juicy and silicone-free boobs.
• Bouncing Wet Boobies 3: These mammoth mammaries give men a solid case of a boob-o-vision.
• Latinas Like It Hard! : Succulent Latinas want you to stuff their spicy tacos with meat.
• Black Booty Pounding 2: Women with great rears shake them for a guys enjoyment.
• 6 Tight Latinas Banged Hard : Chicks with plump, round butts and pole-smoking lips want hard-core sex.
• Dirty First Timers 3: These first-timers are nervous and a big stud can be intimidating.
• Make Her Scream 4: Woman who are louder than the headboard hitting the wall.
• All Massive Asses 4: Six horny sluts bounce their huge butts on some lucky meat.
• Big Breasted Teens 12: Teen queens have huge racks that men dream of.
• 40 n Over MILFs: Loose and wild cougars reach their sexual peak.
• Big Game Profiles--Utah Elk :The results from a great bow tag in a hot unit known for big bulls.
• Western Kentucky Whitetails: Senior editor Karen Mehall is in a ground blind, hunting whitetail.
• The Wild Outdoors--Gun Season: Tammi Gregory has several encounters with some really great bucks.
• Wild and Raw: Marcus Luttrell brings his buddies to New Orleans for some Mardi Gras and Nutria hunting, Cajun style.

Okay, so I lied. Those last four are descriptions from outdoors sports show. . .but somehow, they blend in pretty well with the more salacious films. There must be some truth to those that call such shows "hunter porn."


We're fatter at night. . .

No wonder I've gained weight working graveyard shift over the past 8 years--food eaten in the middle of the night will make you fatter, compared to if you'd eaten the same food during daylight hours. According to a new study, anyway. No wonder we're all packing on the pounds at work. This adds to findings in other studies that finds that night shift workers are more prone to diabetes and heart disease.

Beisbol Pt. VIII: Cubs Lose!

The Friendly Confines: Right at home with a straw hat and a cigar.
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August 11: Sorry to spoil how this evening would end, but a familar ending by now to the Cubby fan: on this evening at Waveland and Addison, the Cubs lost in predictable, nail-biting fashion to the World Champions, getting an early lead, giving the faithful so much hope before giving it up through poor pitching, only to come back to tie it late, and then losing in the twelveth inning when their beleagured closer gave up a solo home run.


We'd last been to Wrigley in 2003, before I. was born. It was a great afternoon. The Cubs beat the hated rival Cardinals late in the game, Sammy Sosa flexed his massive arms, sang "take Me Out" with Mike Ditka and saw a rip-roaring fight involving about a dozen men, women, and large Samoans right below us. The Cubbies hadn't won a World Series in 95 years, and our upper-level tickets were only $15.

Tickets aren't so cheap any more, and the Cubs have extended their World Series drought to 100 years now, but that same "Wait til Next Year" refrain is still heard each spring. Hey, you never know? But Wrigley is always a good experience, so I endured six hours of refreshing the computer screen every few minutes back in March to snag tickets to this Tuesday night game against the World Champion Phillies.

The 2009 season had started with so much promise, but by early August it was clear the prognosticators who'd sipped a bit of the Cub Kool-aide and prediced that this would be "the year" for the Cubs had once more bought into the hype. By early August, the Cubs were firmly in second place in the NL Central, dropping like a rock as the red-hot St. Louis Cardinals left them in the dust. Another year, just like the last 100.
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Best way to the game: The CTA Red Line breezes into Roosevelt Road. . .
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E. anxiously awaits a glimpse of Wrigley as we approach Addison Ave. . .
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Cubs-themed artwork inside the Addison station. . .
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We caught the CTA into the city, parking our car at Midway airport to catch the Orange Line--rather than taking Metra in from Naperville, I thought should the game go long the park-and-ride option would ensure us the best chance of getting back home before dawn. At Roosevelt Road, where we hopped onto an increasingly crowded Red Line train up to Addison Avenue. Our car was packed with blue jersery-wearing Cubs fans. When our train stopped, we spewed onto the platform, a sea of faithful jamming the stairways and the sidewalks heading to the ballpark like salmon returning to spawn. Cubs fandom is a genetic thing, I am convinced. The streets were packed with fans, with ticket scalpers selling seats infront of indifferent Chicago cops, with homeless men hoping to beg a little change from the pockets of the well-heeled crowd.
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No shortage of guys scalping tickets--they way it used to be before StubHub took over the racket. . .
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Photo montage of Wrigley at Dusk. Click on photo to enlarge. . .
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We arrived too late to snag our free Ryne Sandberg bobblehead dolls, but early enough to use the famed Wrigley restrooms before they became a stinking, soaking, fetid swamp. Our seats weren't great--lower level, but we were way up under the upper balcony, which cut off our view of flyballs and nearly obscured the landmark manual scoreboard in center field. My view of homeplate was partially blocked by a support column. It was like watching side-by-side 60-inch flat screen TVs. The game had been a sellout, and there wasn't much room to maneuver.

Sellouts are a ritual at Wrigley, the second-oldest ballpark in the majors, built in 1913 for the Chicago Whales of the Federal League and originally named Wheegman Park. It became home for the Cubs in 1916; chewing-gum magnate and team owner Bill Wrigley renamed the stadium in 1926, adding a second deck to the seating the next year. Baseball promoter Bill Veek (yes, the same one who later owned the Browns and White Sox) planted ivy along the outfield walls in 1937. Baseball traditionalists love the place: It retains its huge hand-operated centerfield scoreboard, was the last field in the major leagues to recieve lights for evening play in 1988, and until recently resisted the onslaught of sponsorship and advertising on every concievable flat surface. There is no mascot, no exploding scoreboard, no jumbotron. There's no kids play area, no squadron of young cuties in hotpants launching t-shirts into the crowd, and no prerecorded "walk-up music" to herald the arrival of the next hitter when the home team is at bat--only organ music. It's cramped, it's crowded, it's inconvienent to get to and but a single concourse is provided for restrooms and food. But it's Wrigley, and this is how they like it--how baseball used to be.

Sitting at Wrigley, you almost feel like you should be wearing a straw hat and smoking a cigar. Here's a wonderful piece from 1980 by Sports Illustrated writer E. M. Swift.

Walking down the concourse, E. said to me, "I know there's no playground here for kids, but this is what a ballpark is supposed to be." I couldn't argue his point. Wrigley wouldn't be so bad, I decided, if it wasn't for all those insufferable Cubs fans! Are they this bad at Fenway? Probably so. Finally winning a World Series only made things worse.
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The crowded concourse. . .
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Heritage bricks outside the main entrance. Full of hope--This is the Year!--and hesitant optimism--Hopefully in your lifetime!
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Drunken womanizer Harry Carey is immortalized out front. No beer in his hand, however.
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Our view--one that hasn't changed since the late 1920s.
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The Cubs jumped off to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third on a double, a couple of walks, a single and a sacrifice fly. Cubs starter Rich Hardin was perfect into the top of the sixth inning. E. and I went to get drinks, and while standing in line for concessions, the fan in front of us exclaimed, "Hey, Hardin has been PERFECT so far!" That was the jinx. Next batter walked. Goodbye perfect game. Then Jimmy Rollins jacked one to tie the game. Goodbye shutout, and as it turned out, goodbye decision for Hardin, who lasted through the seventh.

Eight inning: always-shaky set-up man Carlos Marmol comes in. Word is, if he can get an out under his belt, he'll be fine. He starts walking batters, and he'll fall apart. Guess which one we saw? Walk. Fly out. Fly out. Hit batter. Walk. Walk, and the go-ahead run comes in. After eight, 3-2, Phillies.

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Fourth inning: Ryan Therioit reaches first base safely on a high throw to Phillies infielder Chase Utley. . .

The Philly equivalent for shakiness in relief is one-time lights-out closer Brad Lidge. Brad's been a bit unreliable lately, so when he came in to finish off the Cubbies, a bit of hope existed for the 41,000 at the Friendly Confines. Here we go: Fukidome, walked. Theroit sacrificed Fukidome to second. Bradley singles Fukidome home to tie the game. E. was beside himself with excitement: the Cubbies rally back to tie it.

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E. goes wild as Bradley hits in the tying run in the 9th inning. . .

Closer Randy Gregg took the mound in the 11th, retiring three on line shots. Cubs unable to get anything going offensively. Top of the 12th: Little used Ben Francisco comes off the bench and homers on a 1-1 count. And that's where it ended. Cubs lost 4-3, despite their 10 hits to the Phillies' 3. The Cubs had dropped five of the last six and that big white "W" flag wasn't flying over the field much lately. The fans jammed their way back onto the El without singing that annoying "Go Cubs, Go!" song.

Things didn't get better the next two nights, the Phillies sweeping the series and putting the Cubs in the five-game losing streak.
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I. was oblivious to much of the game, content reading comic books. . .
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I'd never seen a smile on E.'s face as big as the one he had all night at Wrigley. . .
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Before we got chased out of the park by security guards, we posed for a family photo (taken by, strangely enough, a family from Texas. . . )
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Lots of love, sometimes dysfunctionally so. . .

Beisbol Pt. VII: A Day on the Town

Our Kind of Town: The Wrigley building and Chicago River. . .

This was our third family vacation to Chicago since 2003; I'd been back on my own in 2006 for a Prototype Modeler's meet. It's safe to say that, given my own relative lack of worldliness regarding the great cities of the planet, I'd have to rate Chicago as my favorite city to visit.

What a place! Everything about it is alive. What's not to love (apart from the traffic)? The parks of the Burnham plan. . .the stunning setting on Lake Michigan. . .the imposing canyon of buildings lining the Chicago River. . .the dazzling array of architecture styles. . the dense network of railroads. . the El and its iron ring around the downtown core. . .its museums. . .two great major league baseball teams. . .the relative ease of getting around on public transportation. . .and its two great food staples: deep-dish pizza and fully-loaded hotdogs.


Easy public transportation: The Red Line CTA near Roosevelt Road. . .


I. gets a first glimpse of downtown at Cicero on the BNSF/Metra dinky. . .

Three dudes on a trip to the city. . .

Amtrak and Metra in the bowels of Chicago Union Station. .

The Great Hall of the Burnham-designed CUT of 1925. . .

We had a day just to knock around town, and this time, decided to drive. E. wanted to spend his life's savings on Chicago Cubs souvenirs, so we inched our way into Wrigleyville around 11am and visited a couple of the many stores preyin--er, catering to tourists who just can't get enough Cubs stuff, where he got a Soriano t-shirt, a light jacket, a couple of caps, a pennant, and a couple of wall plaques for his future Cubs-themed bedroom.

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E. at Ground Zero of his Cubs-centric universe. . .

Soon it was lunchtime and we headed towards the City in search of a hotdog, stumbling across Clark St. Dog at the corner of Clark and Halsted. It's not to say the hot dogs weren't good--they were--but the real highlight of the place was the horrible service, recalling the "Cheeseboiger, Cheeseboiger" skit from the early days of Saturday Night Live. Employees attempted to multi-task several orders without the language skills or mental ability to do so. Most memorable was the guy next to me who'd been waiting several minutes for his order to be filled, only to be given the wrong food. "Is it too much," he fairly screamed, " to get a Goddamned Cheeseburger!" afterwhich he stormed out of the place. When I finally secured our lunch--two hotdogs, a corndog, and a grilled cheese sandwich, the fella sitting next to us congratulated us for getting our foot.

Then it was through downtown to Field Museum, on the waterfront, where half the population was attempting to park at Soldier Field for the free day at the museum. Admission was free, but parking was still $16. The Field is a big, big place, with 21 million items in the collection, including the most complete Tyrannosarus Rex, Sue, and an extensive collection of dinosaurs and preserved North American bugs, plants, birds and animals.

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A beautiful summer afternoon, and the boys head to the Field Museum. . .

The museum is housed in the Classical Revival building designed by Daniel Burnham for the 1883 World's Columbian Exposition, and the collection moved to its current location in 1921. The museum is a mix of up-to-date and interactive exhibits and some displays of stuffed and mounted animals (some now extinct) over 100 years old which remind one of what museums were like a century ago. Dealing with the crowds left me in a pissy mood, which thankfully didn't inhibit the boys from really digging what they saw. We were all booted out at 5pm after a mere three hours, having only really checked out only around 20% of the displays. We'd definately some back again next time.

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The boys and "Sue" the big Tyrannosaurs. . .

The next hour was "Blair time," and I hauled the family to the backside of an old factory at Racine St. west of the loop to photograph Metra trains on the former Milwaukee Road/Pennsylvania line passing under one of the few Pennsy Railroad "position light" signal bridges left in the area. It had clouded up and the light was flat, but I photographed a half-dozen trains in that hour. No spectacular shots, despite the great urban background.

Metra train into the city shoves into Union Station at Racine Street, milepost 1.5.

Thence, off to Chinatown where the urge to eat something other than pizza and hot dogs led us south past the notorious Cook County Hospital, the inspiration for the television series ER and a place known for its, er, active emergency room filled with stabbing and gunshot victims. It's the indigent hospital of choice in the city. We took Cermak Road (named for Chicago major Anton Cermak, the first of the "Chicago Machine" mayors, assassinated in Miami in 1931 standing beside President Franklin Roosevelt; as he lay dying, he supposedly said to him ""I'm glad it was me instead of you.") back intos China Town, wandering among the restaurants looking for one with an English-language menu on the front window. I violated my own rule for Chinese restaurants (i.e., Never eat at a Chinese place called "Great Wall") by going to. . .the Great Wall. We ordered a family dinner that could've fed a half-dozen, easily. We were amazed the boys ate a little of everything, including soup, whose ingredients remained a mystery to them until after they'd finished. We were quite proud by their willingness to try something different. The boys charmed the folks running the place as well who were impressed a family from Texas would wind up in their joint. I. however, wasn't happy to discover that he was born in the year of the Rat!

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Big family-style dinner at the Great Wall in Chinatown. . .

We'd hoped to watch fireworks on the lake from the jetty near Shedd aquarium, but weren't disappointed when none materialized, as we still had a beautiful view of the city on the lake. We drove back out to Naperville, and arrived after midnight. It'd been a full day in our favorite city on earth.

CTA stops in the loop. . .

A visual dessert after dinner: the Chicago skyline. . .

Beisbol Pt VI: The Southside Sox

A beautiful day--but a hot one--for baseball at New Comiskey Park--US Cellular Field, aka "The Cell."
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Sunday, August 9: The Chicago White Sox are meaner, dirtier, nastier, more in-your-face than their north-side rivals, the Cubs. That's the image that's cultivated, at least. The Cubs are the loveable losers--haven't won a World Series in 100 years. Hapless. Wait 'Til Next Year, over and over and over again.

Even when things go their way, the Cubs manage to drop the gold ring in the proverbial septic tank. The Sox don't seem to have any of that feeling of self-pity. Any year could be next year to them. They're a bunch of scrappers, led by manager Ozzie "Fuck 'em" Guillen, who demoted a pitcher to the minor leagues when he refused to follow his orders to throw at an opposing batter. Don't mess wit da Sox.

Trips to Cubbyland are full of warmth and giddiness and fellowship for the common cause of The Cubs. The neighborhood around Wrigley Field is packed with bars and restaurants with cute names like the Cubby Bear. A trip to see the Sox, if you listen to their detractors, is taking your life in your own hand. The South Side? That's filled with poor black people!

Wrigley Field, of course, has risen to near the top of the "must-visit" list for out-of-towners on summer vacation, right up there with the Museum of Science & Industry and the Sears Tower. You don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy a game at Wrigley. . it's the experience of going there for a game in the sun that counts. Not so with the White Sox. US Cellular Field (aka "The Cell", another ironic appellation for a South Side venue) isn't likely to create warm, fuzzy feelings.

Opened in 1991, New Comiskey came just a few years too late to be part of the "retro Ballpark" era that has gripped stadium architecture for the past fifteen years. It's a nice park, mind you, functional and rather bare-bones. There's no fancy facade or notable feature to the playing field, no waterfall or zig-zagging outfield walls. It's been remodeled once already to improve its appearance and reduce seating, but it is rather sterile, one of its few concessions to its predecessor being a version of the famous "exploding scoreboard" from the days when owner Bill Veek tried everything--including Disco Demolition Night--to put butts in the seat. Even so, Veek's son Mike has said the new place has "everything but a soul." It is what it is. But, being baseball fans, how could we pass up a visit when the Sox were hosting the hapless Cleveland Indians?

Robert seems to be enjoying the packed ride on the Red Line more than Mary!

We met our former Fort Worth neighbors, Robert and Donna G., and their two kids near the Chicago River between Union and Northwestern stations. They'd moved to Crystal Lake, in the northwest suburbs, three years ago. Donna, a Texas native, misses the Lone Star State immensely. I think it has to do mainly with winter--as in, Texas doesn't have them, Chicago does. . and they last a helluva long time. Sharing sidewalk space with tons of teenagers and young adults headed for the Lollapalooza concert along the waterfront, we headed into the loop to catch the Red Line CTA subway south. (The Red line, incidentally, links both Wrigley and US Cellular ballparks--the only two major league parks connected by a common public transit route). By the time we reached our stop at 35th St, across the Dan Ryan Expressway from the stadium, the train had become packed. And outside, the temps were already climbing into the low 90s, the humidity making it damned near unbearable. Ah, the midwest in the summer! Nothing like it--even Texas.



Lots of invective hurled at Cubs fans on the Legacy Bricks lining the plaza at The Cell's main entryway. . .

We checked out the personalized bricks in the plaza outside the main entrance, and the sculpture commemorating the 2005 World Series title, and out of nowhere were beseiged by mascots--there must've been a dozen of them, from the White Sox as well as the Bulls, the Blackhawks, college teams, minor-league teams, teams of which I had no idea existed (the Cubs, in case you're wondering, do not have a mascot. That's more of that snooty North Side attitude about "tradition").

As the mascots frolicked around the hot and sweaty masses headed for the stadium entrance, the only thing I could think was: Jesus Christ, can you imagine how uncomfortable those poor bastards are inside those mascot outfits?


Good lord! They're everywhere! Any mascot you could imagine, except, thank God, the scary Burger King guy. . .



Large and In Charge with the Sox mascot, Southpaw. . .

And Mary danced with. . .well, I have no idea who the St. Bernard is.

Germaine Dye went 0-for-4, here fouling off another pitch. . .

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The Cell

Here's the main beef I have with The Cell: They treat the upper-level ticket holders like the steerage passengers on the Titanic, but instead of keeping them locked in the lower level of the sinking ocean liner, they're instead banished through separate entrances to the upper reaches of the place, unable to access the amenities, activities, and perhaps snag an autograph during batting practice. You can't take your kids to the Baseball Fundamentals area, you can't see the half dozen statues of great White Sox, you can't even visit the Chicago Plumbing Council Shower. Nope, you're not allowed down below--hey, you rabble, get back up there! No Pro Shop for you!

Our seats were high above home plate. . .high, high, high, above home plate. The angle of the upper level stairs was so steep, you half expected to hook into a rope like a mountaineer. But the view WAS nice, and we lucked out being JUST under the shade from the overhead roof. The upper level concourse was cool and dark and in a couple locations called "rain rooms" water cascaded out of perforated pipes onto those below to keep them cool. I was kept amused by the snippets of organ music played by long-time organist Nancy Faust. I'm sure the younger fans had no idea that was "Norwegian Wood" played, for example, when a bat broke. My favorite was when Indians second-baseman Jamey Carroll came to bat accompanied by the old theme from the Carol Burnett Show. Obscure cultural references relevant only to baby-boomers!

The game? I must say that the luck we brought to the Royals didn't extend to the Sox. The White Sox went up 3-0 in the second before the Indias came back with four runs in the 5th, extending their lead to 6-4 in the 7th before nailing the door shut with two more runs in the 8th. Final: Indians 8, Sox 4, and 34,000 hot, sweaty Chicagoians headed for home. We let the crowds thin out a bit; I hoped to buy a t-shirt on the way out, but all the vendors had shuttered their doors as soon as the final out was called (betcha there were still open on the lower level!). We admired the great view of the city on the way out of the stadium, and the boys checked out the next-door parking lot, where the location of home plate at old "Kaminskey"Park was memorialized.

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The boys cool off in The Rain Room. A thoughtful idea--something the Rangers should try out.

I. pretends to take a swing from the site of home plate at old Comiskey Park (1910-1990). . .

Downtown for Dinner
We all caught the CTA back to the city for dinner. Pizza, of course, since we're in Chicago. We transferred at Roosevelt Road from the Red Line subway to the El, then rode that to the north end of the Loop; from there, Robert navigated us using GPS on his phone and we walked the mile or so north up State Street to Uno Chicago, a sweltering trek. Sunday evening? Naturally, the place was packed--a two hour wait. A block away, though, was Pizzeria Due (apparently under common ownership with Uno), and we drained two pitchers of ice water while waiting 20 minutes for our seats. The deep dish was awesome.

We caught a taxi back to the Metra stations (narrowly avoiding an accident on Wacker Drive), bid Robert and Donna and their kids adieu, and lucked into an extra express back to Naperville, added to accomodate Lollapalooza traffic. To the west, lightning flashed from an approaching thunderstorm, but we fell asleep at Tom and Susan's before it hit.

We stopped sweating a moment for a family photo with the Chicago skyline. . .

Beisbol Pt. V: Family History

My aunts Grace Vandellen, Dorothy Barbour, and cousin Ellen Dec (Grace's daughter). . .

Saturday, August 8 (p.m.): Tom and Susan hosted a family get-together the evening we arrived. I'm sure such gatherings aren't too out of the ordinary for the Chicago-area Stobs: most of my aunts and uncles and cousins live a couple of hours from each other, remarkable today given how far-flung most families have become.

My dad moved us from Chicago when I was five years old, away from my mom's family as well as his own (Dad's roots are in Grand Rapids, where his only sibling, William, still lives). Thus, apart from occasional pass-through visits from relatives while I was growing up, the closeness of the exended family is something I've missed. And with Mary's family largely in Mexico, it's sadly something our boys will miss out on also. Which is really a shame. We had a great time reacquainting ourselves with my family, most of whom we'd last seen during our 2003 visit (and you'll have to excuse me for forgetting a few faces and names in the intervening 2000-some days).

My mother, Evelyn, was one of seven children of Thomas and Jennie Stob. The elder Stob was a career railroader with the Pennsylvania Railroad. He worked downtown at Union Station as a bookeeper for the railroad's maintenance department, commuting from home in a nice middle-class working neighborhood, Englewood, around 70 blocks south of the Loop (a place you probably don't want to visit these days if you don't live in the area. If you know what I mean). After retiring in 1961, the Stobs moved to rural Crown Point, Indiana to a big piece of property I recall for touch football games during Thanksgiving. They enjoyed a long and graceful retirement, active in their Church and involved in family, until their deaths. They were life-long Roosevelt-era Democrats, and despite being South-Siders, grandpa was a Cubs fan.

Tom and Jennie were the parents of (in no chronological order) Tom Jr.; Grace; Dorothy; Ed; the twins, Evelyn (my mother) and Eleanor; and Jimmy. Tom Jr. married Susan; Grace married Ned VanDellen; Dorothy married Jim Barbour. Ed married Nancy. Evelyn married Lou Kooistra (my father), Eleanor married Dick Hopkins; and Jimmy married a Susan as well. From these unions begat many children and grandchildren. Some grew up to be Republicans, some Democrats. And life gets interesting during baseball season, for there are a few Sox fans mixed in among the Cubbie faithful.

Evelyn and Eleanor and Jimmy have since passed on, as has Ned. So, to me, it was remarkable to have the four remaining Stob sibilings together in one room in 2009. And, leave it to the photographer in me not to bother getting them together for a picture!

We had a grand time with the aunts and uncles and a few of the kids and grandkids (I'm sure I'll leave someone out, so I'll save myself the possible embarassment of listing everyone). An updated Stob family geneology was brought out, and Mary and I learned quite a lot about my roots. And I learned as well that my aunt Grace worked for the Pennsy as well as a secretary/clerk, as did my uncle Ed--as a car checker during summer vacations from college. They called it the "glory days" of railroading.

It felt great to be part of a family--a large family. But also a bit strange, as if from the outside looking in--largely my relatives are people I really don't know, have no strong memories of, and have no recent shared experiences with. It's tough to keep the family ties strong with only occasional visits, and to this I blame myself and my own family upbringing. I must say I'm envious of my cousins, neices and nephews who have strong family ties. That's probably a Stob family trait as opposed to us stand-offish Kooistras. But at the same time, I'm thankful I have my relatives, and that they've opened their homes and their hearts to make us feel part of the family.

And while Mary and I and the kids will be only occasional visitors to the land of my mom's family, I hope they all know our welcome mat is always out should they wish, for whatever reason, to visit Texas!

Our wonderful hosts, aunt Susan and uncle Tom Stob. . .

Back to School
School's started up again. E. is in the third grade, which in Texas means you have separate teachers for math/science and reading/history--not so much so the kids will learn more, but so they're more apt to inflate the scores for the school districts on the state-wide student aptitude tests, which directly influence state funding. Ah well. . . he's started riding his bike the .43 miles to school each morning. I've been accompanying him this week to make sure he's a good little citizen on the road. He enjoys this extra measure of independence.

Fall will be here too soon. The kids start fall baseball next week. It won't be long until daylight savings disappears and the lawns go dormant. But yesterday, while in our community pool with I., I heard the sound of a lawnmower over the fence and caught a whiff of fresh-cut grass. I savored it, as it seemed to be as fleeting as summer.

E.'s pretty happy to be back in school--and proud as well to be riding his bike there each morning. Ah, independence!

Back to Daylights
After at least seven straight years on the graveyard shift (and probably a bit more), next week I join the land of the polo shirts and docker-wearing living and go back to working days and afternoons. I was beginning to feel more like a zombie than ever on third trick. I've just been worn out lately, and while I can't say my health has demonstrably suffered, working midnights can't be healthy in the long run. There's more stress during days and afternoons, but the workday will pass more quickly. And I'll get to sleep when it's actually night time. In a sense, after being away from any truly challenging train dispatching for so long, I almost feel like a rookie, having to learn the mysteries of maintenance-of-way gangs all over again. But, ultimately, it was time for a change. I'm sure it'll take a while to rejigger my daily routine.

Rangers Take Yankees
Yep. Rangers win two of three against the Bombers. They held on from a 10-4 lead going into the 9th inning of Tuesday's game and barely escaped in spite of closer Frank Francisco. Thursday's 7-2 win found starter Nippert walking seven, getting yanked short of four full innings, and Texas' run production came from two three-run shots (the first one the Rangers' first hit of the game with two walked base runners on board) and a dinger. Texas' patience at the plate chased Yankees pitcher A. J. Burnett off the mound after six inning, running up his pitch count despite only giving up three runs off two hits and three walks, and striking out 12. But it was Ian Kinsler's two home runs and the bullpen troika of Grilli-Wilson-Francisco that made the difference. The Rangers remain four back of the Angels in the AL West and only 1.5 behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card.

They just don't give up.

Beisbol, Pt. IV: Sacred Northwestern Illinois

Mary and the kids at the Dubuque lock. . .

Saturday, August 8: We slept in and didn't get on the road out of Dubuque til after 10am. That meant we wouldn't be stopping by the Mississippi River museum in the old train station downtown; no worries--we'd stopped by Mississippi River Lock and Dam No. 11 the night before en route to our motel room and watched a too-long river barge squeeze into the Lock, executing what the railroaders in the audience will relate to as a "saw by." That wasn't exciting enough for the kids, though, so we left the drama without a resolution.

Crossing over the Mississippi River at Dubuque. . .

A thunderstorm overnight had left the morning air very humid; it was already more than warm outside as the low clouds burned off. We were due at my Uncle Tom and Aunt Susan's place in Naperville, a few hours away, in the early afternoon, and we didn't have much time to sight see as we rolled through Sacred Northwestern Illinois, through tidy little towns that dated from the first half of the 1800s: East Dubuque; beautiful Galena, one-time home of Ulysses S. Grant and a weekend get-away tourist attraction for Chicagoans, judging from the many Bed and Breakfast homes; Hanover; Savanna, on the mighty Mississippi. Beautiful country, too: lush and green and alive and grass and trees and hills and still more corn.
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A nicely restored old home in Galena. Of course, it's a bed and breakfast. . .

Rolling hills and cornfields north of Savanna. . .

Main street in Hanover, a typical small town. . .

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We left the twisting two-lane roads behind at Dixon, hometown of railfan extraordinaires Jim Boyd AND Mike Schafer. . .oh, and boyhood home of "The Great Communicator," actor-turned-US President Ronald Reagan. Everything is Reagan-esque in Dixon: we were driving the Reagan Trail, there is a statue of Reagan downtown; there's an annual Reagan 5K. Try as we might to just continue through town without stopping, the Mitsubishi diverted onto a side street so we could get a quick piccie of the Reagan Boyhood Home. There you go--Dixon, where it's always Morning in Ronald Wilson Reagan's America. Seemed like a nice place, but I'm reminded that Reagan wasted no time after graduating from Dixon High School to leave town and never return.

(Our trip would touch many towns connected with Mid-Western-born US presidents: Denison, Texas, birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower; Independence Missouri, home of Harry S Truman; Galena and Dixon; Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln sat as Governor; and Chicago, one-time home of Barack Obama).
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Reagan boyhood home. All white, as you'd expect. . .
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From Dixon, it was a little over an hour to Tom and Susan's, who were more than kind enough to offer us the use of their finished basement as lodging for the next few nights. And sometime after three p.m., they'd be hosting a family get-together.