The remainder of our road trip involved attending three baseball games, a visit to the area in West Virginia where my French grandfather and great grandfather mined coal, time with my best friend from high school Jimmy and his wife, Sherry, a tour of Monticello, the Ardovino cousin reunion, and hanging out with my cousin George and his wife Helen. Lots of stuff in not that many days.

Baseball is very important to us. We enjoy viewing games at all levels, in particular watching what used to be our National Pastime at quaint minor league parks. This year we caught a game in Springfield, IL (yes, I know that Springfield is west of Chicago), Columbus OH, and Harrisburg, PA. The Springfield game pitted the San Francisco and New York teams in the Women’s Professional Baseball League (inaugural season). The WPBL game ended in an exciting fashion, a walk-off grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The game in Columbus (triple-A ball) was odd. The Iowa Cubs managed to give up 3 runs in one inning while yielding no hits! A combination of 6 walks and 2 sacrifice fly balls did the trick.

Our tour of Monticello was excellent. I’m just finishing up reading Gutzman’s book, The Jeffersonians, so I had a lot of “Jefferson stuff” rolling around in my head as we walked about. It was my first visit there in a very long time, so it was like being there for the first time. It’s an impressive place which also reminds me (really all of us) how imperfect our union was and is.

The reunion was hosted by my cousin Patrick this year. He lives in an interesting part of Long Island, just a few miles north of Jones Beach, a spot I went to with my grandparents when I was a kid. Patrick had prepared well for us with three tents in the yard in case of rain and to keep us cool. The youngest of the four generations in attendance spent most of their time in the pool while the older folks shared updates and told stories about the ones who weren’t with us. There were a few World Trade Center stories given that our event was less than one week before the 25^th anniversary. This group, not me, lost friends that day. Not everyone is eager to attend any of the events that bring back the memories of that day, first responders in particular.