Thursday, May 31, 2012

On Eighth Grade Graduation




It's a big deal out here. The kids get dressed up and march in alphabetical order. The speeches were great and we all had a fine time at Brady's graduation ceremony held at Lake Zurich High School.

How did I handle the pomp and circumstance at my 8th grade graduation? No such thing of course. Have no memory of it in fact since the schools in my day could care less about eighth grade graduation.

I don't recall anything significant at all about eighth grade. That's enough about this. We are glad Brady got a hair cut and behaved himself at the event.

Grandparents showed up and we all ate afterwards at the Wild Onion Pub in South Barrington. It was half-priced craft beer night so I ordered the Hopfest beer. The waitress said that wasn't half priced because it was too high in alcohol. Yes, that's called bait and switch. I said nothing and drank the one high alcohol brew.

Congrats, Brady. This means in another four years, he'll be a high school grad and another four years, a college grad. Why, he was just a baby not that long ago.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

70 cents a ticket for pro baseball




Was that a misprint? How in the heck was Stub Hub listing baseball tickets at the Milwaukee Brewers game for 70 cents a ticket? Of course there was a catch. There were plenty of service charges. So for four nice tickets on the third base side cost me 13 bucks. So even with that, it's less than 4 bucks a pop.

Now I recall back in Baltimore, you could get an upper reserved ticket or maybe a bleacher seat for 85 cents. But I'm guessing that was back in the late 1970s.


So Mr. Coffman came from near Wrigley Field and we met Captain Bob and his son Will and drove up for an afternoon game. It was a few quick beers in the parking lot and then we walked into the stadium.

I was a little concerned that they weren't going to take our nearly free tickets but that didn't come up. Again the seats were nice and the roof was closed so we didn't freeze inside. We took in a pitcher's dual. We even saw a Cincinnati relief pitcher throw the ball 101 miles per hour. Naturally that ball wasn't hit.

We got our money's worth in the first inning and left the game after eight innings with no score on the board. When we got the parking lot, the Reds finally scored.

And then we headed to Leon's for great frozen custard. That's a tradition. Of course.

Heck, I could get used to ticket prices like that.