Worst City in America?

But what about the clock tower? And the cool minor league baseball stadium if you can ever find it.

I was living in Chicago when Mobil Magazine (is that magazine still cooking?) gave Rockford, Illinois the title, ''worst city in the United States" tag. Wow! How about Newark New Jersey or Apopka, Florida? There has to be worse places, I thought. My friends and I drove through a neighborhood in Apopka a good 30 years ago and we never uttered a word. It was so poverty stricken we thought we had detoured off onto another planet.

Anyway, Brady's team had a tourney in Rockford this weekend and heck it wasn't so bad. It had some top 40 restaurants but I guess that's anywhere USA. What really bugged me was finding the home of the minor league team where Brady's team would be lucky enough to play.

My directions said turn left off of 90 and find it. And then at the exit, we saw a sign saying turn right. So, I followed the sign. And drove and drove and drove. I think we must have driven five miles. How in the heck do you hide a professional baseball field anyway? Well, these folks did.

Evidently, it was all of walking distance off the highway. I know they were pinching pennies in the Rockford government but all I asked was to see one more sign. Like, TURN LEFT HERE TO BASEBALL PARK. I would have gladly checked in with 10 bucks for that sign since I used $15 dollars of gas money driving through town looking for the place. I did hear folks saying I missed the run down section of Rockford but I guess that's a good thing.

Finding Sarasota by accident

As the story goes, my parents decided to make a break for it from the cold winters of Northern Virgina. I was finding out about girls and the Orioles were great and we moved away from it all and made a dash to Cape Coral, Florida. My first day of school presented me with a race riot. I was robbed of my lunch money. Did my parents check out the schools before sending me off to hell?
Mom understood and one day after work, she made a plan to drive to Orlando to find a school where her child wouldn't be killed.
But she pooped out. She drove as far as Sarasota and found a nice town. She got my Dad to move there and life returned to normal. At least the kids were friendly.
So that's my lead-in to the family trek to Sarasota this week. What a great place. We had a condo crawling distance to Turtle Beach. We saw the Orioles and Red Sox play spring training games. We ate at wonderful Sharkeys and the kids even survived a two-hour wait for dinner. We played catch for most of that time in a nearby field. We had one beach day on Siesta Key which has been picked as the top beach in the United States. See, if my Mom wasn't so tired that one day back when, the family wouldn't have ever found this gorgeous spot in America.

Another cool 80s band

The amazing thing here is the lead singer (Dan Zanes) of the great Boston band, "The Del Fuegos" actually sang children's songs at Nolan's day care back when he was quite young. Sure, I recalled this band with their great songs, "The Longest Day, Don't Run Wild and I Still Want You."

But they broke up way back when. I purchased their so-called big hits on CD and played them for the boys when they were young.

And on Sunday, Eileen and I drove down to Evanston to see the Del Fuegos. They had reformed. We actually had the GPS but still couldn't find Space until the band had already come out. No matter they played a good two hours. And I was singing in the background all night long. At my seat, of course.

I have that Longest Day album at home and see that I paid a whopping 25 cents for it back in the 80s. I think Eileen liked it, too, but it was a late night for her. And get this, neither of us had anything to drink.

As I write this, I have the Del Fuegos blasting in the shrine. Thanks to I-Tunes. Maybe if I was younger, I would have followed the tour that hits Milwaukee, St. Louis and Minnepolis. No, I have better things to do.

Be careful or you will break your neck

Those are real comforting signs at X-treme Trampoline in Buffalo Grove. If you jump this way, you will break your neck. If you land that way, your back will be broken. A broken back? That has to be a serious pain. And this is all in the name of fun?

On Saturday, Brady took three of his friends along with Riley, Nolan and I to Buffalo Grove for two hours of tumbling and leaping on trampolines. Of course, I just read the news on my phone as the boys got their exercise. This is the place where you have to sign a waiver before jumping on the mats. Now its true there is a lawyer in this house but I don't think that waiver is worth much if someone actually gets killed over there. They are still going to get sued.

Enough of that legal stuff. No one got banged up. They all had a good time. I watched Nolan play dodge ball on the trampoline. He told me later how he had made a nice play against two older kids.

I wonder if they had such a place like this when I was young. I probably wouldn't go as I'm not the jumping type.

The art of a game-winning shot

My friend Dan said it best when he texted me stating that every kid should have that kind of experience.

Basketball game tied with seven seconds to play. Brady's YMCA team had the ball. Brady (13 years old) drove down court. Five, four, three, two. Brady flips a shot that goes swish. Game over. See ya. My oldest child did make it just past half court when he was knocked to the floor by his excited teammates.

Now where is the video? Or the close-up photos? Sorry I can't do those things. His brother, Riley, called home to scream at his mother about his older brother winning a game. I called Grandpa Maloney and gave him play by play of the last seconds. I texted to whomever would listen.

It's a huge deal to win a game like that. It's something Brady should never forget.

Is sports the only place where it can happen? You can get a standing ovation for a being in play or for performing a music piece. But it isn't the same. Sports allows us this opportunity for the last-second shot or the game-winning homer.

Riley asked before the game if Brady won the game what would that get him. I said a coke. Instead, he opted for Dr. Pepper. We found a cool pizza place in DuPage County where we made pigs of ourselves eating pizza and wings.

When Brady got to baseball practice that night, a parent had already heard the news of the game-winning shot. That was a good day to be a parent.

Another one of my favorite places

I must admit I was secretly stashing away gift cards to this place. I can't recall where I first found the Yard House in Glenview. It was probably TJ since he lives right around the block from it.
It's really a great place with unlimited brews. On Friday night, I, the IPA freak, found a wonderful one in Three Floyds Dreadnaught. It was wonderous with the Belgian tinges in the hop heavy brew. I had just two as that was enough. Plus, I think this lovely liquid hits close to 10 percent alcohol.

TJ and Bob joined me for drinks and appetizers. The last time I was there followed by layoff from the 20-year old job. I drank too much that day. No doubt I needed to do that following the job loss. I was well aware I was drunk while driving but I blasted tunes and stayed safe on the road. Yikes.

Anyway, the Yard House must stock more than 100 beers on tap and most of them I would gladly sample. It's a great place to celebrate and I guess drown your sorrows as well. This, time, I finished the night with a cool glass of water.

Hot Pizza with strings attached

How do you explain this to your children? Eat blistering hot food just so you can get more in your stomach.
It's that marvelous pizza from Maryland. How many times did I wander in to the Ledo's near the University of Maryland. We would see that same old waitress. Evidently she didn't taste the pizza because she was all of 75 pounds.
Anyway, it was Mark and Eddie and Tommy, too. We would order a few trays of the stuff and go at it. Of course it was smoking hot and my mouth told me in no uncertain terms that there was a price to pay. The roof of my mouth burnt quickly and strings of skin hung down. However it was a small price for the delightful provolone cheese and sweet sauce of Ledo's. Of course, I would down 6 to 8 pieces in the first few minutes. Mark and Eddie were like the tortoise. Slow and steady. Mark would get a kick and finish off the whole darn thing. There were no manners here at all. It was eat as fast as you can thus hoping that would get more pizza down.
Of course we weren't the only ones enjoying this wonderful treat. After I left DC, a number of branches of this establishment opened up even in Virginia. On our last trip to DC, we had the Ledo's pizza right across the street from H-Man's house.
It's probably a good thing they don't have it in Chicago. I don't think my mouth would appreciate it.