The 1980 Phillies

The 40th anniversary celebration of the 1980 Phillies world championship team, the first in franchise history, happened over the weekend. It was two-years delayed due to the pandemic, but was something I looked forward to as a lifelong Phillies and lifelong baseball fan.

Alumni weekend took up the entire weekend, with relief pitcher Ron Reed and outfielder Arnold "Bake" McBride being inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame on Saturday.

Sunday festivities were focused on honoring the 1980 World Series Champion team, and would include the on-field return of Pete Rose for the first time in Philly in a very very long time.

Mike Schmidt had tested positive for Covid and was only represented on video. Most of the others were there. Larry Bowa, Steve Carlton, Greg Luzinski, Bob Boone, Manny Trillo, Del Unser, Greg Gross, Ron Reed, Larry Christensen, and others. And Pete Rose.

Pete's lifetime ban from baseball is well known to any baseball fan. And I will not argue the merits of that here today. Or the whole Hall of Fame issue, with Pete being baseball's all-time hits leaders.

For this celebration, Pete had been included per the Phillies management on the grounds that his teammates wanted him to be included, with the most-often quote being that the Phillies wouldn't have won the World Series in 1980 without Pete Rose providing the drive and leadership to get over the hump and reach the ultimate goal.

That may be true.

Pete was interviewed before the game, asked in particular about his underage sexual relationship with a pre-16 year old girl while married in those years. His comments to the female reporter were...typical Pete "it was a long time ago, get over it Babe" (or something to that effect). He took a turn in the broadcast booth for an inning and was also typical Pete...profane, narcissistic, egomaniacal, and a dirt-poor example of a human being.

The whole thing left me feeling...dirty.

I understand that Pete Rose was very important in us winning a World Series. I recognize that my childhood sports identity is largely wrapped up in those Phillies teams, and that I unconditionally love many if not most of those players to this day.

But a key part of that team was Pete Rose, and Pete Rose is and always has been, for lack of a better term, a complete and total scumbag.

As a father of daughters, it is hard to swallow a sexual predator defense of "Hey, I thought she was 16...".

We won the World Series in 1980. Thanks in large part to Pete Rose.

Ugh. I do feel dirty.

To John Middleton and the Phillies organization who inexplicably thought this was a good idea: you were very very wrong. And don't hide behind "Pete's teammates wanted this." You chose to celebrate a dirtbag. And predictably enough he embarrassed you. Again. Shame on you.

Be better than this.

Milestones Aplenty

Grace graduated high school, as noted previously. Then turned 18. Then had a big graduation party at our house. Then had a new student orientation day at the University of Delaware. Finally, after two years of pandemic related shutdowns, Julia is working 3-4 shifts a week as a server at a local retirement community's dining room. So...lots of stuff going on...

The whole "kid going to college" thing is new for us. There are deadlines, forms to submit, online acceptances and waivers to complete. Almost all of which, due to her age, go to her and not to us. We ask questions and prod her to do things. Her answers are pretty much always some form of "I did it, I'm on it, or I've got this." And she does, and we are proud.

But the "starting to let go" is a thing... And of course, the "we need to see your financials page so we know what tuition to pay and by when" is also a thing.... So one of the things she needed to do was grant us access to portions of her student portal. Portions. Which means we need to get over being in total control of all aspects of her life. Which is good. Really good. For her and for us.

Grace's New Student Orientation session in early July was exciting. There is a whole process for finding a compatible roommate, and she and another girl decided to be roommates in the Honors College dorm. So on NSO day, Grace got to spend the day with her new roommate (in person for the first time, having scheduled their NSO on the same date) while her mom and I got to spend the day with her roommate's mom.

They are nice people, and it seems like everything should be good. Fingers crossed. It's a far cry from back in the day when you showed up on move-in day and met your roommate...

How is it that you go from this:

Little Grace

To this:

Bigger Grace

So quickly...?

Graduation Day

At the Bob Carpenter Center on the University of Delaware campus, Grace participated in what we hope to be the first of two graduations on the UDel campus. The first was today when she graduated with the Garnet Valley High School class of 2022. Hopefully the next will be the UDel graduating class of 2026...but I am getting a little ahead of myself.

Walking in on GVHS livestream

The ceremony took about an hour and a half, maybe a little more.

Shaking some hands

There was chorus and band music, marching in, and some opening remarks.

Diploma in hand

There was about 45 minutes of reading ~385 names and watching kids walk across the stage to get their diplomas and shake hands with faculty and administration.

With Aidan

There was another 20 minutes or so of student speeches and closing remarks.

Towering over proud big sister Julia

Then a whole lot of picture taking in the hot sun outside the Bob.

And as quickly as that it was over...

Alan White, RIP

Sad to hear that Alan White, drummer for Yes, died recently at the age of 72 after a brief illness.

White replaced Bill Bruford when Bruford left Yes. He also drummed for numerous other musicians, including Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, and was the drummer on John Lennon's song Imagine. So there's some immortality for you.

Alan White was the drummer for the one Yes show I saw live, which in retrospect is not the one Yes band lineup that I would have liked to have seen if I had to pick only one, but it is what it is. I saw Yes at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on April 30, 1984 as part of the 90125 tour. I was wrapping up my senior year in high school...

The classic Yes lineup was Chris Squire on bass, Steve Howe on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Jon Anderson on vocals. 

The 90125 tour lineup was long after Bruford had left and been replaced by Alan White, and after Steve Howe left and was replaced by Trevor Rabin. Wakeman was also long gone and replaced by keyboardist Tony Kaye. Original members Squire and Anderson remained. It was a great concert and a great band, but there is no arguing that the Trevor Rabin years were a very different version of Yes as compared to the Yes Album and Fragile days, or Close to the Edge. I liked it then, and still do, but it was...almost not Yes.

White was the dummer for 3,070 live Yes shows according to Wikipedia. And I saw one of them...

Of all these Yes folks, I have seen Anderson, Squire, White and Rabin once (in 1984), Steve Howe twice but both as a member of Asia (once on 8/27/83 at the Spectrum touring for the Alpha album, and once on 10/20/12 touring for the XXX album at the intimate Keswick Theater in the 4th row - 29 years after the first time). I've never seen Bruford or Wakeman live.

Anyway, yet another one from my early years is gone. And Chris Squire has already passed. Tempus Fugit.

Senior Prom, part 1

Tonight was Grace's senior prom.

Senior Prom

We had a whole host of kids and their parents over to our house for pictures beforehand, some of whom I have never seen before. Which is fine.

Mandatory Boutiniere picture

The excitement in the kids was palpable.

Grace and Aidan

The weather sorta mostly cooperated. At least enough for everyone to sneak in outdoor pictures on the deck as well as in the living room.

As reported by Grace, much fun was had by all. More to come on that.

Northeastern (and Bust)

Going into college application season, Grace had a bunch of schools that she wanted to apply to, for various reasons, and a smaller subset of those schools she really wanted to get into. She had a bunch of safety schools.

Northeastern and Brown were at the top of her list for neuroscience. Villanova and Bryn Mawr College were also in the upper tier.

She had many acceptances, some acceptances and denials in the top tier, and a waitlist or two.

Weighing her options leading up to the universal May 1 acceptance deadline, she chose the University of Delaware's Honors College option, and scholarship.

Today, two-plus weeks after pretty much every college's acceptance deadline, she received word that she had been moved from waitlist to "accepted" at her initial number one choice, Northeastern University (in Boston).

For the mere pittance of $80k per year, and with the requirement that she spend the first semester of her freshman year in an overseas program because the school was overbooked and couldn't accommodate her on campus, she could have the privilege of attending Northeastern. And when she returned from overseas for the second semester of her freshman year, they could guarantee her student housing but it might be in a hotel, not a dorm.

This was her strong number one choice going in.

I know that she had to have some pangs of regret when she read their acceptance letter to me off of her laptop, but it's way too little too late at this point...and no longer an attractive choice.

Go, Blue Hens!!

So Close to Graduating

The ramp-up to Grace's graduation has been a surreal time. There are AP exams. Days of watching movies in class. College tours. Choosing a school and accepting college admissions. Senior Awards nights. Band banquets. Drama Club banquets. Graduation parties. Lots of "lasts". Last Drama performance. Last band concert. Last chorus concert...

Drum Major Grace

But every now and then a small thing hits me like a ton of bricks.

I was recently sent the above picture taken by "T-Bone", the beloved official photographer of many Garnet Valley sports teams and related organizations, including the marching band...

Grace told me she likes the picture but her hair is weird. I told her "that is backlighting", and with a wanna-be artist's eye, it's what makes the picture.

Maybe she understands.

Maybe she thinks her hair still looks weird.

I think it is one of the best pictures we have of her high school years...

Sunrise Over the Hills

Enough is enough. No more tweaking this painting

Sunrise Over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 by 30)

I'm relatively pleased, but one way or another it is time to move on. 

Sunrise, Part 3

A few more tweaks today. 

Sunrise Over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 x 30 inches)

Break up the sunrise blob. Fix the foreground a bit.

Not quite there yet but better. I've enjoyed painting with this limited color palette.

Happy Painting part 2

I took about 10 minutes this evening to tweak a few things with this work in progress.

Sunrise Over the Hills, part 2 (20 x 30 oils on canvas)

There is still more to do, but it is getting closer to what I want. Small steps...

The white/yellow/pink glow on the horizon needs to be broken up by light turquoise sky. The foreground needs work. The left side needs more "woodland clutter". And so on.

Onward we go...

[PS - It is interesting to note that the first/prior post on this painting was photographed later at night with the dining room light on, resulting in an artificial "orangish" color shift. This photograph was taken in daylight with no artificial light, and is thus far more reflective of the actual colors...]

Happy Painting

At the end of an often-long day, I paint because it relieves stress and makes me happy.

Sunrise over the Hills (oils on canvas, 20 by 30 inches)

This makes me happy.

Lukas 1862 oils on a fairly large canvas. This is layer 1. Layer 2 to come.

This was painted almost entirely with a limited palette of turquoise greens, dark earth greens and some blues and grays for the sky. Plus the sunrise colors, of course.

Stage 2 will mainly be to refine the sunrise and fill in the trees on the lefthand hillside. We shall see how it goes...

Painting Again

It's been too long since I have painted anything in oils (or any media for that matter). My normal painting space, so as not to be shut away in the basement, is at the end of our dining room table in the dining room (which is very rarely used as a dining room). My makeshift "studio" got put away for the holidays, and one thing led to another and here we are in mid-April and I keep saying "I have to get my painting stuff out again..." So today I did.

Over the course of a couple hours this evening, with short breaks for checking in on how the Phillies were doing, I threw some paint on some canvas. In this case, Lukas 1862 oils on Michaels store brand extra smooth stretched canvases. The goal was just to use some paint after a 3-4 month hiatus. Both were painted from imagination.

The first is a view across a valley to the hills and horizon beyond.

Across the Valley (12 by 16 canvas, oils)

The second was a darker palette-cleansing exercise that turned into a springtime hillside in the moments near dawn. It's dark, but the light is coming...

Springtime Hillside at Dawn (14 by 18 canvas, oils)

Neither is a masterpiece by any means, but it felt very good to pick up a brush for the first time in about 4 months and do something. Anything.

This was intended to "prime the pump" and get me painting again, nothing more. And I think it accomplished that.

Selection Day

After weighing her various options and visiting the campus again yesterday for a small group tour, my not-so-little girl has accepted a Trustees Scholarship to the Honors College of the University of Delaware to study Neuroscience. Class of 2026.

Grace

There was a time not all that long ago that thinking of Grace going off to college made me sad. I am (mostly) over that, and it makes me happy to think of all of the opportunities and experiences that lie ahead for her. There comes a time to start to let go...

So these days I am mostly just proud.

She is driven and self-motivated. She has worked hard. She has earned this.

Daughter Does Disney

It's been a long time since posting. Life has been full, and busy, which is a good thing. We are all well, which can't be assumed these days. I will try to catch up on backfilling some of the highlights of the past months (Grace's pending graduation, college selection etc....) but in the meantime..

After a pandemic-cancelled Hawaii trip 2 years ago, and another cancelled Hawaii trip last year, the Garnet Valley High School marching band (and other music programs) traveled to Southern California this week. A highlight was the marching band performing in the Disneyland daily parade down Main Street USA. Led by their drum majors, including Grace (at left). Only about 60 of the 100+ kids in the marching band made the trip, but those who did were having a great time.

Garnet Valley HS Drum Majors at Disneyland

After about 50 football games in the marching band, including pandemic-shortened seasons, and a loss in the state semi-finals this year, not to mention a dozen or more competitions over the years, the lyrics from a song from the musical Hamilton resonate in my head. "...one last time....."

Main Street USA, Disneyland

The last time Grace will don the garnet and black of the GVHS marching band. The last time Grace will don the white pants and gold cape of a drum major. Just...the last time.

There are too many "lasts" these days for a sentimental fool like me.

However, more than I am sad for the closing of old chapters, I am excited for what lies ahead.

But today...one last time. It's difficult. For her. And for me and her mom.

Here We Go Again

We will never ever ever ever get a dog.

So... Meet our second dog. Flynn is a ~7 month old Corgi (terrier) and Beagle (hound) mix. As near as anyone can tell.

Ryder meet Flynn. Flynn this is Ryder.

We picked him up Thursday morning, so he has now been with us for about 30 hours. So far so good. Ryder is a bit uncertain, but hopefully that changes soon.

Flynn, formerly known as Spaetzle, is well socialized, house trained and acts the healthy pup in every way.

All tuckered out...

Unlike Ryder who was a rescued stray, Flynn was part of a litter that the owners just couldn't keep. He's an adorable little boy.

More to come...