Hockey Excursion

 

This weekend (Friday November 25th and Saturday November 26, 2011) Richard and I attended the back-to-back home series between the NY Islanders and the NJ Devils hockey teams (NHL). Each team won one game (as the visitor).

Richard and I usually attend at least one Islander's game a season. From my apartment, it is a 70 mile drive to the Islander's home at the Nassau Coliseum. To get to the Prudential Center, the home of the Devils, was about a 75 mile drive for me.

I picked up Richard on Friday morning (I took a vacation day from work)-a 55 mile drive each way) and drove directly to the 3 p.m. game (we did stop at Arby's for a small lunch on the way).

We arrived early enough to watch the Islanders warm-up. We were able to stand right near the glass for the warm-up.

Although our seats were in the upper bowl, we had a good view. The nearly sold-out crowd was quite enthusiastic and vocal. It was an exciting game and close to the very end. Unfortunately, the Islanders were not quite able to pull it off and lost 1-0.

Richard spent the night with me at my apartment. We got a meatball pizza from Paradise Pizza, one of our favorites. Richard caught up watching some old "Three Stooges" shorts.

On Saturday, we had to get an early start because the game started at 1 p.m. Again, we arrived early enough to watch the Islanders warm-up.

 This time our seats were WAY up. Still, we had a good view. It was our first time as visitors at an NHL game. Interesting to sit surrounded by fans of the Devils. To our delight, it was "Dollar (hot) Dog Day." Even nicer, the Islanders won 3-2 (although the potentially tying goal by the Devils with 2 seconds left in the game was nullified after review by officials in Toronto).

The Prudential Center is a new and very nice (but rather expensive) arena. They have a large sculpture/statue of hockey player in a plaza outside (see picture of Richard at the left).

As we waited to leave the parking garage, a woman wearing a Loomis Chaffee jacket approached us. She noticed the LC decal on the rear window of my car. Her son remembered Judy (Lynn's mother) fondly and even recalled Judy's stories of Richard playing ice hockey. That was a nice contact.

We then drove back to Lynn's and then I drove back to my place. Wow. What a lot of driving. I don't know how people can afford to go to these professional sports on a regular basis. But it was an interesting experience and an enjoyable time with my son.

The Wright Book

I have been reading this book (Black Boy by Richard Wright) because Richard's high school English class has been studying it.  Both Lynn and I have been using the edition pictured above.

Frankly, I am enthralled with this book and am finding it very relevant and inspirational. However, as one might presume, the subject matter is rather delicate and mature. I'm pretty sure that many of the middle class high school students do not have the life experience necessary to grasp many of the key points of the book. Nonetheless, it is a book that they will hopefully return to in the future to glean its finer points that they may have missed during their initial harvesting.

Richard told me this weekend that they are finished with this book despite only having read about half of the first part (note: the first part of this edition was a separate best seller when it was originally published in the early 1940s.). I still have a few more chapters to go to get through the whole thing.

I highly recommend this book!