Julie July 4th

My sister Julie (taken late 1970s)

Today (July 4th) is the birthday of my sister Julie Francine. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE! She and her family live in Great Britain. Unfortunately, it has been too many years since I last saw her.

Julie was born in the morning in Cleveland in 1969. All of us were born in the same hospital, St. John's. It turned out to be a tumultous day (here is a detailed story about the weather and its aftermath that day).

For the holiday, we gathered at Uncle Dan and Aunt Dorothy's home in Bedford for a family get together. Lots of cousins, bottles of pop, grilled food, etc. Typically, we would have gone to see fireworks at Cleveland's Edgewater Beach but due to the new baby and threatening weather, we stayed in Bedford.

I remember that the weather seemed to deteriorate quickly and we all pile into our Volkswagon van and headed for home in Broadview Heights. The sky was a weird shade of gray-green and there was lots of crying and praying as we drove. When we arrived home, there was a mad rush out of the car and we all went down into the basement for safety against the potential tornado.

Later, we learned that the massive storm had hit Edgewater and several people were killed by falling tree limbs. My mom recalls that the hospital lost power during the storm. With that kind of day, it's difficult to forget a sibling nicknamed Julie July 4th!

Baseball Fireworks

While we are big Cleveland Indians fans, the local baseball team in the Hartford area is a Minnesota Twins AA league team, the New Britain Rock Cats. The past two years we celebrated Independence Day at the Indians ballpark. However, this year, the Tribe was playing in Cincinnati. So the next best thing was a twi-night double header at New Britain with pyrotechnics to follow.

The New Britain Stadium is a nice, minor league ballpark, where every seat is pretty darn good, especially for the money (see chart below). We bought reserved seats in section 204 (see above) but it was too sunny and hot on the first base side at 5 p.m. So after a half inning, I insisted we move to the general admission seats (Section 213) on the third base side (I like these better myself). So we watched the first game from there. It was a slug fest with the home team getting punished 11-3 by the Harrisburg (PA) Senators.

The second game started out promising for the Cats but they nearly duplicated the first game by losing 9 - 3. Fortunately, both games were only 7 innings. Nonetheless, it was pretty late by the time we got to the pyrotechnics. These were more roman candles than fireworks. Still, Richard enjoyed them and there were no big BOOMs.

By the time I dropped Richard back to Lynn and drove back to Stratford, it was after midnight.

Climb Every Mountain

Another highlight from this Saturday (7/2) with Richard was our weekly "hike." We went to Hubbard Park in Meriden, CT to walk up to Castle Craig at the top of the ridge. Lynn and I rode up to this years ago during an AYH bike ride. At that time, I had no idea where I was going and after the ride I wanted to return for another look. 15-20 years later....

My initial plan was to walk/hike to the summit/castle. But we weren't prepared and the weather was sunny and hot. After about 45 minutes of walking along a gorgeous reservoir at the base of the ridge, Richard pragmatically insisted we return to the car and drive up. Reluctantly, I agreed.

When we got to the top, we encountered a couple who had started out the same time as us. They were so glad to see us with the car and eagerly accepted my offer for a ride back. No refreshment stand at the top!
 

Note the girls sitting on the outcrop.

The views were spectacular and a tad frightening if you looked down (see picture above and below).  When we got back to the starting point and dropped off our new friends, they kindly gave us each an ice cold can of soda (Sprite). Refreshing!