This blog is now located at http://mattorel.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click
here.
For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://mattorel.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.
Another Pressing Season
Cider pressing, that is.
The season starts as the summer descends in to its 2nd half. The days are still hot, and tart juice explodes from the transparents on the early tree. Pressings must start late, else the wasps may make things impossible. In the heat, the juice cannot be allowed to sit too long. The kids help, sometimes friends or cousins or neighbors (that's Cousin Elise with Aaron and Elianna in the picture, from a pressing in early October).
At the 2nd half of summer extends, the evening pressing is punctuated by the song of thousands of crickets. The first of the crickets make their presence known at the beginning of August, and by September the evenings are full force concerts. That ends, finally, with the first frosts in October. The juice is light, sweet and crisp. It is safe now to let the juice drip for several hours, to maximize the yield.
Then, autumn. The leaves fall, and even when crushing apples a jacket is necessary. I start taking inventory of how many apples are stored, how many on the trees, and how many pressings we may yet have left.
Finally, winter. The fruit has been off the trees for a month or more, and no longer bears as much liquid, having been hurt by extended storage, or refrigeration, or frost exposure. The juice includes red delicious now (to be used in moderation, lest the juice have too much sediment and turn bitter), and is much thicker.
Finally, the last pressing. Most recent years, we were done in November, though a couple times we extended later -- one year going past Aaron's birthday (February 26). This year, the last pressing ended yesterday - at 39 degrees, I let it drip nearly a full day. It was just warm enough to do it in the garage, with a space heater. Only the 2nd time we've done it in the garage; while doing it there makes pressing possible on below freezing days, it makes clean-up much more of a challenge.
This was our 13th year making cider. We started with a typical small press that might be considered a toy press of sorts, out by the back door. That first pressing, we cut apples in quarters, filled a nylon bag, and considered it a minor miracle when juice started dripping. The yield from that first pressing was a quart. By our third year we graduated to a full-size press, and also got attachments such as wheels, an apple-eater (to end our dependence on the Cuisinart) and eventually a hopper. Over the years we have had to replace a couple parts from the press, but for the most part it just works. A typical pressing today yields around 3 gallons; more early in the season, less later on. We serve, we bring, we drink, we freeze.
I don't press as much as I once did; partly I just don't have as much time for it, but also the trees just don't yield what they once did. I think it's in large part due to the neighbor's maple trees causing too much shade now. The last two seasons, we supplemented with a healthy amount from our neighbors across the street; they don't spray but for the most part that's ok when it comes to cider-making. The two things we haven't done, are to try different fruits, and to make hard cider. Guess I'm just not that interested.
I measure out our yields, do it by the ounce (assuming our containers have accurate markings. This is our yield, year-by-year. The years of the late frosts are pretty obvious in there.
Year | Pressings | Ounces | Average | Gallons |
2009 | 10 | 3799 | 380 | 29.7 |
| 2008 | 16 | 5581 | 349 | 43.6 |
| 2007 | 8 | 3080 | 385 | 24.1 |
| 2006 | 17 | 6251 | 368 | 48.8 |
| 2005 | 8 | 2604 | 326 | 20.3 |
| 2004 | 14 | 6038 | 431 | 47.2 |
| 2003 | 18 | 7515 | 418 | 58.7 |
| 2002 | 5 | 954 | 191 | 7.5 |
| 2001 | 26 | 7039 | 271 | 55.0 |
| 2000 | 22 | 5801 | 264 | 45.3 |
| 1999 | 18 | 4134 | 230 | 32.3 |
| 1998 | 23 | 3416 | 149 | 26.7 |
| 1997 | 13 | 1137 | 87 | 8.8 |
| Total | 198 | 57349 | 290 | 448.0 |
Labels: Apple Cider
Across the Borders, It Feels Like Love (Buffalo, November 22, 2009)
As my friend Karen and I sat in the seemingly interminable delay on the Blue Water Bridge in to Canada yesterday, I realized that we'd miss the start of last night's concert. We still had 3 and a half hours to drive -- if there wasn't another delay crossing back in the United States to get to Buffalo. We hadn't been set on tickets until 3pm, so it was the best we could do. Karen and I went through the openings we'd like for last night's concert, so long as we wouldn't be there: "Glory Days!! Yes, he should open with Glory Days! And then, maybe something from Devils and Dust." My foot turned to lead as I imagined the horror of my mission to see the final show turning in to witnessing only the encores. We screamed through Niagara Falls at 90 (and I don't mean kph), and then a miracle happened: no line at the bridge.
As I walked in to HSBC Arena last night, Bruce was building a house. I could check the setlist later, but at least I hadn't missed the one and only playing of the entire Greetings From Asbury Park album. The aisleways were deserted. I snagged the pretty yellow t-shirt (the first nice one Bruce has had in at least 3 tours, I'm pretty sure) and sprinted to my seat for my main event.
I might be excused for expecting a bit of raggedness from the songs on Greetings; after all, these are Bruce's oldest Columbia songs, and most of them are performed rarely, if ever. I might also be excused for expecting little from songs such as Mary, Queen of Arkansas and The Angel, the least well-liked songs from that album.
In short, the playing of Greetings was a blast. Yes, Blinded was ragged. So what? Yes, the start of Mary, Queen of Arkansas touched off a major beer run in pretty much all areas of the arena with seats, but it was still a pretty rendition, with Nils providing a backing on harmonica.
But there was also Growin' Up. As soon as Bruce said, "and there I waaassssss," I smiled. Bruce, in story-telling mode, back on Kingsley Avenue, meeting Clarence for the first time. Only in this story, he somehow ended up in a dream, and woke up in Fucking Buffalo. The crowd ate it up.
The Angel featured what appeared to a viola player (at least, I think that was a viola; I'm not used to hearing a viola played that low). After the show, no one I spoke to knew who the viola player was, she was the mystery woman of the evening. Bruce seemed to smile as he sang the words, "Madison Avenue's claim to fame," as if he were particularly proud of that line.
The only downer for me in the Greetings set was, oddly, It's Hard to be a Saint in the City. I have seen the band perform this time several times before, some with fierce piano from Roy Bittan, and typically with Bruce and Stevie ending up in a prolonged guitar duel that would blow the roof off any building. Not yesterday, unfortunately.
After Greetings, the show turned almost in to an "anything goes" sort of affair, and a very long one at that. It was Stevie's birthday, and to help celebrate, not only was Stevie presented with a cake with many candles, but Bruce and the band accepted Stevie's request and launched in to the first-ever live performance of Restless Nights. During the fan request segment that followed shortly thereafter, the band played the Chuck Willis standard, Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes, pretty much nailing it despite Bruce's protests to the sign-makers that he didn't actually know the words.
The evening had less of a "we're done" feeling than that of a house party. The arena didn't completely co-operate; it's one of those multi-box level arenas that detaches the upper bowl from the lower bowl. Despite the sell-out of ticketed seats, the 2nd level of boxes were mostly empty; the upper bowl patrons just seemed too far away; they mostly sat the entire night. The party was downstairs, where the pit was packed beyond what seemed possible, with Bruce frequently going in for... support.
One touching moment came for me during Waiting on a Sunny Day, when a little girl named Emma came on stage for the child sing-along. Emma was confident, loud, on the beat, and... decidedly off pitch. Did Bruce wince? Noooo. Did he pretend even to notice? Noooo. He looked every bit the proud father, and then acted it: He asked Emma to take another chorus, and congratulated her on the best he'd ever heard. Later on, during Dancing in the Dark, Emma's brother Jacob held up a sign asking to dance with Stevie, during which Stevie demonstrated old go-go moves, and after which Jacob played air guitar with Bruce. Now, I'm a skeptic regarding the children on stage (not least to it more than occasionally being vehicles for the parents more than the kids), but I happened to exit the arena at the same time as the kids, and they were just flying. Jacob went on for probably 5 minutes as to how he came up with the idea to ask Stevie to dance, and I figured, if it was his idea, that's good enough for me.
After 34 songs, the show and tour finally ended with a rousing chorus of John Fogerty's Rockin All Over the World. (As long as he was getting out the Fogerty songbook, why not nod to Buffalo with Rock and Roll Girls? Oh, well). Highlights beyond those already mentioned? Too numerous to recall now without consulting the setlist. Quibbles? Sure: Nils was pretty invisible last night, and I wanted one last explosive solo from him. And, never finding out who that viola player was. At the end, Bruce announced that the band would be away for a "very litle while," and both he and Stevie held a large sign that fans in the lower bowl had brought reading, "It's Only Rock and Roll... but it feels like love," and it just felt right.
Where Am I?
GOOD EVENING OHIO!!
It's national news, now.
Check out the video clip.
And, yes, tonight Milwaukee got "Good evening, Ohio," too. Guess he needs to write a new song. Call it "In Ohio." I even have lyrics he can use. He wrote 'em in Kalamazoo, Ohio.
Labels: Bruce Springsteen, NBC Nightly News, Ohio
Bruce Finds His Place (The Palace, November 13, 2009)
When I was growing up in New Jersey, the state had a bit of an identity crisis. It was the suburb of New York and Philadelphia. When the Giants and Cosmos moved in to Giants Stadium, they kept "New York" as part of their name. Bruce Springsteen helped change things for us; from his very first album he proclaimed himself to be a New Jersey man.
Michigan, on the other hand, is a big state with no history of being someone else's suburb; Bruce has played here at least once every year since 2002. Imagine, then, Bruce coming onstage and greeting the crowd with a salute to Ohio! And then sticking Ohio in to the lyrics of "Wrecking Ball"; of course, a Michigan audience tends not to object too much to lines such as, "tonight Ohio is going down in flames." Finally, Bruce put Ohio in to the story for "Working on a Dream." This last actually managed to get a few boos, and prompted Stevie to inform Bruce that they were, in fact, in Michigan (Bruce took it well, and periodically shouted out, "Where Am I?" throughout the evening after that to get a rousing Detroit answer).
Fortunately, while Bruce was forgetting where he was, he wasn't forgetting how to put on a magnificent show. By the conclusion of Nils's indendiary twirling solo at the end of the evening's second song, "Prove It All Night," it was already clear that Bruce and the band were intent on taking no prisoners.
Several notable things have changed on this latest tour, as compared to prior tours:
1) Bruce used a rear riser and crowd surfing during "Hungry Heart";
2) The set includes of a full album -- usually "Born to Run," early in the setlist
3) Audience members bringing signs, with some signs being accepted as song requests
4) De-emphass of the current album
All of these changes had the effect, tonight, of drawing the audience more in to the show. The use of the read riser and the crowd surfing literally puts Bruce face to face -- or closer -- with several hundred fans. And I confess that I had contact... with Bruce's right shoe. Nice shoe, very sturdy.
Not that all of the changes are necessarily for the better. I'd have preferred to hear more content from "Working On a Dream" than just the title song, for example. That said, the crowd responded well to the show, and was as loud as any crowd I have ever heard at The Palace.
The performance of the "Born to Run" album was spot on. The songs were crisp, impassioned, and uniformly attacked, hard. Even "Meeting Across the River," which was enhanced by trumpeter Curt Ramm's playing.
The accepted requests had a distinctive Michigan flavor, first with Bob Seger's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" (played one time previously, also at the Palace, back on August 18, 1992), and then with the Detroit Medley. Bruce started "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" by playing the distinctive opening keyboard riff on guitar, and with that started a 3-pack dance party right in the middle of the set, with Bruce playing guitar slinger throughout. By the end of Bruce's blistering solo in "Because the Night" -- during which Bruce proved he could blow a snot rocket and play a guitar solo at the same time --- my voice was gone, my hearing was shot, and my legs were jell-o. He's a freaking force of nature, is all I can say... and that band is pretty damn good these days.
Show highlights including a roaring version of "Johnny 99" early on (perhaps a bit of a reference to the state of the auto industry), and also a thundering performance of "Born in the U.S.A." During "Rosalita," Bruce handed the mic to Steve at the beginning of the 2nd verse and Steve survived it, as Bruce went to check something side stage (maybe the woman who stole the spotlight during "Dancing in the Dark" by jumping on stage from the pit and dancing much too wildly). Finally, the closer, "Higher and Higher," which finally allowed Cindy Mizelle to get a bit of the spotlight, closed the show on a high.
Labels: Bruce Springsteen, Detroit, E Street Band
Rush Limbaugh and the Rams and Donovan McNabb
Six years ago, Rush Limbaugh went on national TV and said, regarding Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb:
Sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team.
Much has been said about Limbaugh's now ended effort to be part of an ownership group for the St. Louis Rams. Outcries over things he supposedly said, or in some cases about things he never said.
But to me, whatever may be in discussion (including another remark comparing NFL football games to gang fights), that one remark about Donovan McNabb was the key. More than his "conservative" politics, more than his positions on race (and, let's be clear: Rush is too smart to say explicitly many of the things recently attributed to him), more than his talk show, or even the reaction to him among his many detractors. It's that statement about McNabb. Its meaning, its aftermath, and its lingering impact. In his one big test of how he would handle the NFL and its players, he flunked.
Let's break it down:
Limbaugh's statement was made during the pre-game show for "ESPN Sunday Night Football" on September 28, 2003. Here are the relevant statistics for Donovan McNabb, at the time of the statement:
Career record: 31-19 (the record of the Eagles in the 50 games prior to McNabb taking over: 15-34-1)
Playoff record: 4-3 (the Eagles had gone 2-7 in the playoffs over the prior 19 seasons)
Pro Bowls: 3 (2000, 2001, 2002)
Full seasons played: 3
NFL Passer Ranking, 2001: 7
NFL Passer Ranking, 2002: 7
Rank of the Eagles offense the year before McNabb took over: 30th
Rank of the Eagles offense in McNabb's first 3 seasons: 17th, 17th, 10th
The list of quarterbacks with similar accomplishments during that time period is rather small; Rich Gannon of the Oakland Raiders was the only other one who both won playoff games and was selected for the Pro Bowl in each of the 3 seasons prior to Limbaugh's comments. For those who may have forgotten, Gannon was also the NFL MVP in 2002... but Gannon was 37 and nearing the end of a long career. McNabb was 26.
Back to Limbaugh. Let's take it sentence by sentence:
I don't think he's been that good from the get-go.I wonder what Rush must have been thinking to have said that. How much better did McNabb need to be? Well... I'll come back to that one.
I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL."Social Concern"??? As if that's a
bad thing? Of course, in this context, it's merely a set-up, and here it comes:
The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.Spoken as if a black quarterback had never done well before. Remarkably, many people actually
agreed with Limbaugh on this point, including
"Slate" columnist Allen Barra.So, for the record, here is a partial list of the Pro Bowl quarterbacks for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002: Daunte Culpepper, Steve McNair, Kordell Stewart, Michael Vick. The Pro Bowl roster is not chosen by the media. Presumably, those other black quarterbacks did reasonably well, to be selected by players, coaches and fans for the Pro Bowl.
Prior to McNabb, the last Eagles quarterback to take the team to 3 consecutive playoff appearances was Randall Cunningham. Cunningham also appeared in the Pro Bowl in each of those 3 seasons, more than a decade prior to Limbaugh's statement. The next quarterback who led the Eagles to the playoffs after Cunningham? That was Rodney Peete. Somehow, I have the feeling that Philadelphia, at least, had seen black quarterbacks do well before.
There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve."A little hope"? Why? Was Rush's view really so clouded by skin color? Was that what he thought every season when Warren Moon went to Pro Bowl after Pro Bowl? Or when Cunningham took 6 different teams to the playoffs? Or when McNair came within a yard of sending a Super Bowl in to overtime? Or perhaps, did he see Doug Williams as the "exception to the rule"? I can't say. But I'm pretty sure I've never seen a quarterback who made the Pro Bowl and win playoff games in each of his first 3 seasons get slammed like that just 2 games in to his 4th season. Certainly I've never seen it happen to a
white quarterback.
The defense carried this team.Here, at last, Limbaugh strayed within some proximity of truth. As good as McNabb was those first 3 seasons, the Eagles defense under coach Andy Reid was better. Of course, I can also point to many teams with great defenses that went nowhere... because
they didn't have an offense with a quarterback the caliber of Donovan McNabb.What happened in 2003? What happened was that McNabb opened the season with two perfectly awful games. The first one, on a Monday night no less (when Monday night was still the big deal), ended with the Eagles being shut out for the first time with McNabb as a starter. His second game was another decisive defeat. The Eagles then had a by week. For the new season, McNabb had no touchdown passes, 3 interceptions, and a QB rating under 50. The Eagles offense was ranked 31st in the league, and the team was winless, having scored just 10 points in its first two games. The obvious question seemed to be, "what's wrong with Donovan"? And, stunningly, rather than acknowledge McNabb's importance to the Eagles' success (as evidence by what happened when McNabb played poorly in those first two games), Limbaugh went the other way. Even more surprising, his ESPN colleagues mostly rolled over and let him get away with it. Panelist Tom Jackson attempted to disagree by changing the subject back to McNabb's performance on the field the prior 3 seasons, but it took McNabb himself to object in public to the remarks about race (and, to be fair, a few columnists, such as
"USA Today's" Rudy Martzke, also chimed in).
What happened next? In McNabb's next 28 regular season starts, he went 25-3. 25-3!! How many quarterbacks have gone 25-3 or better in any stretch? Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and who else? Not very many. McNabb made the Pro Bowl again in 2003, and in 2004. In the 2003 playoffs, he engineered one of the most famous playoff comebacks in league history, popularly referred to simply as "4th and 26." The next season, he led the Eagles to the Super Bowl. And "led" is the operative word; in 2003 and 2004, the
offense carried the Eagles.
So, I asked above, how much better did McNabb need to be to make it obvious how ignorant Limbaugh's opening salvo against McNabb really was? Was 25-3 good enough? How about 13 games, out of those 28, with a rating above 100? How about 46 touchdown passes as compared to just 14 interceptions during that span? How about his 2004 season, for which his 104.7 rating still ranks among the top 20 seasons for any quarterback in league history?
Did Limbaugh ever retract
any portion of his statement regarding McNabb? We know he would never retract anything about the media, but what about, "I don't think he's been that good from the get-go"? But after that 25-3 stretch, when McNabb's career record stood at 56-22, might he have at least admitted that quarterbacks who win nearly all of their starts, who go to 5 straight Pro Bowls, and who take their teams to 4 straight conference championship games, might really be "that good"?
No, he did not. 4 years after his original statement, he added this: "They just can't let go of this. Do you know this is five years ago now? I think it was 2002. I mean, it's been a long, long time and they just can't let go of it, and I'm going to tell you something, folks. The one thing about this incident that I really have noted and I'm not happy about -- and it's a very sad thing: This incident has made Donovan McNabb a perfect victim, and that is just very sad."
And
that is why Rush Limbaugh will not become an NFL owner. So long as that original statement lingers, unretracted.
Labels: Donovan McNabb, NFL, Rush Limbaugh, St. Louis Rams
Loma Prieta
20 years ago today. Has it really been so long?
As I start this note, the clock reads 7:43pm EDT. In about 20 minutes it'll be the exact time.
Me? I was in Section 9, Row 10. The ticket stub says so.
During the summer of 1989, I began to realize that the best two teams in major league baseball were the two in the Bay Area, and that there was a good chance of a Bay Area World Series. When the Giants offered up guaranteed post-season tickets to anyone who committed to buy a 20-game season ticket plan for the following year, I took it. Sure enough, the Giants won the division, and then the National League playoffs -- though I had to miss the final two games as they were
both played on Yom Kippur. The Oakland A's won the American League playoffs, so the Bay Area series was set. And I had tickets to the first home game.
Overlooking the Marina, Tuesday afternoon, October 17, 1989October 17. The most perfect Bay Area day... ever. My college friend Andy flew in from San Diego to go to the game with me; I opted to take the day off from work and we bounced around San Francisco during the day. Went to the Marina district, drove through the Embarcadero, and finally on to Candlestick Park.
We decided to get there very early, so as to catch warm-ups and pre-game activities. I wore my Giants cap, the one I had gotten when I had a similar 20-game plan 2 years earler; on my cap was my one "Croix de Candlestick" button -- the prize awarded to any attendee of an extra inning night game ("Veni Vidi Vixi," it read. to commemorate Candlestick's notoriously icy conditions). Andy and I wandered about a bit, I bought a commemorative post card that marked the date. I had my camera with me, and when we reached our seats I took a couple pictures, just to show the scoreboard flashing, "Welcome to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series." It was 3:25pm.
After the shaking. Note the hot dog vendor, lower right. The stadium was full: PLAY BALL!!The sound started in right field. By now, just after 5pm, the stadium was beginning to fill in. On the field, they were setting up for pre-game festivities, the national broadcast was just beginning. It sounded like many people stomping their feet, as when there is a rally and the crowd is packed. I looked over to right field, and... nothing. No people stamping their feet. There weren't enough people there yet to make that loud a stomping noise, anyway. And then... then we were stomping too. I watched the press box windows down the left field line; as one window would bend in, the next would bend out. Other people said there were waves rolling along the outfield grass, and that the light standards bent down to an angle that didn't seem quite possible. After a few seconds, the lights went out.
Now, it would be easy to say I was scared for my life... but I wasn't. The thought did occur to me, however, that I was glad to be in the upper deck; after all, if the stadium collapsed, better to be on top. After a little while, maybe 20 seconds, the shaking stopped getting worse, and from that point it seemed the quake gained fans. As the shaking started to subside, a loud ovation began in the stands, and finally, after -- if my memory serves -- 51 seconds, the earthquake ended to a standing ovation. Someone near me said it couldn't be more than a 4... but I had been through a 6 when I lived in Orange County, and this was bigger. Someone else said that surely this was an omen for the home team, and pretty much everyone agreed. People with radios turned on to find out what was going on, but for a little while we couldn't pull in anything at all.
After a few minutes, generators put back on some of the stadium lights, but the scoreboard showed only gibberish. Food vendors continued making their rounds. I got out my camera and snapped a few photos; in one of them a hot dog vendor is plainly visible. Players and officials from both teams stood around on the field, to be joined by emergency vehicles.
Emergency vehicles on the field, and an aftershock: Time to leave.By game time, the stadium was full. The out-of-town press, one section over from me, was still in a panic, but not the home town fans. A chant rang out: "PLAY BALL!!!" But when the stadium lights went out again, it started to become apparent that that would not happen. Reports started coming in from the local radio news station, reports of fires and destruction outside the safe walls of the stadium. Then came the first big aftershock, and that, finally, started chasing people from the stadium.
Leaving the Candlestick parking lot as the sky darkened over unlit houses.
We waited in the parking lot as the sun descended over the unlit homes near Candlestick. Finally, we drove off toward my apartment in Palo Alto. 3 hours, driving about 10 miles per hour the entire way down route 101. Amazingly, not a thing in my apartment was damaged, nothing at all. We walked in, and the phone was ringing, my mother had gotten through.
Next morning, a trip to take Andy to the airport (it was open, with Red Cross stations all around), and a trip to the office to try clean it up (it was a disaster area; the picture only hints at the damage, and those that had been in the building at 5:04pm the previous afternoon wanted no part of it while the aftershocks were still coming). I learned that our glass elevators weren't so great in earth quakes, and that two of my co-workers had been trapped in one as it partially came off its tracks during the shaking. I also learned and that TI Explorers (the computers of some of my co-workers used at the time) had an unfortunate tendency to to become projectiles when bounced.
Damage to a stadium support. It was fixed prior to the game being played 10 days later.Candlestick Park suffered some damage during the earthquake; how much became a bit of a political question, as the mayor tried to take credit for "fixing" Candlestick the prior year to make it safer in a quake. The game was not allowed to resume until the park was deemed safe; in the meantime the 49'ers played their next home game at Stanford Stadium. On October 27, Game 3 was finally played. Andy couldn't make it up for a 2nd trip. The Giants lost. By a lot.
Labels: erathquake, Giants, Loma Prieta, San Francisco, World Series
Cider pressing, that is.
When I was growing up in New Jersey, the state had a bit of an identity crisis. It was the suburb of New York and Philadelphia. When the Giants and Cosmos moved in to Giants Stadium, they kept "New York" as part of their name. Bruce Springsteen helped change things for us; from his very first album he proclaimed himself to be a New Jersey man.
20 years ago today. Has it really been so long?
We decided to get there very early, so as to catch warm-ups and pre-game activities. I wore my Giants cap, the one I had gotten when I had a similar 20-game plan 2 years earler; on my cap was my one "Croix de Candlestick" button -- the prize awarded to any attendee of an extra inning night game ("Veni Vidi Vixi," it read. to commemorate Candlestick's notoriously icy conditions). Andy and I wandered about a bit, I bought a commemorative post card that marked the date. I had my camera with me, and when we reached our seats I took a couple pictures, just to show the scoreboard flashing, "Welcome to Game 3 of the 1989 World Series." It was 3:25pm.
Now, it would be easy to say I was scared for my life... but I wasn't. The thought did occur to me, however, that I was glad to be in the upper deck; after all, if the stadium collapsed, better to be on top. After a little while, maybe 20 seconds, the shaking stopped getting worse, and from that point it seemed the quake gained fans. As the shaking started to subside, a loud ovation began in the stands, and finally, after -- if my memory serves -- 51 seconds, the earthquake ended to a standing ovation. Someone near me said it couldn't be more than a 4... but I had been through a 6 when I lived in Orange County, and this was bigger. Someone else said that surely this was an omen for the home team, and pretty much everyone agreed. People with radios turned on to find out what was going on, but for a little while we couldn't pull in anything at all.
We waited in the parking lot as the sun descended over the unlit homes near Candlestick. Finally, we drove off toward my apartment in Palo Alto. 3 hours, driving about 10 miles per hour the entire way down route 101. Amazingly, not a thing in my apartment was damaged, nothing at all. We walked in, and the phone was ringing, my mother had gotten through.
