Amazing as it may seems, three months have passed and today marked the final game of Bretty's Bobcats.
And after a one month training camp and two months worth of games, the National Youth Sports League finally did something useful and provided a real referee for the game...
Up to now, the refs were either some high school kids or parent volunteers from each of the opposing teams.
Bretty has been getting much better as the season progressed. Here he is taking on his man on a play which would lead to a big gain...
Doesn't he just look like a football player? Of course, in this picture, he is busy looking at me holding the camera and not his man...
The block below would help spring the Bobcats running back to a touchdown!
If you look at the picture above, the quaterback behind Bretty has decorated the front of his helmet with the little paw stickers that you recieve from the coaches every time you do something they want to recognize. Bretty has a good number of them as well, but he prefers to put them on the back of his helmet.
Well, the team ran out of paws after last game, so today the kids got something they liked even better. Here are the coaches recognizing players by handing out donuts...
The Bobcats finished their winning season with a snack. So we decided to do likewise and celebrate over a bite to eat at Aloha Kitchen. Malia loved her lumpia...
Of course, when Bretty took a lumpia for himself, Malia proved that she might be tough enough to play football as well. Here she is getting in Bretty's face for having the audacity to eat something that she likes...
When we got home, the kids couldn't wait to take advantage of the warm weather and jump in the pool...
Yes, the transformation is complete. Nalani and Malia have become fish as well, albeit using inflatible tubes. Nalani used to stand on the side and only stick her feet on the steps on the shallow end.
Well, that has changed completely...
And Malia wouldn't let go of me or Cari if she'd get in the pool at all. That's changed...
Of course, Alyssa, Bretty and David still love swimming...
And hamming it up for the camera...
Ah, life in the desert. 80 degrees in April!
Immediately after helping my mother check in with her e-ticket for her return flight to Honolulu, I picked up some dam visitors from our former home of Marietta.
Meet Jack and Barb Moberg as we visited the Hoover Dam...
I'd been to Hoover Dam on many an occasion, but this is the first time I've been on the dam tour. I must say, it's pretty dam impressive.
Consider the intake pipes which bring in the water which generates electricity...
The generators themselves are an impressive spectacle producing some 2.8 million kilowatts...
If you took all the cement needed to build the Hoover Dam, you could build a 4 foot wide sidewalk that would circle the planet.
The dam was originally named Boulder Dam. The final sites under consideration to build the dam were Boulder Canyon and Black Canyon. Boulder Canyon was the preferred site, but ultimately, they selected Black Canyon.
However, the public's familiarity with the Boulder Canyon site led them to name it Boulder Dam even though it wasn't in Boulder Canyon.
Sort of like Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill all over again.
Of course, then that darn Herbert Hoover came into the picture again and they renamed it Hoover Dam in honor of our former president.
Here's a freakier statistic.
Like President Bush, Hoover Dam is leaking.
Well, they're sensitve about the word leaking. They say that water is "seeping" through the pores of Hoover Dam as seen below...
According to the national park service tour guide, Hoover Dam does NOT leak, but instead experiences seepage.
Seepage to the tune of about 150 gallons per MINUTE!
Here's a view of the Colorado River below the dam...
Dam impressive if you ask me.
And the day ended with a dinner at a wonderful Indian restaurant. That's Jack, Barb, my in-laws Jane & Dave Hansen, and me on the end.
And so goes another day in the desert.
Here's how they describe themselves:
While the origin of Durgin Park goes back to Revolutionary days, the era of fame for its chowders, Indian puddings, apple pan dowdy, johnny cake, and New England boiled dinners started some 130 years ago when John Durgin, in partnership with Eldridge Park, a livery man, and John G. Chandler, a dry goods merchant, took over. The theme followed to this day was decided upon then by these old Yankees, that the best advertising is plenty of food on the table.
Here's the truth:
They suck.
I mean really, the food here really sucks. We went there for dinner last night -- and it wasn't cheap -- but the cuts of meat tasted like they were actually held over from the "Revolutionary days."
Therein lies the warning. If you see this flag in Boston...
RUN AWAY!
My stomach felt so bad afterward that only Santa could make me feel better...
Today marked our final day in Boston, so we decided to make the trek out to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
The building itself is magnificent, designed by the acclaimed architect, I.M. Pei...
Here are Alyssa and Cari in front of the presidential seal...
The museum itself is highly interactive. They have designed a series of rooms to resemble various critical points in his political career, but use the video images of President Kennedy to tell his story in his own words.
Her are Cari and Alyssa at the Democratic Convention during which Kennedy accepted his party's nomination for the Presidency...
If you read the sign behind Cari, "Orange County New York for Kennedy Before Wisconsin."
I honestly don't know what that means, but it says "Wisconsin," so Cari wanted me to take a picture of it.
The museum also gives you a stark reminder that idiotic bigotry has taken many forms over the years...
In case you can't read this, it says "Wake Up Protestants" and "VOTE GOP" -- as an acronym for "Victory Only Through Elected Government Of Protestant leadership."
And look at this electoral victory, with Red being Republican and Blue being Democrat...
It should be a reminder that there is no such thing as an electoral lock in politics. Most of the Republican Red states above are today considered "Blue States" -- and most of the Democratic Blue states above are now called "Red States."
Here's another interesting urban legend.
Many say that Kennedy was President because Democrats stole votes in Chicago, giving Kennedy a razor thin margin of victory in Illinois, and thus the Presidency.
The reality? Even if Kennedy had lost Illinois, and though he did have a very thin margin of the popular vote, he still would have won because he had a very strong victory in the electoral college.
Once the museum takes you into the White House years, the hallways are transformed to give you the feel like you're walking through the real thing...
They even have a facsimile of Bobby Kennedy's office as Attorney General...
There's another of the Oval Office itself, but because of the precious artifacts from Kennedy's presidency, you cannot use a flash so the picture was too dark to post.
In any case, when in Boston, take the trek out to the JFK Museum. It really was worth the trip.
The rest of the afternoon was spent on the T, exploring Boston.
Here is Alyssa being anti-social and sitting by herself...
We had lunch at one of the two dozen Cheers pubs in town...
Like the drunken freedom trail of my college days, Cheers has come up with its own version.
The original Cheers -- the Bull & Finch Pub -- is on Beacon Hill, right near the first stop on the Freedom Trail. So Cheers has created its own map...
So you can travel the Freedom Trail and stop for a drink at any of the countless Cheers pubs along the way.
And in typical Red Sox Nation fashion, the folks at Cheers are still annoyed that Johnny Damon was defected to the Yankees...
Here is everyone in front of the famous Trinity Church in Boston...
This century old building is regularly included among the 10 most architectually significant buildings in our country.
And here is Cari's new favorite place...
Newbury Street, home to store after store of some of the fanciest things imaginable.
Thankfully, after all this time in Boston, we had no money left to throw away!
And we arrived back in Las Vegas just after midnight to a very full house. In addition to the regular 8 folks (Cari and me and our six kids), we also had Cari's parents and my mother.
So bedrooms were shuffled and the two littlest girls were on the couches in our bedroom. They were sound asleep when we arrived home...
Ah, it's good to be home.
My mother has literally travelled around the world. She has visited countless major cities.
And yet today was the very first time she has ever entered a subway station. Here is everyone descending down the long escaltor into the center of the earth...
Okay, maybe it's not that dramatic, but it's still way down below ground.
Here are Cari, my mom, and Alyssa posing on the platform withOUT the subway train...
Notice how much the cling to the wall when the subway train actually arrived...
Of course, if you're going to ride a subway for the first time, what better place to begin than in the place where it all began.
It was from the Park Street Station, at 6 a.m. in 1897 that 100 people crowded onto the first train to travel through a tunnel under downtown Boston...
It's really amazing to think of the history in of this place until you realize that the tunnel you are standing in was excavated over a century ago.
Then you pretty much want to get out of it as soon as humanly possible.
You emerge from the Park Street Station in the middle of the famous Boston Common. The Common is one of the oldest parks in America, comprising some 50 acres in the middle of downtown.
And so begins the famous Freedom Trail - the walking tour of many of our nation's greatest historic sites. It begins with the Massachusetts State House...
...which is across the street from the Shaw Monument.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw led the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. You probably know it from the movie with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman - "Glory." The Massachusetts 54th was the first regiment comprised completely of free black men. One of its soldiers was the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Here is the back of my mom's head as she looks up at the monument (and sun)...
And here is the back of my mom's head looking at a headstone (how's that for a weird twist of fate)...
The Freedom Trail takes you into two different churches and cementaries which now rest in the middle of towering skyscrapers.
The King's Chapel and Burying Ground was the first cemetary in Boston.
The Park Street Church is home to what some still refer to the "New Burying Ground."
Here's one of the headstones (see, another head reference)...
The "New Burying Ground" is home to the remains of Samuel Adams (died 1803), Paul Revere (1818), and John Hancock (1793). Okay, maybe it's not so "new" anymore. Eventually, it came to be known as the Granary Burying Ground.
It is also the final resting place of "Frank."
Yes, just Frank.
That's how you were buried when you were just a servant to someone important like John Hancock...
The Freedom Trail takes you past the Old City Hall, which is also the site of our nation's first public school -- Boston Latin. It is no longer at this site, but Boston Latin still operates after its founding in 1635. (Yes, that is SIXTEEN thirty five).
Here's a surprising fact. Everyone thinks of Philadelphia when hearing the name Benjamin Franklin. But old Benny boy was born in the Boston area and attended Bostin Latin. His parents are even buried at the previously mentioned Granary. Hence, Benny's statue in front of the site of the original Boston Latin School...
Another interesting historical fact. Everyone knows that the symbol of the Democratic Party is a donkey or jackass.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson came up with a radical idea. Maybe our country shouldn't be run solely by a handful of wealthy elite men. He based his populist campaign under the slogan, "Let the people rule."
His Republican opponents thought that was a stupid idea. So they used the donkey to portray him in cartoons, labeling Jackson a "jackass" for his populist ideas.
Rather than reject the label, Jackson usurped the donkey and incorporated it into his own campaign materials as a sign of defiance. Of course, Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828.
And Cari stands next to a monument to that campaign...
Speaking of monuments, here is the famous (or infamous) James Michael Curley...
James Michael Curley, another Democrat, served as Mayor, served as Governor, served in Congress, and served time in prison -- not necessarily in that order. He is also the inspiration for the greatest political novel in American literature -- the Pulitzer Prize winning The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor. I have read that book probably 20 times and still enjoy reading it!
Further along is the Old State House...
Immediately to Cari's right (in the middle of the interesection not shown in the picture) is the sight of the Boston Massacre -- the incident which inflamed American passions and many point to as the spark which truly launched the American revolution. The Old State House was the seat of colonial government prior to the revolution and housed the offices of the Colonial Govenor appointed by the King of England.
Perhaps you've seen this famous print by Paul Revere of the Boston Massacre that was created shortly after the event in 1770...
Of course, in what might be a bit of foreshadowing for our current political climate, the print was far more propaganda than fact. In any case, Paul Revere holds a special place in Boston's heart for many reasons, and here on the Freedom Trail you can find his home...
The house was constructed about 1680 -- about 90 years BEFORE Paul Revere purchased it for his family. And you thought your house was a fixer upper.
Paul Revere, of course, is best known for his midnight ride. On April 18, 1775, Robert Newman, the church's sexton, hung two lanterns in its steeple to warn that the British troops were arriving "by sea" thereby sending Paul Revere on his famous "midnight ride" to Lexington and Concord to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British are coming...
The Freedom Trail continues on into Charlestown, but we did that yesterday.
I should disclose that this is not my first trek on the Freedom Trail.
For college students in Boston, there is the right of passage called the Drunken Freedom Trail.
The idea is to walk along the path of the Freedom Trail, competely ignore the historic sites, and opt instead to visit every pub along the way and sample a mug of their finest lager. Here is Alyssa standing in front of one of the oldest bars in America...
Of course, my first trek along the Freedom Trail involved no such thing. I just thought you might be interested in what some college students do for historical perspective.
Then again, my wife's version of the Freedom Trail has us ending the day at Filene's Basement.
Filene's Basement was originally beneath Filene's -- a very high end department store in Boston. When an item wasn't selling, it was sent down to the basement. For the first two weeks on the racks of the basement, the item was offered at 25% off. If it passed that milestone, it was marked down 50%. Then 75%. And finally it would be given to charity.
Filene's is gone -- and Filene's Basement hasn't been affiliated with Filene's for many years, but the markdown concept still is alive and well...
Needless to say, our suitcases are going to return to Las Vegas tomorrow just a wee bit heavier than how they arrived.
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