Performer: The Beatles
Songwriters: John Lennon,
Paul McCartney
Original
Release:
Let It Be
Year: 1970
Definitive
Version:
None
I
went to Denver for the Society for American Baseball Research convention in the
summer of 2003, but it wasn’t the same as Boston the year before. I didn’t
connect with as many people. Consequently, I don’t have the same memories I do of
Boston, and perhaps not coincidentally I haven’t gone to another SABR
convention.
But,
as I mentioned, the SABR convention was only part of the impetus behind the
trip. Another part was to see Andy in Wichita, so on Sunday, I checked out of
my fleabag motel—I had only so much money, you know—and began the long
drive from Denver.
For
all the denigration that the breadbasket states, like Kansas and Nebraska,
receive as far as dull driving, I’d put East Colorado right with them. The big secret
of Colorado is that it gets scenic only after you hit the Rockies. The rest of
the state is a whole lot of nothing going for it unless you’re into open
prairie.
I
like to break up my driving trips so I can see things, but my drive to Wichita
was going to be a straight shot in one day—520 miles. It had to be highway and
nonstop.
I
actually remember more about the drive to Wichita than I do the SABR
convention, including the game I attended at Coors Field. The first thing was
when I drove past the highway sign noting I was leaving the Mountain time zone and
entering Central time. I flipped on my phone just so I could see the time
change.
The
second thing was as I got closer to Wichita. I was listening to sports talk
radio, and it was all about the Royals and how they—the freakin ROYALS—were in
first place and could they hang on? Already, the Royals had lasted longer in
first place than anyone had expected, but I knew they still were on borrowed
time.
As
this went on, I drove under a few bridges, which had road and exit signs
mounted on them, like most city bridges do. What was notable was that a cop
aiming his radar gun around the edge of the sign, like a sniper. Fortunately, I
saw cop cars with cars pulled over both before and after the bridge in question,
so I had an inkling something was up and had slowed just in case.
Originally,
I was going to stay with Andy, but in talking with him, he made it clear in
tone if not words that he didn’t want me to stay with him in his one-room
apartment, so I got a hotel. He was appreciative and even more appreciative
that I went out of my way to see him at all.
This
is literally true, I suppose, because Wichita isn’t along I-70 from Denver to
Kansas City. But I knew he was missing Holly and everyone back in Columbus, so
it would be good for him to see a friendly face, even though he had done a
stint in Wichita years before and knew people there.
We
went to a pool bar downtown, and one of his coworkers from the Record-Eagle
joined us. We shot a few games, loaded up the jukebox—it didn’t have this song,
like the one at the Thurman did—and hung out for a while before calling it a
night sometime around midnight.
The
rest of my vacation week was left to my own work. I spent the next day at the downtown
Kansas City library. The next day, instead of driving to Cincinnati to see Scott,
Shani and my new niece as I had planned, I went to Louisville for more library
work. I figured, why not, given how close it was and that I was in the zone
anyway.
I
got a lot done and cemented at least one relationship, so it definitely was a
worthwhile trip. Best of all, this drive to Colorado didn’t cost me my
transmission, unlike the last such trip 14 years earlier had. Then again, I
didn’t go up to the top of Pikes Peak this time either.
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