Tuesday/Wednesday

Day Two back in the real world has been better. Looking forward to a return to True Normalcy tomorrow.

Continuing from my previous posting...

My second trip up to the First Class restrooms on the flight home was truly surreal. Fortunately, little Bobby Costas was laid full out asleep in one of those stretch seat/beds in the front row. This time, I found myself standing in line behind a very nice package with blond locks. Doing the right thing, I said nothing. I was carrying along the Thinking Outside the Box NYT crossword book that 3 had sent me for the trip, and was working a puzzle where I had determined that the word "tent" was in several single boxes for the solution. My concentration was interrupted when the blond package spoke:

BP: I have a book of Tuesday puzzles that I like to do because I can usually get them all the way done. That book looks a little hard.

LtPC: Yeah, well, I usually get 80% or so of these, but there's always a few clues on the fine arts or foreign history or geography that are beyond my talents. But I like the mental gymnastics.

BP: My dad and his mother are really good at puzzles, although Grandma cheats. I only do them when I don't have access to the Internet or I'm just too tired to keep the plot of a book straight in my mind.

LtPC: You travel a lot?

BP: Yeah. I'm in TV and they pulled me off an assignment in South Bend to do this gig with Costas in Copenhagen on the Chicago bid for the 2016 Olympics.

LtPC: South Bend?

BP: Yeah. They wanted another profile on Weis and Jimmy Claussen. Like it hasn't been done before. Whatever.

LtPC: OK. This is a little weird. I have some history in South Bend. And you look a little familiar. Just who are you? And why are you even talking to me?

BP: Ah, com'on. I get hit on by you old guys all the time. Can you say, "College World Series?"

LtPC: Oooh! I'm a big fan of yours. It's either the lighting, or the fact that I haven't slept for a day and a half. Sorry.

BP (EA): That's OK. I like the anonymity. I'm going to work on this look to see if I can similarly slip by other "fans". So what are you doing up in First Class?

LtPC: Like I told Costas, the lines in Economy are a little long, and Inga gave me a hall pass. My daughter and I are headed home after 10 days in Italy.

EA: You like it over there?

LtPC: It was fun. We stayed four days in Verona, and then five in Turin. We spent a couple days in the French Alps from our base in Turin.

EA: I hear the driving in Italy is a little exciting.

LtPC: Really, once you get used to the speed, the chaos at round-abouts, the lack of numbered road signs, and the incredibly narrow city streets, it's no different than the USA.

EA: Sounds like you adapted OK.

LtPC: Well, it was either that or get out of the way. The two most memorable points were, 1) getting lost on a one-lane road above Verona while we were searching for a vineyard, and having to back up twice to let on-coming traffic get through (never found the vineyard), and 2) paying 33 Euro ($50) toll for a 12-15 mile tunnel coming back from a scouting trip in the Alps one day. Ouch! Oh, and our parking garage at the hotel in Verona was like a sardine in a tin can. The side mirrors had to be folded in to make it through the doors!

EA: I heard the road signs are a little hard to follow.

LtPC: The Autostade and the main roads were OK. But once you were off the beaten track, most of the country roads weren't named or numbered. So you just looked for town names at the round-abouts and tried to follow the arrows. Then when you got to a town or another round-about, you did the same thing again. In the bigger cities, the streets were named, but most of the signs were just on small-ish plaques on the corners of the buildings at the street corners. For a guy with lousy eyes, it was a lost cause. If it weren't for my daughter, I'd probably still be out there on some round-about in Milan.

EA: So did you see a lot of those famous Italian sports cars?

LtPC: Actually, no. Sure there were a few (a bunch of Beemers and Audi's on the Autostade for sure), but most of the cars were dinky little Mini-Cooper sized models. For the narrow roads and limited parking areas, big cars just don't make much sense over there.

EA: So did you catch any races or soccer matches while you were there?

LtPC: Not really. They were having some kind of a bike race in our favorite plaza in Verona the morning that we left for Turin, but it hadn't started. I couldn't read the brochure anyway. And I fall asleep watching soccer on TV, let alone at a match.

EA: What's your history in South Bend? I know a lot of guys from there. Mike Golic from the Mike and Mike in The Morning show, for one. His boys are on the football team now. And I worked with Joe Theismann a few years ago before the company sent him on his way. Theismann was four or five years ahead of my dad at that prep school in Pennsylvania, way back when.

LtPC: Yeah, well, Joe and I graduated in the same class. Before way back when. Thanks for reminding me of my place in time.

EA: You Domer's are all the same. Get over it. And here comes Costas. I think your Economy section is calling. Inga or not.

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End of conversation.

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BCOT