We take 32 to 87 to 384 and then 91 North past Bradley Airport (named for a deceased Army Air Corps aviator of the Second World War, killed in a crash at the field; ask me why I don't like flying in or out of there) to 291 and we're maybe fifty feet (hyperbolic distance measurement) into Massachusetts and there we are.
This year we parked on the actual grounds of the Eastern States Exposition as opposed to in the parking lot of a Catholic Church, Saint Joseph's I think, or as we did two years ago in the lot at the city's municipal building or last year over the bridge from the main entrance in what I thought was a Benny's but when I saw it yesterday it said Rocky's. No explanation for that-for the rest it was because we came on weekends, along with everybody else.
Thursday lots of people came because it was Massachusetts Day, Considering The Big E is in Massachusetts, perhaps, like me, you're going 'BFD.' We would be wrong, my friend. There were high school marching bands, a multitude of them, whose songbooks are suspiciously the same, "Rock and Roll, Part Two" (known, explained our band gleek daughter, as "The Hey Song" in your cheat book) as well as one of the more unique (I don't want to crush young talent with a more harsh descriptive) renditions of "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" in which that word is in short supply when it comes to the arrangement.
A lot of the people wandering the grounds are Red Sox fans which as a lifelong Yankees fan, especially this year, should make me smile as my team clinched the division Wednesday night and the BoSox are still scuffling to get in the playoffs. And then I remember 2004 and recall it's not how you start, it's how you finish.
Speaking of which, in short order, we had hot sausage sandwiches, fried oreos (we skipped the chocolate covered bacon offered in the Connecticut House. The Land of Steady Habits, famed for Edward Land and John Holland, is reduced to artery clogging culinary), of course, went to The Big Picture for that crazy photo we get every year, stopped in at this year's butter sculpture, had a grilled cheese sandwich from the West Side Lions who man their own grill and donate all the proceeds from a full menu to funding their community projects for the next eleven months and one week (never knew a grilled cheese sandwich was so powerful), and watched as Michelle won Sigrid a Minion that is as advertised.
We took 191 West past Six Flags in Agawam back to 91 and then back to 384 until we were home and dry, for now and for another year. Ain't it funny how you feel, when you're finding out it's real?
-bill kenny
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