Saturday, July 15, 2006

Travels with Smedley - July 2006




Saturday 15 July; 7:00 am ct - Schaumburg, IL: Packed and almost ready to leave for Shanksville, PA (United 93), Gettysburg, PA (the battlefield), East Greenville, PA (The Irelands), Woodstock, VA (the Mays), Washington, D.C. (The Foundation Center seminar), back to Woodstock (the Jones, and the reenactment of Bull Run), when...either Baltimore or New York, then home. The high today on the first leg of the route (here to Wheeling, WV) is forecast to be in the mid-90s and clear. That's good traction and visibility weather. More tonight. jb

Saturday 15 July; 8:30 pm et - Cranberry, PA: 484 miles and 11 hours later. Hot, clear, dry weather all the way over on I-80 & I76. Tomorrow Shanksville (about 1 hour further SE) and then Gettysburg (2 hours further ENE). For the hot weather riding, I bought this long-sleeve solar yellow "UnderArmor" shirt...it fits like a think coat of paint, but the microfiber's wicking feature and the complete freedom from annoying flapping of excess fabric is very nice. The vivid yellow is very visible too, a good thing for motorers.

Sunday 16 July 11:00 am et - Shanksville, PA: The National Park Service ranger here recounted the reports of witnesses who saw United 93 approach Shanksville that day at over 500 mph, then twist upside down and hit the ground at a reclaimed strip mine. THe impact was so shattering that nothing larger than 2x2 feet was recovered - even the engines and landing gear were smashed to bits - giving rise to fringe theories that the airplane did not really crash there...visitors cannot approach the actual impact site, which is in view about 1,000 feet from the temporary visitors center.

Sunday 16 July 5:00 pm et - Gettysburg, PA: The road around the south side of the battlefield is the nicest part of the battlefield. The ride from what was the far right of Lee's line to what was the far left of Meade's goes through heavily wooded countryside to the saddle between the Round Tops, and up the south side of Little Round Top. This time, I had a good camera, so since it is a battlefield I spent most of the afternoon shooting the many 1863-era farmhouses and barns that are located on the battlefield.

Monday 17 July 8:30 am et - Gettysburg, PA., on Seminary Ridge: At one place on Seminary Ridge, you can stand at the place where Pickett's Charge began, and see the small clump of trees 3/4 mile away across the valley, on Cemetery Ridge, that Longstreet told Pickett to use as an aiming point during the charge. The actual trees are still there, On an impulse, I started walking from the crest of Seminary Ridge, through the fresh-cut pasture grass, straight toward the clump of trees across the way, along the line across that shallow valley that the 14,000 rebel troops used at about 3pm on July 3, 1863. It took me a short 20 minutes to get to the spot called the Highwater Mark of the Confederacy - just across the low stone wall at the place called The Angle. It is hard to imagine 14,000 men walking 3/4 of a mile into the muzzles of about 100,000 guns of all sizes and calibers. I think only about 2,000 made it to The Angle, and about 500 avoided death or capture to straggle back to Confederate lines on Seminary Ridge.

Longstreet told Lee repeatedly that it was insane to charge that blue line, but Lee ordered the attack anyway, and destroyed his army for all intents and purposes. It is hard to walk the attack route, and back, and still feel any admiration for Lee.

Monday 17 July 3:00 pm et Gettysburg, PA., at Meade's Headquarters: Shelby Foote's account of the Battle of Gettysburg includes a description of a meeting called by Meade late on the night of July 2. There were about 8 generals in a room that Foote describes as being about 10x12 feet, with only a few chairs, a waterpitcher stand, and a bed. No one was anywhere around when I arrived, so I walked up in the porch of the little house (that was hit by a cannonball the following day, in the pre-assault bombardment), and looked in the window of room where the meeting was held. Sure enough - it was small, and it took no imagination at all to envision the council of war that Meade held that night.

Sunday 23 July 10:00 pm ct Schaumburg, IL., at home, after 2,145 miles.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Ray Kinsella built it and I came.

The baseball diamond and farm where "Field of Dreams" was filmed is in Dyersville, Iowa ("Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa").

On the way north from whitewater rafting with Mike last weekend, I stayed at a Hampton Inn just north of Louisville, Kentucky. As I left the next morning for Chicago, I picked up the paper bag full of snacks that the Hampton Inns usually make available to early-departing guests. In the bag, in addition to a bottle of water, a breakfast bar, an apple, and a muffin, was a little bitty box of sugar-free mints. On the green box was a trivia question: "Q: Where is the Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams located?" On the edge of the box was: "A: Dyersville, Iowa."

That was news to me, so when I got home I watched the movie again (I have the DVD) and Googled "Field of Dreams" and sure enough - The movie site has a website, and the diamond and farmhouse have been preserved for visitors. So this morning I rode over to Dyersville - 180 miles oneway - and visited the place.

It was pretty special. The farm is about 3 miles northeast of Dyersville, which is just off Highway 20 west of Dubuque, Iowa. The 360-mile ride over and back was glorious. Highway 20 west of Rockford, Illinois runs along the top of a 50-mile long ridge that separates two wide, green valleys that fall away to both sides of the highway. It was picture-perfect cornfield America.

Turns out that the ownership of the baseball diamond itself is split between the Lansing family farm and another family. An overhead powerline runs through the diamond itself, roughly along the line from second base to third base. So the part of the field on the third base - left field side of that powerline belongs one family, and the part of the field on the first base - right field side belongs to the Lansing family. The well-known white frame farmhouse on the first base side, with the picket fence and porch swing, belongs to the Lansing family. The Lansings have owned the place since around the turn of the 20th century, as I recall from the sign by the house.

I got home about 7:00 PM today and watched the movie again. In the film, the diamond looks professionally dressed, with the traditional clay infield with bags and chalk lines. Today, in Dyersville, the infield was light gravel and there were no lines of bags. But otherwise it looked just like it did in the movie.

I arrived about 3:00 PM, and there were maybe 50-60 parents and kids playing catch, taking batting practice, and shagging flies in the outfield. There was no admission or apparent supervision - just folks throwing and catching baseballs and swinging bats. Very much in the spirit of the movie.

No sigh of Shoeless Joe, Mel Ott, Moonlight Graham, Terrance Mann, or any of the others. I knew not to even look for Ty Cobb, because the ghosts really did not like him in life, either. (He must have been a real horses ass, considering that baseball players - particularly of that era - are not the touchy-feely kind to start with.)

Filming lasted 14 weeks in the summer of 1988, which was so dry that the studio had to dam up a nearby creek to provide a way to irrigate the corn so that it would be high enough to allow men to disappear into the corn rows. Turns out that they overdid it, and by the time they started shooting the corn was taller than Kevin Costner. They had to build a long skinny platform between the rows so that they could shoot Costner walking down the rows, hearing The Voice say, "If you build it, he will come." (BTW, "he" is not Shoeless Joe in the movie, but John Kinsella, Ray's father, who in the plot had died while he and his then-college age son were estranged, as you'll recall if you've seen the movie.)

The place is maintained by donations and concession sales only. It is well worth a donation, and a visit if the opportunity presents itself.

All very cool...a great day trip from Chicago...check out the website at: www.fodmoviesite.com

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

That was the only day

“…It was like coming this close to your dreams, and then watching them brush past you, like a stranger in a crowd. At the time, you don't think much of it. We don't recognize our most significant moments while they're happening. Back then I thought, "Well, there'll be other days." I didn't realize that was the only day….


“…I never got to bat in the major leagues. I’d have liked to have had that chance, just once, to stare down a big-league pitcher. Stare him down, then just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn't. That’s what I wish for. The chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes to look at it. To feel the tingle in your arms as you connect with the ball. To run the bases,
stretch a double into a triple, and flop face first into third. Wrap your arms around the bag. That's my wish…”

Doc. Archibald (Moonlight) Graham, played by Burt Lancaster; to Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner; “Field of Dreams.”