Friday 8th May 2009 – Off to the Ballgame

I am now the proud owner of a 2006 Mazda MPV LX. I think. There is still the question of shipping money from the UK, but I've succeeded with the test run. More ominously, my agent raised the question of the Minnesota Department of Transport: this is government again, so I will turn round, bend over and adopt the submissive position until said vehicle has plates on it. It looks like this, except that it's grey:

By next week, I should be on the road with the co-ordinates of Glasgow, MT in my GPS. Or, at least, the co-ordinates of Fargo, ND. I have discovered, to my amazement, that Walmart allow free overnight 'RV' parking at most of their stores. There is a whole atlas devoted to free things RVs can do. If I can add these to the discounts for 'seniors', I'll soon be beyond the merely free, and into them paying me to be here (that won't, I expect, apply to the government).

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Meanwhile, my hosts have been in a state of dejection as a result of a steady stream of pastings being handed out to the Twins (baseball) at Baltimore. I decided it would be a kindness to intervene, with the Seattle Mariners coming to town for a series (they seem to play three games in a row). I don't usually have to take the field on these occasions, usually my presence is enough. So teatime found us on the tram (they also call it a 'light railway') heading for the Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome. (You will no doubt recall that Humphrey was Lyndon Johnson's VP, and the man credited, in 1948, with moving the Democrats from 'states rights' to 'civil rights', but you may not know he was the Mayor of Minneapolis at the time. You certainly won't know that he was one of the heroes of my 1960's.) This is an inflatable sports stadium. Going into an indoor sports stadium as the flock are gathering for a game is very exciting.

Dinner was, of course, beer and hotdogs. The beer here is just a different world from what I knew 30 years ago. The hotdogs, on the other hand, are just as good, although better-wrapped. All rounded off with popcorn. The popcorn is provided in quantities so large that we have to take turns going into the stadium, since it is not big enough to hold all of us and all of the popcorn simultaneously.

The Twins were obviously affected by my presence: they inflicted an 11-0 humiliation on the hapless Mariners. So duty done, then: everyone on the tram home was happy. I felt no need to point out that it had taken my intervention to get to this.