BALTIMORE – Here’s a question:
Say a person is going to Denver, but along the way he has to stop in Dallas to buy a themed snow globe for his sister’s collection, get a drink (hydration is important), shake the weasel and change planes…
Does this count as “being to” Texas?
This is an important question because I have never been to Texas and if a layover on an airplane counts than, yes, I lose my Texasinity. Hey, some Texan is going to take my money and redistribute it into the local economy and I will also use the utilities and the infrastructure.
I say it counts.
However, I can understand how it wouldn’t count. After all, I’m not really visiting Texas, just like I didn’t visit Utah, Detroit, St. Louis, Charlotte or Chicago on various other connecting flights. I’m also unsure if I get credit for being in Arizona when I drove over the Hoover Dam from Nevada.
Oh sure, I’d like the credit so I can tick off another state on my checklist, but I don’t want a cheapie, either. I don’t want it to be like Cal Ripken extending the streak with a pinch-running appearance.
Anyway, the coach of the Baltimore Ravens is sitting directly across from me as I type this. Brian Billick. I actually did a double take when I saw him because I wasn’t sure how I knew the dude – I had the same experience when I once stood in line behind Steffi Graf to see Dracula. I knew I knew her, but from where…
”Hey, how do I know you? Did you go to McCaskey? You look very familiar.”
Yes, I am losing my mind. Steffi Graf is only one of the best three or four tennis players in the history of tennis and she did not go to McCaskey. She did see Dracula, though.
On another note, I once sat at a blackjack table in Las Vegas with Joe Theisman and Sugar Ray Leonard. For a D.C. like me, seeing those guys was kind of odd.I was half waiting for John Riggins and Mark Moseley to show up with his single-bar helmet and straight-ahead kicking style.
I'm not sure why a guy would where a helmet in a casino, though.
Apropos of seeing Brian Billick in the American Airlines terminal at BWI, I also saw about nine guys that almost kind of looked like Rick Dempsey.
OK, off to Texas (or not). Word out of Estes is that my four-year-old son is not much of hiker. Apparently my wife took him to Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park and he wasn’t too jazzed about it. He only perked up when told about the various types of animals that live in the mountains.
Truth be told, when out for a walk tales of possible mountain cat attacks definitely livens things up.