Saturday, August 1, 2009

Celina Ohio to Coldwater Ohio



Stopped in Celina to see brother in law Ned Hemmelgarn and good friend/local judge T-bone Lammers as I rode south towards Darke County.
One of the cool things I wanted to do was ride the bike path south from Celina to Coldwater. This was one of the best 4 miles of the entire trip. I have rarely been on bike paths in last 3200 miles and this was the best.



Celina-Coldwater bike path.



More bike path.



Very neat the end of the bike path in Coldwater is the Snickers Memorial whiffleball field on Vine Street and once agaain I was lucky enough to show up just as it was being prepped for the greatest athletic competition of the year in that particular neighborhood. The annual Buzzard's Glory Whiffleball Tournament(BGWT). http://cd-communications.com/macforum/showthread.php?t=20006 which pits the best and the brightest (??) young men of the community in fierce competition for the coveted Muhlaney Cup. This is serious stuff to about 40 guys fighting to keep from entering middle age and who are spending their lives blindly wandering thru life bumping into stuff as they are lost in memories of their youthful past glories, both on and off the fields of battle.

Snickers Memorial Field manicured grass reminds one of St. Andrews golf course in Scotland crossed with the mythical village of Brigadoon which only appeared every 100 years(which like living in dog years is equivalent to 1 Coldwater year).

It makes a person feel tingley in places you don't normally feel tingley when you set foot on the turf. I would like to say it reminded me of the time I got to walk on Wrigley Field in Chicago but that would be too much of a stretch, so I won't. Actually it took all the self control I could muster to not mark this field like I have so many bridges during the past 2 months.

Anyway the 3 grounds keepers Joe Overman, Trent Gerlach, and a misplaced Pollack who's name I can not remember except that it ends in "ski" and he goes to the U of Toledo were kind enough to let me ride the bases just like they let kids do at minor league baseball parks.
Here I am streaking around the whiffleball bases on my trusty iron steed. This has to rank as one of the top 10,000 things I have done in the last 2 months. What a mpoment to savor and remember. When I was done (and really feeling tingley)I could fully understand what draws the future leaders of Coldwater back to this hallowed ground every year.
When I say this was a special moment I am not bull pooping you.

Posted by Picasa

2 comments:

  1. Damn Sparky...you're getting kind of close.

    ReplyDelete
  2. already past and getting ready to finish starting next week--the only question is whether I ride back from D.C. once I get there in about 2 weeks

    ReplyDelete