After a very productive April, I have not been productive in May. This is only my second blog post of the month. Not much has been going on. I was getting frustrated because I couldn't figure out what to do. I probably would have gone somewhere if I had a four day weekend for Ascension Thursday (that's when I went to San Diego last year), but I lost that because of the hurricane. Traveling on Memorial Day weekend was going to be too expensive. So I haven't gone anywhere this month. Last year I went to at least one baseball game in every month from April to September. That won't happen this year. After four games in April, I'm not getting to a game in May. It's been a slow month, but things are about to pick up.
This summer will be the first summer since 1999 that I won't work at camp. I'm going to take advantage of my free time. I already have two baseball trips planned for sure. I'll save the details of those for later. But the big trip is my second trip across the Atlantic, this time to England.
My good friend Pete is getting married on July 6 in Canterbury, England. I've known Pete for 15 years (hard to believe). We had good times on Model UN trips and then we worked at camp together. It's also hard to believe that it was 10 years ago that Pete, Bill, and I worked precamp under Alex. That was my first of many precamps and the rest never lived up to that one.
This week I booked my trip to England. I'll be in London for five days and then two more in Canterbury. If anybody has any recommendations for things to do in London, let me know, but I'm sure Pete will have many. One thing that I really want to do is go to Wimbledon. I'm no tennis fan, but I've always liked Wimbledon. Part of it is that it's played on grass. Part of it always starts right around the beginning of my summer vacation. And part of it is that it was dominated by an American when I was growing up (Pete Sampras). I've never been to a professional tennis match in my life, but it would be awesome to get to Wimbledon. If I don't get there, I'll get over it. But this is probably the only time I'll ever be in England while Wimbledon is going on, so I hope I can do it.
While I'm really excited about going to England and Pete's wedding, I'm also very conflicted. If you know me, you know how much I love the United States. God, Country, Notre Dame. Country comes before Notre Dame, so I think that tells you all you need to know. This is the first time I'll be out of the country on the Fourth of July. And I'm going to be in Great Britain on the Fourth of July. That seems awkward, kind of like being in Los Angeles to celebrate the Celtics beating the Lakers in the NBA Finals. I'll be thinking of John Adams's meeting with King George III in 1785. Pete says that we'll be able to celebrate, but I hope this will be the only time I'm not in the United States for the Fourth of July.
Oddly, if I'm going to be out of the country on the Fourth of July, I think Great Britain is the country that I'd most want to be in on that day. America and Britain have a special relationship. Only Australia is a more loyal ally (the Aussies were with us in Vietnam, the British weren't), but Britain is our most important ally. I love America. The only other country I might say that I love is the Vatican City. I strongly like Australia (that might be its own blog post one day). As a Catholic and an American, my feelings on the British are a little bit more mixed, but I do like the Great Britain very much. I used to have a Union Jack in my room (I purposely bought one that was smaller than the American flag in my room). I like how the Americans and British have been able to move past our history of two wars fought against each other to work together for the good of the world. I have many historical heroes. Most of the them are American, but Winston Churchill is one of my favorite people in history. There are so many Churchill quotes that I love and this is one of my favorites: "We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities." That's exactly what happened in World War II. After the French surrendered to Germany in June 1940, the British were the only ones left to stop Hitler. For almost four months, Germany bombed the hell out of Britain and thanks to Churchill's fearless leadership, Britain refused to surrender. Americans like to think that we saved the day in World War II. We did, but if not for the British, it might have been too late. There is no greater political hero of World War II than Winston Churchill. So I will be celebrating my freedom and thinking all the good that the United States and Britain have done for the world together.
My trip to England and the baseball trips I currently have planned will be done by the middle of July. I want to do some other stuff as well. I really want to get to the Missouri stadiums this summer. I'm hoping to do a Valley Forge-Gettysburg-Cooperstown-Springfield-Boston road trip. I have to find something to do for the last month and a half of summer.
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