Busch-Gardens

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“291” caption=“I don’t have any pictures of Sickles High School myself, so this one of the track team is the best I can offer (Photo courtesy schulzfamily.org)”] [/caption] For some reason I had this story come back into my mind the other night. Let me set the stage for you: This happened when I was 17. My senior year of high school was about 1/4 done. That summer I’d started dating a girl I met at my job at Busch Gardens. She was older than me, 19-years-old, although she claimed that her paperwork was wrong, her name wasn’t her real name, and she was actually 21. That there should have been enough of a warning sign. Honestly, I don’t even know how much of what she told me was true. I did believe that she was Peruvian, at least, since she definitely looked and sounded like she was from Peru, but there were tons of little white lies told here and there that made me think that she may have been a pathological liar. Not to mention that, well, what kind of girl of her supposed age would be dating a high school guy? ...

The taste of Cuban food, the smell right before a thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, the sound of disco music, the oppressive feel of summer heat, and the sight of a pink building all remind me of my childhood home. Everyone knows that the senses trigger strong memories. It’s also common sense that the media we take in over our lives can have a profound effect on our memories of our past and development. From the simple books of my childhood to the games and music I played and listened to along my 23 years of development, there are certain pieces of media that are just inseparable from the circumstances surrounding their initial consumption. They range from the simple joys of childhood all the way to the angst of high school and the harsh realities of adult life, but I wouldn’t trade these associations for anything. ...

This will be in a sort of liveblog fashion. First off, let me state that I hope we’ll get a NL win this year, I’m so tired of seeing the NL lose to those AL jerks… Lineup announcements: Slight cheering in the NL until they reach Mets players, then booing. How great is that? In AL, booing at the Red Sox players. Yankees fans can do something right, I guess? If only I can get them to boo the Yankees too. ...