Mr. Yoder’s Blog

In what looks to be turning into a tradition, I piled into a large van with a number of my teaching colleagues Monday night to take in a Phillies game.  And an unhealthy amount of hot dogs.  What follows is a brief time line of the event.

2:50; school’s out, time to change for the game.  I’m not a Phillies guy, so I threw on a red shirt to try to fit in.  I topped that with an ancient Souderton High School long sleeve T, to show my solidarity with Jamie Moyer.  Topping it all off, my Orioles hat.  That probably canceled out the red shirt.

3:25; we’ve piled in to Dr. Leyh’s mini-van on our way to Brownstown to pick up the big van and meet with the group that lives in Lititz.  Dr. Leyh complained of being sore due to spreading stone throughout his driveway.  Seeing as he’s retired, I don’t think he has a right to complain about how he spends his day.  It’s his choice to spread stone.  If I were retired I would choose to not spread stone.

4:00; Mr. Virmani is at the wheel of the big van, and we’re off.  Conversation in the van was greatly varied, but we did manage to solve all of the school’s problems by the time we got on the Turnpike.  Good thing Mrs. Brumbaugh was along, so that a principal was there to hear our great ideas.  By the time we got off the Turnpike at Valley Forge, we had fixed PSERS, PDE and were most of the way through fixing education at the federal level.

5:17; Mr. Brogan decides to try to explain Lady Gaga to Dr. Leyh.  I’m not sure it worked.

5:01; trying to get off the Turnpike, Mr. Virmani manages to get in the one lane at the tollbooth that has that woman that didn’t have a ticket to get off.  We sat there for no less than 5 minutes as she argued with the toll collector.  We were probably 2 minutes from taking up a collection to help her pay the $21.90 that was her toll.  We later learned that she was ‘forced’ in to an EZPass lane when she got on the Turnpike.  ?!?!?!?  See, the key is, you got to be smarter than the tollbooth.

5:12;  a path diverged on the Interstate and we, we took the one more traveled by.  I almost feel bad for Mr. Virmani.  He was in a no win situation.  We had a choice of getting off the Schuylkill Expressway and going south on the Blue Route and coming at the stadium from the south, or staying on the Schuylkill.  As we shouted instructions ‘Left, right, down, up!’ he chose the Schuylkill.  With truly comedic timing, Mr. Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame) turned it into the Surekill Crawlway as we rounded a bend 20 seconds after Mr. Virmani committed and came to a complete stop.

6:12; we finally make it.  As soon as we were out of the van I threw in a handful of Ranch sunflower seeds.  Eat.  Spit.  Be happy.

6:23; I down my first 2 dogs.   In one of my best ideas to date, I brought a can of Easy Cheeze (not Cheese Whiz, that stuff comes in a jar, I’m talking the spray cheese product in the pressurized can).  I had cheese dogs all night.

6:25; Mr. Newman, on his rookie trip marvels over the chopped onion dispenser (a great device, turning the knob drops chopped onions along the length of the dog).  He was also heard to wonder if the dogs were made from grass-fed beef.

6:31; we wander the stadium in search of cheesesteaks.  I also ate 2 more dogs.  Personally I think it is sacrilege to not eat dogs on dollar dog night, so I did not eat a cheesesteak, but others did.

6:59; I get to the top of the steps en route to my seat in time for the National Anthem with 2 more dogs in my hand.  I should comment on our seats:  3 rows from the top on the third base line.  And on a rainy night-undercover.  Clutch performance on the part of Miss Wilburn finding those seats.

At this point the game starts, so my time line will now be based on innings.

Top 1; some guy from WOGL is throwing dogs into the stands.  I managed to get one.  More importantly, one of them went over some fencing around one of the support columns.  We could see it but not reach it.  That thing is likely going to be there until the stadium comes down.  Also, the Pirates led off with a homerun.

Bottom 3; big inning for the Phillies, scoring 5.  After the inning I ran down for 3 more dogs.  I kept going to the same cashier, she was very nice.  She always said ‘Have fun.’  And she also knew my system:  I walked around anyone standing at the counter trying to decide what to get (what’s to decide?  DOGS!), then maneuvered around those trying to figure out how to pay, handed the cashier my singles and was on my way.

Mid 4; Mr. Newman partakes of the cheese.  He would not eat another dog that night without cheese.  I told you it was a good idea.

End 5; I’ve eaten 2 of the 3 dogs I bought after the 3rd and start the last one.  It was cold.  The dog, that is.  Also, Dr. Leyh was nowhere to be found, having left in search of ice cream.

End 6; Dr. Leyh is back.  He had clearly been a little off most of the game, but now he was back with a vengeance, yelling whatever came to mind.  Also, Mrs. Brumbaugh found some cotton candy with the help of Mr. Trego.  They walked two thirds of the park looking for it.  That’s a long way to walk when there’s dogs at the bottom of the steps.  I was struggling with that last dog, but I decided if I could run a marathon in 40 mph winds, I could finish a last dog.  Oh yeah, it was 7-2 Phillies at that point.

7th Inning Stretch; I finish my 10th dog.  Historic photo courtesy of Mrs. Brumbaugh.

End 7; time to hit the road.  I was feeling pretty good at this point.  Thirsty, but good.  I don’t like leaving early, you never know what you’ll miss (say, for example, a Ryan Howard Grand Slam) but a slight food coma was setting in.

9:50; the Schuykill Expressway is empty for the ride home.  As we tallied up the dog count, I led the league with 10, Mr. Newman had 7, Mr. Chmil had 6.  We combined for 49 dogs over 12 people.  Mrs. Brumbaugh had none.  Potentially we could have had 50 dogs.  I thought that was grounds for booting her out of the van right then and there.  She said it was better than eating veggie dogs and a tofu cheese ’steak’ like Mr. DePaul’s student teacher, but not eating a dog at all is worse.  She did make up for it by playing Name that Tune with her iPhone.

10:32; we get off the turnpike.  Somehow Mr. Virmani made it from South Philly to Adamstown in just about an hour.

10:43; we have to top off the rental van’s gas tank.  We stopped at Sheetz and I was seriously tempted to drink the stuff in the windshield squeegee bucket I was so thirsty.  It is a full day later and I’m still thirsty.

11:23; home at last.  It was a great trip; a lot of fun.  When I got home I drank about a liter and a half of water.  I crawled into bed; usually I sleep face down, but not in this case.  I had to sleep on my side to keep the pressure off my stomach.