It Does Rain In California

FROM HAVING WORKED IN NIGHTCLUBS AND THEATERS all those years I became a real Night Person. It was not at all unusual for me to be out and about at 3 AM after the clubs had closed for the night.

With the Adrenaline still pumping it just wasn’t possible to go straight home and hit the hay. A bunch of us would stop at some all-night cafe for a bite and to talk shop.

That was then, this is now.

I can’t do that anymore. Both my mind and my body want to shut down long before those late hours.

Example: The other night Dawn and I were all set to watch the Giants vs Dodgers game on TV. The game was scheduled to start at 10:15 PM (They were playing on the West Coast.). I was in place, folded up in the Rip Van Winkle Memorial Chair, ready to cheer on my boys when what happened? There was a thunderstorm in San Francisco! That almost never happens. I lived there for 25 years and I don’t recall there being thunder and lightning more than once or twice.

It wasn’t raining all that hard despite the special effects. The game started, but after just one batter and a flash of lightning, the umpires pulled both teams from the field. What a bunch of sissies. They could have kept on playing. They weren’t using aluminum bats. Nobody would have gotten electrocuted. Sheesh!

For the next twenty minutes the umpires couldn’t make up their minds. Put the tarp on the field. take it off the field. Put it back on. Take it off again. The Grounds Crew in San Francisco was not used to that much activity. They were not happy. I was not happy either. Eventually they decided to cover the field until the rain stopped. Being the True and Loyal Fan that I am I decided to hang in there with them.

CUT TO THE CHASE.

It was now 11:50 PM – 10 minutes until Pumpkin Time and I was fighting to stay awake.

My wife, the lovely and strategically adept, Dawn, had left the room to take a shower, do a few domestic things, and find a cure for the Common Cold, and a few other things. i had hunkered down in the chair. When she came back in the room she was bright-eyed and ready for baseball. I looked like i had just awakened from a coma. I could not go on. I had to abandon my box seat behind home plate and go to bed.

If they hadn’t started playing by midnight (Eastern Time) I didn’t think that they would at all. Of course, i was wrong. it seems that they were just waiting for me to cash in my chips before going back on the field.

This morning I discovered that they did start playing again – at 1:50 AM (Eastern Time). If I had hung in there with them until the sweet and victorious end (Giants 8 – LA 6) I could have just changed my socks and gone for coffee. It was a 3 1/2 hour delay and a 3 hour and 22 minute long game. You do the math. I’m exhausted again.

In the old days I could have (and would have) watched the whole game. Last night I didn’t make it to the second batter.

I’m such a Wuss.

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