Saturday the 26th was our Apple Picking TM. Ironically, it was my last really good day before this past Sunday. After our Red Cross training, we left on a school bus and drove to an apple orchard northwest of the Bronx on the mainland of New York. There was an unusual amount of traffic for a Saturday afternoon which ate up a bunch of our time at the orchard, but I still had a blast picking apples with my friends. Once we had all filled our bags with McIntoshes and Cortlands, we loaded up the bus again and headed to Mom and Dad Guest's house. Upon arrival we were met with a table filled with oatmeal raisin cookies, brownies, and cold milk for us to munch on while we divided up and made homemade waffle cones and ice cream, melted chocolate and caramel for dipping sauces, carved pumpkins, sliced up our apples for the dipping sauces, and of course, readied apple pies for baking. Our night there was filled with great food, awesome fellowship, and a wonderful time of singing and playing games. My day had another high point: seeing Old Yankee Stadium and New Yankee Stadium for the first time. No baseball fan is complete until he has visited or at least seen one of those in person.
Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were all a blur for me as I spent a good chunk of time working on my English paper. Sunday stood out because we were granted day liberty. My friend Ryan and I decided to take the bus out to Great Neck to grab some lunch and catch some football. Midway into my pizza and the Giants-Bucs game, I got a call from Chaplain Sias asking if Ryan was with me, because his parents wanted to speak with him. I later found out that they came to the campus without explicitly telling him, so they came down to Great Neck and took us back to the Academy. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching football and studying my PKT knowledge along with the Air Force Hymn.
I don't really remember much of Monday because most of it was spent working on my paper. Tuesday, however, I remember a little bit more. It was my birthday, even though it didn't really feel like it. I think it was probably my worst birthday ever. Even worse than my 16th birthday where I was in the middle of a two week grounding. I didn't get any mail, nothing special really happened, my friends didn't ask me to go to dinner with them, and we got IT'ed for CTO time to top it all off.
Wednesday was nondescript as well, though I just seem to remember unpleasantness at some point during the day. Though I just remembered that we had a sort of inter-squad game for baseball practice. In my first inning of pitching I did really well, got three quick outs. My second inning felt a lot worse even though I didn't allow any runs. This day of pitching will figure in with why Sunday was such a good day. Thursday was marginally better because of Cookie Cafe in the afternoon.
Friday was a lot of fun at night because it was Homecoming weekend here at the Academy and I signed up to drive alumni around in golf carts. Because not all of them wanted rides or were walking around after 7 pm, a few of us had a lot of fun screwing around with the golf carts driving all over the campus. Little did we know of the fury that would be unleashed the following morning.
Saturday started okay, with a bunch of us raising the #1 Ensign on the main flagpole (the largest US flag we have if you do not know). Upon the flag being raised, all of the Plebes (at that moment) headed over to Ackerman Auditorium to listen to VADM Albert Herberger, USN, the first USMMA grad to attain the rank of VADM in the United States Navy. After he finished, the RTOA, RTO, and RX all had their fun yelling at us for being worthless Plebes. So worthless in fact, that they decided to revoke our overnight liberty for the weekend AND demote us to Plebe Candidates again, which meant that we could no longer talk in Delano. Once we were released from that, our morale were way below the basement. I had to work the soccer game as a ballboy again to help pay for the baseball team's trip to Florida in the spring. After the game finished I got into khakis to watch the football game. It was a pretty good game until it started pouring torrential amounts of rain from the sky which flooded our FieldTurf field which delayed the game for over an hour. Thankfully, we were dismissed from the game which allowed us to stay in our rooms and work on other stuff like homework, or in my case, listen to the Twins squeak one out against the Royals. Because we had nothing better to do, we watched The Last Castle in Ackerman, which turned out to be a really good movie. I was quite happy, however, when we were released from 2300 accountability muster because then I could finally hit the rack.
Sunday was by far one of the best days I've had in a long while here at the Academy. It started off with Bible Class accented by Mom Guest's homemade cinnamon rolls. My mouth has not tasted anything so delightful for breakfast in a very, very, very, very long time. I ate too many of them, but that's definitely a forgivable offense. Because I had baseball in the afternoon, I didn't go to the Worship Service because my stained uniform needed to be replaced by a clean one before the evening's PKT. After readying a uniform, I headed off to the last baseball practice of the fall expecting to inter-squad again, though the time ended up being spent preparing the field for winter and eating lunch that was brought by the dad of one of the seniors.
After we had been eating for a while, the coaches began calling the Plebes into a makeshift office one by one. I don't know if they wanted me to be last, but it worked out that way. I want to say that I sat on the edge of my seat watching the dejected faces of those who did not make it, but I had my mind dead set on what I was going to face talking with the coaches. As I entered the coaches' makeshift office, I was offered a seat and asked how I thought the fall went. I bluntly told them that I felt that I was very inconsistent and did not play as well as I could have. The head coach contemplated what I said for a split second and replied, telling me that he had good and bad news. He gave me the choice of which he should deliver first, so I picked bad news. He told me that I would not be playing on the team as an infielder, however, for the good news, they felt that my curveball could help them out this year. I was in total shock. Even during Indoc while we had a "meet the coaches" session, I had nearly resigned myself to the fact that I had nearly no chance of making the team. Somehow, what I had to offer impressed them enough to keep me. I'm still in shock that they picked me. I was the only non-recruit to make the team. After cleaning up the locker room and field, I quickly returned to my room so I could watch the Twins-Royals game. When the Twins won to force game number 163 my day got even better. Not even the night's PKT could dampen my spirit until I headed to bed.
Yesterday was pretty nondescript also. We were finally issued our running suits which we will eventually be allowed to wear to Delano for meals. CFC was good, as we listened to a 1964 graduate who now works with Operation: Mobilization.
Today has been another great day. Even though I only got 3.5 hours of sleep and started the day off with a physics test, it has been wonderful. Class was pretty fun as our favorite asker of stupid questions, Muller, added to his collection in two classes today. His best of the day was: (paraphrased) "So did they use coal in the boilers of the Titanic to make steam?" Honestly, I'm still in disbelief after that one... After classes finished up for the day at 1500, I used the rack-in that our CTO gave us to take a short nap before doing a couple of other things.
At 1707, the Twins-Tigers game began. I had another MN guy over to watch the first couple of innings before heading to dinner. When I left for dinner in the 4th inning, I was a little down because the Twins were down 3-1, though I knew we had the ability to come back. When I returned from dinner, Orlando Cabrera launched one into the seats to put the Twins ahead 4-3. Right after that I headed to CTO time for the next 45 minutes. Once I returned, I noticed that the score was tied at 4-4 in the 9th inning. From then on I was riveted until the thrilling finish in the bottom of the 12th. I even skipped Bible study to finish the game. I'm thankful I did because that was the best game I've ever witnessed. The phenomenal ending to clinch the AL Central Division title made my week exponentially better. Everybody kept writing the Twins off, but they came back, and now they're a force to be reckoned with as they head to the Bronx to take on the Yankees. I can't wait to flaunt my Twins spirit in the presence of all the FLID Yankee fans. What a treat. Stand by for more posts and my reactions to the Twins-Yankees series.
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