On the South Side

I was never worried!

If you're going to pitch to Albert Pujols and if he's going to pop up, then you'd better catch it. I don't know why you'd pitch to Albert Pujols but... The past two years I've expected the Cardinals to win and, well, you know... So, I figure this year no one expects they can win; so, you never know.

Maynard Ferguson died Thursday night at the age of 78. I’ve read several good obituaries tonight and I encourage anyone to read them. ( Here’s a list. ) I’m just going to tell you my story of Maynard and me. The year was 1972; I was in 8th grade at Woodward Elementary and I had been playing trumpet for about a year. In those days it was predetermined that you would go off to Cleveland High School which was a mile up the road. That’s what my dad did, that’s what I’d do. Well, during this era up at Cleveland there was a band director named Ed Levinski and he had developed a group of young trumpet players that were simply fantastic. (Many of them went on to become pros.) Well, our family was friends with the family of one of the guys and one night my dad said we’re going up to see a show at Cleveland. A trumpet player named Maynard Ferguson. Of course I’d never heard of him, but I was thrilled to be getting a look at the high school and I was planning on joining the band when I got the

While attending the aforementioned party at Amy's, I found myself standing across a foosball table from my soon-to-be-19-year-old daughter. After slamming a few balls past her poor goalie, she remarked, "what? ...how? ...when?" I wanted to answer, "you mean give you another example of how I wasted away my youth?" But, instead, I told the story. First, remember, if you're talking to anyone under the age of 25 or 30, it's incumbent upon you to remind them that during the summers there was no cable TV, no video games, no computers or internet. Sure, we watched our fair share of regular TV, but that was quite limited in comparison. So... There's a small store-front on the corner of Bates & Colorado across the street from Woodward Elementary School (where four generations of Hudsons attended) that has seen many different incarnations in its day. In my youth it was a small pinball hall run by a old Greek guy. Inside were a few pinball machines and a fe

Lovingly called S low B ut D eadly, the SBD Dauntless Dive-bomber saved the world on the morning of June 4, 1942 . I'm not quite sure why I've always had a penchant for this little airplane. I guess because of the unlikely story. And then when it was replaced online mid-war, nobody liked the new planes, they wanted to go back to the Dauntless. This is in Pensacola and I go see it every time we go down there. It saved the world you know.

23 years ago, on a day just like today, in the hot, muggy St. Louis weather, we were married. And since Annette was 22 years old on that day, she has officially been married longer than she's not been married. Strictly by calendar years, my turn comes next year. I bought an iPod Nano for an Anniversary gift. Since we've been working out every day now, we thought we could use one. By the way, this photo is not from the year we were married, but about 1989 or so while we were in Pensacola. Upon gazing at the photo, Emily made the comment "I don't know those people." Today, everybody headed out to Cousin Amy's house to welcome home her son Eric. He's been in Iraq and will have to return there soon. Eric is in an Air Force Special Unit, but don't ask me what he does. As close as I can tell he "goes and gets people and brings them back." As I sat and watched him rough-house with his small cousins, I couldn't help but think of a blog post I&