The "Swimming Around And Jumping The Wall" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Going over photographs on my laptop and came across a few sports-related photos I have taken in the past few months that I figured I could use at some point for a story.  Neither of them are worthy of a full story so I have combined them into one story.  Hope you enjoy a couple of stories that are about more than just sports. (1) A women brought a few items into the gallery where I work part-time a few months ago.  A big variety of items, but the one job I enjoyed the most was the five swim caps she brought in for framing.  Her daughter is a top-notch swimmer for a local high school as well as a swimmer on various summer and club teams.  

She wanted to have five of her daughter's swim caps framed to give to her as a memento of her high school swimming career.  Neat idea.  She gave my boss at the gallery free reign as to how to frame them. He in turn gave me a chance to help with the framing formatt.  The customer had told us she wanted two rows and told which hats to place on the top, so we were slightly limited with designs, but how to display the hats was up to us.  I measured the hats and cut circles from 1/4" conservation mat foamboard and then cut part of the circle off so I could "stuff" it inside the swim cap.  Worked perfect!  Three hats on the top and two the bottom with them offset worked.  The bottom mat board color was picked by the customer and I sewed the swim caps into place with fishing line.  The final result pleased her as well as me. (2) Carol and I recently visited our traveling friends Jerry and Just Sue in State College, PA and during our visit we made a side day-trip to Williamsport.  

One of two cabinets with lapel pins.

One of our stops was for lunch at a place known as Bullfrog Brewery in center city Williamsport.  Being that the town is the home of Little League Baseball and the world-famous Howard J. Lamade Stadium where the Little League World Series is played, I found the two show cabinets that occupied the wall next to our restaurant table to be very interesting.  A few years ago I wrote of the day we traveled to the stadium and I managed to get into the stadium and after jumping the outfield fence, run around the field.  Exciting, to say the least for a fellow who loved playing little league and dreaming of playing at Williamsport, but never being able to realize my dream.  That was until I took a trip around the outfield at the Lamade Stadium.  

Pins of all sorts filled the cabinet.

Well, the two cabinets held lapel pins from just about every year's World Series played at the stadium.  I loved it!  Not only just team pins from every team from every country that played in the series, but pins from umpiring crews, pins from company's that sponsored teams in the series and even a pin from the group that supplied the ushers.  

There was one pin that featured my favorite Buddy Holly

And then I saw it ... a pin that featured one of my favorite singers from the 1950s ... Buddy Holly.  Not quite sure why his pin was in the showcase, but I loved it.  One of the waitresses told me her father made the cases and when the Little League World Series is being played in town, the walls of the restaurant are covered with the cases.  Wow, I'll have to return to see that amazing display.  I must admit that the cases of pins were much more enjoyable than my meal!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.