Hello you fucks. Sorry. Thanks for the comments. And yes I know....I gotta snap out of the "Oh woah as me..." Thanks for the support y'all. Mom, thanks for the comment...read it a couple of times, Karly, thanks for giving me a swift kick in the butt too, Tiff, mad, Ian and Emily, watched the Destin video a couple of times and thought of you guys, Alex, I watched the Texas Trip video too..made me really miss you guys...one more thing Alex....How in the fuck can you be a Republican at this time, Open your eyes...shit...this is coming from your 23 year old brother. Get it together. Dad, I started the Berlitz...did you do that bullshit environment dialogue at the beginning? It's working out though. Thanks guys and keep commenting...I check everyday.
My French friends have noticed how down I have been the past couple of days and they have done a good job of making me feel loved. Jean-Luc especially has went out of his way to make me feel better. So let's start with Monday.
Jean-Luc texted me on Sunday night and his exact words were...
"Just some words to support you...I know 2 months is a borderline hard to cross I keep on saying that you are the best foreigner player we have ever had. U are fab. I hope you will feel better in the next days."
He later called me and asked if I wanted to go to a driving range. I gotta tell you that nothing sounded better than hitting the shit out of some golf balls. I quickly agreed to it and he picked me up around noon on Monday. We went to a driving range in a town that sits just outside one of the national forests. It was nice to get away from my usual surroundings. So made it to this immaculate golf course that looked pretty pricy. Jean-Luc said that I wouldn't be able to play on the course because you have to have a "Green Card" assuring everyone around you that you know what the hell you are doing. That's fine with me because I just like to pelt balls...not really concerned what direction they go.
So we got two buckets of balls and headed to the range. I got a lefty driver from the clubhouse and starting swinging. Out of the 45 balls that I had...I only really hit 10 well. But it was a solid 10 lemme tell ya. Jean-Luc was really technical with his swing...not a lot of distance but straight everytime. I told him if we put our two games together...we could win the Master's. He laughed. When I would crush one...he gave an "OOOhhh..." He even gave me some pointers that helped out. Okay...my last ball...
"Au Revoir, Monseiur Golf Ball..."
Jean-Luc laughed.
I reared back and swing as hard as I could...
Completely wiffed.
"Au Revoir, Monseiur Puton Golf Ball..." ("Fucking")
I reared back a second time...and swing harder than the first time.
I was poetry. Completely therapeutic. The ball just sailed in the distance. It was nice to get out.
After we had a putting challenge, we went home. Did some shopping with Olivear that night and retired early.
Today, Tuesday. I went to bed early on Monday night because I wanted to be fresh in the morning. I think being tired all day normally has been a helper in making me feel down. So today I wanted to be fresh. I think it worked.
I woke up at 9:30am and showered. Got out, admired my diamond figure...(Badum bum), and got ready to run. To quote Forrest Gump, "AND I WAS RUNNING.." It was a great run. Further than I have ever ran. After about 3 miles, I wanted to walk around the woods to through my favorite path. I noticed something about the air that I really never thought about. It relates to the air that I was breathing in deep...
It seems that trees filter out all the urban things around me...sounds, polluted air, human contact, stress...
It was nice to have the chill of the air in my lungs.
I made my way back to my flat and got ready to go to the field. I wanted to work on it a bit. So I raked the infield and was greeted by Paul. He just got out of school and saw that I was on the field. He came up to me.
"Hey Tony, what's up?"
"Oh just workin my man, wanna help?" with a smirk.
"Ha, non merci."
"I tell you what...if you wanna go home grab your glove and bat...I will show you some things."
With a smile and a look of haste, he rushed home to get his baseball necesities. So when he returned, I gave him lessons on pitching and hitting. It was nice and I could tell he enjoyed it. He is one of the kids who really listens to what I say. It is really nice to see him play. I have to tell you that he has adopted my quirks in his swing. Spitting in his gloves, relaxed hitting position, and an improved damn swing. I enjoyed this lesson.
After I took the 40 back home, Chris came over to pick me up for dinner. It was his birthday today and he didn't inform me of it until a couple of hours before picking me up. I bought a cake and had a bottle of wine for a present. Chris and his family have been a savior for me while I have been here. I have friends for life with them. So we had a good night with food, cake, wine, and our usual political talk.
Well, I am off to bed before my baseball filled day tomorrow. Usual three practices again. Sorry for no pics again....I gotta get some batteries. Pics will come...Don't wanna hear about it. Posted a song I made up..titled it "Boule Française." (French Ball) Check it out if you want. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHKYkAVfqro. Good night, love you guys and talk to you soon. Au revoir.
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14 comments:
First, and I actually read it before posting. However, got to reread it before I really post. Just one thing though, don't be too hard on Little Alex, you see, he still thing the WMD are just over the Syrian border where Saddam hustled them out of the country before we invaded (oops) "liberated" Iraq.
Love, Dad.
Dang it Bob... you must of just beat me, when i was reading it said 0 comments... rats!!!
Glad to hear Jean and Chris are taking such good care of you. Someone once said "Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly." Don't know who it was, but like the quote anyhow.
Good luck with practices this week and thanks again for posting so much lately!!! Sending hugs your way -- Karly
i was so excited becouse it said 0 for me too.at least i got to it before ian,hehehe.did you get my cheer up charlie on my last comment?
Yeah, Emily I did haha. Thank you. Karly, completely heartfelt comment. I needed that. You are awesome.
Tony, some families have mentally deranged brothers. Some have ex-cons. Some have zealots, and some have brigands. Our cross to bear is Alex. A rare genetic deformity in the Lewis genome.
Every now and then, a Lewis fathers a republican. The last time it happened was in the late 30's early 40's. It took almost 30 years for the abnormality to come about, but in 72 it did. They encompass all the traits of a Lewis: stubborn, headstrong, hammish, bombastic and overdramatic (at times), and roguish good looks. But these traits, which are typically used to better mankind are twisted in this form of Lewis. These Lewis's use their talents to convice people that Darwin was wrong, that dinosaurs lived at the same time as mankind (He'll call them "Jesus Horses"), the poor don't really need our help, and, of course, talking to our enemies to find common ground is for pussies.
I say all this not to demonize our brother, but to ask that you accept him for who he is. It is a genetic affliction. You would not hold an extra chromosome against him would you. So please, don't hold this against him. He is perfectally happy not knowing their is a problem with him. And republicans make one hell of a birdhouse.---toodles.
I've reread your post a couple of times and the comments. I thought Karly's friends/angel wings line was superb.
Kudos to Ian again - I won't try to outdo the bestest there is.
Listen to the cd's while running - walking - the trick is to listen to them over and over and you'll be surprised at how much more you can understand and repeat.
Same thing with the immersion tapes. By the way, the flash cards, if you do all the steps, does drill the words into your head and you don't forget them.
By the way, I guess it's o.k. for Paul to pick up some of your batting habits, but I'd draw the line on spitting behing the Ump before every at bat - some things are simply too sacred.
It makes my heart feel good that you have such sincere, true friends an ocean away from your family and friends. A true friend to me is one you would choose to cover your back in a fight when you were outnumbered. I can count on less than one hand the number of such friends I would so trust. Sounds to me like you now have such friends on at least two continents.
Love, Dad.
Even though I am mad at you, I wanted to comment to let you know I read the blog. Consider yourself lucky :)
Hey, just between you and me, I'm frankly just a mite worried. I mean, hell, Toner gave Al a volley in his post, then, I and Ian vollied again in our posts.
No comment yet from Alex. I'm concerned. It may be that I have no cause for concern, i.e., he's too busy out gathering signatures to require a Texas state I.D. before you can vote (so as to defeat all of the voter fraud which is reportedly so widespread -even tho not one real case of voter fraud has occurred), or, and I think this is the probable reason, he in fact is busy at work getting ready for a trial and will post later.
To Alex, Ian, and Tony,
Love, Dad.
You may know this already, but Will's blog, www.travelblog.org/
Europe/France/Rouen/Blog-274254.html, has a couple of posts about Will's games with the Chucks.
Sorry I have been busy - being productive - here is something I stole:
For those that don't know a lot about history...... here is a condensed version.
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were:
1. The invention of beer, and 2. The invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer.
These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men.
Some note worthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi and tofu are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, federal public defenders, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, federal prosecutors and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history.......
It should be noted that a liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it.
A conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers, and to more liberals...just to piss them off.
Al
"Any alliance whose Purpose is not the intntion to wage war is senseless and useless."
"Anyone who sees and pains a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized."
"As a christian I have no duty to alow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."
"Hate is more lasting than dislike."
"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
--------and what famous conservative made the above quotes?
Enough already!! I feel like I'm at a ping pong tournament (or ping pong dinner table game - remember?)
Have enjoyed all comments. Love ya.
Alex, I've got to admit, pretty damned good post. Really, I'm not sure that I should not retract my voting for Ian's post as the bestest.
However, you're exactly right that conservatives are the HUNTERS; I vividly remember VP Chaney hunting birds (in a manly fashion) in Texas last year when he shot a fellow conservative in the face. Hell, I was proud that MY VP of the U.S. was doing the hunting thing. And, I'll let you know, it really pissed me off that the damned liberal press reported that the "hunting" really consisted of the VP and his party going out into a field and waiting for hired workers (I'm sure they weren't illegals) to release the birds from the pens they were carrying - so that the VP could kill 70 to 80 birds on one outing.
I read Ian's rejoinder - don't understand who he's referring to but if I know Ian, it's probably more than accurate.
However, I need to echo what ma famme said in her post, enough.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. I have a dream.
I have a dream that one day that elephants and donkeys will lay down with the sheep (and not do anything with the sheep, damnit).
I have a dream that one day Senator McCain will regret that he sucked up to the Rev. Hagee, after knowing that the great Rev. Hagee had called the Catholic church the whore of religion (by the way, this has come true after Hagee said that Hitler was right in killing the Jews - that he was hunting the snakes in the ground - or something like that).
And, finally, I have a dream that when Toner gets back from France, there will be such a reunion of family and friends and good times had that maybe, just maybe, the elves of Rivendell might be inclined to sing a welcoming home song, while Bilbo (Bob) nods off in his chair.
Love, Dad.
Speaking of Hitler----WHOOP WHOOP--HE IS THE ANSWER TO THE ABOVE QUOTES---dad wins 50 dollars.
There will be peace. Tony will come home, vote for Obama (and so will alex--we know your a closet democrate dude), and 2009 will be a pretty good year.
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