In the late fall or early winter of 1960, my father procured the services of Billy Gardner and “Cookie” Lavagetto to be the guest speakers for the annual father-son banquet at the First Lutheran Church in Rugby, North Dakota. It was thought to be something of a local coup to have a major league baseball coach and infielder coming to Rugby, The Geographical Center of North America. Cookie Lavagetto and Billy Gardner were members of the newly formed major league baseball franchise, the Minnesota Twins. The publicity still-photographs of Cookie and Billy in their Washington Senators uniforms sat on an easel in the church entry for a month before the event. The day of the event stormy weather rolled over the region. The guest speakers driving from Minneapolis were to arrive sometime around 6pm. Cookie and Billy started phoning into the church describing how terrible travel conditions were, in what might have been blizzard conditions. The phone calls started coming in between 4-6pm from Petersburg, Michigan, and Lakota, North Dakota respectively. I remember my father trying to coax them on with every phone conversation ---- finally at about 6:30 Cookie or Billy made their fateful last call, 60 miles away in Devils Lake, North Dakota. They complained to my father that the heater in their car had quit, and it was so cold that “their socks had frozen to their feet.” They were calling from the lounge of the Devils Lake Elks Club. Why Cookie or Billy let that piece of information slip out, is beyond me. It certainly didn’t help their cause with a church basement full of crazed boys, and World War II Vets. There were offers extended by some of the Blessum family to head over to Devils Lake to pick them up in four-wheel drive army jeeps, or homemade snow-planes, or both. Billy and Cookie declined the offers. “The men of the church” then caucused in the kitchen where much conjecturing was to be heard, if the guest speakers were warming their feet with hot whiskeys. Don Erickson, the master of ceremonies got up and made the announcement that Cookie and Billy could not make the event due to “bad weather.” Don was loyal Chicago Cubs fan -- probably because the Cubs at one time were the nearest MLB team to Rugby, 861 miles away. Don concluded his announcement by saying, “It just goes to show that Minneapolis still has a minor league team.” The people laughed, ate, and went home happy, just the same. Some people never forgave the Minnesota Twins for sending Cookie and Billy out on the road, and that would probably include Cookie and Billy. -- photographers unknown ---

This ends my Empire State Building set. But I'm far from done with pics from my NYC trip. Coming up: World Trade Center site St. Paul's Chapel Battery Park Liberty Island & Statue of Liberty More from Times Square Please also note the tags on these photos. These are from MAY. I am not actually IN New York City right now. :) I am VERY behind in uploading though. I expect I probably have another week or more of NYC photos. Then a ton of Boston featuring: Boston Public Garden Franklin Park Zoo The Charles River & Duckboats Harvard & Cambridge Fenway Park Then: Las Vegas Tulsa My Mom's visit to Duluth & the Cities Misc pics from my own trips to the Cities and around home So yeah... I've got MONTHS and MONTHS worth of photos to upload so it'll be a LONG time before I'm "current". Tonight though... I remain in Minnesota. Next trip - Colorado Springs in a month. Not positive I'm following through on this but it seems likely.