For the first time at one of our hotel stops, we are less than thrilled with Holiday Inn.
It's not bad but the property just isn't as nice as the other locations that we've been staying at.
And my room has a very distincctive smell - OLD MAN.
After we get settled in our rooms, we head across the street to a restaurant that advertises that they made an appearance on the Food Network.
We roll in (literally) and Jack immediately likes the place.
It's a total dive.
We find a table that works with the wheelchair, take a seat, and wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
Finally, a really scary server comes over to take a drink order and as she is walking away, she tells us to come to the counter to order food.
It's a Soup Nazi moment. It is really happening.
We are here in time for happy hour so all of our drinks come in plastic cups. Our food is ready in no time and you have to go pick that up.
Between Mom's ALS, Jack driving all day, and my weight loss, it doesn't take too long before all of us are feeling really good in this bar.
There are definitely a lot of characters in this bar, most of them have tattoos, piercings, or other body modifications that would violate the Disney look.
And then someone walks it that looks completely out of place.
He's a older gentleman with a gray receding hairline. He's wearing dockers and has a short sleeve tee shirt tucked into it.
The shirt indicates that he belongs to the Kansas City Athletics Baseball Historical Society. (For the non-basball fan readers out there, the Oakland A's were in Kansas City prior to moving west). He's talking to a younger man and I can hear him talk about his "claim to fame."
He's showing him an old Topps Baseball card that is in plastic.
He was a baseball player...at least that is what my slightly buzzed brain surmised.
I had enough liquid courage in me to interrupt his conversation.
"Excuse me, sir. May I see your baseball card?"
He immediately handed it over to me. It was the 1957 Kansas City A's Team baseball card.
"Which player are you?" I ask.
"For two years, I was the bat boy. But I got on one genuine Topps baseball card in this team photo."
I thank him for his time and return back to the table. I interrupted a conversation and had taken enough of his time.
He circled back to us after a while and offered us a 2 for 1 coupon for the place but we were just wrapping up our dinner and drinks.
He was there for his historical society monthly meeting. He's the treasurer of it and was there pretty early to make sure that they were ready to go.
My mom told him what a huge baseball fan I am and that was all that he needed. He sat down with us to show us a couple of the items that he brought with him.
Among them was a photograph of a Kansas City professional team that dated back to the late 1890's. Another was an example about how the A's put a shift on Mickey Mantle when he batted left handed. (I asked him why wouldn't Mantle just lay down a bunt. He was an excellent bunter and had a ton of speed. He really didn't have a strong answer to that).
We got a snapshot of his life. He was a realtor for 40 years. Was in the Marines for 4 years as well. He was stationed in San Diego and his son was born there (it cost him $20 at the hospital).
He asked us what we were doing and we told him (without getting all Debbie Downer) that we were in Missouri to visit family, just got into town, and thought this looked like a nice place to get dinner.
And then he said something amazing.
"So I guess it was just fate that we all happened to be here tonight."
That's right, brother. It was fate that brought us here.
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