Topping Off

    It has been a pretty interesting week in Baltimore so far and Uncle Jack has the pictures to prove it.

Uncle Jack mentioned last time that he wouldn't miss this ceremony for anything and he kept his promise by hiking over to the JHU campus this morning and taking it all in.

When the JHU Bluejay mascot shows up you know something important is going on.  This was the first time Uncle Jack has ever been up close and personal with a bluejay.  He isn't particularly bright as far as Uncle Jack could tell.

The librarian of the university was on hand to say a few well-chosen words about the new Brody Learning Commons before the final structural component was put into place, i.e., the "topping off".

After the head librarian had added his signature to the many already inscribed on the beam, three hard-hatted workmen guided the construction crane to the right spot and attached the beam for transport.

A lovely day for a topping off as you can tell by the azure sky.  The journey was accompanied by the inspiring sounds of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" blaring from the loudspeaker system.

Two waiting riggers guide the beam to its final resting place.  With the framework in place the remaining construction will take a little more than a year to complete.  Stay tuned. Uncle Jack will be watching.

Several weeks ago, when Mrs. U.J. purchased the tickets, last Friday night seemed like a great time to go to Camden Yards and see the Orioles take on the Tampa Bay Rays whom they had trounced three times at the beginning of the season. The huge building to the left is a former warehouse of the B & O railroad which formerly occupied this space, known then and now as Camden Yards.

Grandma and granddaughter Isabella, a fanatical Oriole fan, enjoyed the first three innings from their front-row seats even though the Orioles fell behind, 3-0, in the first.

In the fourth inning it began to rain, hard enough to drive most fans in the open seats to cover (like Uncle Jack and company) but not hard enough for the umps to call the game.  Actual puddles began to form in the infield so an army of groundskeepers ran out between every half-inning to dump sand in the wettest spots.

This got ridiculous after a while and the field became a quagmire.  The Rays continued to add runs as the rain fell and eventually waded off with an 8-2 victory, sweeping the series and avenging their earlier losses. An altogether unsatisfactory evening at the old ballpark and quite probably Uncle Jack's last.

If you are truly desperate for something to read at work here's another chestnut exhumed from the archives:


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                 Reincarnation


Uncle Jack was standing in line at the supermarket the other day with his week's supply of chicken necks and generic okra and while he was waiting he managed to sneak a peek at one of those tabloid newspapers they put near     the checkout counter right by the chewing gum and the razor blades.
Uncle Jack would never actually buy one of those newspapers but every once in a while he likes to find out what the other half is reading about so he leafs through a Globe while he is waiting for the checkout girls to finish talking about what they did last night after the skating rink closed.
Anyway right on the front page they had this article about something called "reincarnation" which is a long word for how after you die you come back to earth and live another life all over again---usually pretty different from your first life. According to this article a lot of people really believe in reincarnation but Uncle Jack is not sure you can believe everything you read in those grocery store newspapers. For example, if Elizabeth Taylor really did all the things those newspapers said she did she would have to be about 95 years old and double-jointed, too.
The whole idea of reincarnation sounded pretty silly to Uncle Jack at first but the more he thought about it the better it sounded---especially when he compared it to some of the other possibilities. For one thing it is a lot better than believing that when you die you're dead and that's that. That does not appeal to Uncle Jack at all. Even on a bad day like when he runs out of Rebel Yell and he goes all the way up to the ABC store and it turns out to be Arbor Day or something and they are closed, he would like to believe that life is worth living.
Reincarnation also sounds a lot better than going to Heaven, too, if Heaven is anything like the way the Reverend Hokum described it when Uncle Jack was in Sunday School. The Lutheran Heaven didn't sound like the kind of place Uncle Jack would like to spend more than a day or two even if his room had a jacuzzi and remote control color TV.
Another reason he would not want to go to the Lutheran Heaven, though, is because that is where the Reverend Hokum probably wound up and if you want to know the truth he doesn't think the place could be big enough for both of them.
Anyway this article did get Uncle Jack thinking about what he would like to be if he did get another life to live over again which he doesn't think he will but then again he never thought he would get a chance to live on the Outer Banks either so you never know about these things.
He is pretty sure he would not like to come back to life and be a person all over again. For one thing he would have to go through junior high school again and he is not sure it would be worth it to have to do that. Uncle doesn't think it would be fair for anybody to have to be thirteen years old more than once.
Also if Uncle Jack came back as a person he could wind up living in some place like Toledo or Columbus where it would take him fifteen hours to get to the Outer Banks after he heard the bluefish were running and by the time he got here it would be too late.
Anyway Uncle Jack has thought about it a lot and he has decided that if he has to come back he would like to be a labrador retriever. He would like to belong to a nice retired Outer Banker who has a Grand Wagoneer and lets him ride in the front seat and goes fishing every day but never goes duck hunting and lets him have a little saucer of Rebel Yell once in a while.
That sounds a lot better than going to Heaven if you ask Uncle Jack.