Boys of Summer

Noah, Cesar and I know a couple guys that packed up their Camry one summer and just lit off on a trip across the country visiting every ballpark in the country.  Three Rivers Stadium had just opened up (and coincidentally ended as their favorite stadium of all) and for the next several months I was envious with each email I received of their new city, new stadium and new experience they were having.  They are not friends anymore, the tens of thousands of hours made sure of that, but I'm sure they will never forget that summer. 

When we opened the Hotel in 2005 the April of 2006 brought in the Phoenix Film Festival as it does every spring.  It's your typical Film Festival filled with unique, interesting, and thought provoking movies.  Some leave you walking out the door amazed, others leave you wondering how you just paid $8.50 for that.  The first few years of the Festival and our opening we were major sponsors of the Festival.  We had celebrities and movie makers, producers, actors and the like all staying with us for the Festival.  It's not in some great mountain town but instead in Stripmall, Phoenix at a nice, new, giant movie complex.  It's nice enough but certainly not as if it was Telluride, Montreal or something like Cannes.  That year I remember checking in a father and son into their room.  The son was right around 40 years old and the father 60+ and very quiet.  They were very nice and the talking point became baseball and the Dbacks.  They turned out to be really big baseball fans and that was that. 

The next night I went to see a movie at the closing of that festival called, "Boys of Summer."  It was about a father and son traveling across the USA visiting each and every baseball stadium.  Just the father, just the son as the father lives through Parkinson's Disease.  They used the memorable event of seeing the country and steady hold of baseball to spread the awareness and raise money for research of the disease.  It's a film about America, baseball as our national pasttime not a sport and it's about the journey they take as Father & Son.  It's very funny, and very sad. 

I hadn't noticed until the movie started that the father and son I checked in the night before were the two that the film was about.  Watching the movie was sad, funny and incredible all at the same time.  I stayed afterwards and spoke to them and the Q&A was as interesting as the movie to hear their experiences along the way, all those miles in a car, all those stories of different cities, ballparks, games and everything that comes with such a great memory. 

So one day, I hope to do the same thing.  I won't be the first, I won't be the last but the chance to see the country, Main Street America, the stadiums, all those amazing games is something i hope to have one day. If I don't have the time I'm going to be sure to make the time.  Hopefully with my son.