Spring Nationals 2023

Dear Dad,

We left work and school early on Thursday to catch our flight to Dallas so that G3—and I—could compete in Spring Nationals. G3 was super excited about the trip. The night before we left, he came into my study while I was writing and announced, “I have too much of my grandfather’s blood in me. I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.” He had been talking about the flight for days. He was more excited about getting on the plane than he was about competing. He loves to fly because he can watch whatever movies he wants without me nagging him to do something more productive. Remember the first time you took him to Disney. It was his first time on a plane and he thought it was the best adventure ever. Even then the idea of watching movies uninterrupted thrilled him.

With an hour left to our flight we were rerouted to Houston. Thunderstorms were beating down on Dallas and there were tornado warnings throughout the city. Lovely. I know there’s that awful black cloud hovering over my head, but manifesting thunderstorms and tornadoes—that’s a whole new level of bad luck. When we landed, they would not let us off the plane. We were trapped for nearly an hour and a half. The worst part was listening to the conversations of the people around us. Seriously, I think some people just like to hear themselves talk, and talk, and talk, and yet they say absolutely nothing.

The plane finally got clearance to leave, but there were so many planes lined up on the runway, we waited for another two hours, inching along, before taking off. It was far worse than sitting in NYC bridge traffic during rush hour and you know how much I detest that. By the time we took off, G3’s excitement about being on a plane had long since worn off. He was as cranky and as miserable as I.

We left Newark at 4:15. We were supposed to arrive in Dallas at 7:30, and we expected to go out to eat and have a restful evening. But the gods were against us, and so we landed in Dallas at 11:45 (12:45 New Jersey time). Our three hour flight had turned into an 8 hour ordeal. Once we landed, G3 and I went to claim our luggage and Kati went to get the rental car. It’s a good thing we split up because the car line was exceptionally long. By the time we had our gear and got in the car it was nearly one in the morning. Since it was Texas, absolutely nothing was open for us to get dinner. Not only was I too tired to walk straight, I was famished. Not a good combination. I know you understand because you too were always incredibly cranky when you got hungry. We didn’t get into our hotel room until 1:30 (though our bodies were telling us it was 2:30). G3 didn’t even bother to change, he went right to bed in his clothes and instantly fell asleep.

Kati and I got to sleep in (for a Friday) but we woke G3 up around the same time he gets up for school. The tournament is tomorrow, which means we have today to explore Dallas. You know me, sleep is never an option when there are new places to explore, new things to see. Besides, we already had tickets for the John F. Kennedy assassination site. (We prefer president houses, but they are all too far for a day trip. So we settled for the Grassy Knoll instead.) But first we needed breakfast. Our stomachs were rumbling.

The tour of the site was interesting. The tour guide was good. The textbooks focus so heavily on JFK’s assassination that I didn’t know the governor of Texas, John Connelly, Jr. was also shot. The first bullet fired hit a traffic light. The second passed through Kennedy’s neck and then hit Connelly. It entered his back and exited his chest, managing to also injure his wrist. Connelly made a full recovery, except for the fact that he lost a nipple. It was the third shot that blew away part of Kennedy’s head and sprayed brain matter all over his wife.

Much of the evidence does implicate Lee Harvey Oswald as the shooter. Earlier in the day, he hitched a ride to work with a friend who testified that he was carrying a long package that Oswald claimed were curtain rods. Coworkers, on the fifth floor of the building where Oswald worked and allegedly shot Kennedy, heard shots fired from the floor above them. Later in the day, Oswald shot and killed a cop who stopped him on the street. And when he sought shelter in a movie theater, he resisted arrest.

However, he may not have been acting alone. Some circumstantial evidence points to a second shooter located at the top of the Grassy Knoll. (Knoll, is not a word we tend to use in the US. It is a British term. The first witness interviewed was British and it was he who referred to the area as the Grassy Knoll—a designation that obviously stuck.) Witnesses claimed to have heard shots fires from there. Following the assassination, three hobos found near the railroad tracks (located directly behind the Grassy Knoll) were taken to the police station and questioned. All three of them gave fake names when questioned. But, the police did take their pictures. After they were released, it’s no surprise that they were never seen or heard from again. Apparently though, one of the men photographed looks very much like Charles Harrelson, a well known hit man. Not only is there a strong resemblance, but there is also evidence that he was in Dallas at the time of the shooting. He stayed in several hotels over the course of a month, changing his location as if trying to avoid detection. Yeas later, he was arrested for killing a Federal Judge. In a drug induced rant, he claimed that he also killed JFK. If that is true, he most likely fired the third shot. The one that blew away the top of Kennedy’s head.

For all you movie fans, Charles Harrelson was Woody Harrelson’s father. G3 finds it fascinating that Charles may have killed Kennedy, which made Lyndon B. Johnson President. Decades later, Woody would grow up to play Johnson in the movie LBJ. 

My brother’s childhood friend, with whom I keep in touch, once lived in Texas. He recommended that for a taste of Texas we visit the Fort Worth Stockyards. I love getting travel recommendations from friends and so I took his advice. 

After our JFK tour, we drove to the Stockyards, which were founded in 1893 when Greenlief Simpson, a businessman from Boston, bought the Fort Worth Union Stockyards. They experienced their greatest successful during the first five decades of the twentieth century. In 1917, the Stockyards contained the largest horse and mule market in the world. This was due to the fact that, in the midst of World War II, foreign governments were going there to purchase animals.

Upon our arrival, G3 was hungry, and since we were in Texas, he really wanted a burger. We stopped in at a burger place and there were jalapeño cheese curds on the menu. Well, you know how much we love those, so we ordered them as an appetizer.  G3 said the burger was one of the best he’s ever had, and he’s eaten lots of burgers.

When we finished lunch, we walked around. The Stockyards are like the Old West meets modern day with a strong tacky touristy vibe. Souvenir shops are always a highlight for G3 when we travel and there were no shortage of them there. One shop sold leather whips, the kind the cowboys used to us. They reminded G3 of Indiana Jones, and since G3 loves weapons, he couldn’t resist the temptation to buy one. 

We stayed for the cattle drive. It was disappointingly anti-climactic, but still fun to see. There were only a few cattle that walked down the street as if they were participating in a parade. I never realized just how long the horns are on the longhorn cattle. We learned that about 4.5 million cattle were driven through Fort Worth between the mid 1860s and the mid 1880s. 

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a small park in Arlington. G3 and I walked though the park to do an Adventure Lab cache. While we walked, G3 practiced cracking his whip. I think getting the whip and learning how to crack it was the best part of his short stay in Texas.

When Kati first heard we were being rerouted to Houston on Thursday she started to laugh. I wasn’t happy, and I couldn’t understand why she would find something so infuriating funny. When I snapped at her, inquiring what was so humorous, she said, “Remember last year at Districts. The hotel was condemned and we found another place but we got in late and G3’s response was, ‘We got the bad luck out of the way, now I will do well tomorrow.’” 

I smiled, “And he won Districts, so you think this means he will win Nationals.”

She just kept laughing as she shrugged.

Well, maybe the bad luck at the start has a way of being a good omen for G3. I wish you were here because you would have been so proud of him. His form was one of the best he’s ever done. He took first place and he deserved it.  In weapons, he came in third. He was a bit disappointed because he has worked really hard to improve his sword form and was hoping for a better finish. But third at Nationals is still something to be proud of. 

In combat and sparring, there were some top ranked boys in his ring. We are bad parents because we didn’t think his odds of placing were very high. He proved us wrong. He has improved so much in combat it’s amazing. A testament to all his hard work—and the help of his instructors. He came in second place. 

However, he got hit hard on his forearm with the butt of the combat stick. He was in agony. Despite the pain, he still went ahead and sparred. In one match he blocked a kick with his arms and I could see the pain on his face. The judge saw it too and stopped the time. He asked G3 if he wanted to continue. G3 nodded—he’s my kid after all. G3 lost the match, but he got to fight for third, and what a fight it was. But before the match the judge came over to me and Kati and asked us if we wanted him to forfeit due to the pain in his arm. We asked G3 if he wanted to fight and he said yes. The judge asked again, “Are you sure?” We both said yes. It reminded me of the time I got nailed in the lip during a basketball game and I had blood dripping down my chin. My coach called time out and wanted to pull me from the game. You came over and asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to play. You looked at the coach and said put her back in. I played the rest of the game, sucking blood from my lip. I don’t remember if we won, but after the game, you drove me to the hospital for stitches. Anyway, G3 won the third place match. Four events, four medals. Not bad.

As for me, well, I didn’t do too badly either. I took second place in combat. I made a few rookie mistakes that hurt me, and caused me to loose the first place round. But a second place finish at my first big tournament, I’ll take it. You would have been laughing if you were here. Do you remember, shortly after Kati and I started dating she and I went snowboarding. Kati made a snarky comment to you about me daring the intermediate slopes on my second time out. You laughed and said, “It’s disgusting isn’t. The way she just decides to try a new sport and picks it up so easily.” I could almost see you smiling at me in the stands, nodding your head, and saying, “I’m not surprised you took home a medal.” I, however, was surprised. In sparring, I still need a great deal of work. If only I could get my legs to move like they did thirty years ago. But youth is not on my side. Still, I managed a third place finish. Two events, two medals. G3 is definitely better that me, but in my ring, I guess I can hold my own.

Since we were in Texas, G3 wanted to eat barbecued meat. (He really is your grandson when it comes to his favorite foods.) For a celebratory dinner, we granted his wish. It was a bit of a challenge finding a place because I don’t eat beef. But Kati found a place that had blackened tilapia on the menu. The food was fantastic. We all enjoyed it. Kati loved the barbecue sauce so much she bought a bottle to take home.

We all had a fun, enjoyable, and successful weekend. None of us wanted to go home. It was tough getting back on that plane. Transitioning back into work/school mode is definitely going to be difficult.

I miss you