As I mentioned in the Gates BBQ post, we met up with some very special people.
Those people were Dorothy Straney, her Mom and her boyfriend Joel.
Back on August 13, 1993, the King & I were in Chicago wrapping up a monster baseball trip that started on the West Coast.
After seeing a number of games in California we stopped off in Chicago on the way home.
When we were in San Diego, we saw the Padres play a double header on August 6, 1993 at old Jack Murphy Stadium as it was called back then.
While we were there we met a lady named Mary Alice.
We starting talking to her and we told her our game plan.
She said she had a friend who works for the Cubs.
She arranged to get us a pair of free tickets to the Cubs & Giants game that afternoon.
I went to the will call window to pick up the tickets she had left for the King & I.
We decided to walk up a few blocks towards the subway where they have souvenir stores. We went into one of them to look around.
I noticed a lady wearing a KC Royals shirt.
The Royals happened to be in town as well since they were playing the White Sox on the south side that night.
Being a pocket schedule collector, I asked this particular lady if she had a Royal pocket schedule.
She said no I don't but if you give me your name & address I'll mail you one.
Little did I know that our relationship over all these years would grow just from asking for a pocket schedule.
More proof that it never hurts to ask or try.
If I didn't say anything, we would have never met.
17 years later we got to see each other once again.
Mind you over the years we've taken turns meeting up with each other.
Dot as we call her, is a truly caring loving person.
She was blessed to have a great mother.
Her Mom, who usually accompanies her is an absolute doll.
The last some many years she met a nice guy named Joel who had the luxury of coming to New York City for the first time in May 2008 during fleet week.
Needless to say, royalty rolled out the red carpet to make his first visit as memorable as possible.
Dot went to a bunch of broadway shows that week to fulfill one of her many dreams.
We all went out for dinner together.
Afterwards, I had the privilege of taking her Mom and Joel to see old Yankee Stadium.
I made sure that they were able to meet up with Dot after her Broadway show.
I escorted them on the train so everything worked out perfectly. Dot was so grateful that I was so willing to do so. That's just a sample of what royal treament is all about.
Now with the shoe on the other foot, Dot made sure that she made time to see us and she made sure that we didn't get lost by following us to the highway via a short cut after the Royal game.
I had mentioned to her that I wanted to possibly have a shake at Steak 'N' Shake on my way towards our hotel.
She said he have to go to Hi Boy which is a take out place which has burgers and great shakes andwas right near the ballpark.
We decided to take her advice and she came with us to made sure we found it from where we were parked in the parking lot before we headed to Des Moines, Iowa to sleep on our way back to the Twin Cities.
I want to thank Dot, her Mom and Joel for their great heartland hospitality.
Most importantly, it was an absolute pleasure to see them all again.
Thank you for making time for royalty.
She said she's planning to possibly come back to NYC at the end of December. If so, royalty will be welcoming them with open arms.
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