With President’s Day this week it got me thinking and as I thought about the graves of the presidents that I have been to I feel like I have been missing out. For the record I have been to the graves of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Tyler, James Buchanan, William Taft, FDR and JFK. For someone who gets around as much as I do I figured I would have visited more, especially with George Washington so close. I’ve never been to Mt. Vernon and I’ll have to rectify that this summer. I also plan on visiting Grant’s tomb this summer. I have visited the birthplace or homes of Washington, Lincoln, Grant and FDR as well as the Eisenhower Farm at Gettysburg. While I’m at it I’ve never been to Wheatland over in Lancaster either so that might go on the docket too when I head over for a Barnstormers game. I’m not a big fan of Buchanan since he just simply stood by while his Secretary of War all but committed treason and displayed an amazing lack of backbone leading up to the Civil War.
Anyway the week got started on the right foot. Despite everyone being pessimistic about York High’s chances in districts they went into New Oxford, a place where they’ve had trouble winning even with good teams, and took down the higher seeded Colonials. That means that they have qualified for the state tournament as well. York made the usual mistakes but just not in the normal quantities of them and played some pretty tough defense. New Oxford also missed some shots as well and those shots normally fall for them when they play at home. Looks like they used the off-time between the end of the regular season and the start of districts well.
On Tuesday I was going to head up to Central to watch their district game with Dallastown but that was postponed due to threats to the school. It was probably prudent in the wake of what happened in Florida but it may very well have been some idiot sitting at home that just wanted to make trouble. Can’t be too careful though. The game was moved to Red Lion and will be one that I remember. Central jumped out quickly and Dallastown did not score a point until about midway through the second quarter. By that point it was 18-0. Then Dallastown started scoring and didn’t stop. For Central the shots stopped falling and Dallastown roared back tying the game in the middle of the fourth quarter and taking the lead with about 2 minutes to go. For whatever reason then Central did not start fouling with about 1 minute to go and left a player wide open in the corner and while the shot is ill-advised in the situation he sank it. Central is going home and Dallastown is going to Reading. Good luck.
Thursday took me over to watch the CAC playoffs at York College against Salisbury. I thought hard about going to Greencastle to watch York High’s second round game but I decided to stay put. York High knocked off the #2 Blue Devils by 3 so that sets up a rematch with Northeastern at the Giant Center on Monday. York College took care of their business against Salisbury in a dominating win. It was night and day from the game played 2 weeks ago and if they play like that they will be very tough to beat the rest of the way. The outside shots were falling and Salisbury could not stop either of the big men and they cruised to a 75-59 win to set up a rematch with Christopher Newport for the league title. It also helped that Salisbury’s star player didn’t score a point until there was about 5 minutes left in the game. He had started his career at York College before transferring out so he got to hear it from the student section. The title game was played at CNU so I didn’t go. It is a 5 1/2 hour drive there after all. It was a close game but York pulled away late and won the CAC and the automatic invite to the NCAA tournament. We’ll find out on Monday who and where they play. Hopefully it will be here in York.
One option for Saturday would have been to go to Huntingdon to watch Juniata play in their conference title game and hopefully make their first NCAA tournament ever. They lost by 3. I decided to go to Hershey and watch the Bears play the Rockford Ice Hogs instead. Normally one could not get a ticket for a Saturday night game on the day of the game but Hershey has not been good this year and there are plenty of seats available. Stopped at Appalachian Brewing in Harrisburg for dinner before watching the Bears fall 4-3 in OT. They got 14 stinkin’ shots in the game. It’s hard to win when you only take that number of shots. I also hit Liquid Hero and Collusion in York on Friday and my fridge has lots of beer in it. Good times.
Sunday was a nice relaxing day at home. BBQ’ed turkey drumsticks from the slow cooker. Yum!
