June 7, 1994

Relaxing on my king size bed in a motel in the Carrollton, Kentucky area. This is where I always stopped in my summer westbound trips. Having much more daylight (at the western edge of the eastern time zone, it was often light until almost 10 pm) than the winter trip, I drove an extra few hours on I-71, thus shortening my drive the second day.

June 6, 1994

Packing for my trip back to Illinois. I loaded most of it the night before, to save time in the morning, as I always tried to get on the road by around 6:30 am on these long trips.

June 5, 1994

On our way home from the Jarger Invitational in South Jersey, we were asked to divert to the Shore area to see my grandparents, and to help plant my grandfather's garden. He had always been into planting vegetables and fruits (his previous house not only had several hundred square feet of his huge yard planted, but he also planted more in a large corner of his neighbor's yard), and his yard at his new place had a large vegetable plot right in the center of the back lawn. He had starter plants delivered, and my brother and I spent a few hours digging holes, and planting tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, beans, etc, following his exact directions regarding location, hole depth, manure, backfill. He even had us plant some collard plants, which he was sure he didn't order, but he figured he'd find some use for them. Our time at his house insured that we would be caught in the heavy summer Sunday afternoon northbound Parkway traffic.

June 4, 1994

The Brillo Putter, a special object at the Jarger Invitational. When my brother took up golf in high school, he used old family clubs, and he had these with him at one of the invitationals. My cousin saw the Brillo and remembered it from his childhood, a conversation between his father and my grandfather, who had just acquired it, probably a premium through his supermarket job. My cousin did a whole routine describing the conversation- my grandfather's not knowing quite what to make of it. It seemed like a decent enough putter, but there was the Brillo logo stamped on it, but still it was a good putter, etc...

June 3, 1994

For several years my brother and I used to drive down to my cousin's house for the Jarger Invitational. Sort of a continuation of the summer vacations we took at the shore as kids, where we were often joined by my slightly older cousin, who lived nearby. After college, my cousin (the Jarger in question) took up residence in South Jersey on the outskirts of Philadelphia. The Invitational generally included a game of miniature golf, a short bowling tournament, an epic Monopoly match, 9 holes of regular golf (weather permitting), and large amounts of pasta. If time permitted, we would sometimes take the local rapid transit (the PATCO train, which we called the "speedyline") into Philadelphia to go to a favored brew pub, as we did on this night. The pasta and beer were demonstration sports only, not included in the overall competition.

June 2, 1994

I had plans to get together with Kathy in the afternoon, but she said we needed to stop by the Montclair State radio station first. She had promised she'd meet someone there for a quick game of chess. The game ended up being anything but quick. While that was going on, I took advantage of being in the station to check out some new releases, even taping a whole album. By the time she was done with the game, it was too late to do anything else, so we each went home, planning to meet one more time before I returned to Illinois. The image is from the end of the game, with her king in check.

June 1, 1994

I had lunch at the lengendary White Manna in Hackensack. In my opinion, the best hamburger joint in the world. The perfect combination of meat, cheese, onion, bun, and grease. My father first learned about it when he worked in Hackensack, brought me there for the first time in the late 70's. Later I would have a job in Hackensack myself, but at the other end of the city, way too far to get to and back on my 30 minute lunch break, so trips there remained rare. Occasionally I have brought out of town friends there, to show them one of New Jersey's food landmarks. My last visit was a few years ago when work took me up to Bergen County, but I'm sure if I went there today it would be exactly the same.