by Anne
GAH.
I'm in central Pennsylvania at ye olde Grandfather's apartment for the weekend. Ye olde Casa de Grandfather does not have wireless internet, DSL, cable internet, RoadRunner or anything. In fact, he has... dial-up.
Yes, it's 1996.
I'm paging through the Hockey News looking for stories about Hasek's performance in Buffalo and how Messier is dominating up in New York. In this apartment, Martin Brodeur is practically a rookie. I wonder how Pat Lafontaine is doing. When's that new arena opening in Buffalo?
Alas, I soldier on in a world of little hockey. I read an article in the local paper about the Pens, as we are a few hours away from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but the main story on the sports page was about the NBA finals and the biggest picture was of the local softball games.
I'm trapped in an apartment, well, really 3 apartments as my step-grandmother lives across the hall and I'm crashing in their neighbors smelly old lady apartment upstairs whilst she's out of town. Like, for serious, this apartment smells TERRIBLE. Like the worst old lady smell I've ever smelt.
Everytime I come here I have to fix something on my grandfather's computer or cell phone. I love my grandfather very much, and I'm his favorite grandchild (don't deny it, it's true) and he's 93 so I suppose I can accommodate, haha. However, if you were to meet him you would NEVER believe he was 93. He looks about 75, he lives on his own, still drives himself places, all that jazz.
What does this have to do with hockey.... uhhhh... my grandpa is from Boston and remembers Eddie Shore playing. Eddie Shore retired in 1940.
He remembers when he hit Ace Bailey and ended his career in 1933.
Uncle Jeena (James) had a box at the old Boston Gardens and he watched lots and lots of Bruins games as a kid. Uncle Jeena later became a millionaire. Do we see any cent of this? No. Something to do with re-wiring half of New England after a hurricane in 1938.
He's more of a baseball man, so he's telling me about Ted Williams and how he would've had every record locked up if it weren't for fighting in 2 wars.
I love old people. 64 years ago today he was named a 2nd Lieutenant or something and he chatted on the phone with his friend who was in the same class who's actually OLDER than he is. WOW.
On a slightly Sabres related note, I'm taking my aunt's 2 kids to the Draft Day Party. Ellie, aged 9, decided over Thanksgiving that she was in love with Clarke MacArthur, so she hopes he's there. Ellie goes back and forth between hating hockey, liking the Sabres, not wanting to watch hockey on TV, but wanting to go to a Sabres game. She's weird. Jimmy, aged 10, has declared Ryan Miller to be the greatest goaltender of all time, and his personal hero.
Yesterday in the car on the way down we were playing
MASH, and Ellie decided to let me pick my potential future spouses. I, of course, chose several movie stars and Steve Bernier. Later on, she was trying to remember his name, and the closest she could come up with was "Bart Barney". So I now will refer to Steve Bernier as "Big Bear", and "Bart Barney" or "Bart"
