Ever since the Vanderbilt baseball team, a.k.a. “The Vandy Boys” began their early West Coast games, Alan Hicks and i have attended almost all of them. If i have it straight that began in 2010.

Alan came down from San Francisco. i picked him up at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. We headed to the Hilton Doubletree at the Port of Los Angeles Marina in San Pedro. That evening, we went to watch Vanderbilt beat UCLA in baseball. Saturday, we watched them lose to USC’s Trojans. Sunday morning, we went back to UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium where the Commodores lost to UConn.

Even though our “Vandy Boys” lost two out of three, it was a great weekend, a frolic of two old boys reliving what they’ve been doing since 2010 any time Vanderbilt made a West Coast swing early in the season. We made a habit of such Vandy jaunts to this part of the world when Alan was the Director of MARAD’s Golden Gateway and i was making weekly jaunts to Long Beach for safety inspections and training at Pacific Tugboats facility in the Long Beach harbor.

The Geezers dined at one of their old haunts on Friday after the game at The Whale and Ale restaurant, a British pub in San Pedro. Saturday after the game, we hit another one of our favorites, King’s Fish House in downtown Long Beach (the oysters were fabulous).

In many ways the trip was wondrous. Good times with a more than good friend adding to our memories. It also was grueling for this old fart. Over 550 miles were covered traveling to the games…and this was in the worse driving in the good of U. S. of A. As i have said many times, there is horrible traffic in many of our cities including the Southwest corner. But no place, no place has traffic that bad 24/7, seven days a week over 100 square miles.

But you know what? It was worth it for this old Geezer.