November 13, 2010
….continuation of the Nov. 8th Blog about my decision to go to the Philippines.
Decision to Move to the Philippines
After receiving the telephone call from my brother Tom that Jim was in need of a “Caregiver” for a while I didn’t think very long to decide that not of the volunteer jobs I was working with were more important that my brother.
Volunteer work at Foster Grandparents, U of I Hospital
& Senior Center TV Studio
The fact that I had already made a trip out there to Massachusetts less than 3 months before was also an important part of the decision.
I had already started checking into how I would obtain a US past port and visa to make a trip to the Philippines but had not actually gotten it yet.
I was still dealing with what I was going to do with my “stuff” that I still had in my apartment in Coralville, Iowa.
I can remember going down to the greyhound bus depot and by now I had gotten pretty well acquainted with the agent there. I told him that I was going back to Amherst, Massachusetts to help out my brother. The agent told me he could schedule me the same route that I had taken last November and that sounded good to me.
I packed pretty much the same things that I had taken before and in a couple of days I was ready to depart.
This time Jim was going to meet me in Amherst with his friend Dave at the bus depot.
the lower left portion of the above photo is where the bus stopped
Then I could drive him back to his place. I would give him a call from Springfield, Massachusetts which was about 30 minutes from Amherst.
I met a number of new people including a Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic Nun on the trip out plus I didn’t have much trouble getting there.
I recall the route took me through Chicago again but no delays this time then to Cleveland, Cincinnati, and on to Albany New York. I don’t recall the distance from Albany to Springfield, MA was, but it was a pretty straight shot and I remember thinking that this is the last stretch before I get there.
The entire trip took almost 13 hours and actually I didn’t mind it too much. We had lots of stops along the way. As we pulled into Springfield I saw the connecting Peter Pan Bus arriving also.
Well I got there and Jim and I went on to his home to unpack my stuff. I remember that we stopped to eat at a really cool place just outside of Amherst and had shrimp, French fries and a neat salad bar.
Jim made up a room for me (it was actually his room) and he took the spare bedroom. He also fixed me up so I could hook up my laptop computer and chat with Evelyn in the Philippines when ever I wanted to.
He had taken some time off school to go to Boston to the eye doctor which we did in a day or two after I arrived. I was a bit cautious driving, but did just fine.We got to Boston and found the hospital.
Jim’s daughter, Sarah, met us there and we had lunch together after Jim’s appointment. Jim was told not to lift anything while his eye went through the healing process and his doctor asked me to be sure he followed those orders.
Sarah works tor the Boston Red Sox and runs the large Teletronic scoreboard out in center field of Fenway Park. (see below)
An awesome job. She also told us that she would get tickets for a game so we could go and watch the Red Sox play.
As it turned out, Sarah got us tickets for a baseball game in early April between Boston and the New York Yankees WOW, my two favorite teams!
After the very thrilling game which Boston won, Sarah gave us a tour of the area where she did all the video recording and a walking tour of the “Green Monster”. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Green Monster, it is a section of the Fenway stadium that is located in left field.
Below are photographs of the “Green Monster”in left field at Fenway
This Blob about my decision to move to the Philippines is much, much more detailed than I first anticipated. This is the third section and I am just getting a good start. I will write more in the next part of moving to the Philippines.
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