EASMC

(Back blip by a day)

I spoke with my friend Karol for over two hours today. She’s sitting next to the much larger me. This was taken in 1999 and included all of the local teachers union presidents who were still teaching at the time. It also includes our legal rep and the office secretary. Our acronym was EASMC which stood for the Education Association of St. Mary’s County. I was President from 87-89.

I attended about nine National Education Association conventions as either an EASMC rep or a State rep. It’s the largest convention in the country. We’d be in the convention city for a week, working 10 hour days. The evenings were ours.

Karl (right) was a character and my baseball buddy.  We would make sure to attend a Major League Baseball game in every city which had a team. That left out places like New Orleans (probably my favorite city) and Miami (My least favorite), but included LA, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Philly and Kansas City.

The game in Los Angeles was the most memorable. It was at the old Dodger Stadium. Karl decided we should buy tickets from a scalper. It wasn’t until we tried  to find our seats that we realized that they were in different parts of the stadium. It was pretty empty behind home plate, so we settled in there.

A concession stand was in our section. Karl went to get a hot dog. Bounding back excitedly to our seats, like a little kid he said, “Laurie, Laurie, Laurie...you’ve got to get a hot dog. They have an ONION MACHINE!” It was a grinder with fresh onions. You placed your dog underneath, turned the crank and fresh chunks of onion plopped onto it. We ate a lots of hot dogs that night just so we could play with the onion machine. There were plenty of other misadventures that night, too, but for years afterward, every time he opened his mouth the word onion would come out. And every time I laughed harder than the time before. It was our inside joke.

These were truly awesome people who gave me great memories. I’m so happy to have found this photo. Thanks for letting me share it.