Baker's heartbeat

Some of the Baker family football fans, shown here at a college game Professional football in America has taken a step back as the Monday Night Football broadcast has fallen from favor, probably because of the Thursday Night edition. NFL officials: This is too much! Monday Night Football was born 50 years ago and caught on almost immediately as it was widely available on ABC-TV, and was the only professional game to be found on a weeknight. Keith Jackson, "Dandy" Don Meredith and Howard Cosell started the tradition, which this year features Joe Tessitore doing the play-by-play and former Louisiana State University standout Booger McFarland on color commentary with Lisa Salters on the sideline. I have no quarrel with any of the 2019 talent: McFarland, especially, is well-researched and prepared. They all are trying very hard, but none were nationally-known stars, like their predecessors. Monday Night Football was broadcast on ABC-TV for 35 years. In 2006 the progr...

Swing set works for adults, too, in a playground in NE Davenport. "How would you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh I do think it's the loveliest thing, Ever a child could do." -- Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885 My mother, the English major, used to recite that poem when she pushed me on a hand-made swing in the backyard of our home in Edina, Minn. I thought about that experience recently when taking an exercise walk in Davenport, along the trail that lines Eastern Avenue. Near the trail is a park, and that park includes swings. One a recent sunny weekday I jumped on one of the swings, and the muscle memory kicked in as I swung into the air with a view to the Eastern Avenue branch of the Davenport Public Library. "This is happy," I thought to myself, and troubles, worries, melted away. Energized after several minutes I hopped off and decided to try and find a swing to use on a regular basis, which should be easier now that we hav...

Modern blended family (mine) enjoying spring sunshine The most beloved TV show of the 1960s and 70s? Many would name "The Brady Bunch," but not this writer. Nope, my Dad and I watched "Monty Python's Flying Circus," broadcast on US television 1969-74. We enjoyed the antics of Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin and others. As one example: The "Ministry of Silly Walks" had us convulsed as cast members trotted across the screen showcasing various walking styles. That was first shown Sept. 15, 1970. So "The Brady Bunch" was not part of life in the 1970s, which included my schooling and Dad's work in Tipton, Iowa. I knew about it, of course, as the other kids in class would talk about America's favorite blended family. Flash forward to 2019 when as a HGTV watcher I now am viewing "A Very Brady Renovation." The HGTV network has done an excellent job on this project, but it is also a bit odd. They are slavishly re...

Example of letter sent out by America's health  insurance companies to their customers. The number of Americans without health insurance decreased dramatically after the Affordable Care Act passed and became law, but in recent years the number has started to creep up again, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (kff.org), a leader in studying the topic. Some 28 million Americans are currently estimated to be without the coverage. In early 2018 I became one of the uninsured for the first time in my adult life. It was disconcerting to say the least. But I knew something about the subject as a daily newspaper journalist who had reported on current health issues. I also am very healthy, overall, so considered not paying for the pricey insurance. Family members and friends strenuously objected to this idea so I signed up. My insurance agent is a nice gentleman who lives in Davenport, but I gotta tell you, the health insurance industry is a wacky business indeed. To...

Reeling in the years at the Taxslayer arena Our seats from the stage allowed a nice view of the show, overall Nineteen? Remember the 70's? Some of us were teens in that era, spending our high school and college years during the decade. There's an anthology of Steely Dan music, four discs, 1972-1980, and it contains much of the music of our youth. That's what we found for a little while, Wednesday night at the Taxslayer Arena, Moline. Steely Dan -- Donald Fagen these days -- and a 12-piece band performed Sept. 4, and although Fagen's voice was thready at times, he was able to capture some memories in the tunes. The well-filled arena was filled with folks who remembered 19 maybe 40-50 years ago. Steely Dan started out the night with "Black Friday," but most of the best-loved music came at the end of the show, with "My Old School," and a terrific rendition of "Boddivesta." Musicians younger than Fagen showed their expertise, e...

  We're in front of CIBC Theatre, Chicago Tickets we got through the box office Our seats in the theatre ... This shows distance from the stage. We spent a few days in Chicago recently and found a new, yet old, way to get tickets to one of the hottest musicals in the country. It required a pretty long walk, a few minutes in line, and we came away with two seats only about 20 rows from the stage. Like many readers, I saw offers of "Hamilton" tickets on social media; I swear every time I called up Facebook in August, there would be a pitch for the show. However, we are wary of online methods to buy tickets since a friend was burned in the process of purchasing tickets to the Paul McCartney concert in Moline, held in June. Craig has a cautionary tale that we certainly respected. Hence it seemed smart to just go to the box office at the CIBC Theatre, which has had the show for several months. The theatre was just over a mile from our hotel, so we hike...

Amtrak passenger train arrives in Galesburg, Ill. There we are, in our coach seats, for $90 total, round-trip The bullett-shaped, silver engine and passenger train came around a bend en route to the railroad station in Galesburg, Ill., and this passenger was ready to record the moment. It was the Baker's first "vacation" train trip in more than 30 years of marriage; we've been on metro trains in New York City, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Chicago, but this was a first for traveling from our home on a weekend vacation. We are in good company. According to Amtrak, the publicly-funded network carried 31.7 million passengers in fiscal year 2018. I started this process by buying the tickets. One initial challenge came with the website, Amtrak.com. I punched in "Princeton, Ill." as the station of origin, and nothing happened. After repeated tries, I called AAA Travel for help, and the advisor suggested using Galesburg, Ill., as the train station of ch...