Reggie Jackson: Baltimore Orioles

A lot of people don't know this, but besides playing for the Atheletics and the Yankees, Mr. October also played one season with the Baltimore Orioles. The Bicentennial year, 1976, Reggie donned the bird's orange, black, and white uniform, batted .277 with 27 homers, 91 RBIs, and won a lot of votes for league MVP. Reggie wasn't finished - 76' was not the twilight of his career. His two best home run seasons were still ahead of him, so he was hardly a "has been" when the O's acquired him. Still, his season with Baltimore is now little more than a footnote in his glorious and distinguished career. The youthful, rookie, Jackson is associated with Atheletics, while the older, seasoned, Jackson is always associated with the Yankees. But he was one of ours, once!

I've had an autographed 8x10 photo of Jackson in an O's uniform for years. I bought it at a baseball card show back in the early 1980's, when it had no particular premium value. I've been offered up to $100 bucks for it, but I kinda like it. Recently while browsing ebay, I ran across a game used jersey card of Jackson - an Orioles jersey! Needless to say, I bought it and it will have a special place among my other Orioles game-used jersey cards. I suppose it's just a little bit of Baltimore history as well as MLB history, but I still think it's kind of special.

"Road Trips Close to Home" Article in August issue of The City That Rides

James and I took an 1100 mile bike trip through southern Virginia and West Virginia in June. I wrote a little article about it - a few transcription typos (grrrr!) Don't forget to click to enlarge for easier reading, enjoy!

Second half of article on "Road Trips Close To Home"

Article published in June issue of "The City That Rides" magazine:

I was really pleased to have this little article published in a local motorcycling magazine. It's been a number of years since I had an article published.

Second half of the article:

Back in the Harley Family!

I have done some wheeling and dealing with motorcycles for the past couple of weeks. I sold my 2006 Kawasaki Concours to a nice fellow in North Carolina. I needed the cash to pay off some nagging debts. I didn't want to be without a bike, so I started looking around at different bikes. I found a dealer in Dumfries, Virginia called Classic Iron www.bikerbill.com who specializes in used Harleys. He had a fantastic selection, and they all seemed like decent bikes at uninflated prices. Last Saturday my friend James and I rode down to check them out. I looked at a bunch of different bikes including some wide glides, a fat boy, and another dresser. But I kept coming back to this bike. It's a 1997 Ultra Classic Electraglide. It looked well maintained and pretty much stock so I gambled a little and bought it. It's got the 1340cc Evolution engine, and it runs well. The only problem is that the guy put Vance & Hines pipes on it - that sound awesome - but didn't remap the fuel injection and it "pops" a lot. At some point I'm going to have to drop $300 bucks and get a power commander so that I can adjust the fuel/air mixture and tune it a little better. It's nice to have a Harley again, though, even an older one.

A few comments about some knives - old and new: