Jim and I meet for coffee at Jay's Diner in Brighton about once a month. In March Jim brought a collection of clippings he'd found recently that his dad had kept from Jim's playing days at Brockport. Jim was very happy to have the Mansfield Game article in the batch, and I immediately saw 'blog gold'. I took them home with me in the manila folder Jim had used, clutching it tightly on the way to my truck.
Once home I discovered that the Mansfield clipping had gone missing. A frantic search of the folder, the path from the truck, and the truck yielded nothing. I repeated the process. Nothing. I was most unhappy; first for Jim, and then for me. I called Jim to report the tragedy. He passed it off; said he was sorry it was gone but that he hadn't even known that he had the clipping a few days before. What a guy.
This did not sit well with me. A call to Jay's Diner was not fruitful. So, there was nothing for it but to make the twenty minute return drive to Jay's...all the way from North Greece to West Henrietta Road...to see if I might somehow - against stiff odds - find it. I arrived about an hour after I'd left and found my parking spot still open. Jay's is a busy place so this is most unusual. As I steered into it, I kept my eyes peeled for the clipping. Nothing. I opened the truck door, looked down, and there it was....a flimsy 2x2-inch piece of newsprint.... lying in some sloppy snow melt...wet, but otherwise unharmed!
Eureka!
Just think! Absent finding that clipping, we go without a most entertaining thread the past few days!
During my life, that fortunate, very lucky recovery of the Mansfield Game clipping is matched only by the time I won a case of Heath Bars (Toffee!!) on an altar boy trip to Playland Amusement Park, in Rye NY. (One case equaled 144 bars!!)
Oh...I'd better add here...also matched by the time I first met Bonnie at The Roxbury.
Frank Connell, #75
Class of 1972
Rochester, NY