Time flies

The Mets are in Baltimore this weekend, and it looks like, weather permitting, some of the family may go to one or more of the games.
Oldest son Dave and I started text messaging about this Thursday night. He said he was pumped to go and that Camden Yards, located near Baltimore's harbor, was a beautiful park.
My text message response: "It was 8 years or so ago the last time we were there."
I originally was going to say 10 years, but I thought that may have been too many.
Turns out I was wrong.
The last time my family went to a game at Camden Yards -- also with the Mets in town -- was 1999.
Geez.
Clinton was president.
There were no blogs or tweets.
John Franco was still the Mets' closer -- I know this because younger son Dan remembers Franco giving him not one but two baseballs over the course of the two games we attended. Dan would have been 10 at the time. Dave would have been 16.
Dan also remembers Dave losing one of those Franco balls when he was trying to ctach a Mike Piazza batting practice home run ball.
Some wounds take longer to heal than others.
It stunned both Dave and me that it could have been that long. Even years. Amazin.!
Camden Yards is, as he said, a beautiful ballpark and we all really liked it and the harbor the times we were there.
The past three years, with the family homestead being in Northern Virginia, we've lived all of an hour and 10 minutes from that ballpark. That's about what it used to take to get from Mount Olive, N.J. to Shea Stadium back in the day.
But no, we haven't been back since 1999.
I'd say we're due.
Later.