Tim Sterrett

July 23, 1998
              Radar Gun: A Baseball Game at Veterans' Stadium
     Nat and I arrive at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia at 12:30 P.M.
for a 7:30 P.M. game and, not only do we not have to pay to park, but no
one is at the gate of the parking lot. We walk under the edges of the
huge round stadium and find three TV trailers and our employer, Barry
Hogenauer.
     Three TV stations are broadcasting tonight's game between the
Phillies and the Atlanta Braves: Turner Broadcasting, Fox Sports Net,
and the local Philadelphia station. Since we know the boss (Barry), we
get a tour of the Fox control room in one end of the trailer. The end
wall is all TV monitors, two 19" color monitors and a dozen small black
and white screens. The trailer also has an audio control room and a
videotape control room, both small. When we enter the trailer (called
"the truck") with Barry who has hired all but one of the people in the
truck, everything stops and heads turn. Usually people glance at Barry
and at us and go back to work planning the opening sequences for the
game and setting up the graphics (batting averages, stories, and trivia
that will appear during the game).
     Not this time; all work seems to stop. We stay for five minutes in
dimly-lighted, air-conditioned comfort while the producer asks Barry a
couple of questions. ("On a scale of one to ten how good is __ as a lead
tape operator?") Barry hands out big tags that hang around our necks and
allow us to go almost anywhere in the stadium.
     Work is just beginning so we help two cameramen load the parts for
their cameras onto a wheeled cart. Nat and I are utility people; we help
with the grunt work. The camera parts are stored, below the floor of the
trailer's control rooms, in cubical, armored, bulky packing cases and we
stack them on the cart. Then into the stadium with the cart. The stadium
door at 2 P.M. is barely guarded and people glance at us as we go by.
Into the elevator we go and up to the fourth floor, down a hallway and
onto the ring walkway behind the pressbox and broadcast booths. We are
looking down at the brilliant green playing field which has
lower-school-age children on it in Phillies uniforms; they are there for
a baseball camp. We unload the cart at the doorway to one of the
broadcast booths up and behind home plate; we are not sure which booth
we will be setting up in.
     Then Nat and I go back to the truck with the cart to get lights. We
have to find our way out of the stadium first. What floor do we get off
the elevator to get out of the stadium? E.J., a camera operator who is
in the elevator with us, says, "Whenever NBC works a game, they solve
that problem for us." And he points up over the doors to a black Magic
Marker dot below the 2 and the 4 on the elevator's floor indicator.
     The floodlights lights, four of them, are in a packing case with
light stands (lightweight tripods); they will be used for on-camera
interviews in the broadcast booth. We deliver the lights and head back
with the cart. At the truck, we help load Barry's camera onto the cart
and accompany him to his high-third camera position. His camera is on
the press box level and above third base. The low-third camera is at the
far end of the dugout.
     Camera set-up starts with a heavy-duty tripod topped by a panhead
(the moveable part of the tripod) then a camera body then a zoom lens
(the lens has the size and heft of a portable sewing machine) then, on
top, a monitor (through which the camera operator can see what the
camera is seeing or, by throwing a switch, what is going out over the
air). Then we add two handles and the controllers for zoom (on the right
handle) and focus (turn the left handle) and connect the cables that
link the controllers to the camera.
     Four cameras are set up side-by-side in center field: One for the
stadium TV system that puts pictures on the scoreboard and one for each
of the three trucks.
     Now the clock says 3 P.M. What do Nat and I do next? We stand
around at the truck and wait. The radar gun is on the ground beside the
truck nestled in its suitcase while its battery is being charged. We
accompany Barry to the Phillies Front Office entrance. He is there to
get "TV Crew" tags for the Turner Broadcasting truck. We see Bill Giles
and Paul Owens, management-types in suits, and Harry Kalas, the voice of
the Phillies, also in a suit; they are schmoozing with other suits. Nat
and I are not in suits and we stay out of the way.
     Nat and I go back into the stadium and walk onto the field behind
home plate. No breeze is reaching the ground and the air is HOT. Except
for two people in warm-ups running along the right field wall, we are
alone on the field. The stands are silent and deserted.
     Back out to the truck. Now when we step out of the stadium door, we
face a growing crowd of autograph hounds, about twenty hopefuls of all
ages are behind the temporary fence around the entryway at 4 P.M. Nobody
seems interested in me; they do look at Nat, trying to figure out who he
might be.
     We pack up Jugs; that's what it says on the side of the radar gun
and that's what the gun is called. We have turned Jugs on to see that it
works at the truck and to try to figure out how the gun is calibrated.
In the case is a tuning fork for calibrating the speed but we can find
no adjustment point on the radar gun.
     Security people are stationed at the stadium door now, but we have
been in and out so many times that they just watch us go by. The radar
gun will be set up behind home plate and about ten feet above it at the
front of the section where the baseball scouts sit. My seat as radar gun
operator is in the front row, but at the top of the entrance runway
behind home plate. So I will be in Row 7, looking over a covered runway.
Players do not use this runway; they enter the field from the dugouts.
(Carts carrying camera parts use this runway to get to camera positions
in the dugouts, and football players probably run onto the field from
this runway.) We have to get power for Jugs from an outlet just inside a
door into the Phillies locker room off the runway and back under where I
will sit. The outlet is shoulder high, just inside the doorway. We tie
the extension cord to the conduit leading to the outlet box and plug it
in.
     I have never been in a locker room; I thought they were off-limits
even to us. The carpeted floor of the locker room is up three steps and
waist high as we stand at the outlet. The back rest of a bench blocks
our view into the locker room. The room is air-conditioned and feels
cold. Two players are sitting with their backs to us. I don't see who
they are.
     Next we have to tape the extension cord to the concrete floor at
the edge of the door sill along the runway, so I go back outside, past
the guards and the autograph crowd to get the roll of duct tape that I
had seen next to the truck. The tape is gone and I can't find another
roll. I go back into the stadium just as Jerry, a stage manager for on
camera interviews, walks by with a roll of duct tape. We tape the
extension cord down and plug in the wire that will send the signal from
Jugs to the truck. Then we hang and tie the wires up out of the way
along the roof of the runway and run them to my seat where the audio
people have already installed a headset for me.
     Barry had told me in the morning that, as the radar gun person, I
would just be sitting next to the gun, doing nothing. The number from
the gun would be displayed on a computer screen in the truck where the
producer would decide whether to use it or not.
     The radar gun does not work. We get no power to the gun; its
display shows nothing. Both power to and miles-per-hour signal from Jugs
go through a homemade junction box and we wiggle all the wires but Jugs
still does not work. While we are fiddling with the set-up a young man
stops to help us. He is on the crew for another of the trucks, but the
crews all seem to know each other and help each other. As we are
talking, he suggests that I am taking job from a someone who needs the
work. I agree with him and tell him the thought has crossed my mind.
     We walk back to the truck to tell the tech director, Mark, that
Jugs does not work. Eventually we return Jugs to the truck where a
techie takes the junction box apart. We are told to wait for the arrival
of someone in black-rimmed glasses, carrying a sheaf of papers. We are
to tell him that Jugs does not work. Nat and I get ice and something to
drink from the bottled water and soda supply provided for our crew and
finally sit down on the curb by the truck. We are tired.
     After half an hour, no one in black-rimmed glasses has shown up so
we use Plan B and set Jugs up to run off its battery pack. I can switch
plugs between innings and re-charge the battery pack then switch back
and use the battery pack to operate Jugs during each half inning. After
each pitch, I will say the number into the microphone of my headset
which is connected to the truck. (This means I will have something to
do!) As we carry Jugs back in to the stadium, the security guards at the
door begin to tease me about getting it to work and the autograph crowd
has grown to fifty people. A tall young man in a jacket and tie is
signing an autograph as we pass. "Thanks, Mr. Smoltz," says a young fan.

     With the gun set up, Nat and I sit with it and watch the Phillies
players stretching behind the batting cage twenty-five feet in front of
us; some of them are following the exercises led by their fitness coach.
Their warm-up shirts do not have names on them so we are trying to
figure out who some of the less well-known players are.
     At five-thirty, we go up to supper in the Press Club, a cafeteria
in a hallway behind the press box. For eight dollars, we join the TV
crews and the talent (the people who will appear in front of our
cameras) at formica tables for two or six people. When I ask for a
serving of shepherd's pie, I have to speak twice to keep the server from
putting a second huge dollop on my plate; she looks disappointed.
Delicious Shepherd's pie, salad bar, applesauce, and Cherry Coke make my
supper. I am abstemious and pass on many items of food.
     We sit at a small table with Bill Dannenberg, another utility
person who has helped both us learn what to do on other TV crew jobs. He
is working for Turner tonight and tells us that he has heard that no
rain is in the forecast for the evening. When he finishes his dinner, he
goes off to practice with a camera. Utility people would like to become
camera operators; and, when they get a chance, they practice following
the action, zooming in and out while keeping the camera in focus. The
cameras have magnificent zoom lenses; the TV picture of the batter at
home plate from over the pitcher's shoulder comes from a camera above
the centerfield wall. Turn the focus handle top to the right to focus on
something close ("Righty-tighty") and crank in on the zoom control to
zoom in. The cameras are beautiful pieces of engineering and fun to play
with!
     Nat tells me to look at the TV screen up in the corner of the
dining room behind me. The 6 P.M. weather report is showing a line of
rain approaching Philadelphia.
     After our dinner, Nat and I walk outside to check the weather and
we see dark clouds almost on us. The trucks are parked under a big
concrete roof and we can get in and out of the stadium by staying under
the roof and overhangs.
     I tell Mark, the tech director, that I want to see and speak to the
graphics coordinator(also known as an A.D., an associate director) whom
I will be talking to on my headset during the game. Mark says that the
guy is not here right now. When he shows up, I tell him about Jugs. "You
mean the number won't appear on my screen?" he says, dismayed. We agree
that I will speak the number to him and I go off to test the system with
him listening. As I leave the truck at 6:45 P.M., rain begins to fall.
In the stadium, I zip to my seat, put on the headset, say, "This is
Jugs. Eighty-eight, eighty-eight." Then I tuck a plastic bag over Jugs,
stuff the headset and its audio box under my seat, and run for cover
from the rain which is now pouring down. Back out at the truck, the A.D.
says he heard me but was too busy to answer. I say "OK" and head back
into the stadium. The huge, red tarp is being spread over the infield;
rain is pelting down. I stand with the stadium crowd in the concession
area under the stands, surrounded by food, cigarette smells, and loud
music (noise!) from the PA system.
     The rain stops. I sit down at 7:15, alone in Section 228, and put
on my headset as the grounds crew is rolling up the tarp and fans are
flowing into the sections of seats around me. No sound is coming into my
ears from the headset. I think I should be hearing chatter from all the
camera people and the director. The camera guys in the dugouts are
wearing their headsets and moving their cameras around. Well, I figure,
if my voice is not getting through, the people in the truck will know
pretty soon.
     Nat has gone to his station as the runner for the producer in the
truck. Nat spends most of the game standing up, against the wall and out
of the way, in the truck, ready to carry things to the broadcast booth
in the stadium or to get things (food, for instance) for the people in
the truck.
     The game begins. Twice in the past (thanks to Barry), I have sat at
the end of the dugout, tucked in behind the low third cameraman, so I
have seen a game up close before. I have also stood on the field just in
front of the dugout to help with the pre- and post-game shows while
players walked around. This is my first time behind home plate. I aim
Jugs at the Braves' pitcher, squeeze the trigger as he lets the each
pitch go, read the number on the back of the gun, push the microphone
button on my audio box and say the number twice into my headset
microphone. Tyler Green, pitching for the Phils, is throwing 93 mph
fastballs; Kevin Millwood, for the Braves, is about as fast. Three
scouts are sitting around me talking about, not about players, but being
scouts. One of the scouts says "when I was playing"; I don't know who he
is. A few drops of rain fall from a dark cloud, but the cloud passes
beside the stadium. One of the scouts leaves at the first drops of rain
and does not return.
     In the third inning, my headphones suddenly come alive and I hear
the director talking to the camera guys and hear the producer talking to
the A.D. The camera people generally know what they should be watching
as the game goes on, but the director can tell them to show something
else, too. For this game, the director has six cameras to work with:
high home, high first, low first, high and low third, and centerfield.
Important games use more cameras. The low third camera is responsible
for left-handed batters and right-handed pitchers because they face the
third base side. High third watches plays at second base and in right
field. Camera operators have to know what to focus on when the ball is
hit or thrown.
     One of the audio guys arrives beside me to see why the people in
the truck can't hear me. He tells me that my earphone sound was left
turned off by mistake by someone in the sound booth of the truck. The
audio guy plugs his headset into my audiobox and he can't be heard
either. He has a radio, too, so he can talk to the truck. Someone in the
truck suggests that neither headset works; the audio guy says that he
was just using his at another camera station. He goes away. I am still
reporting each pitch but my voice, I'm told, is pretty faint. I speak
louder. Spectators across the aisle from me know the speed of each pitch
because they can hear me say the number.
     Two sound guys appear and one of them goes down into the tunnel
below my seat and wiggles the connection on the audio cable. Aha! When I
speak into the microphone, I hear myself on the return line through the
headphone. My microphone is now working.
     One of the baseball scouts is talking about spending two hours
writing up a report on a player and sending it in to his boss. Then when
the team management shows an interest in the player, his boss calls him
on the phone and says, "What do you think about this guy?" I am wrapped
in my headset, so I can't do much but chuckle at their stories.
     Since this is baseball and three trucks are working the game, no
one should be surprised that two radar guns are working as well. Fox
Network wants to have its own radar gun. When I watch Phillies' home
games on TV, I see a radar guy behind home plate. He's here tonight,
too, down in front of me, out of my sight except when he stands up
between innings. His readings appear on a part of the stadium scoreboard
and I often look to see if our guns agree. Mostly, they do agree. Twice
the two guns were off by three miles an hour. Not a big deal, I said to
someone. Not so, they said; three miles an hour could be five hundred
thousand dollars at contract time!
     On my headphones, I have a choice of listening to both the
director's channel and the stats channel or just the stats channel. For
a while, I listen to both channels. On the director's channel, as tapes
are being cued up to go on the air, I can listen to two different
countdowns happening at the same time. Imagine two people counting down
five, four, three, two. But they are counting down different cues, maybe
two different, short taped replays. Hearing two countdowns is
disorienting, so I turn off the channel I don't have to listen to.
     Nat comes to visit for a few minutes. He has been standing up
against the side wall of the truck for the whole game except for two
trips to carry faxes to the broadcast booth.
     Near the end of the game, Jerry Spradlin comes in to pitch for the
Phils. One of the guys in the truck says to the other (on my headphone),
"This guy can throw a hundred miles an hour." So I pay attention. He
throws ninety-eight several times.
     Then the game is over. I pack up Jugs, retrieve and coil the wires,
and carry everything back to the truck.
     Since our Fox Network truck will broadcast tomorrow night's game,
we do not have to take down the cameras and pack everything in the cargo
area beneath the floor of the control rooms, so we should be able to
leave soon. Nat and I go back into the stadium to go to the bathroom and
wash; I tell the security guy this is the last time I'm going through
the door. The autograph crowd is now about a hundred people, waiting for
players to leave. When we get back to the truck, we are told that the
high third camera needs its elephant cover, so we fish it out from under
the truck and go back in. The security guy chuckles as we approach the
door. We make another trip in the elevator to the fourth floor. Two
camera guys from another truck hold a fire door open for us so we don't
get locked out as we walk down corridor to the high third camera. The
gray cover drapes over camera and tripod and it does look like a
shapeless elephant. Back out past the autograph crowd and, at the truck,
we are dismissed. We are home at 11:30 P.M.
     But what about the game? I don't remember much. The Phils lost. I
saw a homerun and, from behind home plate, a homerun looks like a golf
tee shot, rising slowly as it rockets away.
     Is working a game fun? Being on the crew is tiring. We are mostly
on our feet from 12:30 until suppertime. Wearing the TV Crew tag around
my neck and walking past all the barriers that keep ordinary people out
is fun. Walking down the ramp behind home plate and onto the green
playing field at the bottom of the huge, bowl-shaped stadium is a
thrill. From my terrific seat behind home plate, could I see a white
spot on a spinning curveball? Nope.
     Working on a crew at the ballpark has changed my view of the game.
Just as working behind the scenes in a school theater changed forever
the way I viewed stage productions, I have now been under the surface of
the bubble of makebelieve and illusion that surrounds big-time sports.


A report on a further day on radar gun duty:

Subject: More News

                          Thursday Morning
    I'm just back from a two-hour walk on a blue sky, breezy morning.  I
walked to the top of the Orchard to look for monarch butterfly eggs,
found none, and walked to the top of the hill on the Farm ridge (The Big
Sky) and found _maybe_ three eggs.  I left them in the first grade
classroom.  Lower school looks like it might be ready in a week with
boxes and new furniture all over the place, but students arrive
tomorrow.
      Mom and I saw an Apple II computer perched in a trash can on
Johnny's Way today.  (And I did not pick it up.)
     A hundred crows at the barn were making a big commotion but not
until I was walking back down from the ridge did I see the Cooper's hawk
that they were with.  Into the wind, one or two crows pursued the hawk,
then they would turn and the hawk would pursue a crow.  They may be too
close in size to hurt each other.
     Walked past a deer that was lying down in the soybeans snacking.
The deer was maybe four car lengths away from the tractor path I was
on.  We looked at each other.
     Yesterday, I arrived at the stadium at 2:45, found Jerry, my boss,
who said, "Let's go see Larry Shenk right now." (to find out where to
put the radar gun)  We walked to the Phillies office and got on the
elevator with John Franco.  (He's a well-known Mets pitcher, James.)  Up
to the Public Relations Office where the secretary says twenty-five
scouts will be at tonight's game.  While we wait, I recognize and meet
the Phillies' radar gun kid.  Joel is in a necktie!  He may be a
management trainee; he may be a member of the Carpenter family.  The
Phillies agree to put me right behind home plate at field level, beside
and behind Joel.  I might be on TV!
       By 4:30, I have the wires re-run to the spot where the tripod is
set up.  I go to the truck and sit at the Fox Box (where the pitch speed
appears.)  I ask Karen (who sits next to it) if I can use the mouse to
see the numbers and she says sure.  But no one is pitching.  Half an
hour later, I do see the numbers change on the Fox Box screen in the
truck during batting practice.
     Behind home plate, I discover another radar gun being connected to
wires.  Who is this?  (Upstairs earlier, the Phillies had asked if the
Mets would have a third gun and were happy to find out that they would
not.)  This gun is for the virtual ads that appear behind the batter on
a blank wall.  The virtual ads are working so well that the ad guys are
experimenting with putting a radar gun read-out there, too.
      I go to dinner at five o'clock, then out to the car to put on long
pants and a sweatshirt.  No sweatshirt.  I had worn it into the house on
Tuesday night and had hung it up!  So I dress in my Chinese underwear
jacket; four/fifths of the jacket is covered by my little dark blue
nylon jacket.  I look pretty casual.
     In the stadium, I meet the two women ushers who check tickets and
get food for the people who sit in the fifty seats in that special
section (put in for a recent all-star game.)  We have an ice hockey wall
and Plexiglas between us and the umpire's back.  Joel arrives (no
necktie).
     I scoot up to the scouts section and check on Harry, the Baltimore
scout.  He has a jacket tonight.  He had told me last night that he
cannot hobnob with the players because he might be accused of tampering,
so I tell him that since I was seen talking to a scout last might, I've
been moved away from him.  In the elevator on the way up to dinner, I
see the scout who had the seat that the gun was occupying last night.
He cheerfully asks how I am and who I'm working for.  Then he says that
I should have bribed him last night for some Fox Network baseball caps.
     The virtual ad guy is still setting up his wires as the game begins
and he is not popular with Joel or with the security people.  They make
him move from one side to the other side of the runway.  Joel calls on
his radio and, when a necktie guy arrives, Joel says, "This is not going
to happen again."  What's the "this"? Me?
      Later, when a security person motions toward me and says, "What's
he doing here?"  Joel says, "Fox [Network] wants him there."  So far
everybody seems to accept my presence.  I'm really not doing anything
but baby-sitting the gun.
     The game? Curt Schilling, Phillies' ace and National League
strikeout leader, is not too sharp tonight.  He gets ten strikeouts but
gives up ten hits, too.  He is gone be the middle of the game and the
Mets win.  Scott Rolen (Phils' third baseman and perhaps most popular
player) hits a line drive, two-run home run straight out to center field
in the ninth.
      The crowd loves to ride Mike Piazza, ex-Dodger catcher, and yells
and boos at him.  But a woman in our section wears a tee shirt, saying
something like, "Mike, I'm unmarried" and giving her phone number.
      Joel and I compare gun readouts.  His is often higher than mine,
once by six miles an hour.  But not always. Several times, the Jugs gun
is higher.  In the afternoon, the virtual ad guys had told me that the
angle above the field affects the readout and that guns close together
can affect each other's readouts.  The gun could also be picking up the
pitcher's hand as it releases the ball.
      We get two sprinkles of rain during the game.  The two ushers work
hard during the game to get me to sit in their seats so I do for a
couple of innings.
       After the game, I pack up and tie up the three cable ends so that
the steam cleaning waterfall from the stands won't soak them with
garbage.  Out to the truck to pack up the gun in its case and then stow
it in the audio booth of the truck because the bays underneath are
already locked for the night.
       I see the virtual ad guy and he says the experiment worked so
well that they put it on the air.
       Back into the stadium past the crowd waiting for the Mets to
emerge and walk fifty feet to their bus, to the bathroom, back out the
door where the crowd still waits, and home at 11:15.
      (Nobody saw me on TV.)  I don't know where the gun will be set up
tonight.
Love,
Dad
Tim
--
Tim Sterrett
South-Eastern Pennsylvania


And a final episode of Tales from the Radar Gun:

Subject: Last Radar Gun

Friday, Sept 11, 1998
   Had to move the radar gun set-up again last night. A scout is being
bumped from a seat so that I can set-up. The tripod and I will share a
seat.  I have a ticket stub this time. I have to wait until 4 P.M. to
find out what seat I have so I get the set-up done a little later.
   At the Public Relations Office, I give the receptionist the Wall
Street Journal article that Pop sent me about the virtual ads. The
photograph show Joel behind home plate. He has seen the photo but has
not read the article so he takes it to read.
   The radar gun for the virtual ads will be down at field level with
Joel and his radar gun for the rest of the season.
   When I see the virtual ad guy out by the truck, he gives me a tour of
the cubical, construction trailer that is used by the virtual ad guys.
When I tell him my guess as to how the ads are done, he nods
encouragingly but then says that, if he tells me how the ads are done,
he'll have to kill me because the process has not been patented yet.
   Back in the stadium, I watch Desi Relaford getting hitting
instruction from Coach Hal McCrae. As Desi starts to walk out of the
batter's box, the coach says, "Two more." As Desi steps back in he is
visibly muttering to himself. He doesn't want to be there!
   The Orioles scout shows up and we talk for half an hour until I leave
for dinner. I make a little mistake in the serving line and my plate is
FULL of chili macaroni (Train Wreck!), roast pork, carrots, and peas. I
am luckier than the guy before me who watches as his plate is heaped
with Train Wreck. I ask for a third of what he has, but the servers just
heap the plate with the other things I agree to. (They suggest items if
I don't ask for enough things.)
   I eat with Art Reilly, an A 2 (audio two) who grew up just outside
NYC on Long Island and traveled 2 hours each way to Brooklyn Prep in
Flatbush.  He is about fifty years old, so we talked about baseball in
New York.
   At the game, the Orioles scout has the seat ticket next to me so I
have someone to talk to.
   Tyler Green, pitching for the Phils, gives up five runs in the first
inning. Mike Piazza hits a three run homer (and later an RBI double).
   The Phils threaten in the ninth.  Desi Relaford hits a two-run homer,
but John Franco again shuts the Phils down.
   "Jugs, are you there?" I get a call on my headset! I have to flip
down the microphone and push the talk button (I never know which of the
two talk channels to use) to reply. I am reminded to be expeditious in
packing up JUGS and getting it back to the truck because the (rented)
gun goes to NYC with the Mets.
    We pack the truck as the truck guys check the contents of each
crate.  A lens caps is missing and we wait ten minutes while people try
to figure out where it might have gone (or if it ever existed). We want
to go home.
    Then the aluminum stairways get taken off the truck and boosted up
onto their hooks on the back of the truck. Wrong! They have to be turned
over and around so they ride better. Then the extended side of the
trailer body gets cranked back in and locked. After I wind the crank
around, I am told to stow the power cables into a bay under the trailer
(They are heavy!) and put the crank on top of them so it can be found at
the next stop.
    Back in to the stadium through the crowd waiting at the runway
between the building and the Mets' bus to go to the bathroom and wash my
hands.
    Home at 12:15 A.M.
    A double-crested cormorant on Westtown Lake this morning.  Is this a
first?
    Saw the Cooper's hawk at the farm, too.
    When I saw one of the Stone House proctors in front of Stone House,
he said I had to come and see his room.  So I got the tour and met a new
student and his family (gave him a horse chestnut for luck).
Love,
Tim
Dad
--
Tim Sterrett
(southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA