The Journey to Get There

One of my old friends from Lincoln College was back from teaching English classes in Japan & was living in Long Beach.  Chase kept urging me to come up from San Diego to hangout.  I hadn't seen him in over 5 years & when the White Sox came to LA, I grabbed two tickets online & drove up to his place one Friday after work.  

I had Saturday off & I was ready to get as far away from the breakfast room as possible. 

Chase lived in Belmont Shores in a small one bedroom apartment right behind Second Street.  We caught a ride to the Metro station & hopped a train through Compton & Watts to downtown LA.  It was my first time taking transit in LA & Chase helped kill the time by showing me pictures on his phone of his adventures in Asia.

"That is amazing, wow!" I said.  "What's it like over there?"

"It's a whole different world, man.  You really got to see it for yourself," he said scrolling through endless photos.  "I was there for two years & I didn't even make a dent in all there is to do & see."

At the end of the line we walked a few blocks downtown to pickup a bus to Dodger Stadium.  Or at least I thought it went to Dodger Stadium.  Chase had only been there once before & he caught a ride.

The city bus was gradually making it's way up a hill when at an abrupt stop in a residential area a bunch of folks in Dodger blue were getting off.

"Is this the stop for Dodger Stadium?" I asked the driver.  We were running late & probably would miss an inning or two at this point.

"Yep, You just walk up that pathway there.  Follow the blue & white jerseys," the middle-aged Asian man said.

We climbed the rest of the hill & came into view of the ballpark on the other side of a massive parking lot.  When we got up to the front gate & showed the tickets I printed out ahead of time, the attendant directed us to flight of stairs.  "You guys are all the way up," he said.

We eventually found our seats in the very top row but at least we were behind home plate & the game was only in the bottom of the 2nd.  We unleashed our smuggled plastic bottles of booze & had a toast.

"Well, you did it my friend.  You got me here without getting caught in traffic," I said & we bumped bottles.

"You know it's all about the journey my friend.  If it were easy, then everybody'd do it," Chase said.  We each took a big swig.  "Now what's this I hear about you starting Mad Munch back up again?"

I laughed.  "Yeah, I'm working on it.  I gotta save up around two grand to get it going."

"Two grand- ha!  That's the easy part my friend," he assured me.  "There's always gonna be money around.  Figuring out how you're gonna make it happen & the journey to get there- that's the hardest part."