A couple of months ago I was telling a friend of mine how I was going to manage all of the different things I am involved with. My final comment was that I would have to be careful not to take on too many things. That earned me a withering look of disbelief. I don't know why people complain about those who don't understand them, I have a lot more trouble with the people who do understand me.
My activities today gave plenty of support for that look of disbelief. The day began at 7:00 a.m. as I drove down to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia for the annual meeting of the Connie Mack SABR chapter. I was there to give a brief talk called, "The best of times, the worst of times - the Phillies and the A's in the 1916 pennant races," and also to sell books - the goals were not necessarily in that order. This was the first time I have spoken about the 1916 book, it was well received with at least a half of a dozen people complimenting me on it. However, it was like the operation that succeeded, but the patient died - no one bought the book. This is the first time that I have tried to actively sell a book and I am realizing it is not a good idea - my job is to write them, it is the publisher's job to sell them. I do plan to continue to give talks about my books, but will be a lot more selective as to when and where - especially where.
From there I drove to Washington's Crossing State Park on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River for the annual Spirit of the Jerseys State History Fair. I had two purposes in going to this event, the first was to attend part of what was supposed to be a baseball game between the Neshanock and my beloved Eureka. Unfortunately once again, Eureka attendance was a problem and the game was basically a Neshanock inter-squad game. There are some real concerns about our ability to continue the Eureka which would be a real shame. Hopefully we will be able to keep it active to some level while we recruit more players.
Once that game was over, I went to the booth of the 12th New Jersey Civil War regiment to find one of my counter-parts on the New Jersey Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee - a film producer. He wanted to tape a public service announcement about the committee and its work with me as the spokesperson. It was interesting as he had me walk past a group of re-enactors talking about the upcoming anniversary and its importance. We did it in two takes so I guess it was all right - supposedly it will appear on Comcast in South Jersey and possibly on NJN as well.
All of this would have been a pretty busy day in its own right, but it followed a week where I went to a game at Citi Field with Paul, down to Elkton, Maryland for a vintage tournament followed by two days in Virginia for a sesquicentennial conference. At the moment I don't feel too tired from all of this, but the good news is that there is nothing of this magnitude on the calendar for a while - the challenge will be to make sure that it stays that way. Wait a minute, was that another withering look of disbelief?
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