By Bill Collins, Principal
Checked off another item on my list of things I had to do in life…and saw Paul McCartney in concert at Washington’s FedEx Field. With my Beatles-crazy 16-year-old daughter in tow, we luxuriated in almost three hours of the soundtrack of my life: Everything from I Saw Her Standing There to Paperback Writer to Hey Jude to I’m Down (really down!). Sir Paul, 67, can really bring it and best of all, he obviously loves performing and connecting with his adoring fans. He truly appreciates the thing the world has with The Beatles and he honors and respects it.
Funniest thing I heard all night was the 30-something guy in front of us telling his buddy that he can cross off an item on his “bucket list”: Seeing Paul McCartney in concert. Imagine having a bucket list while you still have a full head of hair and all of your faculties? Weird feeling for a guy my age that lived the original Beatles experience, to see young people so crazy about them. All I could think was, “If you think this is great, you shoulda been there in ’64!”
FedEx Field, home of the Redskins, is 10 years old, and not nearly as nice as its much older colleague, Ralph Wilson Stadium. FedEx is huge - capacity is 90,000 and the upper decks seem to reach to heaven - but the place needs a paint job and some TLC. The Ralph, on the other hand, is pristine in comparison and a lot nicer than perhaps we give it credit for. The FedEx operations were also shoddy. The traffic control was horrible and the stadium restrooms were not working at one point (on an 85 degree night with people consuming liquids by the tanker). Memo to Redskins owner, Dan Snyder: Apparently money can’t buy everything.
If you haven’t flown in and out of Baltimore Washington International, you’re in for a treat the next time you do. What a great operation! Very efficient and user-friendly.
Next on my list of things to do this summer, a trip to St. Louis with my 9-year-old son, Charlie, to see my beloved Cardinals play the Cincinnati Reds. We’re seeing two games with side trips to the St. Louis Zoo and the Gateway Arch. My pal was trying to convince me to do the Anheuser-Busch tour but I think we’ll wait on that one. Looking forward to this “boys’ trip!”
Thank God for the invention of the GPS. I wonder how many marriages they could have saved.
My first car was a 1968 Cutlass with 96,000 miles on it. Bought it in 1975 for $475 and that maroon beauty served me well. I guess now it would qualify as a “Cash for Clunker” trade-in and I could get $4,500 credit for it. Timing is everything…I knew I should have kept it.
Letters, we get letters. We are overrun with letters and resumes from kids looking for that elusive first job out of college. We try to accommodate as many as we can with informational interviews since we were all there once and we can remember the kind people who gave us the time of day (and since I’m Irish, those who didn’t). I’m always amazed, though, at how ill-prepared for the interview the prospects are. Very few have questions prepared or have any sense of how they can play the interview to their advantage. Once in a great while someone will come in with a list of incisive questions but those kids are few and far between. Most come in, sit down and give off the body language of, “Here I am!”
Have you seen the T.O. reality show? I saw the second installment, sitting with my teenage daughter and her friend and it was pretty good, a lot better than I would have thought. And Buffalo looked pretty nice. I got a big kick out of seeing the reaction of the girls—they thought it was pretty cool that their much-maligned hometown was being showcased in a hot show and better yet, coming off well. Some civic pride definitely kicking in.
Sitting with friends the other night on their deck sipping wine and my cell phone signals a text from my daughter, Julia. What could it be? “Dad, can I…” Or “Dad, I need…” No, it was: “I love you Dad.” Gulp. Who says texting isn’t a good thing?
Speaking of the Long and Winding Road, we are preparing to take our first child—son, Will-- to college on August 18th. I’m not ready for this but he appears to be. He’s going to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and we couldn’t be happier with his choice of college and city. While he appeared to be a lock for St. Bonaventure University where his mother and I met back in the stone ages (i.e. before texting), he preferred a big city setting. The president of Duquesne is a Bona grad…and the president of Bona is a Duquesne grad. How ironic could that be?
Is it still raining?
