Turn again, Dick Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Dick Whittington or his having been thrice Lord Mayor of London, but how many times does a person get an opportunity to use the word “thrice”?

Mrs. RWP and I are back in hilly, beautiful, and definitely cooler North Georgia after spending nearly two weeks in Tampa Bay. Well, we were not actually in the bay. You know what I mean.

Some people say things happen in threes -- I don’t -- but three things did happen to me for the first time during our Florida trip. One was fun, one was scary, and one was mind-boggling.

On June 26th, for the first time in my life, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, I attended an American League baseball game. I have seen several National League games before in Atlanta and Philadelphia, but this was my first chance to witness a designated hitter up close and personal. The Tampa Bay Rays (formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) defeated the Florida Marlins by a score of 7-3, as I recall, after a three-run double by B.J. Upton in the bottom of the eighth inning broke open a game that had been tied three times. Afterward, on the way to our car, we could see that the roof of the stadium was illuminated in brilliant orange, indicating a home-game victory. That was the fun one. I wondered why so many people were wearing Evan Longoria shirts when B.J. Upton did all the heavy lifting. A few days later in Toronto, B.J. took the first pitch of the ball game and knocked it out of the park. (A slight clarification is in order: B.J. Upton was not the designated hitter.)

On June 29th, I rode in an ambulance for the first time in my life, accompanying Mrs. RWP on the first ambulance ride of her life. This is an event we both would rather have done without. She stayed in a very wonderful hospital until July 1st, when we were able to put this three-day scary event behind us.

Finally, on July 7th, along with my two grandsons, I saw the first Transformers movie in my life. It was called Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen. I fervently hope it is also the last one I ever see, as the movie consisted of very little plot and very many explosions and great climactic battles, one after the other, from start to finish, for two hours and thirty minutes. This event was the mind- boggling one. I can report that both Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox emerged triumphant and relatively unscathed, so there will probably be another sequel if Hollywood has anything to say about it. (If you want to know more about Shia or Megan, you can seek out their Wikipedia pages on your own, but I am not going to do anything more to further their acting careers.)

I could go into much more detail about each of these first-time events, but I’m not going to. I’m going to concentrate instead on trying to insert the word “thrice” into my conversation as often as possible.