thoughts of rooting for the home team

shared by VJ Rabuy, her sister

Back during the 2002 baseball season, my sister Cyn got two tickets for a San Francisco Giants game from our priest friend Fr. Ramon. Regretfully, he was unable to take Cyn to the game himself because of a prior engagement he had for the same evening, so he gave her the tickets and told her to have an awesome time.

Luckily for Cyn, she had commitments to be in the bay area the weekend of the game, so that Friday night would be ideal for an action packed baseball evening. She called me a few weeks before the game day and asked if I would go with her. My first response was no - being a die hard A's fan, I had no interest in watching the Giants play, let alone trekking all the way out to China Basin for a cold September night. After a bit of convincing, she somehow got me to agree to accompany her to that Giants game.

We got ready for the cold by bringing two blankets each, and decked ourselves out in Giants gear that I got from my then-boyfriend. Cyn even painted a basball on my face and we headed for Bart and the Muni, to be there in time for the first pitch.

We had a great time! We got a scorecard and took turns scoring the game - me the visitor's ups and Cyn the home team's. We shared a clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. We shouted, "Go Giants!" We sang, "Root, root, root for the Giants!" and we pretended for one evening to be Giants fans.

The game ended in the most unclimactic way possible. In a scoreless time in the bottom of the ninth, with one out and the bases loaded, the pitcher either walked in the run or hit the batter. I can't entirely remember. I think it must have been a ball four, because a hit batter in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded would have been slightly exciting. Once the run came across the plate, we went into a fit of hysterics with the other real Giants fans. It was late season play, and that was the year the Giants went to the World Series. We even got our picture taken with an authentic fan to commemerate the occasion.

So even though it was cold...even though we weren't watching the A's...even though it was a scoreless until the bottom of the 9th game...I had a great time with my sister Cyn.

thoughts of good ol' Charlie Brown

shared by Andrew Beall, her brother-in-law

Today is the 60th anniversary of Peanuts. On October 2, 1950, Charles Schulz's comic strip debuted in seven newspapers across the country. What does this have to do with Cindy? Not much in some ways, but a lot in others.

Cindy enjoyed Peanuts growing up. She had a close enough relationship with Peanuts that when it was time to choose her "camp name" when she was a counselor in UCLA's UniCamp, she chose Snoopy. Our friend Paul has previously written on this blog about how that happened, so I won't get into the details of how that came about. But I always loved hearing someone call her that. She ended up using the name for other activities she did in school and other places. You can also find a picture that Marlo posted in February of Cindy standing next to her USAC board that used Snoopy and Woodstock to campaign for her election.

I still have Cindy's Peanuts books that are now a part of my collection, and her USAC sign is sitting in our garage. But probably our most prized piece is a drawing that Cindy did at a young age, of good ol' Charlie Brown. It proudly hangs in our home. It's a good representation of things that Cindy enjoyed and also displays her talent for arts and crafts.

So while I am happy today for Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and all the other characters of the Peanuts world, I am mostly going to be thinking about Cindy, Marlo and I dancing our Peanuts' dances in our apartment...the fun we had drawing her USAC board...Cindy and I reciting lines like "I got a rock" and others from the Peanuts specials.

We miss you Snoopy.