Those who read the “About Greg” link know that I have a goal of seeing games in 
every big league ballpark and visiting the grave site of every president, in addition to visiting all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. I remain 5 short on states and 4 short on provinces, but made progress on the other two in the last few days.
While in Michigan visiting our son, we went to a game at Comerica Park in Detroit. It is a fabulous place to see a game, with a great view of the city skyline and lots of excellent food options. It’s the 28th park in which I’ve seen a regular season big league game; but 11 of the 28 no longer exist. So, I have 13 still to go; but that number will climb to 15 next year when the Yankees and Mets move into new stadiums.
I also took the time to visit the grave sites of 3 presidents: Hayes, McKinley and Ford. The Hayes site (Fremont, Ohio) is well worth it; nice museum, just off the road. The McKinley site (Canton, Ohio) was fine; the museum was a little underwhelming. The Gerald Ford Museum (Grand Rapids, MI) was terrific. Especially for someone like me of a certain age; it did a nice job of capturing the times and capturing President Ford.
Of particular interest was a small wall exhibit on airline deregulation. While President Carter gets the credit (or blame from some people) for deregulation, the proposal actually originated in the Ford Administration. There is a small exhibit there; including the Ford proposal and some material on his belief that it would help consumers and communities.
While I was reading all that, at the very same time, they were playing a tape of a speech President Ford gave on energy. He was talking about over-reliance on oil and that we had to pull together as a country to make a commitment to chart a new course. It was a good speech, and more than a little ironic that I was hearing it at the same moment as I was reading the exhibit on aviation.
The two issues are now thoroughly intertwined. As I said in my previous post, we may believe our implied national policy of energy procrastination paid off 10 years ago when the price was $11 per barrel, but all we did was delay the day of reckoning.
I hope the proposals to place reasonable regulations on speculators succeed, and I hope we can find more energy, that we can develop alternative fuels and conserve more. But it will take much more; a point that President Ford was making in the speech that was playing in his museum. Are we finally ready?
Filed under: Government policy, Travels
