Hyannis

Starting in the early 1980s, when my daughter Rachel was a little girl and my son Bret was yet to be born, my family, numerous times, would go for a week's vacation during the summer to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  On such visits, we would spend some time in nearby Hyannis which offered many tourist attractions.

President John F. Kennedy put Hyannis on the map as he and his extended family lived in a compound nearby.  We drove by it once.  

I remember dining in restaurants near the water where I would start with a delicious bowl of New England clam chowder.  One time, we took a boat trip to Martha's Vineyard.  Another time, we went to see a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston.

One rainy day on one of our trips to Hyannis, we stopped at a resort to find out more about a time share.  I was just curious and had no intention of buying one.  

However, a slick saleswoman changed my mind and we bought a time share for a week at the resort in Hyannis.  We spent several weeks there over the years.  When we grew less interested in going to the Cape, we sold our time share at a great loss.  Better to buy at the resale market.  

When my son Bret finished his sophomore year at the University of Maryland (2005), he got a summer job broadcasting baseball games for the Hyannis Mets of the Cape Cod League.  I drove him there from New York and when we arrived the weather had changed drastically from what it had been when we left home.  

It was May, but it seemed as if it was still winter on the Cape.  We went to a store to buy sweat shirts to protect ourselves from the cold weather.  I still have the New England Patriots sweat shirt I bought there.  

Bret spent the summers of both 2005 and 2006 broadcasting baseball games for the Hyannis Mets.  The last game he broadcast there was on my 61st birthday, August 7, 2006, while I was in attendance.