The Hershey Highway

Hershey, Pennsylvania. Everything in town has the same name. Hershey Park, Hershey Avenue, Milton Hershey School, Hershey Gardens, the Hotel Hershey, The Hershey Lodge, Hershey Area Playhouse ... You could drop somebody blindfolded out of a moving car and it would take about two minutes for them to figure out where they were. The only thing in town this week that wasn't named Hershey was The Dave Matthews Band.

It was another great show. They're almost always great, which is why I go. The venue, on the other hand, sucks dark chocolate. Strike one was a trio of teenaged girls who accused me of stealing their jacket in the Hershey Park cafeteria. What a 50-year old would be doing with a girls' jacket in 90-plus temperatures is beyond me, but there you are.

It's a big stadium with odd ways in and out, as though they wanted to punish us for having to pee. Last year it was a power-tripping security guard who made me go back and re-enter. Strike two this year was a spectator in a wheelchair who somehow figured that the policing duties fell on him as he yelled at me for skipping over a barrier after a way-too-long wait in a line (to get to my seat) that seemed to be going nowhere. If people in wheelchairs want to be treated like everyone else, I did him a favor by telling him to fuck off.

I don't think I'll be going back.

It was also the fourth day of rain in the four DMB road trips this year. Try picking four random calendar days and see what kind of odds you'd get if you wanted to bet that it would rain on all four occasions. Those are the kinds of lotteries I win.

Meanwhile, there were almost as many Park's in Minnesota at the U.S. Women's Open as there were in Hershey. Inbee Park won, closely followed by Angela Park as the South Korean invasion of women's golf continues. At one point, the top 8 contained two Park's and two Kim's. I think there were 11 Kim's in the tournament. The one Creamer melted down midway through the final round and finished tied for 4th, but still made more money than I make in two years.

Johnny Miller was one of the commentators for the big event, and he's usually ready with some controversial opinion, but seems to be on his best behavior when he does a women's event. The most controversial thing he said was when he referred to the men's tour as the "regular tour," then quickly corrected himself and called it the "PGA."

So that was worth waiting for, eh? Mostly I just hung around the house all weekend consuming valuable resources.