Report on my Visit to Indy
First, I’ll discuss basketball and then give a little report on my experience with Indianapolis--my first time in the city.
I still can’t figure out why we won. Nobody stood out particularly (Granger perhaps, but his minutes were limited) and nobody was particularly bad. If fact, everybody was a level or so better than usual and every Piston seemed about one level worse (four games in five days?). I did make the comment that it seemed like, for this one big game, the Pacers decided to be mature for a night. And I mean that. Jax didn’t hog the ball too much (a little), Harrison didn’t blow up and get a technical, careless turnovers were avoided, and I didn’t see anybody miss a defensive assignment while complaining to the refs.
Foster looks bigger in person than on TV (the baby face, maybe?). The court looks immensely larger on TV but in person the players hardly all seem to fit on one side of the court. Rasheed Wallace is mega-impressive in person. Its amazing to see a guy of that size with such soft touch on the ball.
My girlfriend and I sat in Row 11, Section 16 and I can’t imagine there are better seats in the house. Any of you sitting in that section may have noticed the good-looking middle-aged blonde standing up and screaming for the Pistons. She was the only Pistons fan in the section and it was quite embarrassing. The guy next to me questioned me: “And you let her sit here?” (He was joking) and I provided an answer he could understand: “She bought the tickets.”
By the way, that guy next to me was pretty knowledgeable about Pacers and about basketball. Don’t know if that’s typical of all fans in the house or just what I ended up with that night. He was a lawyer whose had season tickets since 1982.
I booed a bunch. I live a couple hours from Atlanta and have seen the Ps against the Hawks three or four times. Your voice doesn’t carry in Philips Arena nearly as well as it does at Conseco. I just had the feeling that my boos might actually be effective--like when Rip was crying to the ref. I yelled once or twice at Jax when he jacked it up while double or triple-teamed (hoping to see Jax pass or Rick to make an adjustment). My loudest moment was with a little under two minutes and Billups drove to the bucket on a fast break. Saras was staying in front of him, playing good defense, and Chauncey lost control of the ball and it hit his chest and went out of bounds. I was sure Billups was gonna get a celebrity call and the foul would go against Sarunas. But they called it straight up. Out of bounds on Billups, Pacers ball. It was a key play to the game. I was up screaming in delight and a woman in front of me turned around and kind of looked at me sideways. I suddenly realized I was nearly out of control, but it sure was fun.
On to the city of Indianapolis. First of all, the people were incredibly friendly. We both were surprised by this, but one local explained to us that Indiana considers itself the northernmost Southern state. That makes sense. Never once did people ask where we were from (in a degrading Northern way), but were just genuinely nice and friendly. We have noticed a large difference in all other Northern cities we have visited. Indy may even have something on the Southern niceness, as it seemed to come off a bit less fake than good ole Southern hospitality. I’ll use the word genuine again.
While visiting the Omni hotel, we learned to our surprise that the Pistons were staying there. Bill Laimbeer walked by us at one point, followed a little later by Joe Dumars. My girlfriend got to see Ben Wallace and I went up and introduced her and she just got all freaked out with joy. Whatever. (She started watching Pacers games with me and fell in love with Ben during the playoffs two years ago. Now she’s a die hard Pistons fan. Just call me Dr. Frankenstein. I created a monster.)
Upon our arrival Friday, we ate brunch at the Cafe Patachou. I read where it was named one of the Top Ten places in the country to eat breakfast. It was very good--I had some kind of exotic omelet with horseradish. But I’m not sure if it was all that. I’d have to eat there a few more times before I’d place it in the breakfast pantheon.
That evening we went to St. Elmo’s for a drink and appetizer (Shrimp Cocktail of course.) The Indianapolis horseradish cartel was at work again with this dish, and the hot and spicy affect was darn powerful. It was a great experience and everything it was cracked up to be.
We didn’t stay there for dinner because all my internet research said the shrimp cocktail was great but the steaks weren’t as good as Ruth’s Chris, where we made reservations for the following evening.
That night after St. Elmo’s we ate at Mama Corrola’s Italian. What a great restaurant. Great food, fantastic sauce, good wine, superb atmosphere.
The next night we ate at Ruth’s Chris at 5:00 pm before the big game. Great atmosphere, great service, great opportunity to smoke a cigar, and a great check ($130!). The steak, however, was not that great. I’m guessing we may have bricked by passsing up St. Elmo’s.
Speaking of cigars, we did a quick walk around the monument circle downtown and popped into the tobacco/pipe/cigar shop. I tried one of the homey cigars and we chatted with the owner for a long time. He was another example of that incredible Indiana friendliness and told us all about the town, the love of basketball, getting engaged during halftime of a game, the various theories on the meaning of Hoosier, etc, etc.. He definitely represented for you guys. We talked about how my choice in pipe tobacco (Maclellan Special Black) is too strong for my girlfriend while driving in the car and he said his brand (Virginia something) is much lighter. I wanted to try it but didn’t want to pay $12 bucks for a tin of it, so the dude just gave me an ouce of it from his own stash, no charge. That was cool.
We were a little surprised that downtown was not very hoppin on Friday night (around 7 pm or so before we headed to Mama Corrola’s) but the various folks said Saturday is a bigger night for Indy and that February is also kind of slow. I hope that ‘s the case as I know that economic development and growth is always a difficult issue for a city.
I know a little about this because I have just finished a 500 page book on my city, Chattanooga, Tennessee, which comes out next month. We are still “almost there” but not just yet when it comes to an economic boom. We still haven’t quite recovered from our manufacturing downslide of the 70s. We now have a beautiful renovated downtown and riverfront, however, which has become a big draw for families and companies to move to Chattanooga. Ironically, it was a trip to Indianapolis by 50 of our city leaders in 1984 that led to the plans for renovation of our city in the 1990s. They got some pep talks from Mayor Bill Hudnut and learned about the renovation of the river canal walk and other projects that help boost Indianapolis’s momentum. Chattanooga’s city leaders now say the key meetings that led to our renaissance were a series of planning sessions after that trip called “Lessons Learned in Indianaopolis.” I write about all this in my book (see oldmoneynewsouth.com).
Well, anyway, we had a great time and were impressed with the city. It worked out quite well. She got to meet her hero Ben Wallace and I got to see the Pacers kick the Pistons’ butt. What a great country.
McKeyFan
First, I’ll discuss basketball and then give a little report on my experience with Indianapolis--my first time in the city.
I still can’t figure out why we won. Nobody stood out particularly (Granger perhaps, but his minutes were limited) and nobody was particularly bad. If fact, everybody was a level or so better than usual and every Piston seemed about one level worse (four games in five days?). I did make the comment that it seemed like, for this one big game, the Pacers decided to be mature for a night. And I mean that. Jax didn’t hog the ball too much (a little), Harrison didn’t blow up and get a technical, careless turnovers were avoided, and I didn’t see anybody miss a defensive assignment while complaining to the refs.
Foster looks bigger in person than on TV (the baby face, maybe?). The court looks immensely larger on TV but in person the players hardly all seem to fit on one side of the court. Rasheed Wallace is mega-impressive in person. Its amazing to see a guy of that size with such soft touch on the ball.
My girlfriend and I sat in Row 11, Section 16 and I can’t imagine there are better seats in the house. Any of you sitting in that section may have noticed the good-looking middle-aged blonde standing up and screaming for the Pistons. She was the only Pistons fan in the section and it was quite embarrassing. The guy next to me questioned me: “And you let her sit here?” (He was joking) and I provided an answer he could understand: “She bought the tickets.”
By the way, that guy next to me was pretty knowledgeable about Pacers and about basketball. Don’t know if that’s typical of all fans in the house or just what I ended up with that night. He was a lawyer whose had season tickets since 1982.
I booed a bunch. I live a couple hours from Atlanta and have seen the Ps against the Hawks three or four times. Your voice doesn’t carry in Philips Arena nearly as well as it does at Conseco. I just had the feeling that my boos might actually be effective--like when Rip was crying to the ref. I yelled once or twice at Jax when he jacked it up while double or triple-teamed (hoping to see Jax pass or Rick to make an adjustment). My loudest moment was with a little under two minutes and Billups drove to the bucket on a fast break. Saras was staying in front of him, playing good defense, and Chauncey lost control of the ball and it hit his chest and went out of bounds. I was sure Billups was gonna get a celebrity call and the foul would go against Sarunas. But they called it straight up. Out of bounds on Billups, Pacers ball. It was a key play to the game. I was up screaming in delight and a woman in front of me turned around and kind of looked at me sideways. I suddenly realized I was nearly out of control, but it sure was fun.
On to the city of Indianapolis. First of all, the people were incredibly friendly. We both were surprised by this, but one local explained to us that Indiana considers itself the northernmost Southern state. That makes sense. Never once did people ask where we were from (in a degrading Northern way), but were just genuinely nice and friendly. We have noticed a large difference in all other Northern cities we have visited. Indy may even have something on the Southern niceness, as it seemed to come off a bit less fake than good ole Southern hospitality. I’ll use the word genuine again.
While visiting the Omni hotel, we learned to our surprise that the Pistons were staying there. Bill Laimbeer walked by us at one point, followed a little later by Joe Dumars. My girlfriend got to see Ben Wallace and I went up and introduced her and she just got all freaked out with joy. Whatever. (She started watching Pacers games with me and fell in love with Ben during the playoffs two years ago. Now she’s a die hard Pistons fan. Just call me Dr. Frankenstein. I created a monster.)
Upon our arrival Friday, we ate brunch at the Cafe Patachou. I read where it was named one of the Top Ten places in the country to eat breakfast. It was very good--I had some kind of exotic omelet with horseradish. But I’m not sure if it was all that. I’d have to eat there a few more times before I’d place it in the breakfast pantheon.
That evening we went to St. Elmo’s for a drink and appetizer (Shrimp Cocktail of course.) The Indianapolis horseradish cartel was at work again with this dish, and the hot and spicy affect was darn powerful. It was a great experience and everything it was cracked up to be.
We didn’t stay there for dinner because all my internet research said the shrimp cocktail was great but the steaks weren’t as good as Ruth’s Chris, where we made reservations for the following evening.
That night after St. Elmo’s we ate at Mama Corrola’s Italian. What a great restaurant. Great food, fantastic sauce, good wine, superb atmosphere.
The next night we ate at Ruth’s Chris at 5:00 pm before the big game. Great atmosphere, great service, great opportunity to smoke a cigar, and a great check ($130!). The steak, however, was not that great. I’m guessing we may have bricked by passsing up St. Elmo’s.
Speaking of cigars, we did a quick walk around the monument circle downtown and popped into the tobacco/pipe/cigar shop. I tried one of the homey cigars and we chatted with the owner for a long time. He was another example of that incredible Indiana friendliness and told us all about the town, the love of basketball, getting engaged during halftime of a game, the various theories on the meaning of Hoosier, etc, etc.. He definitely represented for you guys. We talked about how my choice in pipe tobacco (Maclellan Special Black) is too strong for my girlfriend while driving in the car and he said his brand (Virginia something) is much lighter. I wanted to try it but didn’t want to pay $12 bucks for a tin of it, so the dude just gave me an ouce of it from his own stash, no charge. That was cool.
We were a little surprised that downtown was not very hoppin on Friday night (around 7 pm or so before we headed to Mama Corrola’s) but the various folks said Saturday is a bigger night for Indy and that February is also kind of slow. I hope that ‘s the case as I know that economic development and growth is always a difficult issue for a city.
I know a little about this because I have just finished a 500 page book on my city, Chattanooga, Tennessee, which comes out next month. We are still “almost there” but not just yet when it comes to an economic boom. We still haven’t quite recovered from our manufacturing downslide of the 70s. We now have a beautiful renovated downtown and riverfront, however, which has become a big draw for families and companies to move to Chattanooga. Ironically, it was a trip to Indianapolis by 50 of our city leaders in 1984 that led to the plans for renovation of our city in the 1990s. They got some pep talks from Mayor Bill Hudnut and learned about the renovation of the river canal walk and other projects that help boost Indianapolis’s momentum. Chattanooga’s city leaders now say the key meetings that led to our renaissance were a series of planning sessions after that trip called “Lessons Learned in Indianaopolis.” I write about all this in my book (see oldmoneynewsouth.com).
Well, anyway, we had a great time and were impressed with the city. It worked out quite well. She got to meet her hero Ben Wallace and I got to see the Pacers kick the Pistons’ butt. What a great country.
McKeyFan
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