Three Beautiful Things 05/09/15: Right Field and Rainy River, The Diaz House, Bliss at Gilly's in Rockville

1.  The Deke and I had a day out that began at the library.  While the Deke was looking for and finding an armload of materials for children, I checked out a fiction anthology at the recommendation of Smelterville's own native son, Rick Wainright, and read a most enjoyable story, "Death of a Right Fielder".  Then, since the Deke was still finding and checking out materials, I read parts of one of my favorite short stories ever, "On the Rainy River".  Both stories had great nostalgic impact on me.  The first took me back to when I loved watching Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente and Micky Mantle play baseball and the sadness of seeing Mays and Mantle age right there on televisiGron.  Clemente's death in an earthquake relief airplane crash kept us from seeing his skills diminish -- he's forever young.  "On Rainy River" took me back to teaching the book The Things They Carried and how much this story moved me -- even though I was never drafted and never really fished a day in my life -- but somehow the story's Worthington, MN and Kellogg, ID merged emotionally in my heart and mind and I was back taking drives alone to Pinehurst or up Montgomery Gulch, not debating the draft within myself, but having other inward battles.

2.  Then the Deke and I headed west to look at the outside of the handsome house Molly and Hiram are buying and a to get a peek at the leafy neighborhood they will live in.  We are both happy that the drive, in good traffic, to their house is at least half the distance as the drive to where they currently live.

3.  On of the beer-themed Twitter feeds I follow had recently praised, with enthusiasm, the taplist at a taphouse and bottle shop in Rockville by the name of Gilly's.  We went there for lunch and, OH! MY!, do I ever wish we lived a wee bit closer to Rockville so we had closer access to this place.  We both enjoyed our sandwiches and  the Extra ESB from Breckenridge and the half pint of Laughing Dog Bourbon Barrel Dogfather Imperial Stout, brewed in Ponderay, ID, was a great after food beer.  It takes over a half an hour for us to get to Gilly's from Greenbelt and I think there will be many Saturdays when we will combine a trip to the Diaz household with a drive to Rockville to return to this, the best beer establishment we've found yet in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.