I'll be back in the studio at 10AM tomorrow to reprise my regular Mid-day shift after a week of vacation, It's certainly been a great week, including an awesome night at the Great American Ball Park. Every so often thanks to the radio station, and the sports organizations you hear on our family of radio stations, I have the chance to do some pretty fantastic things.

 

A couple years ago I had the honor of meeting Marty Brenneman for the first time (My hair was green that time) and It was a HUGE deal for me. Marty is a Hall of Fame broadcaster and I listened to him on WMOA nearly every night for more than 5 years, as I worked nights at the station, I listened to A LOT of Marty and the Cowboy. When I finally had the chance to shake his hand in a press box inside GABP I was shaking like a leaf. That brings us to last Friday night. Once again thanks to the radio station and the Cincinnati Reds organization, a few friends and I went to Cincy and enjoyed their hospitality.  

 

 

 

 

There was a small rain delay

But we had great seats and didn't really mind. There is nothing quite like sitting at the ball park with your friends. Watching baseball, eating ballpark food and just hanging out, I can't wait to do it again. As great a time as it was, and as exciting as it is to get to talk to someone as big as Marty, It was not the highlight of my vacation.

 

The biggest reason my vacation was planned for last week, and what I had really been looking forward to was spending time with family. It used to be a foregone conclusion when I was growing up that my cousins who grew up in Tennessee would come up once a summer or occasionally around Christmas and we'd spend the week running around the Marshall farm. As we've all gotten older and jobs and families and other responsibility have come along we unfortunately don't get to see the “distant” relatives near as much. As those Cousins had made plans to come visit our Grandma and the rest of the family, I took vacation around that time to spend a few days with them, and the Reds game conveniently fit into that. When my siblings and cousins and I were younger the big thing to do was to walk to a small general store about a mile away from the farm. “Parks” general store centrally located in Marr, Ohio still doing business in rural Monroe county after many years, but because of the massive hill you would have to walk up, and because most of us do not have the “youthful exuberance” anymore, there was no hike to Parks' this time. Despite no big hike, it was a great time with the family. There was fishing in our pond, which little cousin Bennett was a fan of as long as he was reeling in a fish, but got impatient when nothing was being caught (we have that in common). The kids had a massive water balloon fight and the adults ate pie. Some people might say that if you're going on vacation you should go to do something you've never done before, but after watching my neice and nephew climb a tree, eating Aunt Rhonda's taco Salad(My favorite food ever), and front porch sitting with my grandma... those were my highlights, and I would not have changed it for anything.