CityCynic.com

Going to Medieval Times in New Jersey is a family tradition for my Dad’s birthday every June.

This year was no different and we found ourselves in Northern Jersey cheering on the Red & Yellow Knight, while we consumed a meal fit for a nobleman of a half chicken, a rib, potato, tomato bisque, garlic bread, and an apple turnover. (All without utensils.)

We even bought my dad the Father’s Day package and he got a special photo of him sitting in a royal throne, along with getting his name announced as a special guest, and getting a special flag to wave.

For those of you who haven’t been to Medieval Times, the story involves several good knights and an evil and jealous Green Knight that basically tries to kill everyone.

So, of course, our knight was the Green Knight’s first victim, suffering a most mortal would after getting knocked off his horse (literally) during a fight-to-the-death jousting session.

We all enjoyed the one-on-one combat and the story line, even if it has gotten somewhat familiar after several times there. And the hawk that they let fly loose around the arena is also pretty cool, despite the fact that I always feel tempted to lift up my chicken leg to suddenly become part of the show.

The only drawback this year was that the actor playing the King sounded so whiny and nasally that we had trouble understanding what he was saying. Some king that was… sounded like a cross between Milhouse from The Simpsons and Gilbert Godfried.

But along with the entertainment and a few royal steins of beer we all enjoyed ourselves and will likely be back again next year.

“Hey buddy, wanna see Jupiter? Jupiter — the planet?”

This is definitely not one of the usual questions I hear when walking out of the movie theater parking lot on a chilly November night.

Familiar would be, “Didn’t you just love that movie?” or “Hey, wanna get ice cream?”

So yeah, I was having what turned out to be a strange Saturday.

It all started waking up this morning.

I arose from sleeping to hear someone talking about pancakes. Getting pancakes to be exact.

This got me pretty excited, as groggy as I was, because I happen to love pancakes. My favorite place to get pancakes is iHop, and I quietly hoped that what I had just overheard would lead to the aforementioned International House.

But alas, I was most discouraged to find McDonald’s hotcakes waiting for me in the kitchen.

I have a longtime, if shaky, boycott of all things McDonald’s. This includes every food item there. Well, except their delicious Sweet Tea and McFlurry’s.

Anyway, in addition to the Mickey D’s boycott, I just happened to hate the fake, plastic tasting faux pancakes they make there.

So not the best of mornings. And that pretty much set up my day of strangeness.

The rest of the morning and afternoon, I caught up on a couple of things on my computer while feeling like I was in a strange mood.

Then when my father wanted to go see a movie, we decided on The Box cause, “oooh it’s a scary one,” according to Dad.

Of course, much like the hotcakes kerfluffle earlier in the day, that didn’t exactly work out as planned because my sister wanted to go with us to get dinner, causing us to miss the movie.

Since the next movie wasn’t for three hours, my dad and I decided to see the new George Clooney movie entitled Men Who Stare at Goats.

Now, putting Brother Where Art Tho aside, I figured that a movie with Clooney couldn’t be that bad.

So we went in and sat through an hour and a half of a movie equally as strange as my mood for the day.

It was apparently based on a true story, but a true story that made entirely no sense. And then Clooney’s character killed a goat with just his mind. And then they all took LSD and liberated Iraqi terrorists and, yes, goats from the military base.

What the hell that movie was about is beyond me, and I would have regretted going if there weren’t a couple of laughs along the way. Strange, so strange.

At least Brother Where Art Thou had some catchy (and twangy) singing in it.

So anyway, back to leaving the theater.

“Hey buddy, wanna see Jupiter? Jupiter — the planet?”

My dad and I looked at the guy standing there in a winter jacket next to a two-foot wide and 4-foot long telescope on a swiveling stand.

He also had an empty 5-gallon size water jug with some coins in it that was labeled,“See the planet,” as he questioned movie-goers if they wanted to see the Red Giant.

We kept walking to our car and my father turned to me and said, “Wow, what a strange day… first that movie and now this guy!”

I agreed and then noticed a vanity plate on a car we were walking past.

“JUPITER1″ it read.

See, I told you my day was really strange.

I just wish I had thought of the Uranus comeback before we were halfway home…

Sometimes when I walk by my dad sitting on the couch watching TV, I wish he had the game on.

Or maybe more accurately, I wish he called in to me from the other room and asked me if I was going to watch the World Series with him.

Its a strange position to be in. I mean, my dad is who originally got me into baseball when I was 5.

It was a sunny afternoon in 1985, the Mets were taking on the Cubs, and I was sitting in the upper deck “red seats” at Shea Stadium as airplanes roared overhead.

He could have taken me to a movie. He could have taken me to the local park and pushed me on the swings. But he decided to take me to a baseball game at the age of 5 and that decision has shaped many aspects of my life ever since.

Not only did that $9 ticket and hot dog experience give me an amazing baseball team to root for over all these years in the Mets, but it gave me something I thought would be a common connection between me and my dad.

But that connection isn’t here in 2009 and I don’t know why.

That’s not to say my dad and I don’t discuss baseball. I’ve given him World Series updates throughout the Fall Classic and Mets injury updates throughout the 2009 season. But that’s not the same as experiencing the ups and downs of a game and bonding over trade rumors and the latest stats.

I don’t really take all of this personally — my dad really doesn’t follow any sports these days. And maybe he never really did. Instead, maybe that day in the mid-80′s wasn’t a vote for baseball, but rather a vote for father-son bonding. I don’t really know, but the effect it had on me is evident in the license plate frame on my car and the multi-pack of Mets tickets I buy and use each season and the drive to visit Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, which I finally accomplished with Melissa at the beginning of October.

It made me a diehard Mets fan — I bleed orange and blue — and I just don’t understand why my dad doesn’t also.

Its not like we don’t have things that we bond over. We can talk Obama and politics like nobodies business. Or bring up a sociological principle evident in today’s society and we’re off running, often talking for hours. Bring up the economy and the pros and cons of the death tax, the rise and the fall of the stock market, and the strength of the dollar are sure to follow. And there are other things we both seem to “get” enough to discuss.

Its just that none of these things are baseball. None of them involve rooting on a team through a 162 game season. None of them involve believing in something so much that not making the playoffs makes you cry.

I know other people’s fathers watch every baseball game they can, the big game every Sunday, and any other assortment of sports events that come along. They curse at the television, throw back a couple beers, and quote baseball history like the gospel.

So yeah, sometimes I wish my dad had the game on.

But maybe, just maybe, our shared baseball experience almost 25 years ago was supposed to be only an example of how much my dad loves me.

And baseball is supposed to be a gift I share and enjoy with others in my life to show them how much I love them. Hey, I like the sound of that.

It sure could have been worse though… he could have taken me to a *gasp* Yankees game all those years ago.