I spent the bulk of the day trying to figure out what room of the White House was used by the physician Thomas Harris when he extricated a twenty year old bullet from the arm of president Andrew Jackson. In the process, I learned that Jackson suffered from the long term effects of lead poisoning, that the bullet had been flattened on impact with bone, and that the man who inflicted the wound was speaking on the floor of the senate at the very moment of the operation.

I emailed Michael Rhode at the Pathology Museum in Washington, and a very nice lady at the Library of Congress. They gave me lots of good links and much good information, but nowhere was there anything about where the president sat...or laid down...or stood...when the bullet came popping out of his arm. Yes, according to Remini and Parson, it popped right out. It didn't slide, it didn't struggle, it simply popped out.

Quite frankly, I don't much care about where Andrew Jackson might have been located at the moment of extraction, but it is vitally important to my daughter, Julia, who is writing a short piece of creative non-fiction about the incident. I do, however, enjoy doing research, which is why I allowed myself to be roped into half a day on the computer. In the end, even though I still haven't any knowledge of where Andrew Jackson underwent his little operation, I now know where I can go to find the editorial cartoons of the National Archive, and thanks to the lady at the Library of Congress, I know the names of the original weekly papers which began running cartoons on a regular basis.

It's amazing how one little ten page story could cause so much trouble.

Of all the dumb things to do on Mother's day, I decided to play soccer in Farmington.

Added to the damaged big toe on my left foot from yesterday's game, is yet another lost toenail on my right foot, plus a huge bruise on the side of that same foot from a wayward cleat. There were no subs so I ended up playing the entire game at mid field. I don't think I'd ever run so much before. I'm barely walking now. My back hurts and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some difficulty getting myself out of bed in the morning.

On the good side, all four of the kids wished me a happy mother's day.

And we won the game.

Well, my daughter Julia and I just got back from a road trip to Maine. She had to visit a pair of recruits up in Topsham, Maine, which is very close to my old haunting grounds. A little further down 201 from Mount Ararat High School sits the old cabin where we'd spend our summers on the Cobbeseecontee Stream back when I was a kid. By the way, Mount Ararat is a town or two over from the shipyards of Bath.

Watching the lacrosse game was cold, but the reception Julia received was warm. The parents were all very kind. They even offered to put us up for the night. We decided rather to stay at a fifty dollar a night motel and make the rounds of the local night spots. This meant watching hockey and red sox baseball at the Sea Dog brewery sitting by the rapids of the Androscoggin river. Back in the day, this was the location of a paper mill. We also watched Celtics basketball at Joshua's in Brunswick, just a short walk from Bowdoin College.

Though she's twenty-two, my daughter could easily pass for a thirteen year old. We made quite a pair. Still, we both ended up getting hit on by locals. Some half crazed guy who talked to himself approached Julia, while a married little league dad who had imbibed a little too much became unusually friendly towards me. It made for a lot of giggles. We had a great old time.

On the trip back, we made major hauls at the outlet stores both in Freeport and Kittery, coming home tired but with a lot of cool stuff. And now, alas, it's back to the same old, same old.