Tweaks can kill you

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

daffy

Daffy takes a hit. 

Growing up I loved those Looney Toons cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. They were a fairly violent crew if you think about it, with scads of angry actions including a fair amount of gunplay. Daffy Duck got his face blown off a number of times, with his bill spinning around his head and sometimes winding up in the wrong spot on his head.

 

One of the tricks was to bend the gun barrel back so that it would should the person aiming it. I think that happened to Elmer Fudd more than once. “I’m hunting Wabbits,” he’d start out saying, but Bugs would turn the tables on him.

It only took a tweak to mess things up against the Other Guy. But sometimes the main character such as Wile E. Coyote was his own worst enemy. In his pursuit of the Road Runner, the Coyote created all sorts of imaginative inventions to help him catch up to his speedy prey.

 

wile-e-coyote-defies-gravity

How are you feeling today?

The worst moments in all of cartoondom were that poor Coyote stranded in mid-air after some stunt that left him hanging onto a graft of stone above the desert. I recall an episode in which the balloon carrying him above the earth was punctured by the very darts he’d assembled to shoot from his position up high. Then you’d see the Coyote from above, and a puff of air, and then the long, long fall toward the bottom of the canyon. Only a poof of dust was proof that he’d hit the ground. Those were only cartoon examples of the dangers of innovation, yet the allegories were great.

 

 

the-roadrunner-show-gyaniz

It’s so sad. He always thinks he’s going to win.

The Coyote was effectively in a race with a superior form of critter in the Road Runner. Those of us who run and ride and swim all have a Road Runner or two in our lives. No matter how fast we get in the overall category, or rise in our age group, some Road Runner seems to show up and ruin the fun. Meep meep! There they are on the starting line, waiting to steal our spot on the podium.

 

As a result, many of us are always trying to tweak our efforts. We might go out and get a new pair of shoes that look great in the store but cause us some sort of unanticipated injury when we try them out on the street. Just yesterday I ran in a spanking new pair of low-sole Nikes and felt a twinge in my lower calf as a result. Stupid Tweak.

I’m running a half marathon this weekend and can’t afford even the slightest gap in preparation. Hauling this Wile E. Coyote old body around a course for thirteen miles takes cautious preparation.

 

Wile e cartoon .gif

What could possibly go wrong? 

Of course, I should know better. I’ve been chasing this Road Runner in my head for 40 years. I know that there are walls painted with tunnels on them. I know there are cliffs to fall off if I take my bike into a turn at too great a speed. That’s all happened. We always think, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

And then, I’m a cartoon character of my own making. I literally ran smack into a fallen tree two summers ago. It had fallen across the trail after a storm and I did not look up and see it in time. Smack! That led to scar tissue in my back that lasted for another two years.

See, it’s the tweaks in attention that we ignore that cost us the most. Perhaps that’s a product of my artistic ADD. My dreamy side takes over, or infatuation with a pretty-colored pair of shoes. Then WHAM! I’m laid up or sore or tweaked in all the wrong ways.

Perhaps I just absorbed too much of those cartoon characters when I was a kid. But I keep on going because it’s On With the Show This is It!

 

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I wanted to see what a woman could do

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Back when I was a freshman in college, the first two women came out for the cross country. Gwen and Lynn were the pioneers for women’s running at Luther. They trained together daily and ran with the men on occasion. Our coach prescribed their workouts and brought them along to meets. When they weren’t able to join the men’s meets, he got them to events where women’s competitions were held.

There were a few men on the team that thought the whole idea of women’s running a bit silly. It was a product of the times. Women’s rights were just starting to burgeon for real in the 1970s. The Title IX legislation requiring investment in women’s sports was just taking effect.

It’s hard to argue that investment has not paid dividends in the lives of millions of women these days. There are frequently more women runners in the typical marathon event than there are men. Triathlons at the Sprint and Olympic level aren’t far behind. Women compete quite comparably with the top men in the sport.

This all could have been written off as liberal folly had not some wise advocates seen the potential growth in personal health and freedom for women back in the 1970s. Some men were (and remain) embittered by the fact that women’s sports received similar funding. The women’s track team at Luther was 1/3 the size in numbers of the men. As a result, those girls had it pretty good the first few years. The food was a bit better on road trips, for example. I well recall the grumbling issued by so many men about that. They didn’t consider it “fair” that women should get the same amount of money when their team was much smaller in numbers.

But that’s what investment in worthwhile programs is all about. It takes seed money sometimes to make things grow. That’s why venture capitalists seek out companies that have good ideas but lack the funding to make them a reality. It’s a free market principal that works in many ways.

Of course, not all ventures succeed. Some startups flare up and die. All that cash and the demands for return on investment can turn a happy little company into a den of wolves. But there is a rule in all of business and life: nothing ventured, nothing gained. And the investment in women’s sports and the symbolism of that freedom have paid off. Investment in that world has produced enormous returns in the self-esteem, personal health and independence of millions of women. Even countries that through social and cultural practice suppress women’s rights, have been forced to accept that their top women athletes cannot play by rules that say they should completely cover up their bodies.

Ancient beliefs about women’s bodies took a long time to die. All the way through 1984, the longest distance in women’s Olympic running was 1500 meters. That was a holdover from the period of history when it was believed that too much exercise could result in a fallen uterus.

It wasn’t women that propagated most of these falsehoods. It was stodgy men who wanted control over women and their bodies. The most potent demonstration of this attitude was the physical aggression shown by Jock Semple toward Katherine Switzer when he attacked her during her participation in the Boston Marathon. That aggressive act symbolized the fear and anger some men felt toward the supposed threat posed by women to cultural standards.

Shamefully, some of this patriarchal bluster emanates from places like the Holy Bible, from which some people take literally interpreted passages and apply them to daily life. The Old Testament presents menstruating women as “unclean” and the New Testament writings of Paul suggest that women should keep their mouths shut.

These attitudes have not gone away. In fact, even some women still embrace this brand of asceticism. In case you don’t know what that word means, here is the definition:

Asceticism: severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.

When normal, everyday behaviors such as running or having sex (for fun or procreation) or simply holding down a job are characterized as “unsuitable” or a selfish “indulgence” for women, the world can be an ugly place. For many centuries and millennium, this was the case. Women were little more than the property of men in many cultures. Their rights meant nothing even when if they lived in situations where they were physically or sexually abused. In some cultures, even a woman raped by another man is the one who must bear the shame.

In the last five years in America, there have been many indications that these attitudes have not changed for millions of Americans. Despite the fact that social progress has been made for women in America, and for blacks and gays and other legitimate citizens of this nation, there are still millions of people who can’t stand the idea that such people deserve equal opportunities and respect in society.

Those attitudes are a big part of what made it so difficult for some people to support a woman candidate for president. Not only did she advocate for women’s equality, she also supported equal rights for gays, lesbians and transgender people. It’s a sad fact that equal rights for these citizens still lags 40 years behind the progress women have been able to achieve in society. President Barack Obama faced similarly backwards attitudes about his race and his religion. Ignorance has ruled despite cultural progress on all these fronts.

Katherine Switzer.jpgIn order to discredit and distract from these notions of equality and progress, opponents of the female candidate for President did everything they possibly could to knock her off course. The male candidate Donald Trump behaved just like Jock Semple did all those years ago, jumping into the race to shove aside the woman who was the object of his close-minded hate. Think back to what Switzer said about Semple: “He was pulling at me and screaming,” Switzer recalled. “Get the hell out of my race, and give me that number.”

One can imagine Donald Trump saying the exact same thing to Hillary Clinton. Yet she conducted herself with calm and aplomb in the face of his hateful, bombastic attacks. Whether Donald Trump truly believes in his brand of political asceticism is what we’ll all find out soon enough.

But his ugly behavior won the day. He knocked Hillary Clinton out of the marathon race for President of the United States.

Yet there are many of us who know too well that a close-minded control freak may win the day, but they will never win the war. Progress is too strong a motive for women and every other oppressed faction in America. The people who support Trump have tried to lay claim to the idea that they are the suppressed majority. Those notions are the ravings of selfish simpletons caught up in celebrity worship and the idea that someone is going to come along and fix all the problems the very party Trump represents has created.

This is called cognitive dissonance, and it is the product of a confused mix of religion, politics, fear and narcissism all wrapped into one.

For those of us who know better than to follow such dolts, who possess the ability to discriminate between superstition and faith, this morning dawned with a painful thud. But like Katherine Switzer, the feet of progress will find their traction and move on. The likes of Donald Trump and a political marathon full of zombied idol worshippers praying to an ascetic god (with a fleece of orange hair!) do not constitute the future of America. What we witnessed yesterday was the conclusion of a Greek tragedy. The Gods of Vice and Acquisition won out.

My only real disappointment in all this is simple. I wanted to see what a woman could do as President of the United States. That is my principled objection to the lies, slander and libel cast her way. I wanted to see what she could do. America should have given her a chance. Instead the brutish masses rose up to shove her into the ditch,. The human race is a much less wiser place as a result, and we’ll have to live with that.

In the meantime, let’s all get up and run. Because giving up is not an option.

 

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Admissions

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

nelson-beamProfessional athletes plan their day around their training. The rest of us have to plan our training around our day. That might involve working a job, being a full-time parent or caregiver. Whatever our responsibilities, they must come first.

Those of us that first trained for athletics in high school and college find it a bit of an adjustment to flip these priorities around. When you begin serious training at the age of 12 and there is nothing else to interfere with your life other than school, training takes a pretty high priority. But that’s not how the real world works.

Welcome to the Real World

When you graduate from all that schooling the real world hits you in the face for the first time. The starting time for work is an absolute. Suddenly you’re faced with squeezing your workouts into the early morning or after work. It doesn’t seem fair. And it isn’t. But that’s what you’ve got to do.

My indoctrination to the work world was a bit odd. My first job out of college was working in the admissions field for my alma mater, Luther College. That first summer on campus was relaxed. Other than spending time in the office, there was plenty of free time to go out and run or ride bikes. We played a ton of frisbee golf on the college campus and whiled away the months of June, July and August.

Covering ground

But when September came around the real work began. My territory included all of Chicago and the state of Illinois. That meant driving 250 miles on a Sunday just to get to the region where I would work. I’d meet with students during the school day and run our booth during college nights. It was a lot of running around, which left very little time for running.

Little did I know that the admissions department had undergone a ton of changes that previous year. The Chicago rep had for ten years lived in the market and had a home there. That meant he traveled up to Decorah mostly to turn in applications.

But numbers were dropping some, and the college wanted more control than that. The money crunch of the early 80s recession was putting pressure on everyone. That was a wakeup call to the young mind of a recent graduate like me. It is a shocking realization in some respects to learn that your beloved college is a cold, hard business operation with unforgiving need for revenue. That came from new students, and there were no two ways about it.

Which meant that I drove all over Illinois meeting seeking prospective students in far-flung high schools or the deeply urban halls of Chicago campuses. The contrasts in these extremes were stark. The travel was brutal, and as daylight began to fail in early October with daylight savings time (how ironic…) it was difficult to get done with the work day and find time to go for a run. So there were many missed opportunities and my mood darkened with the unrelenting pressures.

On the cheap

Often I’d stay at “affordable” hotels on the edge of town rather than spend more money to stay at nicer places in the center of a city. That meant the runs I could manage to work into the schedule would be done on roads without streetlights. I’d run 3-4 miles, and that distance seemed a pittance compared to the gloriously free 15 mile days I’d been doing the previous year while training for the national championship. Hadn’t that been a noble effort for the college as well? Didn’t that somehow count toward my work in this world. Well honestly, no.

It was a test of my self-worth in some respects. Was I still a good person if I was not running as much? What was I even running for? There were no races on the docket, nothing to plan or shoot for. For the first time in many years, I was not an athlete. I was just me.

Love abides

On top of all that I was desperately in love with a woman that I’d begun dating during my senior year in college. For the first semester of school that fall, she remained at Luther. But then she took an internship with a retail firm in Minneapolis.

That meant I’d drive to Chicago on Sunday night, put in 1500 miles of driving around the state of Illinois during the week, then drive the 250 miles back to Decorah on a Friday afternoon. I’d rest up that night, and if I was not working the admissions office that Saturday, I’d jump into my Dodge Omni and make the three-hour run up to the Twin Cities to spend the weekend with her. Then I’d drive back down on Sunday morning, gather up my stuff for the travel schedule that week and head back to Chicago or downstate in Illinois. It was an insane schedule. But I was young, in love and stupid.

Stil, I recall those visits to the Twin Cities as a sweet respite. I well recall the seeming liberty of trotting around the lakes that fall and winter. The fresh breeze filled my lungs, and sometimes she’d run part of the way with me. That felt like reality, and it made me ache for a situation that was not so stressful and full of windshield time.

No easy task

But the work of admissions was unrelenting. Trying to nail down commitments to college from high school seniors is no easy task. Yet my applications crept toward the quota of 70 students the college had mapped out for me. I took the route of being personable as possible with everyone I met. A few parents were so grateful to me for helping their kid make a decision to attend Luther that one pressed a $20 into my hand with a wink and said “Thanks.” I tried to give the money back, but the parent would not be denied. “Seriously,” he told me. “Thanks.”

I asked my peers in Admissions what to do with that money and to a person they said, “Keep it. You’ve earned it.”

Hard miles

And so it went. During the final week of travel that fall, I was visiting Carl Sandburg high school in Orland Park when a heavy snow began to fall. I was aching to go for a run at the end of the long visitation season so I checked in with the high school coach and asked if I could join his kids for their workout that day.

We took off on a run along snowy roads and one of them made the decision that we should take a loop through the hilly forest preserves. The snow as already deep, and my Nike LDVs were soaked and thick with slush from the road. We ran three miles into the deep woods and back out for a total loop of 10 miles. I was beyond exhausted when it was all done. Driving back to the hotel before the college night, I felt the familiar twinge of a sore throat starting up. After a shower, I felt even worse. This was a different form of overtraining. I was spent from all those months on the road.

So I skipped the college night that Thursday and drove back in secret to Decorah that next morning. My head was thick with a cold and I parked my car behind the house where I rented an upstairs room and went to bed and slept and slept. I’d made it through the fall recruiting season, but just barely.

Another season

That spring the travel schedule was just as tough as the fall. I recall one spring night at a Motel 6 in Decatur. The hotel was next to a major rail hub and all night long the trains rattled and clanked as engines were moved around. I didn’t sleep more than two hours. After my morning college visits, I slept in the car in some vacant high school parking lot. The windows were cracked to let in a little cold spring air, but I was miserable and achey and sick of the road with all my heart. I cried a little, then shoved the car into gear and headed for the next town on the map.

There were some amusing incidents along the way as well. While driving through some small town in downstate Illinois I did not slow down for the heart of town and blew through at probably 50 mph. A mile down the road I looked into my rearview mirror and noticed what looked like a postal worker following me with a yellow light flickering on his front dash. I pulled the Dodge Omni over to the side of the road and was surprised to be met by the local cop from the town I’d just passed walking up to my door. “Didn’t you see my light?” he asked.

“No, it was too little,” I responded. Damn, I thought. I just said the wrong thing. He issued me a ticket on the spot.

A house on a hill

Later that day I sat with a family of a star football recruit in the beautiful small town of Lincoln, Illinois. Their home was perched on a hill overlooking a creek. The screen doors let in a pleasant breeze tinged with the sweet smell of manure on the fields. I’d gotten in a run that morning with the April winds blowing through my air. It had been a long year, but life felt good at that moment. That family had me over for dinner and we talked about the college of which I was still proud to have attended. There were hugs exchanged and the world finally felt a bit right.

Getting it done

I kept traveling through May while doing runs from those pathetic little hotels in flat Illinois landscapes. That was the only thing that kept my sanity. By year’s end, I had made my quota of 70 students right on the button. No more, grant you, but also no less.

That June I resigned my position with a letter to the President of the college, who wished me well. And the following year the college made the decision to allow the new Chicago admissions counselor live in the market to avoid all that driving back and forth to Decorah.

A part of me was bitter about that. I’d given my all to that year of admissions and felt a bit betrayed by the fact that I’d been run through the ringer during a transitional year. At one point my boss had asked me, “Is your head in the game?”

But he wasn’t with me those cold nights attending college recruitment sessions in hard Chicago neighborhoods. And he wasn’t with me as I held belief in what I was doing despite the raw difficulty of all that travel back and forth. And he wasn’t with me when those applications came into the college despite his doubts in my abilities. No one really offered to help with all that. It was pretty much a do or die proposition. Succeed or fail. And I succeeded.

And I did thank God for the running I did during that year of admissions. It kept my brain in the game, and on an even keel. It was a hard way to learn about the reality of the working world. But I did it.

Admissions

But I also recall stopping at the wayside on Wisconsin highway 18 near Fennimore. There is an overlook from which you can see 40 miles in either direction. I did not have time at that moment to go running in those hills, but I promised myself that one day I would.

And years later those very hills would be the site of so many bike rides and runs. From Dodgeville and Mineral Point we’d ride. From Blue Mounds and Mt. Horeb. Cross Plains and Madison. The world gave back in glory what it took from me in dark nights and long drives. And that is the yin and yang of this place in which we live. Darkness and glory are always in balance. That is the key admission that we all must make.

 

 

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Holding it together

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Sue.jpgYesterday we did a long run on the Fox River Trail from North Aurora up to Batavia and back. Sue had a scheduled 13.1 mile training run. The workout was prescribed by her coach in advance of the half marathon we’re doing in Madison, Wisconsin next week. It contained a series of 6 X 800 intervals along the way at her 5K pace.

That’s a smart workout because it calls on the body to run quicker than half-marathon pace and sets up the ability to run with some degree of fatigue, as it imitates the sensations of race pace on the Big Day.

And Sue nailed it. Her stride is changed from the strength and bounding and cadence drills she’s been doing. She runs with more purpose and confidence now.

I traipsed along beside her because I’m planning to run the HM next weekend as well. This is a stretch for me. All those years of hard miles have had their cost. At 8-10 miles I truly start to feel it in my bones. My calves also ache and the connective tissue in my left hip start to tighten up.

Weight for me

To counteract and negate these effects of long-term running and age, I do regular weight work and swimming. That helps, but there is still no denying the fact that I’ve got wear and tear on my body that runners who did not race from the age of 12 through the age of 30, with 100-mile weeks thrown in for good measure, do not have inside their bodies.

Some of the elite runners with whom I trained or raced or competed against are not running anymore. They’ve either found other activities such as cycling to fill their competitive urges or don’t do anything at all. I find myself somewhere between those extremes.

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Desire to improve

Sue wanted to focus on running this fall because it has frustrated her that her run times have been slower than she’d like in the triathlons she’s done. This is a wise approach, yet also enervating. The workouts her coach is giving her have transformed her cadence, for one thing, but also given her a new vision of how to run. I’ve been doing many of her workouts with her as a training buddy because I really believe in the things her new coach has her working on. In fact, last spring when she first mentioned her interest in improving her running, I led her in a series of drills very similar to what her coach is recommending.

The effects of this training have been qualitative in nature. Sue’s running is more enjoyable and fulfilling as a result of the foundational strength and mechanics work she has been doing. She is no longer a slogger, and it shows. Her training approaches 30 miles per week and is mixed with swimming and weight work.

The Brick Factor

Beyond training for a half-marathon, it is also true that many triathletes have problems with things like the Brick phase of the run coming out of the bike. Sue and I have recently discussed the fact that doing hard interval training closely mimics the fatigue of the brick phase. Hard intervals imitate that sensation. When you know how to find your run cadence coming off the bike, the legs can call on that familiarity and muscle training and be able to get up to speed more quickly. So let’s be blunt: Just running slow bricks after riding the bike does not accomplish the same thing as a concerted interval training workout. You have to push your body into hard-edged fatigue to mimic the dynamics of brick running. Hard intervals do that.

Hill running

 

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The long workout called for a post-run Ice Bath. The bubbles were just for fun. 

She also ran right up a hill that has vexed her before. Hill running is part mechanics and part confidence. She has changed the structure of her stride when running uphill. That makes it more efficient if not any easier. The goal of running hills is to run them with speed but not be gassed when you reach the top. Many people have trouble with that counterintuitive set of objectives. But you can learn to run hills with efficiency when you carry your arms a little lower, drive with your forefoot on each stride and lean forward a bit depending on the severity of the hill.

 

Holding it together

I thought about all these things as we ran the first eight miles. Yet that creaky, angular fatigue that combines years of running with impending age does return despite all the weight work and swimming I’ve been doing.

So I pop a quick stretch of the hips into my run and catch back up. This is the price of having had so much fun running all these years. I recognize the last three miles of the upcoming half-marathon are going to require some active maintenance to finish well. I raced at 7:30 pace two weeks ago for a 10k and I’m going to run at 8:00 pace until the body says “Okay, that’s enough.” But honestly, I think it will go well with a little planning for the inevitable creakiness that will come along.

It’s a simple fact of life. Holding it together takes more work as you age. But it’s worth it.

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Home away from home

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

 

Nelson from Home.jpg

The view out my back window including the bike trail that leads toward Nelson Lake Marsh.

One of the side benefits of moving to our new place on the border of North Aurora and Batavia is its proximity to a natural area named Dick Young Forest Preserve. Within the preserve is a remnant prairie marsh called Nelson Lake. It is a classic Illinois wetland ringed with cattails, and at one time the area held rare species of gentians and other plants found only in such habitats where boggy soils turn acidic and things grow that could not grow other places.

 

The lake was once the site of a peat mining operation. There were gravel roads on one side of its perimeter. In fall, duck hunters would lease the right to enter the property and shoot ducks and geese. There were carefully constructed blinds all around the lake that stood all year after hunting season. A tiny little shed at the apex of the trail would house small wooden skiffs on which the hunters would push out into the lake to do jump shooting.

That was more than forty years ago. Since that time the lake and its surrounding farm fields and woods have all been purchased by the county to form Dick Young Forest Preserve. The man for whom the preserve is named was a progressive naturalist and botanist whose knowledge of native plants in Illinois was unparalleled.

It was the work of Dick Young that defined the reasons for preservation of the marsh and woods. Since the addition of nearly a thousand acres of land around the wetlands, a number of restoration projects has been implemented. One of these is the propagation of a large prairie. There are also oaks being planted into this prairie, and the management plan is to recreate the savanna habitat that once dominated northern Illinois.

 

Nelson Trail.jpg

Mountain biking on the trails in Dick Young Forest Preserve

Throughout these natural areas is a network of trails. Some are principally dirt or grass. These are good for running and mountain biking. Now that I live a mere 1.5 miles away from the preserve, I’ll probably spend more time there than ever. Running the five-mile perimeter is a joy in any season. Of course when snow falls the running has to go, but a set of cross country skis is all that is needed to cruise around the lake.

 

Each winter I also don heavy boots and tromp across the frozen lake. The surface area of this environment has been shrinking the last few years. Cattails have encroached and siltation has kicked in. The lake is shrinking too fast for its own good. So I wrote the county and had a discussion with the natural areas manager. He informed me that there is a plan to consider a water retention structure to keep the lake level higher. Formerly there were beavers that moved in. Their natural dams raised the water levels throughout the natural areas complex. Somehow the beavers mysteriously disappeared.

There is a chance some local residents don’t like the lake to be so high. Over the years I’ve also encountered trappers working illegally in the marsh. They catch beavers and muskrats to sell the skins. Perhaps they don’t care if their simple greed has such negative effects on the ecosystem of Nelson Lake Marsh. One trapper pointed a gun at me years ago, threatening me to move on even though I was standing on public property, and so was he. Such is the expression of selfish motives.

 

Nelson Oak Leaf.jpg

An oak leaf puts on a show in late autumn

It was heartening to talk with the habitat manager and learn that the county is concerned for the long term health of Nelson Lake Marsh. The process of natural succession at the lake has been nudged along by the incursion of invasive species of rushes that further clog the marsh. A drought several years ago completely dried up the lake for a season. That let other plant species push into the lake bottom, further displaced water and increasing siltation.

 

I think about all these things when I run or ride around the lake. I’ve been visiting the property for more than 35 years. It’s a part of me in many ways. I’ve seen rare species of birds and beautiful types such as least bittern, Virginia rail and peregrine falcon. Sandhill cranes breed in the marsh, and so have rare species of hawk such as harrier. These are precious resources in Illinois, remnants of a once-thriving prairie ecosystem that stretch from Chicago to Moline. The Illinois prairie is nearly extinct these days. Only 1/10th of one percent of the prairie that once existed still remains. That’s why the marsh feels so damned precious.

When I’m running or riding out there, all these memories come through from my subconscious to conscious mind. The ashes of my loved ones actually are planted on that ground. So are the important foundations of my memory, and self-identity. Yes, a place in the world can mean that much to someone.

 

Nelson Beam.jpg

Many times I’ve stayed past twilight to witness the setting of sun and birds in the reeds.

That’s why I grieved at the thought that a place in which I’ve spent so much time might be occluded. Land management practices change over the years, and political priorities shift by the philosophy of those in charge. Yet our county approved a $70M forest preserve referendum years ago, and both sides of the political aisle have taken a role in purchasing and planning land purchases. Some of that money was actually spent buying critical farmland to protect it from development. All this is proof that political opponents can get along when the cause is worthy enough.

 

So I run and ride those trails with gratitude. There have been many changes over the years, with some trails left to grow over and new ones installed to host more people traffic. I admit to a wistful feeling in realizing that the old ways of moving about at the preserve have changed. So many fall evenings were spent walking the woodland trail out to the west-side observation deck at twilight. Now the trees have grown up in front of the deck and it’s not all that useful to birders.

But I think of one early December day in particular. The weather had stayed warm through the 5th, and hundreds of duck of more than 20 species were still hanging out on the lake. I crept all the way to the edge of the cattail margins and crouched down on the haunches of a fallen willow stump. The air was perfectly still, and the voices of all those ducks peeping and quacking could be heard clearly across the water. The temps even at dusk were 75 degrees. It felt like that scene could last forever.

But overnight, a massive storm blew in with temperatures dropping well below freezing. The change in the lake the next day was profound. The ducks were gone. The lake had skimmed over with a rough, cloudy surface of ice. All was silent. Winter had arrived.

 

Nelson Sunset.jpg

Always there are big wheels turning at a natural area.

Nature is unforgiving that way. I’ve seen it come and go across the face of that landscape in many ways over the years. Running through the prairie on hot summer days can bring you to a standstill if you don’t have enough water in your system. The spring rains on hard winter ground make a loud noise, and March winds tear the cattails apart, sending even more seeds to do their dirty work. Human beings course through these conditions on their own terms. At times you feel connected to the earth. At others, you feel like an invader or some foreign creature. And you are, for the most part.

 

Still the times I’ve felt in tune with that landscape are precious and wonderful. Now that I live even closer, perhaps that relationship can grow in new ways. I hope to play a role in the new management plan, and love to lead hikes for people who want to discover what nature is all about, and where to find it. That place is my home away from home, and likely always will be.

 

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Feeling it for the Cubs

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Cubs pumpkin.jpgAs a longtime resident of the Chicago baseball market, one cannot help absorb some of the painful losing history of the Cubs. Now that they have finally, finally won a World Series title, and the jinx is gone, the city and its residents can breathe a little deeper.

It’s not an unfamiliar scene. Our family jumped on the Chicago White Sox bandwagon when the team won the World Series a decade ago. This is your prerogative, to jump on the bandwagon for a sports team when you’ve lived in a metropolitan area long enough. If you put up with the moaning and groaning when things go bad with local sports teams, you deserve to go for the ride when the bandwagon kicks into gear.

History repeats itself

But when it comes to the Chicago Cubs, the bandwagon has pulled in so many times and the wheels have always come off. Back in 1984 or so, I recall standing in an Iowa bar during a college reunion event watching the TV as the Cubs were playing the San Diego Padres. We had watched the first couple games back at home, and the Cubs had murdered them with runs. But then the Padres’ Will Clark and Steve Garvey started pounding out hits and the damned Cubs found a way to lose it.

32 years have passed since then. The Cubs have sniffed the National league pennant a few times over the years, but the results have always stunk in the end.

“Not the Tarp!”

Last night the game wore into the depth of night, and I was tired. When the rains that had passed through Chicago earlier in the day descended on Cleveland, I gave up the ghost and went to bed. I laughed hard when checking Facebook before nodding off to sleep because my daughter was feeling the same sentiment. “Not the Tarp!” she wrote. That made me laugh.

Meanwhile, my son Evan was actually in attendance at the game. Not because he drove all the way from Chicago to Cleveland, but because he lives in the Lakeside district of Cleveland right now, just a few miles from the stadium.

But he lived in the very heart of Chicago’s loop for several years after attending college at the University of Chicago. The city got into his blood, and by proxy, a bit of Cubs blue flows through his veins as a result.

cubs-evanEvan isn’t some huge sports fan. But he is a guy with a knack for scoring tickets to big events. So it makes sense that he was in attendance during the biggest game in Chicago Cubs history. Late in the game, Evan roamed the decks of Cleveland Stadium with his Facebook Live feed going crazy. Dude, for a so-called non-sports-fan, you are the ultimate wizard at being in the right place at the right time.

The kid knows how to dance

That surprises no one in our family. The kid has danced his way down the streets of New York dressed as a Gingerbread Man for the Macy’s Day Parade. He’s gotten to Blackhawks games when the tickets were tough to get in Stanley Cup seasons. Evan also travels to Burning Man each summer, dancing his way through heat and dust and mania to a near religious experience.When he’s not dancing in the dust, he’s rocking some rave party through the night in New York or whatever city or group of friends wants to join in the fun. When Evan can’t find a bandwagon to join, he makes his own.

And as such, some of us live a bit vicariously through our kids. Of course, when one is jumping on bandwagons it doesn’t always work out like you want it to. Evan once climbed on a train with a bunch of friends from the University of Chicago who wanted to attend a Notre Dame football game in South Bend. As I recall, he wore only a tee shirt for the trip and the weather turned cold and wet. It was a miserable day. As a parent, you cringe on hearing such news. But we also can’t live our lives or make all choices for our children.

Just ask Joe Maddon, the Cubs manager. It’s his job to raise the team right, but in the end, the players have to go out and execute. There’s a huge moral message hidden in all this Cubs stuff.

Out in the elements

My son is also a runner. Last spring he was going to run a marathon, but did not have enough time to train for the longer event. So he ran the half-marathon in Cleveland this past spring and the conditions turned out to be worse than awful. During the race it hailed, snowed, rained and thundered. Lightning flashed and he was ultimately trapped out in an open field waiting for his friends to finish the race. The hail was beating on his running hat and stripping hair off his legs. As a runner, I totally understood how really cold and devastating a post-race chill can be. But he survived.

That cold, chilly feeling reminds me of the afternoon I spent in the company of a friend at a Chicago Cubs game twenty years ago. Our tickets were decent enough, right behind home plate. But the wind was “blowing in” that day. It was mid-May, which meant the cold drafts coming off Lake Michigan were chilly, wet and sullen. Temperatures were stuck at 42 degrees. We sat there hunched up in our jackets cheering for the Cubs. Hot chocolate was the order of the day, and we drank lots of it. To make matters worse, they lost. But we stuck it out.

Diehard

cubs-jewelrySo I believe that constitutes the groundwork for a “real fan” if you’re looking for credentials. There have been quite a few other games over the years as well. I can’t call myself a True Cubs Fan in the sense that I follow every game and result, but I have been a fan of the Cubs through good times and bad. I read their tales of trades in the papers and console my friends when their team suffers. Except when I tease them. Which is just as fun.

My brain holds some arcane knowledge of the team’s history dating back to 1969, when my Glenn Beckert and Don Kessinger baseball cards were prized even though I lived near Philadelphia then. I was Yankees fan from having grown up in New York State. But one of my friends at ten years old adored his Chicago Cubs even though we lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Go figure.

Simple joy

So it was a simple little joy to wake up this morning and hear from my fiancee that the Cubs had indeed won the World Series. It means there is something right with the world in some way. Forget the owners and their big league investments, and how much money it takes to buy a champion. The sports radio guys will blather for days now about how to keep the team together, or who needs to be traded. I find it all disgusting. They’ll rip the manager for pulling Kyle Hendricks too early in the game and they’ll criticize the baserunning and the like. Sports radio is the cesspool of sports fandom as far as I can see. Worse than politics, in many respects.

My taste for baseball trends more toward the innocent joys of watching a great player make a backhand grab of a hard grounder behind second base, or the crisp delight of a hard line drive ripped up the foul line. When I settle in to watch baseball, I watch baseball. The Cubs have been a fun and rewarding baseball team to watch this year. They were so good at the game they actually won the World Series. There may be a touch of hometown pride in that, and I’m feeling it for the Cubs.

Long time gone

But it’s November, for God’s Sake. Thanksgiving is a mere three weeks away. These sports seasons go on far too long. Hockey plays its championships in June. Football is like a virus that has invaded the bloodstream of America. The NBA feeds upon itself until the players run out of gas in the early heat of summer. No wonder they smoke so much pot.

So it’s with a bit of relief that we can all say “the Chicago Cubs have finally done it,” and are done for the year. Wait ’til next year can wait. Forever? Of course, spring training starts in February. That’s not that far away.

The only people crazier about their sports are endurance athletes like us. We never seem to stop training, racing or competing. We roll from the Tour to Kona without batting an eye. It’s the season that never ends.

 

 

 

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Competitive nature and grace

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Florida SkyThe election season is almost over. The political debates on social media ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn to Pinterest, for God’s Sake, are almost through.

It struck me last night that the last two years have been like a prolonged session of pickup basketball in which the winning score keeps getting raised as the game goes on. “Let’s play to 20,” it started out. Then the score(s) got raised again and again. Fights broke out at midcourt, with Trump trash-talking his opponents the entire time.

Now the game is almost over, and it feels like the players are shouting, “Win by 2! Win by 2!” Back and forth it goes.

I grew up playing pickup basketball and have a competitive nature that does not quit. I learned how to win at a number of sports in fact, and got my fair share of trophies to show for it. When my sports career channeled into running, that competitiveness generally came in handy. But it isn’t always pretty.

Sore winners

I recall the time our cross country team at little Kaneland High School was undefeated. Then a strong team from a much bigger school came to town. Not only did they beat us in the meet, their athletes mocked and ridiculed us before, during and after the race. A few years later, I ran into that same program while running for different school. The Top 5 runners were all my equals, and spent the entire race cutting me off, pushing me into course flags and harassing the hell out of me during the race. It was a humiliating experience. Yet I remained defiant, and in the conference meet later that season, I beat all but one of their runners. That experience among many others taught me that you should not give in when faced with bullies or strong competitors. You need to stay strong, show your character and prevail through persistence.

It works is sales and leadership and every other aspect of life as well.

Scut Farkus

Perhaps there is some of that competitive defiance at work in debates over politics these days. There’s been a fair share of bullying going on during this election cycle, and none of us should side with bullies. Those who do tend to be toadies who can’t stand up for themselves in the first place. So they find a bigger bully to do their work for them and try to pretend they’re the tough and smart ones in this world. Think of that little sidekick who hung around with the character Scut Farkus in the movie A Christmas Story.

Later Ralphie gives Scut Farkus his surprising payback with a bloody nose and a humiliating defeat in the December snows. Farkus pushed Ralphie far enough that his competitive nature broke through the seemingly soft exterior of his physical presence. That scene is the triumph of the movie when good wins out over evil.

Classless victors

Even the seeming winners in society can act without class when it comes to expressing their competitive nature. One runner who won the conference crown in college cross country accepted his trophy and gave an embittered speech from the podium about how much he hated the team that traditionally dominated the league. It left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

I’ll confess to letting my competitive nature dominate a few conversations on social media this past year. There’s been a fair share of bullying going on during this election runup, and I’ll confess to fighting back at times. My son has encouraged me to let it go. So has my daughter, my fiance and my best friend. Reigning in one’s competitive nature is a good thing.

Grace appreciated

Back in 2000 I started writing a book titled The Genesis Fix, A Repair Manual for Faith in the Modern Age. I researched the heck out of scripture and read the bible cover to cover a couple times. The book took seven years to complete and to this day I’m proud of what it shares about the nature of faith and how it can be corrupted by literalism, legalism and power-mongering. There are strong examples of Jesus Christ fighting back against these forces of manipulation and evil. Of course, it got him killed in the end. Captured by writ of the Chief Priests and brought before King Herod and then Pontius Pilate, Jesus admirably let their own words condemn these men.

Herod felt no guilt it seems. He was keen to please the crowd and wanted to see Jesus perform miracle. When that didn’t happen, Herod grew bored and sent Jesus back for trial.

Pilate perhaps had his moment of doubt (and pain) about what to do with Jesus. It was a confusing situation. The accused perhaps raised some ruckus with his arrival in the city, but made no real threats against Rome other than the accepted theory that he was a king of some sort?

But what sort of king was he? The Chief Priests considered him a vicious threat to their authority. “He claims to be the Son of God!” they shrieked, tearing their robes and bitching up a storm.

Rallying support

The impetuous and vain always claim moral outrage. They gather crowds to justify their disgust or hatred. “Crucify him!” the crowds were urged to yell. It was all so calculatedly arranged, funded by coins from the holy treasure.

And yet Jesus showed his competitive nature by demonstrating perseverance toward a goal. It would be a symbolic act, his crucifixion, and poorly understood by those standing watch as the crossbar raised and the assemblage watched the torture take place. It was a painful and slow way to die, by all reports. That’s what torture is supposed to do. The authorities of that day and age used those means to send a message to potential enemies of the state. It was their competitive nature to reduce all such threats to ruins.

Walls and hopes

Later the Romans showed back up in town and razed the walls of the temple just to make sure the Jews and their offshoots, the Christians, heard loud and clear who was really in control. And for a time, the Jews lost hope and lived in exile. Yet they and their Christian brethren ultimately learned that the temple itself was not the heart of faith. This great change enabled people to carry faith with them wherever they go.

It’s true that Jesus spoke out against all these destructive forces, yet even he threatened to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days. Such cryptic language challenged the rude and false authority of the leading conservative cabal during his lifetime. Those accused by his words never seemed to understand that they were the ones being indicted. As it is said, prophets are understood in their hometown. This was no exception.

Competitive nature

Stop for a moment to think about the competitive nature of Jesus Christ. Here was a person willing to endure pain and even death to secure a victory that initially would go unrecognized. Most of us clamor for a finisher medal when we finish a race. We want that recognition so bad. To “podium” is even better. Hero of the day.

And yet, few of those achievements constitute real, meaningful victories.

There is such irony to the type of victory won by Christ that many people claiming to understand the faith still do not get the nature of the accusations Christ brought against the authorities of his day. He castigated the unfeeling nature of the wealthy and those who felt no compassion for the poor. Nothing has changed in those he indicted that way. They still exist in modern times. And for all the warnings provided by the Bible, they still deny that it is their selfish nature being questioned.

These are so-called Christians who compete for the wrong prize. They prefer a working model of Jesus that fits their own competitive instincts in politics and power. Their method is to win a victory for their version of Christianity, not for Christ.

One gets accused of being sanctimonious for pointing out these hypocrisies. As in: “making a show of being morally superior to other people.” But what is sanctimony if it is simply relating the basic message of Christ?

The fight one chooses for social justice and compassion toward other people is a battle that must be fought perpetually, without ceasing, lest a powerful tide of selfish greed wash back over those in need. We have seen it again and again in America. This is a nation of conflicted values.

Mistakes, I’ve made a few

Yes, I have a competitive nature. Yes, I’ve made mistakes in my arguments on social media and on this blog. But making mistakes by being too bold in the righteous aim of social justice is the ultimate forgivable sin. So I ask forgiveness for that. Yet I will not apologize for trying.

Because just like those pickup basketball games of youth, when things could get out of control quickly, and escalate as the game wore on, it’s time now to let others play out the contest. I’ve said my piece on politics. People know where I stand. My belief system comes down to a simple definition, that of liberalism, which aligns directly with the mission of Jesus Christ in this world.

“belief in the value of social and political change in order to achieve progress”

I’ve made the case in this blog that liberalism aligns with the heart of Christian faith. Yet I’m not a proselytizer in the sense that I want to recruit you to the team. Either the words ring true or they don’t for you.

But there is one commonality we all share. It is true that we all need to change in order to grow. That is the foundation of all human endeavor, not just religion.

Those who remain fixed in their worldview are characterized in the Bible as being “stiff necked” in their stubborn, competitive nature. Out in the secular world there’s another word for it, “Assholes.”

The world is full of such people. They don’t like to change. Not one whit. They cling to the words of other stiff-necked assholes to defend their selfish worldview. But that’s the wrong kind of competitive nature if you want to place it under a moral microscope. Christ won a victory through sacrifice, not through domination. There’s a powerful message in that. The politics that reflect that giving spirit are the true alliance with grace.

 

 

 

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Reaction time

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

light-chrisAs a person participating in competitive sports from the earliest age imaginable, I’ve learned a few things about reaction time. That’s the ability to respond when faced with critical situations.

One might not think reaction time is much of a big deal in endurance sports. After all, we’re not playing sports where there are footballs or baseballs or basketballs involved. Yet there are still situations when reaction time is critical to performance.

This is particularly true in cycling, where avoiding collisions or road obstacles and debris can be the difference between remaining upright and being involved in a gnarly crash. As I’ve documented, I’ve had a few interesting crashes over the years. And yet reaction time saved my ass each time.

The first crash came from an incident of bike wobble at 40 mph. Yet I still managed to control the bike and get it off the road into the crash and saved my skin.

Another crash came from inattention when I was cruising along a bike trail with my head down and ran into a downed tree. Fortunately, I reacted quickly enough in the last three yards to turn my side and avoid a full-on face collision with a tree limb.

A few weeks ago I tried to bunny hop a curb next to a parking lot and wound up flipping over the handlebars. Yet again, it only resulted in a scraped helmet and a little blood on the shoulder. No broken collarbones or anything severe like that.

Proprio Boy

I credit years of playing ballistic sports with a decent skill in reaction time during situations such as there. Years of playing basketball developed a fair amount of proprioception. Sometimes while skimming the road edge I’ll find the bike tire teetering on the precipice between road and gravel and use my balance to keep it on the level.

There have been times when I’ve even been called upon to use reaction time in running. Certainly, during my career as a steeplechaser, those skills were critical. When you approach a 42″ barrier in the company of 6-8 other runners, it pays to be able to adapt in the moment. Going over the water jump was a particular favorite of mine. I could triple jump 40′ and long jump nearly 20′, so my jumping and balance were pretty solid. Often one had to slide to the side of another runner, plant a foot on top of the barrier and launch to a neutral zone where the water meets the land at the zero depth point of the steeple pit. That all takes some decent reaction time.

img_6438Intersections

This all came to mind yesterday when I was driving north on Route 25 near my home. The road comes down a hill and then angles right as it crosses another major state highway, Route 38. The speed limit is about 35MPH so you’re zipping around an S-curve and confronting that intersection at a decent speed.

It happened that the light changed just as I approached the intersection yesterday. It caught me by surprise but it had just changed to yellow as I hit the crosswalk with the front bumper of my Subaru Outback.

Then things happened fast. The driver of a tall cargo truck decided he was going to make the left turn at the precise moment I entered the intersection. There was no time to think on my part. As his front end cut off half the lane I pulled the wheel to the right, then whipped it left to conduct a screeching, swooping surge around his vehicle and in time to avoid striking the light pole at the other side of the intersection. My brain was entirely calm the entire time. That situation could have resulted in a major, head-on accident. Instead, I continued driving north on Route 31 and called out to myself, “YOU ARE THE BOSS!”

In other words, I was actually thrilled. I know that’s a sick thought. I have sick thoughts all the time though. But I completely fucking rocked that manoeuvre. Perhaps it was all possible from repeatedly watching Jason Bourne driving through the streets of Algiers or other countries at full speed. But I knew what to do, and my reaction time was fucking perfect.

As I drove north, I called one of my best buddies on the phone. I left him a voice mail message bragging about my feat. Sure, I knew there was fault on my part not anticipating the possible change in the light. Yes, I understand that there should be no “next time” when it comes to driving like that. But given that I reacted the right way, I’m taking full-on credit for being a Boss behind the wheel. Damn right.

Saving a life

possumThen I thought back to a moment more than 30 years ago on an intersection directly across the river from where I swerved around that truck yesterday. I was in the middle of a seven-mile run when the lights changed and I was forced to halt my run while standing on the northwest corner of Route 31 and 38. It was a hot day and I pulled up my shirt to wipe my face. At that moment I heard a bright THUD and dropped my shirt to find a Volkswagon Beetle car hurtling through the air. It was headed right at me and there was an older man standing on the same street corner waiting to cross. I reached over and threw my arm across his waist and pulled him down the small set of steps on the sidewalk. He tumbled unharmed onto the cement and I fell next to him.

The VW came to a crunching stop right where we were standing. It was surreal to see the vehicle perched on its side with wheels spinning. I gawked for a moment, then turned around to look for the man I’d knocked to the ground. He had stood up and was getting into a vehicle at the intersection. Apparently his wife had just pulled up at that intersection and he’d been waiting for her.

The light changed and they drove off. Not a word of thanks from the guy. Just rode away. I waited a moment and finally stood up. Then the light changed again and I jogged across the street going east across the Fox River. In the middle of the bridge I came to a sudden halt and stood there having a death shiver. “I could have been killed,” I said out loud.

Then I ran the rest of the way home with legs of jelly. But by the time I’d gotten home the incident seemed unreal, as if it had never happened. In fact I had to shake my head and try to imagine if it indeed was real. Or had I just imagined it?

I know that I did not. Because a year later the city revised the structure of that intersection to avoid those accidents. These old state highways often have very few safety considerations built in.

All I can say in retrospect is Thank God for reaction time. Without it I might not have survived that flying car years ago, or the impact with that truck in my lane yesterday. Some believe in angels who give us protection. Yet lacking those, I’ll give thanks for reaction time and give credit to God or his minions later.

 

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Two Cuties and a Scary Clown

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

SueKittyBunny.jpgSue and I got up Saturday morning and ran thirty minutes with some hill strides at the end. Despite the strain of moving this week, my body did not feel terrible. That meant the Sycamore Pumpkin Run 10k was not out of the question on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day for running at fifty-two degrees and a fresh wind out of the Northeast. Sue threw on her kitten cap from the Catwoman outfit she wore for Halloween (meoowwww…) and her sister Julie borrowed some bunny ears from Sue’s daughter and we were ready to go. I also painted their faces to match their respective costumes. They made a pretty cute pair.

The Sycamore Pumpkin Run goes back quite a ways in my personal history. I placed second in 1984 at 32:24 and there were several other top five ot ten finishes if I recall correctly. But that was years ago. So the experience of running the race these days is considerably different. At 7:20 pace I could see the lead police car with its flashing lights rolling along through two miles. Somewhere ahead the leader was taking the pace out to finish at 35:00 and the victory. So it’s some small solace that in my younger days I could easily have won the thing.

That’s been the case every time in recent years. Gone are the days when I ran 32:30 and placed ninth in a crowded sub-elite field. It hurt back then but now it feels like a salve.

I even ran faster last year, managing a 42:00 10K on 10-15 miles per week. This year I’ve run a bit more, but the last three weeks have all been about moving homes. The only running I did last week was between the dumpster bags and the house. And that felt good, because it kept me sane. But I finished in 47:00 flat. 7:30 pace. Not too bad.

Crazy moves

Because moving is a crazy thing in many respects. In my case, it was the equivalent of having my life flash before my eyes. The pace at which I was making decisions on keepsakes and junk was like watching one of those old cartoons where the characters flash in and out of view. Everything takes on a herky-jerky quality with memories alternating in color and black and white. Then it all got surreal by Friday morning when I was so tired I could barely function. Y

et there were blessings mixed in with the curse of the time crunch and closing date. I’d filled four Waste Management Bagsters and was desperate to have them moved on Friday morning. I called the company and literally begged them to guarantee a pickup. But the service people held to company policy and could only tell me that I was on their schedule.

Carried away

So imagine the relief when I came up the side street and saw the WM Bagster truck pulling away at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. I said a little prayer of thanks and proceeded to the house. Nature called thanks to the thick draft of Coke I’d quaffed to wake up. My body kicked into gear and a quick trip to the bathroom was in order. Then it was time to pack and toss for another two hours.

Pete.jpgAt 8:00 a.m, I heard some footsteps creaking on the floor upstairs. I called out “Helloooo!” and then heard a door slam shut. When I went upstairs, no one was around or waiting in the yard. It would not have been entirely unexpected. All week I’d been collaborating with a series of metal pickers who stopped by my house every day to carry away all sorts of objects that could be recycled. I’d taken their cell phone numbers and even hired a man named Flavio to help with some hauling in his truck.

But there was no one there. Just a slight rise in the wind as the day broke. So I went back to work loading up cans to take to the Ace Hardware for recycling.

When it came time to leave, I went into the house to grab my computer bag and it was nowhere to be found. It struck me that someone could have entered the house and stolen the bag. But who? In any case, I called the police and filed a report. I was a mess of torn emotions. All my writing and work is on the laptop I use for work. And now it was gone.

Scary moments

Life has its scary moments and this was one of the worst as far as modern terrors go. I’d already had one laptop stolen two years ago and it’s not a fun experience. All that personal data and possibility of identity theft makes a nightmare of unknown consequences. The world is full of scary clowns who are all too happy to turn your world inside out just because they can. What felt really terrible was that the police asked me to consider who might have had knowledge of my computer bag in the first place. I was forced to consider whether my newfound metal-picking friends had possibly betrayed me.

Fortunately, my nightmare turned out to be only a twisted daydream. Because that morning when I’d rushed into the house to use the bathroom, I’d sat down and sloughed the computer bag off my shoulder behind the toilet. That was exactly where I discovered it later that morning when I returned to the house after the trip to Ace and used the bathroom again. The relief in finding that computer was immense. I bent over the sink and cried a little.

Scary clowns

So the scary clown of theft and loss and stolen identity was averted for the moment. All that remained were the challenges of time and deadlines to meet. A Permission Agreement had been granted that gave me time to finish off cleaning out the house by 5:00 p.m. Friday. Otherwise, there were serious costs to be incurred.

That was fair because some things in life are absolute. Taking possession of a house is a right granted by its purchase. I’d missed one deadline thanks to the fact that twenty years of accumulated stuff is a tough job to tackle. I’d have s0me help along the way, but many of the decisions had to be mine, and mine alone, lest something of great value be thrown away.

I wanted to avoid tossing things that might have meaning to my two children. As it turned out, a set of photo albums was buried deep in a downstairs closet. It contained pictures of my late wife that my son and daughter had never seen. Most were from a time period that my wife largely avoided in discussion with her kids. Her “party years” you might say, but the photos were precious and I handed the album along to my daughter.

the-nightmare-before-christmas-nightmare-before-christmas-32964944-1478-920For me, the balance of clearing out a home in which I’d lived so long was both a wrench and a relief. It was like Nightmare Before Christmas in which the world turns inside out in real time.

Flavio to the rescue

I finished the job at exactly 3:00 p.m. Friday thanks to assistance from a guy named Flavio, one of the metal pickers to whom I took a liking. He came by with his tools to disassemble an old stove that was lurking like an evil thug in my basement. It was still hooked up to the gas line as it had been since I don’t know when. The stove was there when I moved in, and it was too big to haul up the stairs intact without taking off railings and doors, so the Junk Genie guys waved their hands at that one.

Flavio.jpgBut Flavio tore up that stove in twenty minutes. We carried it out in parts laughing at the miracle of practicality. I paid Flavio $40 for his help and he gets to recycle the metal on top of that.

And now the move is done. So it felt good to turn my attention to something a bit less daunting like running a 10K race on a semi-sunny morning in late October.

The Clown Factor

Scary Clown Max.pngSo we showed up at the race and wouldn’t you know it? One of our close triathlon friends, Maxine Franck-Palmer, was dressed up as a Scary Clown. It was all too fitting, you might say, for her to lampoon the fears life can throw at you. In fact, she haunted the whole race, photobombing selfies and generally having a disturbingly fun time. She’s a great runner of her own accord who decided to give over her own performance to provide a bit of Halloween spookiness.

There was a time when clowns were considered counterculture reflections of life. There were happy clowns and sad clowns, colorful clowns and mimes on streetcorners. But then it was discovered that a few clowns had a very dark side to them. These clowns turned the entire clowning world upside down, and Lord knows they did it to the max. We learned that some people hide perversions or murderous intents behind the clown outfit, and scary clowns became a “thing” that the public embraced because it was too true. Some clowns are just scary.

So it was with that bit of twisted joy that Max roamed the race and haunted post-race activities with her colorful costume and crazy clown makeup. It was all in good fun. Or bad fun. Whatever. It seemed to fit somehow, and I used my phone to record a video of Max tossing a muscle roller given out by the physical therapy people. But the video is so disturbing I don’t want to leave you with that image in mind. The world has enough haunting specters of people with bright hair and garishness. Some of them are even running for office. Let’s hope we can avoid some of these scary clowns together, and the people that support them as well. Because they’re just as crazed and scary as Max in her garish gear.

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A powerful moving experience

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Christopher Cudworth

Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore relates the tale of his job in college where he was assigned to toss lumber at a mill in Oregon. The men at the mill took a look at him and scoffed. But when matched with a work partner who could life far more than Moore, he ultimately outworked the man based on endurance, not power, and earned the respect of his lumber mill peers.

That’s how I felt this week emptying the house where I’ve lived for 20 years. It was a short haul job in terms of distance, and we’d already moved my fiancee’s belongings out of the house after a 10-day stopover until the home we’ve purchased together was ready for occupation.

 

Cubs.jpg

One of the discoveries of my recent move was this 1969 Cub Power large scale button. It will be on the chest of an ardent Cubs fan at tonight’s World Series game. 

And we’d already moved her belongings over from the rental place where she’d lived for 20 years. So we’d done a lot of moving before I even started to box up my belongings as well as some keepsakes and stuff hosted at my home for the kids.

 

For the last four days, I worked relentlessly in between some work assignments and helping organize the new place. But my home was stuffed to the gills with things about which I’d not thought or considered for many years.

And I ultimately did not make it clearing out the house for the closing date deadline. I tried mightily, and it came down to the basement after I’d cleared the upstairs of the 2700 square foot ranch and hired the cleaning woman to make it shine.

Even that took layers of digging. It’s hard to describe, but perhaps you’ll understand. But it comes down to this: All of us have too much stuff. And when life is interrupted by a death in the family as mine was three years ago, there are additional layers of difficulty and decisions to make as you ponder thick or loose piles of stuff and try to determine what is important and what is not.

Forced Objectivity

I had help but much of the real work had to be done by me. By the end my objectivity had been turned up to nine on a scale of 10, and I absolutely pitched the pile of my own CDs just to save time. The pressure is intense with a Permission Agreement deadline hanging over your head.

And then it started to rain on the most important move day of all. And it rained. And rained. But I kept moving like I was on a 30-mile training run and barely stopped to eat. Just moved stuff out to the four Bagsters I’d rented when I should have just gotten a dumpster. See, I’d done all this at my dad’s house earlier this year. We filled two full 15=yard dumpsters right to the brim. I did not imagine our house held that much stuff to throw away.

I got exhausted and still kept on. I’ll share tomorrow how it was possible to remove and vanish things that would not fit in the Bagsters, because that was a story unto itself. I made friends in the world that I never imagined possible. Strangers and more came to the rescue in so many ways.

The workout

There were times when I felt powerful, and other times empowered with a mission that could not be explained or even shared with many others. With the tight deadlines and the many decisions to make about what is important and whatnot, it was vital that it was me, and at some points, me alone making the hauls of junk and valuables up the stairs.

It made me laugh to think about the Stairmasters at the gym. They had nothing on me in terms of trips. Carrying up to fifty pounds at times, I climbed the stairs that I’d climbed thousands of times over the last 20 years.

And finally the basement was largely clear, and I brought in Molly Maid gals to sweep and mop the floors. The hard part about all this was the sudden revelations of things falling out of things. Photos I had not seen, or potential mementos stealthily hiding amongst layers of things that should not, nor need not, be kept. My late wife harbored all our kid’s schoolwork it seemed, because she was proud of them. But when it comes down to what’s important in life, no one cares what you did in third grade to impress your teachers. Or in sixth grade, or even high school.

And family history is the worst of all when it comes to stuff that amounts to junk. Right down to rattling boxes of pins and badges.

Perfect timing

The one thing that popped up as a surprise was a big old Cub Power button from 1969. How prescient it seemed to find this latent reminder of my late wife’s fandom and appreciation of the mustached Bill Buckner. Tonight that Cubs button will be riding the chest of a certain Anne de Traglia, an ardent Cubs fan if there ever was one, as she attends the World Series game in Chicago. You could say “that’s the spirit” and be right on all counts.

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