A friend of mine from long ago (and still today) sent me the obituary of a fellow runner from a nearby town. His name was Dave Bashaw.
Dave was a talented and determined runner from Geneva High School. I competed with him for a couple years and never won a single race against him. Following high school, he attended a local community college and then ran cross country for North Central College, one of the premiere running schools in the United States.
Dave Bashaw is second from right in the second row. His 19th place finish helped the North Central Team win the National DIvision III Cross Country meet.
While at North Central his training regimen became legendary. Reportedly he ran several 250-mile weeks. That’s right: Dave ran 26 or so miles a day. His efforts paid off because he became an All-American in cross country.
I know how hard that is to achieve. My personal best individual place was probably 62nd my senior year in college. As fifth man for a team that placed second in the nation behind North Central College, I was happy to achieve that milestone in a journeyman runner’s career.
But Dave finished in the Top 25 in the country. His stride was unique as his legs weren’t all that long. But he could motor.
Dave Bashaw is right behind me on the inside lane of a summer track club mile exhibition in the 1970s.
I liked Dave Bashaw and ran with him some in summer track programs as well. The fact of the matter is that he was always up for a run. If you ran with Dave, you learned to listen. Because that dude could talk. His conversation style was an enthusiastic ramble of fast words and thoughts rolling over one another.
We became friends of a sort outside of our running sphere. In the old days of competitive athletics, it wasn’t that common to buddy up with guys from other schools. But by the mid-1970s, and thanks to a local track club run by my late coach Trent Richards, there were friendships that bridged school associations. Two of the more famous guys that trained together in that period were Greg Birk and Tom Burridge, one from St. Charles and one from Batavia. They were so fast and strong I only ran with them a few times. I lacked the confidence to do otherwise.
But I wound up running quite a bit with John Rath of a local town called Burlington as we both ran summer track when I was coaching. Once in a while Dave Bashaw would show up.
But by the time I was a senior in high school it became evident that Dave had a mental illness. He appeared asking for me at my high school while carrying a loaf of Wonder Bread. He told me that he’d just been down at the Fox River bridge trying to feed the foxes. Those were bronze foxes, statues bolted to the bridge abutments.
Casual meetups
Through college I’d bump into him now and then and sometimes he’d seem well enough, but at other times his affect was distracted and difficult to comprehend.
I felt empathy for Dave as it was clear that his mental illness was inherent to his brain chemistry. He received treatments I’m sure, but I never heard much about them.
Dave was not the only runner that I knew with degrees of mental illness. There were quite a few in fact. The man over my left shoulder in the track photo above was a major player in the running community for years. But his own version of mental illness caused his ultimate withdrawal from those roles.
To some degree, it is my opinon that we all have some sort of mental illness. With lifelong challenges with anxiety and some form of artistic ADD, I am not immune.
Yet for Dave, it became a major impediment to societal function. Sometimes we’d meet up and have a conversation about events past and present. His focus was always so real and earnest that I cared not if everything he said was connected or made sense.
He gained major weight over time because he loved pizza. He told me that fact every time we met! “I love pizza too much,” he’d say, and laugh, and pat his prodigious belly. I think it was his way of “apologizing” to another runner for getting out of shape.
Dave Bashaw was a sweet soul and a great human being. He passed away from Covid-19 in an assisted living facility. I hope there’s a heaven where Dave can run around in peace, freed from the constrictions of this world and its many expectations.
And I hope there’s a helluvalotta pizza in that heaven.
Yesterday while working at home the air inside our house started to smell something like mothballs. I walked around trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. Then my wife told me, “It’s the pavers doing the driveway across the cul-de-sac.”
She was right. Once I identified the odor, it fell into place. But that smell reminded me of another moment in time as a much younger man working from home.
A friend and I lived together in the City of Chicago. Our first apartment was a sub-rental from his girlfriend who was gone for the summer traveling in Greece. I moved back from Pennsylvania and spent the summer doing graphic design and writing for some clients in Chicago.
So between gigs I’d work on a novel that I’d started a couple years before. It was a book titled Admissions about a fictional university at the Wisconsin Dells. It was a highly prophetic book, it turns out. In 1982 I wrote about how the conservative movement in America would begin to take over the AM airwaves with a political push called The Mandate. The main character in the book would run afoul of that movement, and the lessons learned by confronting arch conservatism served as an illustration of a principle I wrote about called Life Tectonics.
Originally I’d written the book longhand on legal pads. During my trips to and from Chicago, commuting to a job in the investment industry, I’d work on the plot and fill yet another legal pad with the dialogue and chapters.
Method actor
But then I purchased a secondhand IBM Selectric typewriter and began the process of transcribing the book to an actual manuscript.
Days were spent sitting at that typewriter with the sounds of Chicago traffic coming through the bay windows of our first-floor apartment. In the morning after a long run, I’d sit down to write and find a fine dust of urban grit on the pages of my book. I’d brush it off the keys and the paper, and set back to writing again.
Then some roofers showed up to work on the building across the street. The smell of that tar was so pungent I had to close the front windows just to breathe. Yet it made me feel like I was really living in the city. It was like inhaling a tarsnake.
The days of summer passed slowly and my running workouts twice a day served as bookends. I competed in 24 races that year with sponsorship from a running store that paid my entry fees and provided shoes for racing and training.
But most of all it taught me to live within my own brain and focus on my work despite everything else going on in the world. Reagan was President, and I despised that. I never cared for his vacuous manner of speaking with all those platitudes. And I really was disgusted by his Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who once coldly stated, “When the last tree falls, Jesus will come.”
My book Admissions was right about where this would all end up, with a nation in the grip of a mandate written by dismissively legalistic forces that for forty years have sought to fracture society in order to take it over. The smell of that asphalt yesterday reminded me that the work of putting thoughts on paper in protest of corrupt thinking is never through.
Recently I transferred that manuscript from old Mac software to a Word document. The book makes more sense than ever. And it is being completed now, because that’s what I do.
As a kid growing up in Pennsylvania from the age of five through twelve, I had the best friend ever. We did everything together. Ran around and played everyday. Learned about girls as we grew older, and joined the same baseball team. Hours were spent sitting on the long, sturdy branches of the giant apple tree in his yard. We’d talk about life and our families.
But then my father moved our family moved to Illinois. Some letters were exchanged between my old friend and I, but it wasn’t easy back then to keep in touch. By the time I got back east even a year later, things were entirely different between us. There were competitive instincts brewing about who was doing better at this thing or that. But one of the subjects caught me completely by surprise.
He asked me, “Do you still jerk off?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question right off the cuff.
“Because I don’t. I quit that,” he told me.
Okay, I thought to myself. More power to you. But I was in 8th or 9th grade at the time. What guy didn’t yank it now and then?
Breaking points
We saw each other again at fifteen or sixteen years old when I returned back east for my older brother’s wedding. The distance between us by then was even greater. Plus I made the mistake of choosing to stay for the weekend at the home of a next-door neighbor. Something permanently broke in our relationship from then on.
Twenty years went by. Then I got word that he’d moved to Illinois with his new wife and child. Eager to perhaps rekindle some aspect of our friendship, I made contact and visited his home. He was less than interested.
Perhaps I should have given up at that point. But there’s always been a part of me that treasured those early years and what he’d meant to me.
Of course, there had been difficult moments in our friendship as well. At one point he moved south to live with his dad in Florida after his parent’s divorce. When he returned there was a new aspect to his character, a cynicism that I hadn’t seen before. It emerged in odd ways, especially in the way that he led me on with stories that weren’t true, only to reveal the truth and have a laugh at my gullibility.
Harsh criticism
That harshness was no doubt handed down from his father, who was a stern bugger as I recall. When my friend once climbed to the top of the apple tree and got stuck up there in fear, his father came out of the house and barked dismissive commands at him. Up to that point I knew that his parents were divorced, but did not know why.
As it turned out, my friend got divorced from his first wife as well. I don’t know anything more about that aspect of his life except that he made the decision for reasons of his own. The new wife that I met was charming, intelligent and sweet. It wasn’t my business to figure out his past. I was happy for him in the present.
But the past is a funny thing, and sometimes you don’t recognize profound changes in the moment. I recalled receiving a newspaper clipping from a friend back east who sent it to me during my high school years. It featured my old friend being quoted in the local paper about his political views. I recall being surprised that his views on a certain subject at the time were quite different from mine. That’s when I realized that had I stayed back east, we might well have grown apart as friends anyway.
Fading from view
It happens throughout all our lives. The people we spend time with in certain parts of our lives often fade out of view as time and circumstances change. Even during elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, our friends shift and change. Beyond that period of life, we develop work friendships and relationships. Some of these we leave behind and others we maintain. That’s become easier with the advent of social media.
Yet there is also a burden that comes with that ease of communication. In some ways, the expectation that we’re going to keep friendships going through thick and thin is unrealistic. In no other part of life have we typically behaved in that way. In the past, if people crossed us or changed in ways that don’t make sense to us, we simply moved on. Sometimes with regret, at other times with relief.
That twisted dynamic has grown in complexity as social media has been used to manipulate public opinion. Often we’re quite shocked to find out how our “friends” seem to think, or not. On the other hand, it is sometimes the people with whom we once seemed to disagree that become exceptional friends. There is no predicting the outcome.
Team dynamics
I recall that during our years of training and racing together in high school cross country and track, there was a social order governing our time together. Generally the team leaders dictated the workout dynamics and how things went down. Most of it was happy. Some of it was harsh. If someone got really out of line and was annoying the hell out of the rest of the team, the team leaders stepped in to put a stop to it.
But in the world of social media, we’re largely on our own. We have no “team” to fall back on. When friends post annoying memes and false information, we face a choice. We can comment and risk alienating them from our circle of friends, or we can remain silent.
It is most disturbing to find out that people you considered fairly smart and considerate turn out to be close-minded and possessed of dismissive or prejudiced ideologies. The hot-button issues are everywhere. Gun control. Gay rights. Religious freedom. Economics. The environment. Democrats. Republicans. Conservatives. Liberals. Progressives.
The dog-whistle arguments and labels get ugly from there. That’s when propaganda and dogma enters the picture. And to make things worse, America is essentially a Petri dish of Coronavirus belief and disbelief right now. Yet one fact remains clear: the nation is at risk of economic collapse thanks to presidential inaction and obfuscation. Yet Trump supporters continue down a path of complete and utter denial of the damage being done through this and other actions. Commutations. Obfuscations. Blocking criminal investigations. Corruption lurks around every corner of every day.
And if you don’t understand that, I really don’t want to be your friend anymore.
Old loyalties
So the question from both sides of the equation is profound: Does one keep old friends who adamantly disagree with you, or whom you find suddenly absurd and living in denial of even basic truths?
I know how I feel about the subject, because I’ve watched old friends turn into ghosts for all sorts of reasons. I’ve not been shy to challenge the beliefs of others on social media or anywhere else in life.
During my time at a conservative church whose beliefs align with the evangelical political movement now dominating culture in America, I did not sit quietly when people opposed evolution, pronounced gay people irredeemable sinners, or barked about abortion while opposing access to birth control.
Ultimately we left that church because while the people were nice on the surface, the ideology behind the synod was intolerant and dogmatic to the point of being hateful. Sometimes in life it pays to use your feet, move on, and embrace a more rational and loving worldview. It will take exceptional fortitude in the present and near future to hold to those principles, especially in the face of a regime whose every move points toward tragedy for someone.
Ignorance and confidence
For one, I will not stand down even in the face of religious friends claiming this is all an act of God. As Mark Twain once said, “In politics and religion, most people’s opinions are gotten secondhand, and unexamined.” He’s absolutely correct on that, but he was also correct in saying, “All it takes is ignorance and confidence, and success is sure.”
That describes life on social media, for sure. And if people persist in being ignorantly confident in their treasured opinions, I have no regrets jettisoning them from my orbit. They’re clearly not going to change even when confronted with the facts. In fact they fear them so much they typically exit the picture when presented with them. In either case, it is both a lost cause but not much of a loss. Your life will go on without them. That much I have learned many times over. The fine art of leaving old friends behind is that sometimes it is the right thing to do.
Yesterday’s news was dominated by the fact that the State of Florida broke the record for the most cases of Coronavirus in a single day. That outcome was the result of hundreds of thousands of people flooding back to beaches and crowding into other public places.
The pent up desire to break from protection measures related to the disease is responsible for much of the pandemic’s spread in Florida. People desperately want to get back to “normal” after a spring and early summer spent in austerity from Shelter At Home orders and a closed down economy.
There is also the move to resist wearing masks, the suggested method by which to prevent such rapid spread of the disease. But a significant segment of the population seems to be convinced that masks are both unnecessary and a symptom of government overreach. Proponents of that attitude refer to people wearing masks as “sheeple,” an insult intended to convey the idea that mask-wearers are unthinking denizens of a socialistic society.
Simple protection
A mask is a simple enough device. It’s a partial face covering to prevent potentially infected droplets of moisture from reaching other people. It’s also a way to help protect said droplets from reaching your own nose and mouth.
Wearing a face mask is not much different than wearing a bike helmet while cycling. The chances of having a crash may be slim, but in the event that you do get in an accident, bike helmets offer a measure of protection. They are not a perfect device in any way, but anyone that has crashed and bonked their head on the ground with a bike helmet on can testify, they do help. They can even save your life.
Athletes quite commonly take other protective measures during training and competition. The application of sun screen is highly recommended to block the harmful rays of the skin. That reduces the risk of skin cancer, a disease that can also kill you.
Healthy competition
When it comes to diet and nutrition, athletes at all levels learn that eating certain foods can help maintain a healthy body weight, prevent problems such as heart disease and diabetes, and fuel the ability to engage in endurance sports that build muscle, strengthen the heart and lungs and reduce ambient stress.
Yet healthy competition also introduces a type of stress that can strengthen the mind for other challenges in life. Competition helps people learn to manage their emotions. That’s a helpful tool in other aspects of life.
Engaging in all these types of preparation and prevention is an integral part of being an athlete in many sports. Even professional golfers in the last ten to fifteen years have transformed their bodies to perform better on the course. They have learned that playing at a higher caliber requires some sacrifice and training to sustain the rigors of a long season.
Refusal to sacrifice
By contrast, it appears that much of America is disgusted with the idea of having to sacrifice anything about their lifestyle in order to enjoy the supposed freedoms of life in this country. Anti-maskers call the obligation of wearing a mask an infringement on their personal freedoms. Meanwhile plain old irresponsible citizens of many ages have been happy to pour into bars and other public places and gorge themselves on the fat of the land without masks or other expressions of concern for the health of others. Unfortunately, that has led to repeated spikes in all kinds of situations; urban, suburban and rural.
The propensity to engage in appetite indulgence is perhaps no surprise in a country known for its massive rate of overconsumption and obesity. The Center for Disease Control reports that “from 1999-2000 through 2017-2018, the prevalence of obesity increased from 30.%” to 42.4%, and the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.”
These statistics tell us that there are a significant number of people out there who do not care about their health and who refuse to change their lifestyle to do anything about it. It also happens to be true that the segment of population affected by obesity are also those at greater risk of associated problems such as heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. These are the people at greatest risk of dire consequences from contracting Covid-19. That begs the question: Are the same people that refuse to take care of themselves in terms of body weight the same people protesting that wearing a mask is an infringement on their personal liberties?
Recently an ardent statistical Redditor produced a study that took a look at that potential correlation. And while it is not exact, it is a compelling perspective.
Obesity rates and Trump Approval Ratings
It is colloquially interesting that the percentage of those with obesity in America (40%) matches almost precisely with the average popularity rating of the current President of the United States of America (also 40%) who also happens to be obese, hates to exercise and claims that exertion can shorten one’s lifespan.
It is no mistake that these factors align so closely.
But there’s more. That 40% figure also generally lines up with the number of people in America whose biblically-literal worldview supports belief in creationism, the anti-science, anti-intellectual take on religion that denies fact in favor of ideology.
This isn’t about ‘fat-shaming or religious persecution or even political rivalry. This is about challenging ideas and habit that endanger the lives of others, and holding people accountable for the actions they take, or don’t take, in that regard.
A stubborn mindset
These aren’t precise alignments of course. But they are related indicators of a mindset that could lead one to refuse to wear a mask, or avoid exercise, or gather in crowded bars or on beaches out of stubborn refusal to believe that Coronavirus is a threat, or those who believe that it isn’t even real.
That outlook is a genuine risk to human health. So this is about dealing with reality in good conscience and consideration for others. When the habits or belief systems of people dominating the culture dialect are causing others to get sick and die, we have every right to challenge them.
Wishful thinking
That brings us back to what athletes can teach the world about survival in a pandemic. There is nothing about participating in endurance sports that allows one to persist in the wish that something were true when it isn’t. Every workout is an exercise in profound reality. When an athlete goes out and runs ten miles, no amount of wishful thinking makes them go faster. One either works through the pain to make the gain, or gives up.
The same goes for cycling or swimming. The clock is empiric, and one only improves by putting in the preparation and work to improve.
Sacrifices to be made
That empiric reality includes all the things surrounding the effort as well. There are sacrifices to be made. Early mornings to face. Hot days. Cold, freezing weather. Giving up alcohol or sweets. All to focus on a health approach to performance, and to life.
Those willing to make such sacrifices are not “sheep” in the derogatory sense of the word. They are honest, hard-working people who care enough to take care of themselves. It should also be noted that a community of athletes is often grandly supportive of one another. That’s what being on a “team” is all about. Doing your best and encouraging others is the entire purpose of having a team in the first place.
Even ardent competitors hug after races because they know their rivals push them to go farther and faster. That is the nature of healthy competition.
So much “winning”
But some people claim that denigrating the efforts of those who make sacrifices is the real focus of “winning.” When the President of the United States ridicules a Senator who once suffered through years of torture as a prisoner of war by saying, “I prefer the ones who didn’t get captured,” there is something radically wrong and out of whack with the values system of those who support him. That same President also hid or ignored the fact that Russia has been offering bounties on the lives of our soldiers. He also sold our our Kurdish allies by removing our troops to allow Syrian forces to move in and slaughter them. Clearly he is not on the same “team” as the rest of our military or our allies. Yet he’s our designated Commander In Chief. This is a devastating problem, and it all hearkens back to selfish motivations and blaming others for the problems he creates on his own.
That is the worse kind of team member to have “on your side.” We’ve all dealt with such selfish individuals, who want all the glory yet make none of the required sacrifices. We want nothing more than to be quietly rid of their influence. They ruin the team, poison the locker room atmosphere and drag other people down with them.
And it is that same President who wants America to send its children back to school despite cases of Coronavirus soaring all across the country. His cynical Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos lamely claims that children are less susceptible to the disease. “There’s nothing in the data that suggests that kids being in school is in any way dangerous.” Yet even the data she cited would lead to perhaps 15,000 kids dying, an untold numbers of teachers, staff and administrators being put at risk of contracting the disease.
But what should we expect. Much of her wealth was gained through a company whose business model depends on exploiting people from a top-down perspective in a network-marketing scheme.
Sacrificing lives
In other words, the view of “winning” from the perspective of Trump and DeVos is to have people sacrifice their lives in order to give the appearance that everything is going according to their ideological plans. This is the opposite of winning in every respect of the word. It also encourages people already compromised by lack of concern for their own health to put the lives of others at risk. These are the anti-maskers, the stiff-necked religious zealots and the bloated worshippers of Trump that are literally killing America in every sense of the word.
Ridding the world of pet fantasies
A true patriot learns to sacrifice for the good of the nation. America could learn a few things from athletes in that regard. Giving up pleasures and indulgences and even pet fantasies of how to win is a crucial aspect of being both an athlete and a grownup in this world.
There is a sorry lack of both in America right now. The world recognizes it. Americans are banned from traveling to almost every country in the world because our fat-ass, disease-denying, golfing lard bowl of a President thinks he knows better than the rest of the world how to survive a pandemic.
And we’re losing that fight. Life by life, we’re losing it.
Chris Johnson winning a 5k trail/cross country race with 850 entrants, placing 43rd overall and beating all men over 55.
I’ve known the runner in that photo since approximately 1983. That’s when we both were racing consistently on the Chicago area runner’s circuit. On many a weekend in all sorts of seasons, we’d step to the line together and give each other a knowing nod.
Chris has run nearly 80,000 miles in his career, often winning age group categories at distances from the 5K all the way up to the marathon, where his travels often took him out Kansas way.
He’s also an astute observer of nature, and once in a while we’ll cross paths while running or cycling and we’ll stop to share some rare or interesting bird we’ve seen. But Chris also knows plants well, and he’s good at sharing which species are blooming with particular verve in spring and summer.
And obviously, if one feels the urge to “go” yet forgets to bring along toilet paper, it helps to know the local flora well enough to avoid wiping with something that can harm your hinterparts, or more.
Chris happens to be quite educated on the plant world. He caught up with me last Saturday during a run and explained that I’d missed a few good options among plants suitable for ass-wiping. Chris ass-ured me these are unisex alternatives.
This is burdock. It has big ass leaves as you can see. Their texture tends to be smooth, for the most part. That avoids the scratchy feeling that can give you the creeps. Plus you can see pretty well whether there are bugs on the leaves, which I’m sure you’d rather avoid.
As Chris noted on the photo above, “Common Burdock, which comes in two nearly identical varieties, is my first choice for body wiping. Slightly astringent and with a pleasant odor it is slightly rough to the touch. Burdock is especially good for wiping dirty and grimy hands.”
Here’s a photo of a single burdock leaf.
A single burdock leaf. Nature’s own toilet paper.
Chris also notes that Wild Grape has beneficial qualities for ass-wiping.
While beautiful in shape, wild grape leaves are also wide enough to avoid behind the back accidents.
Chris notes: Wild Grape leaves, or River Grape as it is known in our area, are a good choice for wiping or wrapping human skin. The grapes themselves have a very large seed and are barely worth the effort to eat. Here’s a closer look at the leaves.
The best thing about wild grape leaves is they are plentiful on the vine and thus easily accessible.
Wild lettuces are also an excellent source of ass wipeage material. Look at the height on that thing! You could toss a salad with that!
It doesn’t look that wild, but lettuce like this does appear in the woods.
Chris explains: “Among the many varieties of wild lettuces in our area Tall White Lettuce is a majestic plant growing up to eight feet tall. Take that Iceberg, Romaine, and Swiss Chard! While the leaves of this plant are bitter to the taste it can be used safely for wiping bloody scrapes, wrapping your onions and wild leeks, or for pit stop clean ups. Plants to be avoided for pit stops include poison ivy, poke weed, and everything in the milkweed family.
This is a form of milkweed. Monarch butterflies like to lay their eggs on it, so please don’t pluck the leaves and wipe your ass. Plus there is a sticky sap that looks like milk and sticks like Gorilla glue. Be warned.
To that last warning I can testify. Wiping with milkweed leaves a sticky residue on your buttocks. If left untended, that could permanently (not really) seal your butt cheeks together. Best avoid that problem. Here’s another wild lettuce picture to remind you of a much better alternative.
Look at those ridges! Perfect for handling poop of any texture.
So there you have it. An Encyclopedia of Ass-Wiping Plants. Chris even provided the proper Latin names in his emails. If you want those for scientific reference and corroboration, you’ll have to write me a request. I was too lazy to copy and paste them all here.
Yes, Chris Johnson and I have covered some miles and years together. That’s why we’re both so great at sharing information like this for all of you. May you have merry trails ahead of you, but it you have to take a dump, may you find these plants readily available. You’re welcome.
For the last four days a trio of sandhill cranes has been hanging out in our backyard. They are large birds equipped with a bill designed for a multitude of food options. The red on their forehead is distinctive, and within the species we often see gray birds and rust-colored birds.
A sandhill crane showing the distinctive rust colored plumage gained by preening with mud.
The reason for the difference in color within the species is the result of an interesting habit.
As a description accompanying a photo on the StarJournal.com, “A sandhill crane was strutting through a field in the Crescent Flats recently. This is a great example of how drastically these birds can literally change the color of their plumage. The reason for the change in color is that sandhill cranes preen themselves by rubbing mud on their feathers. The mud can be either brown or red but is usually red up here in the north. We have lots of iron rich soils in this region. The feathers soak up the mud’s color just like a sponge and it lasts for a long time. It is believed that the birds do this to camouflage themselves during the nesting season. As the summer goes by, the rusty red color eventually wears off and the bird turns back into it’s normal gray color.
Here’s my own photo showing a closeup of the bird’s rust-colored plumage.
These birds have exceptional eyesight, a product of their evolutionary need to watch for predators and find food. From our backyard, they study us carefully when we move around inside the house. For the most part, they recognize that we are not a threat unless some sudden movement startles them.
As you can see, their heads and necks are not rust-colored, because that long bill used to preen their other feathers cannot turn around and preen the head. Yet that distinctive red patch of feathers on their head is a distinctive field mark.
Like many species of cranes around the world, sandhills spend summers in northern climes and head south to escape snow and ice. Yet many linger on the edge of that climatic differential as long as they can find food.
For now, these birds are happy to nibble on seed at our bird feeder.
One of the fascinating behaviors of sandhill cranes is their bonding rituals. They will dance around each other in graceful ground flights, raising their wings and chasing across the ground. I captured a short video last night and did a screen capture to show one of the cranes racing across the grass.
Dancing with the cranes
That was an invitation that I could not resist. A little while later, I walked out on the lawn and began flapping my arms, dipping my head and acting like a crane. They did not run away.
My wife stood back at the house watching my displays. She’s as fascinated by these birds as I am. They’re not particularly afraid of human beings, but will move off when a person walks by with a dog. But last night a cyclist came rolling around the path where they stood preening themselves and all they did was trot aside.
All this still feels unusual to me. Forty years ago when I was birding the marshes near the place where I now live, it was a rare sight to find a sandhill crane. There were few breeding pairs in Kane County. Now there are dozens, each raising one or two young a year.
Spring Migration
In spring we hear them migrating north in March. Long ago, that was a rare treat. While out running, I’d hear their calls in the distance and stop to stare at their vee-shaped flocks approaching from the south.
One spring day a massive group of 400 birds came streaming overhead as my brother and I were out in the street playing catch with a baseball. The noise they made as they flew overhead was tremendous. Their calls are a richly guttaral sound forged over ten million years of evolution. To hear that sound is to be in touch with the origins of life itself. To dance with the cranes is a gift indeed.
Fall migration
Come fall, the flocks grow large again as the birds head south for the winter months. Usually it is in early November that they come through Illinois in great numbers. Typically they arrive at mid-day on the strength of some favorable wind. Their calls fall out of the cool, clear autumn sky or get carried across the landscape by brisk winter winds on gray November days. There is an urgency to their voices on those days.
All these natural facts align with my own sense of seasons. We run and ride through winter, spring, summer and fall. We sense the rhythms of time and opportunity. While we may not migrate, we do move with the seasons.
Kinship
It is summer now, and I will keep trying to dance with the cranes. They seem to sense a kinship of some sort, or else think I’m plain nuts trying to dance them into action. At any rate, the effort makes me happy. The cranes don’t seem that offended, even if my wings appear stubby and bare. Perhaps it is my forehead, naked and red with summer sweat, that makes them wonder if I am the real thing.
But don’t you love the hairstyle on this crane? I’m envious.
Migration Marathon, Illustration by Christopher Cudworth
Following an epic countryside ride in which I joined up with much younger cyclists to whip across the Illinois landscape, I was feeling frisky and proud. I got back home and wanted to take a photo for Instagram with my fluorescent cycling combo of bright yellow shoes, helmet, shirt, socks and an all-new yellow headsweat with pirate tails tied behind the head. Yeah, baby!
So I parked the bike by the garage door, set up the iPhone on Timer for three seconds, and stepped back to pose for the photo.
That first step turned into a grandiose fall––and an instant Instagram fail. My feet both flew out from under me and I wound up landing on my right backside in a saving roll. But that required pushing my body to the side with my left hand, which happened to be holding a set of Under Armor sunglasses that I’d picked up for $19 at our local Sierra Trading Post a few months back. Such a deal. But no more.
I wasn’t hurt, and did not lay there long, only a second or two. I saw the glasses were broken in two, right at the nose piece. I picked them up and considered whether it would be worth gluing them back together, but that never works. For all the claims made by the glue companies, they always break again.
What ran through my mind was gratitude that nothing else was broken. Not a wrist or a collar bone. A hip or a bike helmet. I’ve known people that have busted some of those things simply by reaching down to adjust some part of their bike when their cleats slipped on the surface and down they went. It doesn’t matter what age you are or how well you handle a bike, stuff like this happens to just about everybody that rides a bike.
Even Chris Froome crashed into a wall during a training ride in the Tour de France. Busted his leg badly. It took him months to recover.
So while I wound up on my ass on a bright summer morning, that’s the least of my worries in this world right now. As it turned out, that photo was too good not to share. The fact that it was exactly three seconds into the grandiose fail is actually remarkable. The expression on my face…is part laughter and part anguish.
You really can’t trust cycling shoes on any surface. They’re meant for one thing, and it isn’t walking. Next time I try to take a selfie, it might pay to remember that.
Hopefully, and I mean this quite sincerely, that moment was the worst I’ll face this year. In summers past, I’ve had my share of weird moments, sudden crashes and bursts of inattention that led to other calamities. The price of being a distracted creative, I suppose.
I’ll leave you with the chagrined aftereffect of the photo taken following the ass crash. Do I look humbled enough for you? I hope so. I don’t want to have to do this all over again. But doesn’t my kit look great?
This morning we drove to Crystal Lake for an Open Water swim. It felt great to get into the water. Unfortunately, my Garmin watch seems to think I can swim on land as well as in the lake. It went a little crazy tracking my distance this morning.
As you can see, at several points along the swim route, even though I freestyled by sighting from buoy to buoy, the Garmin thinks I swam onto Lake Avenue at several points.
Crazy Garmin
I swam for 40:00 and it credited me with a pace of 1:28 per hundred. Never in my life have a swum that fast. Sadly I’d been encouraged during the swim that I was clipping along at 1:42 per 100 pace. Even that would have been super fast for me.
In truth, I probably swam about 1600 meters, just as I did a few weeks ago when my goggles fogged up and I couldn’t sight for the life of me. I wandered all over the place and I was so embarrassed by the potential look of that swim route that I didn’t even save it. I didn’t want anyone to see how badly I’d swerved around.
Goggles on
Like most swimmers, I wear goggles every time I’m in the water. It’s what you do to be able to see clear and just as importantly, protect your eyes from either chlorine or contaminants found in lake or river water. You put goggles on because it is the safe, practical and smart thing to do.
There’s no guarantee the goggles won’t leak a bit if you don’t fit them right. And without a shot of anti-fog on them, it is surely possible for swim goggles to fog up and become a problem. Nothing in this world is perfect when it comes to protection.
Masks on
Which brings us to the topic of wearing face masks to protect ourselves and others from the spread of Coronavirus. Right now the infection rates are peaking all across the country. States like Illinois that imposed Stay At Home orders and have opened up in stages are remaining relatively stable. But states like Texas, Arizona and Florida, where governors at first refused to issue orders requiring people to wear masks are seeing huge spikes in their infection rates.
Too much, too soon
Some states like Wisconsin impetuously flung open the doors of bars and restaurants, but within days saw Covid-19 cases rise like an overheated thermometer. In some of those states, including California where Shelter In Place orders worked for weeks, the cases of Coronavirus and Covid-19 have risen again as people rush back to “normal” activities.
To make matters much worse, there is a movement afoot in America that resists wearing masks at all. Anti-Maskers claim their liberties are being infringed upon by government directives to wear masks in public.
Which seems stupid. Wearing a mask to protect yourself from an infectious, airborne disease is the same as wearing swim goggles to protect your eyes when swimming. Sure, you can swim without them, but the impact on your eyes can be quite deleterious, especially out in saltwater.
The Salty Water of Covid-19
When it comes to social conditions in America right now, we’re in extremely salty water when it comes to protecting our lungs and bodies from Covid-19 infection. All the government is asking people to do to protect themselves and others is to wear a mask in places where the “salt of the earth,” that’s other people, come in contact with each other.
The rest of the time people can do what the hell they want. You don’t need to wear a mask while driving around. It’s not even necessary in the parking lot of a grocery store, or sitting around in your backyard with people you know. The risks are only increased when you go swimming in the Public Sea of People that is America.
A spoiled and selfish populace
But too many Americans are acting like spoiled little brats when it comes to considerate living. They’ve banded together to whine and complain that being “forced” to wear a mask is a sign of tyranny by the government, or is unconstitutional. Such selfish, pathetic tactics of assuming victimhood to make some noxious claim of independence is not American in any sense of the word.
How do people even get this confused?
The interesting thing about the Anti-Maskers is that their perverse cogitations have unmasked the twisted notion of how they view freedom itself. It is likely that these people wearing tyranny masks are some of the same people Trumpeting the famous line that “freedom is not free” when referring to the sacrifices of our military in defending the nation. Our military has to wear all kinds of gear in all kinds of conditions. We don’t hear them whining to the public about their obligations, do we? Only when the equipment is insufficient do we hear our soldiers voice objections.
Lack of protection = blown up humvees
Such was the case during the last invasion of Iraq, when scrap metal had to be slapped on the bottom of Humvees. Then we did hear voices from the soldiers on the front, because their lives were at great risk from having underprotected equipment.
And what did Donald Rumsfeld tell them in reply? “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
Where were all the concerned conservative voices when that cynical statement was made and that major debacle unfolded? Not a word was heard from the Right about any of that. They put their heads down and pretended that it never happened.
And now, when it comes to something as simple and easy as wearing a mask in public to protect against the spread of Coronavirus infection, these fake-ass patriots won’t do a single thing to protect their fellow citizens. They’re a massive pack of hypocrites, the Anti-Maskers. And now the truth about them is yet again unmasked.
Tyranny my ass
Some of the most vocal idiots have shown up at public meetings to spout conspiracy theories and repeat the same verbal detritus they read on the Internet.
In many many cases, their faces contort into masks of anger and imagined fears.
Their hero on the Anti-Masking front is none other than President Donald Trump, who refuses to wear a mask at all. But in truth, he never really goes out in public without that mask of orange makeup and a massive combover to hide insecurities about his complexion and his age. He’s the Clown King to all these Anti-Maskers.
That’s who the spoiled populace in America worships, a fraud, and by no coincidence, their behavior is equally, fraudulently, unpatriotic. Wear the mask, you stubborn and stupid people. We can see who you really are with or without one.
There are so many things we fail to notice in this world. Some of this negligence is the product of being adults. Our minds are so consumed by things to do that we cease to pay attention to the diversity of life all around us. We grow numb to the passing hours. Even days slide by. Sometimes, years. All because we miss the simple shape of a swallow on a wire.
Those of us who run and ride and swim have more opportunities than most to avoid such ambivalence. Now that the pandemic has encouraged (forced?) more people to get outside and exercise, many are finding good reasons to continue.
Mostly people go outside to keep sane and stay healthy. That contact with nature rather than each other may be keeping us all safer while changing human minds and bodies. Fresh air helps. But so does getting a little dirty.
Nature speaks to us
I once gave a series of talks titled Nature: The Ultimate Stress Reliever, whose main point was I’m now finishing up writing a book titled Nature Is My Country Club. The point of both is that the world is waiting for us. Nature speaks to us if we watch and listen. We simply need to get out and encounter it.
A place to escape
That doesn’t mean all is peaceful and serene in the natural world. A swallow on a wire seems peaceful enough. Yet they are also caught up in the swirling winds of survival. They need to eat. To breed. To move. To migrate. Summer is no less consumed with flying about as any other season. They are like us in many ways. The point isn’t that we’re missing some kind of peaceful sphere of existence by ignoring nature. It’s that the drama we already have running through our heads needs a place to escape. As every rider on a bike knows, there is nothing like hammering the pedals to let off some steam. As every runner also knows, anger and frustration melt away under the miles. And as every swimmer knows, the water washes away your immediate concerns.
Dispositions
I was driving on a country road this week when the sound of an angry kingbird caught my attention. The bird was swooping and diving at a red-tailed hawk perched on a telephone pole. (Do we still call it that?) Back and forth and up and down the kingbird went. The hawk seemed unperturbed. What an example of stolid disposition.
It’s funny how a simple scene like that can make you stop thinking about a lot of other things in life and go “Huh, that was interesting.”
When I ride my bike far west on country roads, it is the little things that start to stand out. The thin song of a meadowlark far out in a field. The tarsnakes twisting along the tarmac. The songs of chorus frogs in spring give way to grasshoppers in summer, then crickets and katydids. Suddenly it is fall again and the days grow shorter. Those rides flirt with darkness. A few blowing leaves mark the arrival of autumn.
Then come snow snakes in winter. The whirr of mountain bike tires and frost on your sunglass lenses. Nature keeps asking us questions. Begging our attention. Nothing works better to make us feel more alive.
If you’re not already taking in what nature has to offer, you should try it sometime. Being more alive is a ton more fun.
I did the unthinkable today. I wore shorts that exposed the white skin on my upper thighs.
It didn’t used to work this way. As a young runner, back when running short fashions were high, my legs were tan from toes to crotch. But with fashion changes came more modest casual clothing, and thighs are now largely hidden. It has also turned out that cycling shorts now nearly reach the knees. So my tan lines stop about eight inches above the bend in my legs.
Unfortunately, that leaves a section of white man thigh exposed when I wear the lone pair of New Balance running shorts that I own. Granted, my lack of tan on the upper thighs isn’t as obvious as that sported by women runners switching from running shorts to competitive bun huggers.
But the world is still a bit hypocritical about the social acceptability of exposed tan lines among men and women. I just watched a Disney show about Olympians in Greece, and the male athletes competed naked. Guys were considered the height of beauty along with women. So we’re still working on closing the gap on tan lines in the modern age. How far we haven’t come?
Hot choices
But it was hot this morning, and humid, so I wore my shortest shorts and arrived at the Great Western Trailhead at 7:30. That’s right when most of the high school kids were heading home from their summer workouts. So I felt fairly safe that packs of high school girls would not be forced to avert their eyes at the sight of my white thighs.
And I was correct. Recreational traffic on the trail was fairly light. And yet…
One still gets the feeling that people just don’t want to see white man thigh. So I purposely avoided eye contact during my, except to wave hello to the people I already knew.
Country roads
So on the norm, I’ll go back to more modest shorts such runs, and save my short shorts for lonely country roads where it is unlikely to offend creatures such as the thirteen-lined ground squirrel. I do hate to scandalize thirty-something moms pushing strollers or mid-forties guys doing their morning 10k. EXCUSE my glaringly white thigh muscles please.
Real scandal
But I also figure…that if this is the worst way I scandalize the world when America’s soldiers are being bounty hunted and the President does nothing, and the number of Coronavirus cases continues to expand, and the President does nothing, and selfish zealots refuse to wear masks in a fit of political spite, then I’ve got nothing to worry about. My scandal will pass. The lives of people lost to greater scandals than mine are what I’m truly concerned about.
We Run and Ride 