Even the losers get lucky sometimes

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Thomas Earl Petty was born Oct. 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Fla., the first child of Earl and Katherine “Kitty” Petty. Petty had a difficult relationship with his father, and cited a particularly brutal beating he received at age 5 that stayed with him for life.

TomPetty.jpg

Sometimes there are parallels with people in life that do not become evident for years. As I read the LA Times obituary for Tom Petty the above paragraph featuring the words about a difficult relationship with his father jumped out from the page. The pathos that seeped through many of the songs written by Tom Petty had to come from somewhere. You can’t write and sing about pain if you haven’t experienced it. Without direct experience, the sorrow does not feel genuine.

So I can relate to the story of Tom Petty’s difficult relationship with his father. My own dad had an angry streak that could burst forth in sometimes violent ways. It happened most often when his four boys didn’t listen or caused him some sort of angst. Then the fury would come out. I’m not saying that my father’s anger was not sometimes deserved. But it still had its scarring effects.

When I was six years old, my father took a belt to both of my brothers in the kitchen of our Pennsylvania house. The experience of watching my brothers get beaten traumatized me. I now know the effects of that experience affected me for years to come, even decades later. In my late 20s I awoke pounding the pillow with my fist. Then I knew I had to get help and figure out a way to heal. And through faith and counseling and forgiveness, that did come about.

Forgiveness and insight

I learned to forgive my father. His demeanor eventually mellowed, but perhaps the pain never really disappeared in his own life. He’d lost his mother to the side effects from breast cancer surgery when he was only seven years old. That tragic event upended his life, sent him into the care of some spinster aunts and a rough old uncle and left my father with unhealed scars when his own dad was institutionalized for depression during the height of the Depression.

Chris at PlainfieldIt took years to figure all this out because information about my father’s upbringing only trickled in over time. Snatches of conversation with his sisters filled in some of the blanks. But we didn’t live close to my aunts, so our visits were often pinched and brief.

Sometimes the real picture of my father came out in unexpected ways.  I recall the year when my by-then-stroke-ridden father wanted to travel east to visit his sisters. He’d mapped it all out on a piece of paper that he handed to me. I did not know if he’d somehow had contact with them by mail or such, because he could still write a little bit, so I called them to confirm his intended dates of arrival.

“What?” my Aunt Helen replied. “We didn’t know a thing about this. But that’s just like your father. He never warned any of us when he was coming over or wanted to do something.”

Just showing up

Indeed, my dad was always one to show up unannounced at my house on Saturday mornings. He’d be drifting around going to garage sales (long before he had his stroke) and would pop in with a big “HELLO!” . That assumptive nature drove my late wife crazy. “Can’t he just call ahead?” she’d complain.

And, of course, there’s a certain amount of your father that you can’t help absorb, and that is me too. So I had a slight penchant to do the same, but learned quickly that people appreciate a little warning if you plan on dropping in for a visit.

Need for approval

So it was a hot and cold relationship with my own dad, and that powered a need for approval that was a mile wide and quite deep. I sought that approval from mentors and friends and strangers in life. And when I found running in my early teens that proved a source of approval as well.

When I ran well, I felt good about myself. That was true in the moment, and true in the outcomes. In those middle teen years I was the best runner in school, and did fairly well in college. That running persona became a critical part of who I literally was. “Hi, I’m Chris Cudworth. I’m a runner.”

Reality bites

Chris Running 1978Out of college the world at first didn’t seem to care so much that I ran. But then the big running boom came along and prolonged the validity of running as a way of life. So I ran full-time for a couple years trying to become something that I didn’t really have the talent to be, national class, but felt that there was one chance in life to find out how good you really could be. And I did earn the top runner category in the Chicago Area Running Association 20-24 age group, which was no small thing in those days. And over a three-year period, I won plenty of races including 12 out of 24 in a single year. I set all my running PRs and learned where my limits lie. That meant there would be nothing to prove as a runner when I was 40, or 50 or 60.

And when that timeframe was done, I’ll admit it all felt self-indulgent to a degree.

But my own mother disagreed. It was time for some reality bites. “I think you did the right thing,” she told me. “You burned brightly.”

Mom had also consoled me somewhat through the year that it had taken me to heal from a breakup with a college girlfriend that I’d really loved. When I finally told her, “Well, I think I’m finally over her, ” she turned to me and said, “Well, I’m glad you didn’t marry her. She was a bitch anyway.”

I was stunned to hear my mother use that language. “Why didn’t you tell me when I was dating her?”

“Well, you were in love,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Damn something anyway

I’d listened to a lot of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in that year it took to get over that girl. The album Damn the Torpedoes had come out around that time and along with Bruce Springsteen’s The River, the alternately heartachey songs and joyfully raised musical middle fingers on those albums helped me learn to adapt to the rest of the world. Honestly, that’s what music is supposed to do.

But to this day, the lyrics to Petty’s song Even the Losers resonate so true.

Two cars parked on the overpass
Rocks hit the water like broken glass
Should have known right then it was too good to last
Life is such a drag when you’re living in the past

Baby even the losers
Get lucky sometimes
Even the losers
Keep a little bit of pride
They get lucky sometimes

It was true. I’ve won some races in life and lost some too. And through it all I kept a little bit of pride and got lucky sometimes.

Thank you, Tom Petty, for giving us all the gift of your insight on pain and love.

You made the world a better place. 

The following passage is an excerpt from the LA Times story on the passing of Tom Petty. Worth a read for its inspirational value. The quote comes from a few weeks ago. I’ve also been listening to Tom’s Sirius XM program for the last year as he plays tunes he particularly likes. His commentary was always so insightful, and real.  

“The thing about the Heartbreakers is: It’s still holy to me,” Petty said. “There’s a holiness there. If that were to go away, I don’t think I would be interested in it, and I don’t think they would be. We’re a real rock ’n’ roll band — always have been. And to us, in the era we came up in, it was a religion in a way. It was more than commerce — it wasn’t about that.

“It was about something much greater: It was about moving people, and changing the world, and I really believed in rock ’n’ roll. I still do. I believed in it in its purest sense, its purest form. And I watched it commit suicide; I watched it really kill itself over money. That was painful, and I saw that coming, a long time before it happened. I wasn’t surprised in the least. I could see what they were doing wrong.

“But I think we still feel we’re on a mission for good. I’m so touched by … this year has been a wonderful year for us,” he said, adding with a laugh, “This has been that big slap on the back we never got. And it’s really felt good.”

Posted in 10K, 13.1, Christopher Cudworth, competition, cross country, running | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ironman Duty

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Around the world there are people for whom Ironman training is a full-time occupation. Obviously they possess certain gifts of endurance and focus. As athletes we might be a tad envious of them. But truly, despite their triathlon prowess, they have to suffer like the rest of us.

Surely the lure of a glamorous Kona podium finish is supreme motivation. But we mustn’t forget that those who aren’t world class still have legitimate motivations. Even finishing an Ironman is, for some athletes, the height of an athletic career.

The cliche of all cliches about endurance sports goes like this; “Well if it was easy, everyone would do it.”

Crosswinds and headwinds

Which is how we found ourselves out on the open landscape fighting crosswinds all alone on a Sunday in October. Sue’s race is two weeks from and the welcome taper lurks. But there were still 100, then 80, then 60, then 40 and finally 20 last miles to cover. Then a brick to follow. She did it all despite conditions that were far from welcoming.

It all came on the heels of a great little 13-miler on Saturday in which she actually had to slow down to keep on race pace. “I see what he’s done,” she said of her coach’s advice.

That’s the principle behind all intense training. Do it hard enough and the racing will come as part of the progression, a product of having done the hard work before you ever get there.

Interstate training

90 miler

So she and I set out with the wind behind our backs in the Pumpkin Pie Ride, a sponsored cycling venture out in the fields around Ottawa, Illinois. The course crossed Interstate 80 so many times it became a joke. And for a while, we thought there were no hills in central Illinois until we dipped down into a river basin and back up again.

We’ve ridden that event four years or so, and each time the weather conditions have been different. That’s something you’d expect in early October, so it’s no shock. But at least yesterday turned about partly sunny if a little cool at the start.

Through forty miles we rode together, and I was in shock that I felt so good. Saturday had been an on-off pas de deux with the flu. My stepdaughter had it all week and a trace of it reached me in that way only the flu can accomplish. So it was touch and go as to whether I would ride on Sunday at all. You know the drill: a seemingly soggy gut with a slightly head-achey feeling all day.

Cursing the world

Two years prior I had a similar sensation the morning of the Pumpkin Pie Ride and it turned into a merciless slog. My legs were dead and all I wanted was to be done. I’d lost my temper out there a few times and was cursing the entire world. When we finally got home I dropped Sue at her house and drove home eager to get into bed. Then I pushed the button for the garage door opener and pulled into the garage with my Felt bike still on the rooftop carrier.

Not a good day. But I wasn’t thinking about that much, I was so relieved and happy to be feeling good. In fact I was entertaining the idea of riding the whole way with Sue rather than turn back for the 65 mile course.

Communication counts

Well, the way things worked out, I should have at least communicated more. Because I meant to go back but made the mistake of following the wrong set of colored markers. Thus I wound up riding a 25-mile loop on top of the 45-miles we’d already covered. Somewhere along the way I stopped and looked at the map on the phone and went, “Huh, I screwed up.”

But I was riding like a flying SOB catching people, and I wasn’t going to quit now. One group of three guys hung out there like the breakaway from the peloton. I could see them for several miles and deduced they must be going the same pace that I was. So I dialed it up and finally pulled even. Etiquette demands that you communicate at that point. So I had a short chat right before a road turn and then went off the front. I was a peloton of one.

Ironman Duty

Meanwhile Sue was likely doing the same route, only slightly behind me. I’d left before she did from the rest stop, and we were riding essentially the same pace the entire day. So I arrived back at the rest stop a bit miffed that I’d screwed up but proud, at the same time, that my own mental snafu now required that I ride the last 22 miles back to the YMCA in town.

It was a tough, tough ride going east. The winds were S/SE the entire day, and they were strong. My ears roared and the hard riding I’d done the last 25 miles caught up a little bit. Part of me regretted that I had not just stuck with Sue and maybe done the loop with her. But the fact of real Ironman training is that much of it needs to be done alone. Come race day, you’re all you’ve got. That much I do know.

Grub and ride

So she was out there working her own way through the wind for one more loop while I made the return trip to Ottawa thinking about the fact that I was suffering, to some degree, right along with her.  To make sure that I did not run out of energy, I was grubbing through my foodstocks like a raccoon in a dumpster. And it worked. In fact the last three miles reached some relative shelter and I hit the gas going down the super smooth, newly blacktopped road into town.

But back at the finished I looked at Strava and it said, 88.2. So I hit the RESUME button on Strava and rode back out a mile and back to make it an even 90. Longest ride of the summer. See, in my book, I get a 10% AARP discount for a Senior Century.

That ride was hard for me, but Sue was out completing Ironman Duty. She had another 13 miles to do, plus a four-mile brick at the finish. So I hung out with a coaching friend that had ridden Sunday as well. We grabbed a free beer at Tangled Roots, the Ottawa brewery that gave every entrant a couple coupons. Then Sue texted that she was done with the ride. She was feeling a bit testy after 104 miles in the roaring wind. Every Ironman Sherpa knows that there comes a time when a heavily trained Ironman athlete runs out of patience with the process. You simply can’t do all that swimming, riding and running without getting a bit cranky at some point.

“You okay? How’d it go?” I asked via text.

“Fan Fucking Tastic,” she chortled back. Then she headed out for her four mile run. We finished our beers and met her when she came trotting back. Both of us gave a loud cheer. She raised both arms and flipped us the bird with a big grin on her face.

Party on

Then Sue and I gathered up our stuff and drove northeast to Naperville to attend a send-off party for a triathlon friend that qualified for Kona. There were luau trappings and pizza with pepperoni and pineapple on it. One piece was enough for each of us, and I had one Lite beer as well. It was time to get home.

As we pulled into the driveway, Sue was feeling a bit flu-like. I knew the sensations. “You go on inside and get ready for bed,” I told her. “I’ll take care of the bikes and bring in the gear. ”

That the job of the Sherpa when the athlete is tired. Take care of the stuff the Ironman in training is too tired to do. See, Ironman Duty has a lot of different meanings. All of them count.

 

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Where Playboy converged with reality

Posted on September 29, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

playboylogo.jpgIn the Age of Naked Selfies and hacked celebrity smartphones, it is hard to recall the time when nudity was dispensational, handed out like wafers at a Catholic communion ceremony. For a while, that right was owned by the likes of Playboy and the skin magazines that evolved from it. Penthouse came later. Then Hustler. There were obviously others.

My dad kept his Playboys up on a shelf in his closet. I’d sneak them down and pore through the nude photos. Mostly I wanted to know what women were really about. How did their breasts work underneath those clothes, inside those bras. I was utterly fascinated by all of that.

As a budding artist, I’d take tracing paper and place it over those photos to copy the lines of those women’s bodies. Somehow the act of making those drawings was as great a turn-on for me as looking at the photos on their own. Perhaps it was my way of owning those images, of bringing them into my head.

Then I began to copy the photos in real drawings. Some of these took hours to execute. I’d set the centerfold out on the table and make elaborately detailed pencil drawings of those women. Sometimes I’d have to scramble and put the sketchpad and magazine away if a family member was headed toward my room. I still have a few of those drawings from my early teens. In many ways they were lovingly executed.

I know a woman who modeled for Playboy lingerie editions. It’s a funny thing, but I don’t think about her naked when we meet. She’s smart, funny and behaves like a sister with me. She’s also an extremely talented artist. Her life has been full of challenges that most people can’t imagine, but her having posed nude in her youth has nothing to do with them.

Her modeling career was not that long ago, but things have massively changed since she posed before the Playboy cameras. Now there are women and men who take their own photos and post them on Reddit or other Internet sites. Some of these people have thousands of followers. Some do it for money. Some do it for self-esteem. Some do it because they’re bored, or horny, or drunk, or all of the above.

1960playboy-magazine.jpgSome credit for these freedoms must come from Playboy. One can argue all day about whether the freedom of nude or sexual photos is good for society or for the soul, but let’s face it, things have not really changed that much in the last 60 or even the last 2000 years.

Nakedness and sexual stimulation is chronicled without apology in the bible. In some places it is condemned. In others, it is celebrated. Yet the repressive side of religion says that nudity is only acceptable within the boundaries of marriage, and that sex is reserved for the confines of matrimony. Conservative Christians blame the sexual revolution for the breakdown of marriage as an institution. Others would argue that male discovery of the clitoris is what might save it.

Hugh Hefner came along to challenge all that. But it’s not like he actually invented adultery, sexual promiscuity or the marketing of lust for profit. Yes, he treated women as objects to a degree, and some contend he exploited women as a whole. Those arguments are hard to defend these days as women have either learned or chose to objectify and exploit themselves.

thong bathing suit.jpgI say the process has gone a bit further than that. As this image copped from a Pinterest site illustrates, the sight of buttocks in public is no longer such a shock. They are just buttocks. The clothing women wear now, even athletic wear, is form-fitting and leaves little to the imagination.

But, it’s like this: “Oh look, that woman has an ass. Imagine that.”

Deal with it, in other words. The recent repressive tiffs over the idea of women wearing “yoga pants” in public was based on the idea that men can’t control themselves when confronted by the sight of a shapely woman. Our repressive Vice President Mike Pence will not even allow himself to dine with a woman alone. It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing. It matters that she’s a woman, and somehow he is threatened by his own weakness.

That’s a sickness of the mind. A far healthier mind should be able to deal with women dressing in almost nothing, like they do at the beach, and not lose control of the emotions or succumb to wanton lust. Learning to be discreet and respectful is a sign of maturity. Apparently some men never gain that skill.

MIke PenceAnd that’s a problem, for sure. But as the Mike Pence issue illustrates, it’s not what a woman wears or does not wear that is the problem. It is the repressive need to control male insecurities and fears that religion affirms in men. Even the Genesis story in which Eve leads Adam to temptation is an example of chauvinistic male fears.

By contrast, the honest removal of secrecy and the fear of the taboo from regard of women’s bodies is a healthy thing. It has taken the sexual revolution a while to get there, but the increasingly honest regard for women’s anatomy is a product of breaking down cultural taboos that depend on the dichotomous view that nakedness is naughty and that righteous human beings need to hide from it.

Europe and other nations are far ahead of America in this regard. Our country pumps out titillating imagery, for sure. But in Europe you can actually got to a nude beach and naked bodies are simply not that big a deal. That’s maturity. That’s honesty.

Of course some athletes can get too relaxed about the whole nudity thing. One of the warnings issued by our local bike club about dressing outside the car during criterium weekends is that riders can get tagged for public nudity if the neighbors or the cops see you changing your bike shorts and displaying those white ass cheeks for all to see. The Velominati Rules don’t really cover that issue, do they? Be discreet.

IMG_4123Athletes in endurance sports get used to the sight of the female nipple popping out from a running top or an ass cheek protruding from shorts. So, what! We bear witness to asses and crotches in all sorts of gear. A little camel toe on a gal or an outline of a dick in bike shorts just isn’t a problem as long as it isn’t a chronic and therefore distracting condition.

We’re all just bodies trying to go faster, longer, harder. Wait, that sounds a little sexual doesn’t it? So be it. This whole idea that we have to hide from our own sexuality is absurd. Sex is frankly one of the drivers of the human spirit. Nudity is the natural condition of the human body. And the United States of America is still in the grips of uptight people who deny all that on grounds that they’re small minds are too hard to control.

Now that 99% of the population (even those who won’t admit it) has a naked selfie hiding on their smartphone, it’s time to admit that Hugh Hefner was never really the problem he was made out to be. That problem is prurient curiosity. Hugh Hefner somehow knew that a rabbit was a good symbol for that. And he pulled the rabbit out of the hat.

Playboy has now converged with reality. It is no longer the provocateur it once was. In fact it seems tame in some ways. But along with normalizing sexual orientation and the existence of transgender people, reality has a way of sneaking up even on those who cover their eyes and yell NO NO NO at the top of their lungs.

It never works. But it sure keeps the world from being honest about itself.

 

 

 

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Not the retiring type

Posted on September 28, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Unincorporated MeIn the middle of the first mile of a 4.5 mile run the other morning, my body was not exactly cooperating. Everything felt sluggish and slow. In fact I was trundling along at 11:00 per mile pace. Things eventually improved, but not by much. In the meantime, I was wondering to myself, “Will I always do this?”

It’s hard to look ahead ten years and know what your body and mind will give you. I do know that my competitive instincts have morphed quite a bit from those days in my early 20s when I could not stand losing to anyone. I still lost at times, but not without putting up the grandest fight that I could.

Working it

Frankly those athletic instincts have transferred over to cultural and civic debates. And sometimes I make enemies or get Unfriended for opinions that are competitive toward lazy thinking and opinions borrowed from false or overly safe spaces. I don’t think I’ll ever retire or withdraw from that type of debate. I’m not the retiring type. I’m writing a book titled Sustainable Faith that follows up on a booked titled The Genesis Fix, A Repair Manual for Faith in the Modern Age. That was published ten years ago in 2007.

Nor will I likely stop working for a living. In 2013 I did take a “break” of sorts from the 8 to 5 world. My late wife had just passed away and several months later, the copywriting gig that I’d landed with an Internet marketing firm was withdrawn. So I launched my own little company and won some more contract work. In some respects, it was much like being “retired” in the sense that I worked from home and did not have to commute, or visit an office every day. Nor did I have to or engage in eight-hour teambuilding exercises that made you want to run from people at any cost.

False and true inspirations

Sorry to be a little cynical, but much of the corporate world is a tryst with inanity. Take a long look at your feed on LinkedIn some day. All those phony damned inspirational quotes and pre-produced memes about teamwork make me want to gag.

Having spent years in competitive athletics and many more years collaborating in the corporate and non-profit world, I know a few things about teamwork. It’s no more complex than getting along with others (which is not always easy) and asking their opinions before making plans. Then you come to a consensus agreement on the right course of action and put things in motion. And if that fails, or people fall down on their end of the bargain, or the committee idea turns out to be just BAD, you goddamned do it yourself so that it gets done. That’s called initiative. I don’t think anyone should have to apologize for that. One should never retire from getting things done.

Individual grades

Because it all still comes down to individual initiative. I recall an afternoon training with cross country teammates in college. We were doing quarter mile hill repeats on a 7% grade in preparation for a hilly meet up at St. Olaf, where the course climbs a big hill on campus. During one of the rest breaks between intervals one of my teammates trotted over to say, “Cud, you really need to be ready for this weekend. I’m hurt and we need you to be the leader.”

His toe was aching from a nagging running injury, you see. He knew that he might not be in top form, and I was running well in the early season, usually second man on the team. Yes, my teammate was putting pressure on me. That’s also what teammates do. Push you when you need a push.

Outcomes

Cudrun

My teammate’s green spike is visible just behind my right thigh. We combined to help conquer.

As it happened, that teammate and I wound up placing sixth and seventh overall in that meet. We teamed up at 3.5 miles and started passing people. With 300 meters to go we spied the third man for the team most likely to compete for the title and my teammate turned to me and said, “Let’s go.”

There was not a question in that moment. We both sprinted past him, one on one side, one the other. Then we closed the gap between us and finished the sprint to the chute. Our team won the invitational.

There is a symbolism to that kind of effort that lasts your whole life. I’m sixty years old, and I’ve long come to realize there are choices in life to be made. One can settle for whatever you see just ahead of you, or you can make up your mind to finish with all you’ve got. This is what I learned during those couple years of ‘semi-retirement’ while recovering from life events that were hard and long. I kept doing the things I love. The writing. The painting. The running and riding. And the loving. My children. My friends. My faith. And I found love again with a woman who respects all of that, and more.

I’m not the retiring type. Never have been. Never will be.

And that is all.

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Drawing on years of experience

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth
Mountain Runners.jpg

Drawing of mountain runners by Christopher Cudworth

I’ve been a runner basically since I was born. Skinny. Energetic. Can’t sit still. Love to run.

I’ve also always been obsessed with art all my life. Sketching. Painting. Love to draw.

Along the way in life, these two interests converged. I love to draw runners.

Often it is in moments of idle time that an idea comes to mind. Such was the case yesterday during a meeting. I clandestinely drew a pair of runners up in the foothills of a mountain range.

That image draws on experiences of running in the mountains of Colorado during a pre-season cross country training trip. The next year we traveled to Wyoming to train in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park.

The romance of those trips exceeded the relative comfort. Without altitude acclimation, I well recall training with a thick headache those first couple days in the mountains. We never ran easy either. It was hard hard hard up the hills and hard hard hard down them. That’s how we ran all the time. Even in the mountains.

18 mile journey

At one point we left from Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons to run up the trail to Lake Solitude. That was 6000 to 9000 feet. Thus it was a 3000 foot climb during a climb of nine miles, and a 3000 foot drop coming down. I don’t know which was harder. I think the latter.

At Jenny Lake, we all paused a bit, stuck our toes in the frighteningly cold water and turned around to run back down.

We had no water to drink the entire way. That’s how we did it back then. And we knew better than to drink from a stream. There were signs that warned of giardia, the microbe that can make you deathly sick, on all the trailheads.

Eighteen miles at altitude with nothing to drink is a pretty rough run. Yet the mountain air carried us through with its clarity. The excitement of running those trails through deep green woods never really faded. Well, actually I cried a little with about two miles to go. My thighs were locked tight and killing me after seven curling miles of descent.

I was so glad to get back to camp that day.

Waiting for you

My wife and I are headed out to Colorado for a long weekend coming up in October after her Ironman. This is a bit like a little honeymoon, so we are not going to do any hard trail running together. That’s not our goal. But I may find an hour to give it a go with a couple friends who live there when she’s finishing up a work project near Denver. The locals always know the best places to run.

It’s also true that the mountains are always waiting for you. Sure, they don’t really care whether you live or die, so you have to be smart and careful out there. But even mountains aren’t eternal. They are either pushed into being by giant tectonic movements or shoved into the sky by deep volcanic forces. Their fate from then on is to weather and crumble and deteriorate. The earth will somehow absorb or replace them.

It is ours to encounter mountains in their present state, and absorb their power for all we’re worth. Then we draw on those experiences to understand humility and wonder in our real lives.

 

Posted in cross country, running, trail running, triathlete, triathlon, triathlons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Doritos patriotism makes its stand

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Two weeks ago while grocery shopping at Woodman’s, the Employee Owned megastore with enough space to land a B-52 in the meat section, I turned the corner after picking up some La Croix water to find an entire aisle stacked near to the ceiling with Doritos and snack chips. The sign at the end of the aisle said, “See you on Sunday.”

Dorito Lane

The allusion was clear. Doritos are the Food of Choice for watching NFL football games. And what does watching football games involve? Mostly sitting on the couch. Eating. Drinking. Yelling at the screen. Watching powerful men mash into each other as if life itself depended on it.

Supposedly, this is America’s Game, a part of its traditions. And as such, the typical NFL game starts with a rendition of the National Anthem. But here’s a dirty little secret about those displays of patriotism. They have been long sponsored by the US Government. 

Brought to you by the military-industrial complex

As documented on ThinkProgress,org, a progressive fact-finding website, “As recently as 2015, the Department of Defense was doling out millions to the NFL for such things as military flyovers, flag unfurlings, emotional color guard ceremonies, enlistment campaigns, and — interestingly enough — national anthem performances. Additionally, according to Vice, the NFL’s policy on players standing for the national anthem also changed in 2009, with athletes “encouraged” thereafter to participate. Prior to that, teams were not given any specific instructions on the matter; some chose to remain in the locker room until after opening ceremonies were completed. (It’s unclear whether the policy change was implemented as a direct result of any Defense Department contracts.)”

All those NFL pregame antics are part of a marketing scheme for the military-industrial complex. In that context, the playing of the National Anthem is no different than a blasting out a commercial for bags of Doritos. The NFL is the most commodified enterprise on earth. What else explains the fact that Super Bowl commercials are more popular to millions of viewers than the game itself?

Doritos Patriotism

doritos-nacho-cheeseWe live in the age of Doritos Patriotism. The entire national dialogue about what matters has been commodified. People can’t tell real food from overprocessed junk any more than they can tell the practice of free speech from jingoistic patriotism. 

But when NFL players “take a knee” during the opening game ceremonies, they are doing something real and honest. They are kneeling in protest of the brand of patriotism manufactured for American consumption with no more thought than plunging a hammy fist into a bag of Doritos.

 

NFL players are learning the hard way they are part of the consumable goods the league is all too happy to chew up and spit out when their usefulness to a team or a league is expended. Sure, there is wealth to be earned as a pro football player. Potential fame and glory to be gleaned from a stint in the NFL. But appearances are deceiving, and the price of participation can be massive. In fact, three out of four players who make it to the NFL do not profit from the experience. Instead, they wind up broke. The Doritos bag of pro sports is notoriously quick to empty.

 “According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article, 78% of National Football League (NFL) players are either bankrupt or are under financial stress within two years of retirement and an estimated 60% of National Basketball Association players go bankrupt within five years after leaving their sport.”

 

 

Not so fast

So it is absurd that people including the President of the United States are griping about “wealthy” pro football players kneeling during the national anthem in protest over cultural injustice. In fact player gripes may be far more legitimate than surface issues such as criticism of the protest movement started by Colin Kaepernick. When we consider the often ephemeral nature of football wealth and the physical and mental costs of the game to its participants, one could logically draw a line between NFL football and the original definition of indentured servitude:

An indentured servant or indentured labor is an employee (indenturee) within a system of unfree labor who is bound by a contract (indenture) to work for a particular employer for a fixed time period. The employer is often permitted to assign the labor of an indenturee to a third party.

Wow, that sounds a lot like the NFL Draft, where players are marched out like chattel on a slave-trading platform to be ogled by owners, coveted by team managers and tossed into hordes of chortling fans eager for the services of another young stud to push the ball up and down the gridiron.

Then, when the players are assessed by value, they are traded almost without approval from one team to another. That almost exactly mimics the assignment of labor of an indenturee to a third party.

“The consensus view among economic historians and economists is that indentured servitude occurred largely as “an institutional response to a capital market imperfection.”[1]

DoritoSociety further reflects the commodification of NFL players with its fixation on so-called Fantasy Football leagues, in which millions of ‘third-party’ owners trade upon the performance of pro athletes to compete with other “team owners” doing the same thing. The players themselves no longer matter, nor the teams. It’s all about numbers, statistics and the commodification of the NFL to raw impulses anchored in gambling. This is the junk food of the economy, the Doritos of ‘sin tax’ revenue from gambling and Internet-fueling fixes of porn. It’s all very addictive yet fills the American gut with a weird sense of guilt wrought by the bloated feeling that one can never be truly sated. Like bloated diners at a Roman vomitorium, the American populace keeps feeding itself on BaseballFootballHockeyBasketball in a never-ending bag of Sports Doritos that never empties yet never quite satisfies.

See You On Sunday. It is the religion of consumption. More important than family, God and country to some. And that’s why so many people can’t stand the idea of actual football players wrecking their Dorito House of Cards.

Dehumanizing influences

The corruption at the heart of all this is not just racial, it is the dehumanization of entire populations of individuals. That’s why Colin Kaepernick kneeled in the first place, because mistreatment of black Americans in American culture is deeply ingrained. It is bound together with America’s long (yet recent) arc of history that includes slavery, indentured servitude, Jim Crow laws, the KKK, lynchings, workplace discrimination and outright theft of black culture by whites determined to leverage ownership of black contributions for their own profit.

It was fifty years ago…

Tommie SmithThat’s why black track and field athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest while the national anthem played during the Mexico City Olympic Games back in 1968. They were directly protesting an indentured servitude of black athletes to a largely white-dominated culture that did not accord equal rights to black citizens back home. They were pointing out the hypocrisy of a nation that calls itself the bed of freedom when for many who lived there, it was profoundly false.

A lot of Americans seem to want to forget the origins and outcomes of the civil rights movement. They want to go backwards instead of forward. These are the same people who blame President Obama for “dividing the nation” when it was nothing but stubborn racial prejudice that did so.

So when the President of the United States threatens NFL football players by calling them “son of a bitches” in a public threat claiming that they should be fired for their ‘lack of patriotism,’ he fans the flames of  people who either choose to ignore, oppose or generally fear what true equality means in America. Trump is commodifying the NFL protests to make ugly political points with people unwilling to consider the idea that America is far from perfect. It has never been perfect from its inception, but the process of perfecting America often has required protests the likes of which see football players kneeling on the side of the gridiron while the national anthem plays.

Matters of respect

As for Donald Trump’s brand of patriotism, it is colorful perhaps, but fake. Tasty to his base, but poison to the system.

Of course none of this should come as a surprise from the man who once made his living bullying people on his Apprentice Plantation by whipping them into submission with the words, “You’re fired.” That’s about as un-American as you can get. But somehow half of America seems to think that this Dorito president knows something the rest of us don’t.

 

 

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Spoken and unspoken words

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Riding One.jpgWe headed out into the humid, hot weather on bikes this past Saturday. At 6:45 a.m. the surface of our sunglasses fogged over with moisture. The day was clear but the road ahead looked hazy.

We gathered momentum in any case, and were trekking along at 20 mph when my rear wheel made a strange “THUNK” noise and I rolled to a stop. Broken spoke. Second this summer. Sue spun around after I called out to her, but she still had 96 miles to ride that day. So she rode north and I sat down in the grass to wait for her daughter to come pick me up.

Thank God for cell phones. I tagged my location and she drove right to the spot. “You guys came a long way,” she observed. “It took me twenty minutes to get here.” That’s because we were exactly twenty miles from home.

I was disappointed because my plan was to support Sue on a 112 mile ride by joining her for 80 miles. So I sat there in the shade with my bike leaned up against the town sign for Troxel, an unincorporated farm village that forms the juncture of two country roads on the Illinois landscape.

Riding TwoA work crew in that grove of trees was toppling a big old willow while I sat there waiting for the ride home. The saws tore into the trunk with a loud whine and the tree finally cracked and fell.

That is just one of many trees I’ve heard hit the ground over the years. One was a massive oak in a savanna habitat near my home. I was birdwatching on a footpath in a burr oak woodland when a familiar old oak tree that I knew suddenly split at the base. The entire enterprise of bark and wood and limbs lurched over and fell to the ground. The loud rush of wind through the leaves made a weird roar. Then the tree bounced once, and it was over. A field of debris had whooshed out from beneath the canopy, and then the woods were silent again. I stood there considering that tree’s history. At 150-180 years old, it likely sprouted somewhere back before the area was settled. Before farming eliminated the prairie. Before white colonization had even started. It grew through fires when natives burned the grasslands and when lightning cleared them also. It built thick bark from the get-go, and grew tall and wide over more than a 100 years of sunshine, rain, snow and drought.

Now its functional life was over, yet it’s next stage in the journey was still to come. It would slow rot, and holes would show. Ground creatures large and tiny would take over. And after another 50-100 years, that tree would be soil again. A perfect end. And somehow worth emulating.

But for now, I wanted to keep moving.

Spoken words

Back at the bike shop that morning, I discussed the problem of my breaking spokes. The mechanics at the first shop did not have a replacement. But my best friend and mechanic that I contacted by phone that morning had a different warning. “The wheels may be worn out,” he said.

Two seasons? That happens? So I asked for a second opinion with the bike shop where I stopped to check on their spoke supply.

“How much do you ride?” the bike shop wanted to know. “I suppose six thousand miles in two seasons,” I said. They shook their heads resolutely. “It can happen with these higher end bikes,” they agreed. But my wife was having none of that when I texted with her during a break in her ride. “They just want to sell you wheels,” she warned.

Back ordered in black

So I called a different shop and the sales guy there said, “We probably have that spoke here somewhere.” I asked if he could check because I was 15 miles away and did not want to drive over for no reason.

280MM j-spoke in black. Not bladed. He checked as I waited on the phone for three minutes. He came back on and said, “Nope, we don’t have it.”

I was running out of Specialized dealers that carry Fulcrum wheels. There was still one local shop left to check. So I drove three miles upriver to the bike shop named Sammy’s, but it was not yet open. That meant spending a bit of time at the Arcedium coffee shop while the 20 minutes until opening whiled away. Then I called over. The mechanic there quickly checked his stock and said, “Yup. Got it.”

I hauled the whole bike into the store and the mechanic snagged my Specialized Venge without a word. He took a look at the spoke and nodded. His mechanic buddy kept working on the new Colnago he was putting together. Neither said much the entire time. Doesn’t take much talking to wrench bikes. The conversation takes place between the mind and the parts going together.

Apparatus

Sammy's bike shop.jpgI tried making some polite conversation that first minute, but the mechanic was completely focused on fixing my wheel. He popped out the old spoke and stuck in the new one. Threw it on the apparatus to true the wheel and worked his way around tightening the spokes. Then he slid the wheel back on the bike and spun it into motion. Perfect.

While I was waiting on the work, another rider with a tri-bike clacked into the shop under a sheen of sweat and an air of eagerness about him. My mechanic walked over to look at his bike, patiently listened to his story about rubbing brakes, and told the guy to set his bike against the wall. This rider was obviously a regular customer who competes for the store team by the looks of his kit. The mechanic nodded and said, “Let me finish this and I’ll get to yours.”

The life of a bike mechanic is full of such interactions.

Same-day service

I was somewhat surprised by the entire scene. Honestly I anticipated leaving my bike to come back the next day if necessary. I do not expect immediate or same-day service under any conditions. Yet it happens with some regularity. It is nothing to take for granted.

I do business with a number of local bikes shops. I try to spread my dollars around. The Bike Rack in St. Charles did a fitting for me recently. Their guy Lance did an excellent job, and my riding this summer has improved as a result. My friend Jack also works at that store. His cycling knowledge is encyclopedic after 40 years of competition and training. But recently he’s been moved by collaborating with the Creative Mobility side of the business, working with the Wounded Warrior Project and Project Mobility, for whom The Bike Rack recently conducted a fund-raising ride.

Riding FourMy point here is simple: bike mechanics aren’t just automatons who wrench your bike and go to sleep sucking on grease-soaked thumbs to dream about the perfect thread of a brake or drive train cable through a frame. They are, just like physician’s assistants or nurses in the medical world, some of the most knowledgeable and concerned people you will ever meet. They are the doctors for your bike. Don’t take them for granted.

Spoken with a tip

So I pulled out $15 from my wallet as the mechanic walked the bike back up to the counter to enter the charges. I slipped him the money and said, “Here, this is for you.”

The actual charge was $27. Yet even with the tip on top of it, that was a bargain for his services, especially on such short notice. But honestly, this has happened on many occasions in my nearly two decades of riding. As a frequently mechanically challenged rider, I am appreciative of those who work hard and can diagnose problems or fix them on the spot.

Kudos to our local bi,e shops at Prairie Path Cycles, Pedal and Spoke and All Spoked Up. Mill Race Cyclery , Spokes, and Performance to name just a few. All of these stores as well as bike shops across the country do so much to make riding a better experience. Sure you can buy stuff cheaper online but I still believe in the value of supporting local bike shops any way that I can. So I paid for a couple pairs of bike shorts, other kit gear and arm sleeves. I buy fuel and food and drink mix at these shops. And of course, I bought my bike through a local dealer who got me a very good value on a top-level ride.

Favors repaid

But now that I think about it, I owe a few other mechanics a few bucks for service. One even restored my Waterford to riding condition. That was no easy task. Another solved my wife’s drivetrain issues. So I’m going to slip by with some unexpected dough for their services. Maybe just slide it to them with a smile, and no real spoken words if you catch my drift. Just a “thanks for your help this summer” and a President on a $20 bill.

It’s worth it because the conversation and relationship you have with your bike is a product of respect shown and received.

Yet there are some spoken words to be said when riding. There’s the “goddamnit!” when something a spoke breaks far from home. But there’s also the “Thank you God” when you’re back out on the road as I was yesterday, riding 30 miles after a five-mile morning run and averaged 18mph despite some difficult winds. All thanks to a bike mechanic who takes his job seriously and did one helluva favor fixing the spoke on short notice.

Unspoken. And spoken. It’s all we really have to say thanks. 

 

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How do you view yourself as a runner?

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

Recently I did a little sketch of a male and female runner together. While drawing it, I was thinking about the runners I know that have the best form, at full speed. As a lifelong artist, I have always enjoyed doing sketches of runners, and can recreate good running form through all phases of the running stride.

Runners.jpg

I envisioned these two runners finishing a race at full stride. Both exhibit a slight forward body lean. Both are using their arms in constructive fashion, bent 90 degrees at the elbow and depending on the relative physique and strength of the runner involved, slightly different arm carriage as the wrist reaches the midline of the body at times.

While I’ve coached some runners over the years on form, I’ve also watched certified run coaches put their proteges through running drills to teach them “better” running form. Sometimes these runners get a little too mechanical in their form. They are taught not to vary it too much from what their coach might consider the “ideal form.”

That’s both good and bad. Sometimes running conditions, especially when competing on hills or trails or roads with a steep camber can require you to adapt your form to conditions that basically throw your form out of whack. There’s nothing wrong with that! You don’t have to hold picture-perfect form when you’re trying to deal with odd conditions or even the elements.

There are times, for example, when it truly pays to cut your stride length down. Cold conditions can require that, especially if you’re caught out there in shorts with a cold wind or chilling rain. Trying to use your full stride in those conditions can result in cramping of calf or hamstring muscles. So you compress your stride, increase the stride rate and go into a speedy shuffle. Make do with what you have.

But you still need to understand the basic mechanics of your ideal stride in order to know what variations are acceptable, or correct.

When you run past a full-length reflection of yourself in a window next to a city sidewalk, do you take that opportunity to glance at your form? You should. Because it’s not vanity. It’s practical feedback.

  • It can be enormously helpful to watch your stride in real time for 25 meters. Study how you plant your feet, what your knee lift is like (or not) and how you carry your arms.
  • Look to see if your arm carriage is “even.” Is one arm coming up higher than the other? That can indicate a leg-length discrepancy (one side longer than the other) or conditions related to hip weakness or imbalance.
  • Also, take the time to find a window you can approach directly while running. Look for indicators in arm carriage. Does one arm swing out from your body? That can be a sign of leg-length differences or hip/pelvis imbalance.

Of course, some of this can be done as well using a smartphone to record your running motion. If you have never seen a video of yourself in motion, it is high time. It’s quite revealing.

The end goal, however, is to build a “vision” of yourself that is both instructive in how to run and confidence-building when you need it most. A runner that knows how to get into the most economical and efficient form when fatigued is a far more confident runner over the long haul.

It’s not vain to study yourself in a reflection or to make a video of yourself running. It’s quite the opposite, because most of the time the first time you see a running video of yourself in motion it is humbling, not some ego trip.

In any case, don’t be shy about it. Learning what you look like in motion can help you run more efficiently, identify quirks that indicate body flaws or running mechanics issues, and help you think all the way through the process of finishing strong.

 

 

 

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Knowing what’s really “good for you”

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

RobinI suppose we all go through a weepy teenage stage of sorts. That period in life when we feel like wounded birds bleeding complaint and laziness from our ears. Then we retreat into music of one type or another, and it takes over our lives. Nothing else matters but hearing the darkest tune we can find. The one that seems to express our hormonal lamentations or lusts.

Teenage angst is not exactly the brand of remorse and dread that adults suffer when the bills are due and the paychecks are short. But that does not mean that teenage thoughts are not legitimate. Nor do they necessarily lack insight.

“Good for you”

Even before my son became a teenager, he shared some potent insights on what he’d already learned about life. At one point, probably ten years old, my son turned to me and said, “Dad, did you ever notice that when people say “Good for you,” they’re usually being condescending?”

Yes, my ten-year-old said that. He’s largely correct. The world is full of patently facetious, largely inattentive people who can barely manage to acknowledge real achievement or engage in meaningful dialogue.

I felt that pattern at fourteen or fifteen years old. The draft of insincerity was all around me. Even amongst your friends, there are little competitions for approval going on. One-upsmanship. Jealousies. Control issues. 

Half-wheeling and one-stepping

FROOME-Christopher001p-630x420In cycling, we call that one-upsmanship half-wheeling, the practice of pushing the pace by riding half a wheel ahead of all others.

In running, we call it one-stepping, the habit of pushing the pace by refusing to run next to someone, but always one step ahead.

Even Chris Froome pulled the ultimate Half Wheel when he sprinted on the final stage to bump out a Green Jersey points competitor in the Vuelta Espana. Stage races have a tradition of not attacking in GC category on the final day, but Froome stole a potential honor from a fellow competitor in the last 100 meters of that race. That was a prick move, if you ask me. He’s hardly a sandbagger, but it seemed petty and small. As if Team Sky had not gotten enough attention. Winning the points jersey might have meant millions to that second place finisher. But Froome snatched it from him, for what reason?

As my son long ago pointed out, stuff like this happens in conversation every day. If someone doesn’t really want to reveal their own insecurity or grant you the favor of a genuine compliment, they are likely to extend faint praise, including that seemingly nice compliment “Good for you.” It’s their way of putting you in your place so they can feel like they’re staying one step ahead of you. This is a socially acceptable way of dismissing someone without going to the effort of actually inquiring about what they’re talking about.

There’s not really much we can do in this world to change that brand of insincerity. After all, people aren’t necessarily trying to be offensive. And these days, it has all taken on a different form. If you bring up a topic in conversation, or share some nice thing that happened to you, someone might is just as likely to smile brightly and blurt, “That’s great!” Then bury their eyes back in their smartphone.

This is the digitized form of the condescending term “Good for you.”

Slights and angers

At the age of fifteen there were also obvious insults and social slights going on all the time. When I was fifteen, if a girl didn’t grant you the time of day even when you were being nice, or turned her head away to talk to a real jerk rather than acknowledge you, the world seemed unjust. Rather than figure out it was just people being jerks, I took all that very personally. It made me angry, and combined with some not-so-good-for-you issues at home, it felt like teenage hell.

Yet over the years, I’ve gathered that being a young woman from the age of about 10 to the age of about, oh, let’s say 27 years old… is pretty much a sucky proposition. Guys can be idiots to each other, but Tina Fey was right: Girls really are mean to each other.

meaniesGuys just used to just pop zits, jerk off and play basketball. But being fifteen as a girl is patently more difficult than being a young man of the same age. The slights and offenses committed by girls toward each equal a Battle Royale of bodies, brains and appropriate accessories.

Beyond the cliches

Perhaps the world is starting to change. Browsing the Cosmo magazines (my stepdaughter has a subscription) that show up at our house each month has been an exercise in realizing that the world pretty much centers around vaginas. Everything else moves out from there. Even my own daughter shared with me recently that her gynecologist is her primary doctor. This is a wise strategy for any woman. For one thing, that’s were 90% of the difficulties in a woman’s life seem to begin. Why not focus medical care where it can have the best effects? That’s good for you.

I’m the one who chased my late wife to a gynecologist when she was experiencing all sorts of menstrual problems. She didn’t want to go. Yet that visit saved her life when ovarian cancer was detected. The two weren’t necessarily related, yet that visit led to eight more years of survival for her. Otherwise she might have died within the year. That’s what happens to 80% of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. They catch it too late to treat it.

Beyond taboos

Much of society is trying to move beyond the cliches and taboos of what women’s health is all about. It’s terrifically sad that so many ignorant, selfish and chauvinistic male (and female) politicians still refuse to get the fact that health care is not cookie cutter stuff in comparison between women and men.

It is stunning and sick that we’re still stuck with repressive attitudes and age-old religious cliches governing the American health care system. “Defund Planned Parenthood” is another term for “don’t talk to me about vaginas.” It’s the ugly product of the fact that 40% of America still believes in a literal interpretation of the bible, and that bottles of Viagra are covered under health care, while birth control is not. That’s the real sickness in our society.

Blowing it all away

Sue 52But many women have begun to quietly resist such stupidity. Which is why it seems so good to see girls, young women, moms and menopausal gals out running and cycling and swimming. It’s a space they own for themselves. They don’t need a “Good for you” pat on the head from anyone to do what they like to do.

Running, cycling and swimming might be hard at times to do, particularly given the fact that so many women still share an unequal burden of tasks in relationships and marriage. But getting out there and away from obligations wicks away the billions of otherwise painful slights waiting for women at every turn. And every day. They’re blowing it all away.

Beware of Darkness

As for my dark little brain in the teenage years, I got through the summer before my sophomore year listening to the All Things Must Pass album by the former Beatle George Harrison. This morning on the way into work, the song Beware of Darkness came on. I so recall lying with my head between the big stereo speakers in the living room of our giant house in Elburn, Illinois. My parents perhaps should have recognized the near symptoms of depression in me, but maybe not. Teenagers just did that stuff in in the 70s.

But what I now realize is how much the song Beware of Darkness was predictive of a long arc of learning how to cope not just with teenage angst, but depression and anxiety in life. Just this passage is something I’ve seen in so many others. The danger of ruminative thought and how it can take over your mind…

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

Then this stanza, which deals with grief and one’s sense of purpose in life…

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

And leave it to George Harrison to put the ugly side of the world’s business into context:

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya

And finally, Mr. Harrison issues a warning about material greed and political ambition. He closes with a wonderfully abstract image of “Weeping Atlas Cedars” that symbolizes the natural world.

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness (beware of darkness)

That’s my life in a song that deals with the patent pain of existence. It got me through a long, hot summer along with the other inspiring tracks that only George Harrison could write.

That fall, I ran right out of my teenage angst and into a leadership role on the team. It’s funny how progress can come from what seems like aimless pain.

And you know, that’s really good for you.

Posted in cycling, cycling the midwest, healthy aging, tri-bikes, triathlete, triathlon | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On hazing and being caught up in the moment

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Christopher Cudworth

CloudsYesterday on one of my other blogs (Genesisfix) I posted a commentary on the case of some Wheaton College football players accused of violently hazing a fellow student. The account published in the Chicago Tribune was harrowing. The football players kidnapped a freshman from his dorm room, strapped him up with duct tape and carried him to a vehicle where they sexually assaulted him while making reference to the Muslim religion. When he resisted, they beat him physically and then dumped him on a dirty softball field with few clothes on in forty-five degree weather. They also stole his cell phone, and then returned with another student they’d abducted. The kidnapped freshman has required surgery to repair to tears to his shoulders.

Close to home

This all happened 10 miles from where I live. It took place at a Christian college that prides itself on a no-drinking, no-smoking, no-anything-but-root beer (apparently sugar is an acceptable vice) white-bread campus in the suburbs of Chicago.

In other words, these were not hillbilly rubes getting crazy in some tossed out section of North America where people have nothing better to do than rape and beat up people they consider different. These football players participate in the nation’s fourth-ranked Division III program in the country.

I know. Just another football scandal. One more bad scene on a college campus. It’s everywhere these days thanks to the rapidity with which media and social media report on violent behavior. Sometimes, the rush to compete for story precedence gets overheated, such as the Rolling Stone magazine University of Virginia rape case story, an article that was ultimately retracted and has led to lawsuits being filed against the publication.

Playing out in the media

So the story of the Wheaton College football players could still turn out to be something different than what has appeared in the media. But the prosecutors in this case took their time digging up details, conducting interviews with victims and witnesses over a period of nearly a year. The incident happened in 2016. So it’s likely much of the story is well corroborated, and will stick. Which means these students may well be punished more severely than the 50 hours of community service and eight-page paper they had to write as dictated by the authorities at Wheaton College. If that sounds a bit soft for the crime, you are likely correct.

Hazing is obviously prohibited at the college, and students take a particular oath at Wheaton, where moral values are a high priority based on the school’s Christian tradition. Despite these strong convictions, these students breached the Code of Conduct and went whole-hog tying up this kid and abusing the heck out of him.

True confessions

So let’s all engage in some confession here. Many of us reading that story have been either perpetrators of hazing or victims thereof. I can personally attest to being on both sides of hazing rituals. In high school cross country we administered team justice for those who were too mouthy or obnoxious by ‘hog-tying’ them with athletic or duct tape. We’d set the appointed day, bring along the supplies and do the deed quickly and with stern warnings about why the act was being conducted. It often involved dropping the shorts of the targeted victim so that their “moon” was exposed. Then we’d leave them and finish the rest of the workout.

Typically this ritual was designed to correct some sort of continuing transgression going on within the squad. Someone constantly being negative, or simply blabbing on for days in some annoying fashion could result in the prescribed treatment.

It happened to only two runners my senior year in the high school program. One we left on the yard of an elementary school and another we tied to a tree in a forest preserve where the cross country workouts were held.

That guy was so incensed and so strong he broke free of the tape within minutes. He ran hard and literally beat us back to the school. We were shocked. And as I recall, that was the last of the hog-tying rituals. Something about that guy’s determination snapped the ritual in two.

The Short Ride and Long Ride

It can take that sort of incident to demonstrate how wrong certain traditions can be. Yet many of us went on to experience hazing rituals in college. I joined a fraternity at Luther and one of the rituals was a quasi-kidnapping routine called the Short Ride and the Long Ride. For the Short Ride, fraternity members would show up at your dorm door, blindfold you without warning, and drive you 10 or 12 miles into the country outside Decorah, Iowa. They’d leave you in your underwear with a 12-pack and dare you to get back home.

But the Short Ride backfired with us when my college roommate and I were dumped by the roadside. We had our running shoes on and knew exactly where we were thanks to our long experience training on Decorah’s roads. So we stashed the 12-pack in the ditch and started running back home. Both of us were fit as hell from doing 80-90 mile weeks. And while we’d already done two workouts that day, we slid into a running grove and were back in the dorm in just over an hour. In fact, we slipped back into our dorm room before the rest of the fraternity boys got back from the bars. They pounded on our door and we laughed at them. “Tough luck, boys,” we yelled back.

When the time came to take us on the Long Ride, my roommate and I got serious. “You are not taking us 20 miles out in the country,” we both answered when they showed up on a Friday night. “We have a meet tomorrow, and it’s an important one. So you will not mess with us.”

And they left us alone. They weren’t happy about it, and some grumbled they’d be back to get us. That never happened.

The rest of the class being hazed was ceremoniously driven into darkness and distraction far from the college campus. I don’t recall how they got back. Some of them got very drunk while others kept their wits and navigated to a farm house to beg a ride back home. Probably farmers around college campuses see all sorts of things over the years.

Leaving it behind

I stuck out membership in that frat for another year. But by the time I was a senior it all seemed too juvenile and mean. The humor had leached from the fraternity anyway. The rituals seemed tired and strained. Perhaps the times were changing. In any case, I was largely glad to be done with the whole thing. We grow up. We move on. If we are healthy…

Those Wheaton College football players will likely regret this mistake in their lives for a very long time. It is hard to find a legitimate way to explain away such stains on our curriculum vitae. Many of us are probably fortunate to have avoided such public shaming. But when you bring it upon yourself, there is a price to pay.

The hazing tradition

In the article I published on my other blog, I make the case that the Christian religion on which Wheaton College bases it tradition has a bit of a “hazing” tradition of its own. The most extreme expressions of the Christian faith have a long history of imposing horrific penalties on those who oppose it. These include acts of genocide on cultures that won’t submit to conversion. The Old Testament rather frankly documents the mass murder of entire peoples right down to scrawling babes.

Is God the ultimate hazer?

That anger and abuse carried through to the implicit philosophy of Manifest Destiny in America, the belief that white European settlers had a God-given right to the lands and resources of the continent. A genocide of Native Americans took place even as black slaves were carted over from Africa to serve as free labor. All were supported by twisted versions of Christian scripture that were used to justify the racist, imperialist approach of cultural domination.

Traces of history

Is there a trace of that history coming through those Wheaton football players who issued threats against Muslim people while carrying out their hazing? It is hard to separate some of this from childish stupidity. That’s the problem with hazing and rape and racist protests. People can too quickly hide or excuse their actions behind a crowd dynamic supported by people who insist “there are bad people on both sides.”

There is no more convenient way to garner devoted, loyal followers than to cover their sins with power. There are rumors that the Skull and Bones Society employs such embarrassing hazing rituals that they can forever hold members to account. Pun intended.

Such secrecy can play out on a broad scale when unleashed on the world. A similar method may be used in the practice of Scientology, where it is rumored the deep secrets of practitioners are held against them if they seek to leave the cult. Ask John Travolta. Tom Cruise. And Beck? That’s depressing.

Rite of passage

It’s all confusing when some sort of rite of passage is common to societies all around the world. Even the normal, everyday gathering of distance runners on a college campus typically involves a bit of teasing that can border on hazing. And who can say that a twenty-mile run in intense heat on a Sunday morning in September is not a punishing ritual in which to engage?

But the line is drawn where people come away with permanent harm. This is true among both the victims and the perpetrators. Those who commit violence are in some ways as viciously scarred as those who are targeted. Those scars and the pain they cause may not be so readily visible. But they are there. Think of the Catholic Church and its Inquisitions. Think of the German people and the Nazis who took over the country. Think of South Africa with apartheid, the Middle East with Islamic fatwa and the United States and the torture and death it imposed upon Iraq.

All of it is a brand of hazing. And as those Wheaton College kids demonstrated, everyone is capable of it when caught up in some false cause that seems so important in the moment.

And all of time, we might remind you, is just a moment.

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