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My wife, grandmothers and role models. I’m fortunate to have a lot of strong, loving, beautiful women in my life. My mother is, of course, one of them.
Those early memories are impossible, and then fuzzy, and then they become more clear.
No matter how the memories look in your mind’s eye you could always count on your mother to be in the background, lifting you up, holding you safely, pushing you onward.
Happy you day!
I do not know what is happening.
About a month ago at dinner The Yankee says “I have a crazy idea for you.” This turned out to be “Let’s run a reverse triathlon.”
She’s a good swimmer. We’re both middlingly average cyclists. Neither is much of a runner. So that’s why we’ve recently been running. The trail near us, I mentioned, is safely removed from the road and conveniently measured at 5K. She did four installments on the Couch to 5K plan. I did three. We realized the kinds of in-shape we are does not fall under the “running” category. I also learned this same lesson over my three recent swimming adventures. On the basis of three runs and three swims, and not really knowing how my shoulder would feel about the whole thing anyway, I decided last night to run a triathlon.
We load up the bikes at about 4:45 this morning and head to the nearby Army installation where this will be held. We’ve read that it is a good race for beginners and for people just starting their training for the year. It is mostly flat and typically casual. Those were good things, both in our rationalization and in practice.
A reverse tri, as you might imagine, is done in the opposite order — running, then cycling, then swimming. She thought this would be good because we could get the worst part out of the way. So we start the run at 8:01 — which is a time I’d forgotten occurs on a Saturday. All of the military members, who run everywhere constantly, and the serious athletes take off at an inspirational clip. There’s one small hill to climb on the run, and that’s only a block into the thing.
I make it about a mile before my legs started to bother me. Told you I wasn’t much of a runner. Cramps in the calves tend to slow anyone down, though, so I took it in a limping stride through the rest of the 5K. The running-shuffling-fast walking thing was no fun, but I focused on the upcoming bike leg and before long there we were, changing shoes and chasing people down on wheels.
Which we did. I was happy to pass a lot of people on the bike. My calf complaints disappeared. I couldn’t figure out why my left hip felt numb. But the first half of the route I had a personal best pace. This without trying overly hard because after a 5K run-shuffle and a 20K ride I still had the matter of swimming to do. And I’ve never done all of these things before in one day, so I was consciously trying to save a little bit of energy.
Here was the bike route, which featured one section that made me feel like an actual, competent cyclist:
Got off the bike and realized I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. I am standing there with one sock on. If I sit down I’m afraid I won’t be able to stand up. I contemplate swimming in a sock. But somehow, I forget already how, the problem was resolved and I made my way to the pool. This transition was long enough for someone who I caught on the first leg of the bike route to catch me again. I was nominated as the inaugural president of the “Runs like garbage but can ride a bike” club.
I take it as a high honor.
The pool was cold. The Yankee — who was also competing in her first triathlon and nursing some aches and pains herself — said it felt great, like an ice bath. The last part was true.
She got in the ice bath and had a fine swim. No one passed her. No one passed her on the bike, either, except me, and we just took turns going by one another. In the pool, though, I just scooted along with a breast stroke and a side stroke since I can’t freestyle very well with my shoulder, which felt good throughout the day.
We didn’t win any prizes — this time — but she was awesome. And we each achieved our individual goals.
I wanted to finish the triathlon and physically feel decent when I did. That was the real one. The silly, made-up-this morning ones included not being the last guy to finish. I also didn’t want to be the last guy in my age group. I didn’t want all of the girls to beat me. And I achieved all of those things. The other important goal was to establish a baseline. Now I have a number to improve upon, should I ever do this again.
The run was terrible, and something to work on, but everything else was pretty decent, considering.
The volunteers were all nice and encouraging. This sort of thing actually helped: “Go anonymous person I’ll never see or think about after finishing this sentence; you are doing a great job, which is to say we haven’t called the ambulance on you thus far, despite your inherent struggles as reflected in how many people are in front of you and your overall pace!”
I was surprised.
And by this, too: I think I want to do another triathlon.
Now we have this open question: How many triathlons must one complete to be considered a triathlete?
Do you believe in ghosts? That is the weirdest dateline I’ve seen for a story in a while, particularly since it isn’t specific, and the story is hardly comprehensive. Also it is … lacking. It refers to video and audio and all manner of things the ghost hunters — believers and skeptics alike — use to search for ghosts. But it doesn’t share any of them.
I suppose my first personal ghost story — that didn’t have to do with the great Kathryn Tucker Windam’s 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey which were amazing reads that haunted every child that cracked the spine of the text — were stories from some family member. It seems they had friends who lived in a civil war officer’s home. They’d go over to play cards and every so often the spirit, according to their story, wanted a little recognition. So he’d make noise upstairs somewhere. They’d acknowledge him aloud and all would be well.
We had a neighbor once who said her house was haunted, but that was the sort of thing that kids would tell to other kids. I probably said our house was haunted too. She said that her ghost would open doors and things. So one day we opened every cabinet and drawer in her kitchen. Before she went into the kitchen and noticed it her dad came home. He was not pleased.
My high school, which was a 1930s WPA project, had a restroom light that liked to be on. No one could explain that. The school doubled as something of a community center, so it never shut down promptly at 3 p.m., which meant someone had to always be on hand. This poor math teacher somehow managed to have that job and that light drove him crazy. (It was a short trip.) So we decided there was a ghost in the boys restroom in the junior high wing.
Every now and then we’d try to trick people into thinking there were floating orbs in an old cemetery in our neighborhood. This was before, as far as I know, we knew that people talked about floating orbs, so at least we had good details. I noticed years later there was a Revolutionary War veteran buried there, which is still one of my favorite things about the place:
A geneaology site says about John Lawley, who moved there in the 18-teens:
The land was productive and required but little labor to produce the necessaries of life. The woods were a hunters paradise a paradise abounding in deer, turkey, with some panther and bear. The winters were not so cold then as now. Cattle and horses were raised in the woods and afforded all the butter beef and milk that was needed. Not with- the glowing description given to prospective settlers, these early men and women and children knew the meaning of hard work and sacrifice, but knew, too, the delight of living in a new land.
He lived as a royal subject and then as an American under Washington through Andrew Jackson. He died an old man, in 1832. But he’s probably not a ghost.
We have a lot of those tales in the South, which is the foundation of the story initially linked above. There’s supposed to be a ghost of a soldier in the chapel at Auburn. The Roundhouse at the University of Alabama has a similar story. Here’s a Georgia one that landed in my inbox today, in fact, with supposed photographic proof. In Savannah the dead are an industry unto themselves, and the ghost tours are an important tourist activity:
I’ve never seen any ghosts. But I have been to a few battlefields.
Stuff from Twitter: because why not?
Week begins w/Obama scoffing at notion tyranny is a threat, ends with IRS admitting it intentionally targeted Obama’s opponents.
— Bill Hobbs (@billhobbs) May 10, 2013
And so here we are. RT @rshibley Fed Govt MANDATES speech codes on college campuses. bit.ly/13KX3ol
— kennysmith (@kennysmith) May 10, 2013
I have this feeling that it all get worse before it gets better.
I looked at the drought monitor today and saw something unusual:
That chart is updated weekly. Last week the two southernmost counties, Mobile and Baldwin, still had a good deal of yellow covering them. And then it rained about eight inches in one night down there. This is the first time since 2010 that no county in the state has not reported dry or drought conditions.
Pretty tough times in the plains states, though. James Lileks, last week on the drought breaking in Minnesota:
well, well, what do you know: the drought lifts. The dryness of the last few years is forgotten as the mean reasserts itself over the long run of the decade, which itself will be a wink, a blip, an inhalation to the next decades exhalation, just as the universe itself is a bang at the start and a great collapse at the end, like two flaps of a heart valve. Assuming there’s enough matter to cause the universe to contract, that is. I hope so. I hate the idea that it begins with a great gust of matter, spreads and cools and ends in silence. Because that would make the universe, in essence, a sneeze.
Swam 1,200 meters today. When I went down the pool to start that last lap The Yankee — who is a champion swimmer, mind you — said “If you do 16 it’ll be a mile.”
Don’t tell me that.
But I did get in three-quarters of a mile. And then I rode 15 miles on my bicycle, just because it was a longer way home.
I do not know what is happening.
So I downloaded Vine. I haven’t done anything with it yet. I’m waiting to see something amazing and use it one time, and then walk away. (At some point you have plenty of ways to capture atmosphere, after all.)
But, if you’re interested in Vine, here are some tips from Poynter: How journalists ‘can get serious content’ from Vine:
Like other newsrooms, KSDK uses Vine to show the personalities and the processes behind the curtain, but Anselm says the tool is also useful for finding stories.
She suggests searching local hashtags, like #STL in her area, and #breaking. “A lot of people think it’s a really lighthearted, fun thing, but you can get serious content from it,” Anselm says.
There is a video, which is useful. Just like Vine, it is 9:13 long.
The next video is more entertaining. Someone mentioned the Golden Trailer Awards earlier this semester. Those are the awards given for best movie trailers. The Golden Trailers began in 1999. That’s because in 1989 they saw the best trailer ever, recovered for a decade and then started judging every other inferior product.
This being the best one ever:
This movie, Captain Phillips, is coming out in October:
You might remember the circumstance behind it in 2009.
This part better be in the story. They downplay it here, but this an impressive series of shots by the SEALs:
But here’s the movie you’ll really want to see this year, Yuck: A 4th Grader’s Short Documentary About School Lunch:
Zachary is a fourth grader at a large New York City public elementary school. Each day he reads the Department of Education lunch menu online to see what is being served. The menu describes delicious and nutritious cuisine that reads as if it came from the finest restaurants. However, when Zachary gets to school, he finds a very different reality. Armed with a concealed video camera and a healthy dose of rebellious courage, Zachary embarks on a six month covert mission to collect video footage of his lunch and expose the truth about the City’s school food service program.
Here’s the trailer:
The guy is hysterical. Here’s another clip, which is the direct inspiration for this post.
Of course the New York City school system doesn’t believe him:
A spokeswoman for the Education Department, Marge Feinberg, said in an e-mail that vegetables and fruit were served daily and she suggested that Zachary must have chosen not to take the vegetables served in his cafeteria.
“It would not be the first time a youngster would find a way to get out of eating vegetables,” she wrote. Zachary responded that he always took every item he was offered.
And then:
On Monday, Zachary thought he was in trouble again when he was sent to the principal’s office and found two men in black suits waiting for him.
They turned out to be representatives from the Education Department’s Office of School Food, he said, who complimented him on his movie, asked for feedback on some new menu choices, and took him on a tour of the cafeteria kitchen.
[…]
Then he sat down for lunch with the officials. The adults ate the cafeteria lunch of chicken nuggets, carrots and salad.
Zachary had pork and vegetable dumplings – brought from home.
Went running tonight. We realized that the trail near our home is measured out perfectly, so I can say that, this evening, I shuffled along a 5K, here:
It is blurry because, when my feet are pounding and I have no breath and the blood is flowing everything sort of looks that way. But at least there was honeysuckle:
So there we were this evening beside the green leaves, the light green weeds, over the brown runoff dirt and through the honeysuckle, running and walking and shuffling five kilometers. I do not know what is happening.
(This phrase is now protected as winded-intellectual property. It will probably be used quite often.)
(So is the expression “winded-intellectual property.”)
Grading, reading, writing. Preparing for a class.
We held the last critique meeting of the school year for the newspaper. The newsroom closes down for the summer. Some people graduate, others take a deep breath. I thanked them for their hard work. I bragged on them, despite the huge error in the headline of the lead story.
Class was held. Things were discussed. Everyone’s mind is outside because the beautiful spring weather has shown up and it all feels very real and, finally, incontrovertibly here.
The newsroom folks gave me two doughnuts. That’s how you end a Wednesday:
Made it home in time to see the last half of the baseball game. Auburn hosted Samford. Everyone wanted to know who I would cheer for. Samford pays me so …
Auburn won 9-3, in yet another comeback. Both teams are in their respective conference post-season hunts. The two teams have almost identical conference records. Samford hits for power, Auburn has lately been looking for any hits that drive in runs. They’ve spent their conference schedule getting beaten up by the baseball teams in the country. Auburn has won both of the two mid-week games this season.
The last time Samford beat Auburn was March of last year, at Samford, and it was dramatic:
Here’s a mystery: After tonight’s game The Yankee, Adam and I caught dinner at Mellow Mushroom. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this on the ground next to the door. I’ve boosted the contrast so we can see it a bit more clearly:
It says “Heard & Swope 1905.” A quick search of the genealogy sites tells me there was a Sylvester McDaniel Swope (1852-1923). He was a preacher in Talladega, which is about 90 minutes away today. It was a little different in his day. But Sylvester had a son in 1877, Arthur, who married Addie Lee Heard. Arthur is buried here in Auburn, so maybe these are the right people. (There were 31,000 people in the county and about 1,600 in the town at the time. How many different Heards and Swopes could there have been?)
The first gas pump was four years away and the year before there a total of 37 party line phones in town. Those tidbits, and this picture, come from Logue and Simms’ (1981) incomparable pictorial history.
That map is from 1903, when College Street was still Main. See that empty spot at lot 34? I think that’s where this Heard & Swope marker would go in in 1905. You can count the front doors today and it makes sense, for the most part. But I’m not sure what Heard and Swope were building. Yet.
