Although my workout regimen on the Cybex equipment at the YMCA -- which I tackle two or three days a week -- is not particularly strenuous (I haven't increased the weights in ten years, nor do I subscribe to the well-substantiated theory that slower is better), I have a tendency to loiter between machines and daydream, examining bodies both shapely and not or gazing at one of the silent but scrawling televisions perched above the crowd.
I was in just such a pose about a week ago -- actually the eve of World Series Game One -- when I saw it, at least the end of it: ESPN's countdown of the ten most memorable moments in World Series history (filched from the Internet I later determined). I stood entranced, expectant, fascinated, wondering whether the mysterious individuals whose judgments on these matters are accepted as gospel had been sufficiently perspicacious to overcome their natural bias towards more recent personally-witnessed events and crown the proper champion.
And when, suddenly, it flashed up on the screen, the grand finale of the dramatic seventh game of the bizarre 1960 World Series, its grainy black-and-white footage flickering like an old newsreel, I could barely contain my emotions. "Yes!" I wanted to shout to the pained, perspiring, panting masses, immersed in their exertions (and i-pods) and oblivious to the ephemeral imagery on display. "Look up, sports fans. I was there -- at the greatest World Series game ever played," I silently exhorted, the hyperbole rolling off my silver tongue as glibly as if it were Howard Cosell's.
Those of you who may have read on this blog my defense of Barry Bonds and my lamentation on September will know by now that I am a baseball fan, infatuated and intrigued by (not to reprise myself): the perfect symmetry of the game -- nine positions, nine innings, three strikes, three outs, four balls, four bases; the unique physical and mental confrontation between pitcher and batter; the pristine beauty of the delicately manicured field, its green and sandy areas in bold contrast, upon which each player has staked out his exclusive territory; the graceful agility of a pitcher in motion, a batter unleashing his power, a diving shortstop, a fleet-footed outfielder; the seemingly endless, but nevertheless too soon concluded, 162-game season, necessary to separate the contenders from the pretenders; the mesmerizing statistical record -- of every pitch, every at-bat, every play, every game -- posted and archived for cowhide devotees to ponder and analyze.
The numbers are what lured me to baseball; it certainly wasn't athletic proficiency, since I lacked the strength, speed, and coordination to play it -- or any other sport -- at even a mediocre level. As a youngster, I could always withdraw from the playing field to the printed word -- I was a child let loose in a candy store after I learned to read, sampling one tasty treat after another -- a refuge that became more problematic when I was sent away to summer camp in the White Mountains of West Virginia at the tender age of eight. There I was thrust into a gaggle of budding baseball enthusiasts who were not only reasonably adept at hitting, fielding, and throwing -- and these were Jewish kids to boot -- but also amazingly well-versed in all sorts of Major League trivia. When camp lights went out, they would chatter on incessantly about teams, players, and averages, conversation to which I had nothing to contribute.
Upon returning home, I resolved never again to find myself adrift in a sea of sports ignorance -- even if I couldn't play the game. I embarked on a voyage of self-education, investing as much time and energy in baseball lore and current events as I did in school work, and thus became a fan. I was first out the door every morning to retrieve the newspaper, not for the front page, but for the comics, the sports section, and the box scores. I became an avid collector and trader of baseball cards, reveling in the statistics of even obscure players. I learned how to keep score, diligently recording hits and putouts on composition paper as reported by Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese on their Saturday Game of the Week. And I would listen to AM radio broadcasts while lying in bed in the dead of night, including the remarkable performance of Pittsburgh Pirate Harvey Haddix when, on May 29, 1959, he pitched twelve perfect innings against the Milwaukee Braves only to lose in the thirteenth.
Of course, every baseball fan -- especially a burgeoning one -- needs a team to root for. Inaugurating a personal foible that persists to this day, I became hopelessly enamored of two lovable losers: the Washington Senators in the American League, probably because their home was closest to my own (or maybe it was their early sixties eclectic flavor: who could ever forget Camilio Pascual and Pedro Ramos?) and the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League -- in their case because my mother hailed from the Pittsburgh area and whose father, as she was fond of relating, was a diehard Pirate fan who himself had played semi-professional baseball. Sadly, this family athletic gene expired permanently with his death from a heart attack in 1955.
If you were attracted to underdogs, the Pirates were an insightful choice. From 1950 through 1959, they averaged 61 wins and 93 losses, finished last five times, and posted winning records only in 1958 and 1959. Their one star, slugger Ralph Kiner, the League leader in home runs from 1946 to 1952, was traded the next year to the the Chicago Cubs after a contract dispute with General Manager Branch Rickey, who told him the Pirates could finish in last place without him.
But before he himself was fired in 1955, Rickey had laid the foundation for a competitive team: moving the quick, nimble Bill Mazeroski from shortstop to second base where he became, according to statistician guru Bill James, the position's premier defensive player; shipping diminutive reliever Elroy Face to Double A New Orleans in 1954 to learn to throw a forkball (today the split-finger fastball); drafting the gifted Puerto Rican outfielder, Roberto Clemente, from the Brooklyn Dodger's farm system; and signing Duke basketball All-American Dick Groat and the two pitchers who would become the backbone of the staff, Vernon Law and Bob Friend.
Although these capsule descriptions I have borrowed from William Nack's October 23, 2000, Sports Illustrated article, the names are as familiar to me today as my own children's, as well as others added by Rickey's successor, Joe Brown: the catching tandem of left-handed hitting Smokey Burgess and righty Hal Smith; the "fiery third baseman," Don Hoak; the aforementioned "wiry, chain-smoking Harvey Haddix, a crafty lefty nicknamed the Kitten because he had studied at the paw of St. Louis Cardinal veteran Harry (the Cat) Breechen"; the "sweet-fielding, bespectacled" Bill Virdon, also a former Cardinal; the well-traveled minor leaguer Rocky Nelson, mistaken by one of Brown's colleagues for television wonder boy Ricky Nelson; and the "tobacco-chewing, beagle-faced" manager, Danny Murtaugh, himself a former Pirate second baseman.
In searching my memory to reconstruct that 1960 line-up, only two names escaped me: outfielder Bob Skinner and utility infielder Gino Cimoli.
In 1958, Murtaugh's first year, the Pirates won 84 games and lost 70, finishing second to the Milwaukee Braves, if not a traditional rival, certainly one in my mind, since they were the favorite of my across-the-street neighbor, Randy E., who gloried in the exploits of that star-studded team's high-octane performers: Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, and Joe Adcock.
After reverting to form the next year and slipping to fourth place, in 1960 the Pirates shocked the baseball world, winning 12 of their first 15 games, ninety-five in all, and cruising to the National League pennant, seven games ahead of those despicable Braves. "Groat hit .325 to win the NL batting title. Law won 20 games, Friend 18, and Face saved 24. Mazeroski led major league second basemen in putouts, assists, double plays, and fielding average."
It's best for those who religiously follow the fortunes of perennial losers never to elevate their hopes too high and calmly to anticipate the worst so as not to be crushingly disappointed when inevitable disaster strikes. Thus, in spite of their wire-to-wire run, could it have been anything but a total surprise when the Pirates clinched the pennant, their first in thirty-three years?
Their World Series opponent, however, was no surprise: the mighty New York Yankees. If the Braves had stars, the Yankees had Hall-of-Famers, up and down the line-up, and you didn't have to be a Yankee fan, even much of a baseball fan, to regurgitate those names: Yogi Berra, Bill Skowron, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Elston Howard, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and the manager, Casey Stengel. The Yankees had claimed eight pennants and six World Series in the fifties. They finished the 1960 season by winning their last fifteen games and hitting 193 home runs, a new American League record.
No one gave the Pirates much of a chance against that powerhouse, and after humiliating 16-3 and 10-0 defeats in Games Two and Three, such prognostications seemed well-founded -- except for the surprising outcome of Games One, Four, and Five, in which the over-matched upstarts triumphed by the slim margins of 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2, prompting manager Murtaugh to observe between expectorations: "The Series will be decided on games won, not on total runs scored."
If the Buccaneers' bumptiousness wasn't exhilarating enough, imagine my reaction when sometime that week sitting at the dinner table, my father, in the ceremonious and portentous manner he was prone to exhibit in such situations, announced that he had in hand two tickets to Games Six and Seven of the World Series. My eyes widened in disbelief; surely I must have assumed he was playing the kind of subtle practical joke he was fond of, like reading from the newspaper bogus stories featuring a friend or family member. But, no; it was all true. Apparently, some connection or friendship involving my mother's spate of relatives from the Pittsburgh area had delivered the goods, a magic carpet ride to Forbes Field, my second Major League destination, the first having been Yankee Stadium during a family sightseeing tour of New York a few years earlier.
Back then baseball was still America's pastime, and the World Series was its preeminent sporting event. There were only three television networks; sports broadcasts were few and far between; the Super Bowl had yet to be invented; and the widespread popularity and continuous exposure of football and basketball were futuristic phenomena. The World Series was, refreshingly, a daytime event, and scores were snatched like lightning bugs from transistor radios smuggled into school bathrooms and hallways those autumn afternoons. Some teachers were accommodating or interested enough themselves to allow students to listen to the games in class -- but not my eighth-grade history teacher, Mr. Eddie H., who, in spite of a boundless adoration of the Yankees and a boisterous jealousy of my good fortune, was too strict a disciplinarian to interrupt his lesson plans.
To attend the World Series -- at the expense of missing a couple of days of school -- was quite a coup.
I suppose this adventure can also be depicted as a father and son bonding experience, one of the few we ever had -- that is, until we went into business together, after which we were permanently in bondage, so to speak. I do not mean to be derogatory; if there is blame to be cast, an equal amount must be borne by me.
My father and I had little in common. He was a gregarious, garrulous, extroverted, magnetic individual who never met a stranger; I was cerebral, reserved, introverted, and, in spite of my academic prowess, rife with insecurities. He was also intensely preoccupied with his growing business and with various community organizations, working six, sometimes seven days a week and traveling frequently -- a pattern I was fated to replicate years later. Looking back, I'm not sure if he really held any enthusiasm for baseball or the Pittsburgh Pirates or if he could name any of the players; I have to believe this trip was a genuine, heartfelt attempt to reach out to me, a shared activity he knew I would enjoy.
This is not to say he didn't take advantage of an opportunity to indulge himself along the way. I don't recall any details: what car we took (it wasn't his infamous Ford Galaxie convertible, a 1962 model) -- most likely my mother's Country Squire wood-paneled station wagon -- or where we stayed -- probably we economized and lodged with one of my mother's relatives -- but undoubtedly we detoured to Harrisonburg, Luray, and Winchester to pay business calls on Schewel managers Wilburn, Moore, and Lucas.
The question arises: What did we talk about, joined at the hip, just the two of us, for at least sixteen hours, eight on the drive up, eight on the drive home? Who remembers conversations half a century old? I can with confidence attest to the subjects we avoided: hunting and fishing, about which we were, and forever would be, blithely ignorant, and sex, about which he only spoke to me once, advising me to consult him if I ever found myself in a troublesome situation, in itself a depressingly unlikely prospect. I suspect that mostly he talked, I listened, and we stopped a few times to eat and for him to make telephone calls.
Not having attended a college or professional football game in many years, I can only make an educated guess as to what draws zealots to brave the elements week after week: a slavish devotion to their team; the communal energy flowing through the stadium like an electric charge; the violence seen and heard from a ringside seat; a submersion of one's identity in the synergistic clamor of the crowd; or maybe it's just the tailgating. I experience a similar thrill at a Major League baseball game, but would propose a slightly nuanced and largely ignored distinction.
I believe one reason baseball has suffered as a spectator sport over the last twenty years is that it does not translate to the television screen as facilely as football and basketball. To appreciate the subtleties and intricacies of a baseball game, one must be able to survey the whole field, all its components -- pitcher, batter, fielders -- and observe their reactions to the pitch and the ball in play. You can't see that on television, even in replays, whereas football (and basketball) broadcasts show almost all players in movement when action commences, afterwards isolating coverage in the critical areas. The camera actually diminishes the game of baseball while enhancing our viewing of those other sports.
I couldn't articulate that thought in 1960, but, perhaps, subconsciously, I felt it after passing through the concrete portico into the open stadium, for surely I paused, smiled, looked around in awe and excitement, and absorbed the breathtaking expanse of diamond and outfield, which would be frozen in time while the game ran its course.
Like a rocketing home-run ball disappearing over the fence, Forbes Field and that first game have faded into oblivion. Was there a fearsome conflict roiling in my brain, between the loyal fan's prayer for victory and the anxious twelve-year old's yearning for another contest? If so, it was quickly resolved by another Bronx blowout, 12-0, in which lightweight Bobby Richardson continued his uncharacteristic power surge, hitting two triples and driving in three runs, including a record-setting twelfth.
The next day, Thursday, October 13, would be the last of the season, no matter the outcome. My father and I had hardly settled in our seats -- somewhere on the first base side -- when the fireworks started. I remember three moments; for the rest, I refer again to William Nack's Sports Illustrated article, published on the fortieth anniversary of what he called "the Wackiest World Series of Them All."
The Pirates raced to a 4-0 lead on the strength of a first-inning two-run home run by Rocky Nelson and a second-inning two-run single by Bill Virdon. Casey Stengel replaced starter Bob Turley with 5'6" lefty-sinkerballer Bobby Shantz, who silenced the Pirate bats for the next five innings, allowing only a single by Smokey Burgess. In a move with significant implications, Burgess was lifted for a pinch runner, and his catching position was filled by Hal Smith.
Meanwhile, the Yankees clawed back. Vern Law, unable to push off from the rubber due to an injured foot, was throwing his arm out and courageously lasted until the sixth inning, giving up one run. But when Murtaugh turned to the dependable, indefatigable Roy Face, 68 appearances and 114 innings (this was a time when star relievers pitched one, two, or three innings, whatever was necessary) finally took its toll. Face gave up a run-scoring single to Mickey Mantle, a towering three-run homer to Yogi Berra that just avoided the right foul pole, and two more runs in the eighth. The Forbes Field faithful were restless and distraught; with only six outs left, the Yankees led 7-4 and looked like sure winners.
To quote Nack: "Then came the most bizarre half-inning of this bizarre series." With Gino Cimoli on first after a dink single to right, Bill Virdon hit a hard grounder to shortstop Tony Kubek, a sure double play. The ball hit a rock in the infield, bounced up sharply, and struck Kubek in the throat. I can see him now, lying on the ground, writhing in pain, clutching his throat -- the game turning, the crowd sensing something mystical in the air. Was this truly a team of destiny?
Dick Groat singled, scoring Cimoli, the Pirates' fifth run. Then, Stengel inexplicably pulled Shantz -- "the greatest fielding pitcher in the history of baseball," according to Joe Brown -- for Jim Coates. Bob Skinner sacrificed Virdon to third and Groat to second. Rocky Nelson flied out. Roberto Clemente came to the plate with two outs, and hit a bouncer to first baseman Bill Skowron, who fielded it cleanly and looked to throw to the pitcher Coates covering first, a routine play. But Coates -- no Bobby Shantz -- wasn't there; his mental lapse cost the Yankees the third out. Virdon scored, Groat moved to second, and Clemente was safe. The score was now 7-6, and back-up catcher Hal Smith stepped into the batter's box.
I will never forget Smith's home run, because, like every other frenzied fanatic in the grandstand, I was sure he had won the game and the Series for the Pirates. The prosaic name Hal Smith should have been etched in baseball marble forever; he had put his team ahead 9-7 with three outs to go.
But Bob Friend, a starter who had also pitched too many innings, couldn't hold the lead. The Yankees scored two runs in the top of the ninth, thanks to a miraculous play by Mickey Mantle. Leading off first, he dove back to the base when the batter was forced out on a hard grounder, allowing the tying run to score from third.
Bill Mazeroski was first up for the Pirates in the bottom of the ninth.
He was an unlikely hero, the slick-fielding second baseman, hardly a power hitter, the son of an Ohio coal miner, who grew up in a little wooden house with no electricity or running water, "listening to his battery-operated radio tell stories of his beloved Cleveland Indians," Maz, as he was known. But after the second pitch -- "a high hummer delivered by Ralph Terry at 3:36 PM just where he wanted it" -- he would be legendary.
Nack writes: "He swung and struck the ball flush, sending it in a rising white arc to left center field. He was racing towards first base when he saw what everyone else saw, what Virdon and Skinner and Skowron and Richardson saw, what thousands saw from the stands, what millions who were watching on TV saw" -- and what I saw from my seat behind first base and will never forget seeing -- "Yogi Berra crabbing back to the warning track, turning to face the wall, looking up, and watching the ball sail over his head and clear the wall."
Final score: 10-9.
In 1993, Joe Carter hit a game-ending home run to win the World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays in Game Six. But Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run remains the only one ever hit to win a seventh game.
The improbable champs had been outscored 55-27 and outhit 91-60; but, in the end, they prevailed.
A few years ago I attended a fund-raiser honoring Lynchburg icon and former Mayor Jimmie Bryan, at which various items of sports memorabilia were being auctioned off. I was casually examining the merchandise when I abruptly stopped, stared in astonishment, and delicately lifted from the table a most valuable object -- an autographed plastic-encased photograph of Bill Mazeroski crossing home plate after hitting his historic home run. In a foolish gesture of braggadocio, I pointed out to a friend that I had been there and seen it all, which only encouraged him to enter the auction -- and bid up the price. Nevertheless, I bought it, took it home, and propped it up on my dresser, where it sits today, a simple but magnificent reminder of the day forty-seven years ago when my father took me to the greatest baseball game ever played.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Race Relations
I ran into Jim E. a few days ago at the YMCA and complimented him on the Sphex Club paper he had delivered the evening before: "How Shall We Answer Dr. Johnson?" -- an erudite examination of the slave-holding practices of the Founding Fathers -- Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington -- whose behavior, the Club concluded, can variously be characterized as inexplicable, blatant hypocrisy, bonafide adherence to their perverse rationalizations and racial prejudices, or a simple manifestation of Dr. Samuel Johnson's aphorism: "Why is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?"
This theme prompted a brief interchange between the two of us, his perspective on the prevailing racial attitudes in the Tennessee community where he grew up eliciting similar comments from me and subsequently inspiring me to reflect more extensively on the subject.
Although I have no empirical evidence at hand, it would seem safe to allege that no one is born a bigot and that our prejudices are products of parental, peer, and institutional -- religious, educational, and social -- influences, with parental being the strongest, at least during the first decade of one's life. Therefore, in thinking about my own evolving racial attitudes, I tried to assess how each of these factors might have impacted me, especially the parental one.
I have an early memory of my father taking me to a black family's Christmas Day celebration. (I use the term "black" because it is the one I am most comfortable with, even though it may be anachronous. The most common appellation in the fifties was, of course, "colored.") An extended multi-generational group seemed to be in attendance, exchanging gifts and enjoying an abundance of savory dishes: children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of the fact that the house -- located, I believe, on Wise Street, off Fifth Street -- wasn't very big. The patriarch of the gathering was a tall, thin white-haired gentleman of quiet demeanor and regal bearing named Hylan H.
Hylan H. was a man whom my father held in high regard. Whether he was still employed by Schewel Furniture Company at the time of this visit or had retired, I do not recall. But in either case, he was -- or had been -- its warehouse manager.
In the mid-fifties, a period of vigorous economic growth, the Lynchburg Schewel store, a Main Street anchor, was undoubtedly thriving. While the dollar volume of revenue was far less than it is now, when one considers that the items comprising that figure -- sofas, chairs, beds, chests, tables, etc. -- were much less costly, it is entirely conceivable that the number of pieces received and delivered in a given period would match that of today. The warehouse manager, then and now, held an important position, one critical to building good customer relations, since a satisfactory selling experience could be spoiled by poor delivery service.
Hylan H. -- and his successor, another black man named Tom L. -- were responsible for hiring, training, and firing warehouse personnel, unloading trailers and rail cars, checking in new merchandise accurately, putting it away systematically, pulling and prepping it for delivery, and seeing that orders were delivered to customer homes in good condition and in a timely manner. Although not highly educated, these men had to be common-sense smart; they had to be able to judge and manage entry-level employees; and they had to be honest. In a day when there was no automated inventory control system, owners depended solely on the integrity of their supervisors for theft prevention.
I believe my father's and grandfather's racial attitudes were conditioned by their working association with black men like Hylan H. and Tom L. Because the success of their business depended on the talents of these men, they were less likely to see them as inferior and as objects of opprobrium, vilification, and abuse.
In addition to the employment factor, there was a second complementary mechanism by which blacks were drawn into a symbiosis with my father and grandfather: the merchant-customer relationship. In this segregated post-war era, black income levels were severely restricted, and if blacks were going to buy any furniture, appliances, or electronics, it would have to be on credit -- which was not as accessible or widespread as it is today. Schewel Furniture Company was willing to extend credit -- to blacks and whites -- when many other firms would not, and thus its customer base increasingly came to include many blacks, another reason for its owners to view that community with tolerance and sensitivity. (In a striking example of customer appreciation and astute marketing, the Schewel store was one of the few Main Street establishments to provide facilities for blacks; in a peculiar iteration, there were two female rest rooms in the basement, one for blacks, one for whites, and one male rest room, apparently used by both races.)
I experienced a similar acculturation on a personal level when I began working at Schewels in the early sixties during the summer and Christmas breaks. Since I was relegated to light warehouse and assembly duty, my cohorts were all black men, for whom I developed a curious admiration and reverence -- for the strength and stamina they exhibited in effortlessly unloading truck after truck; for their jovial camaraderie and constant verbal jousting; for the skill and efficiency with which they were able to perform any task requiring manual dexterity (at which I was sorely deficient); for their prodigious exploits with women, about which I heard daily, their confident boastful expressions the only evidence I needed to be convinced of their veracity; and for their easy acceptance of me, whether because I was the boss's son, or in spite of that fact, I could never quite fathom.
It amazes me now that I can picture these men so clearly and even remember their names: Eugene P., known as "Hot Dog," a tall, lean, gangling former Dunbar High School basketball star; Smith F., soft-spoken but tough, a coiled spring of belligerence lurking beneath his sly, smug grin; Phil Q., a gentle, grandfatherly giant of a man, his existential nature a consistent, calming presence; Henry J., a chattering, illiterate, middle-aged rogue, whose principal preoccupations were chasing and escaping women and losing and regaining his job, which he appeared to do with unrelenting frequency; and Dry Bones (I don't remember, don't think I ever really knew, his real name), all-purpose janitor and later chauffeur to Messrs. Abe and Ben Schewel, whose paper-thin fragility belied a sinewy strength, and who, it seemed, would crumble to dust in the face of a harsh wind.
Finally, there was the aforementioned Tom L., the Schewel Warehouse manager at the time I came to work there permanently in 1970. Tom L. was short, rotund, round-faced, and bald -- a flurry of activity, brash, outspoken, proud, demanding respect from blacks and whites alike, competent, dependable, and honest, Hylan H.'s protege, with an entirely different personality. He acknowledged me as the boss, or the boss's son, but never failed to put me in my place when I ventured into territory I knew nothing about -- like running his warehouse. Looking back, I believe Tom L., in spite of his genial, garrulous, exuberant manner, saw himself as somewhat of a tragic figure, who subconsciously believed he was worthy of greater achievements if he had been born in another skin, place, or time.
My other youthful exposure to blacks came in the form of my family's female servants, or maids, who were a common sight in many Southern households in those days -- and still are. I remember a series of these women passing through our homes, some even staying for extended periods on a live-in basis, and my mother's constant refrain that she could never find a "good one," whatever that meant.
The maid most clearly delineated in my consciousness is the classically christened Eula Mae L., a diminutive, vivacious, coal-black workaholic with a squeaky, high-pitched voice that never seemed to abate -- a female version of Tom L., if you will. When charged with the task, she was a stern disciplinerian, which ultimately only endeared her to my siblings and me more. Her most compelling attribute -- really the primary prerequisite for any accomplished maid -- was her cooking skill, exemplified by her tasty fried chicken, which we devoured one Sunday evening, only to discover afterwards that we had enjoyed the three chicks our father had brought home six months earlier as pets but had handed over to Eula to raise to maturity in her back yard when they outgrew their tiny cage.
My grandmother's maid, Alice, a fixture in her home for many years, conformed to the model more closely. She was so shy, laconic, and unobtrusive that she seemed to melt into the woodwork.
The question at hand, now, is whether these encounters with blacks -- as customers, as menial handlers of furniture, and as household servants -- engendered authentic liberal, open-minded thinking or whether they merely substantiated a traditional, paternalistic paradigm -- through which blacks were viewed as contented in their roles and inferior in the sense that they were qualified only for these roles.
No matter how fairly we treated her or how sincerely we attempted to define the relationship as one between an employer and employee, it is difficult for me to divorce the the black female's role as a maid from the paradigm defined above; it resembles a little too much an ante-bellum Southern plantation scenario.
The other two circumstances -- black males as menial laborers and blacks as customers -- seem less problematic, the former because of the level of responsibility entrusted to the black supervisor (but, admittedly, ignoring the condition of his subordinates); the latter because it presupposes a certain independence on the part of the customer. Such reasoning induces one to ask: if blacks were so capable, why were they not promoted to better, higher-paying positions? Which leads me to some concluding remarks in further support of my argument that these forms of black-white interaction -- the two noted in this paragraph, at least -- effectively counteracted prejudice and fostered tolerance and understanding.
Like the Founding Fathers -- who, in spite of their genius and courage, were unable to break through conventional racial barriers -- Southerners of the fifties and sixties were constrained by contemporary mores, especially segregation. Other than the contacts I have described, blacks were invisible to us, and the curtains were drawn to keep them that way. I remember blacks banished to the back of the bus and to the balcony of the movie theater, practices which, according to her, shocked my Pennsylvania-bred mother when she first came South. If my parents and grandparents weren't bigots or racists, neither were they by any stretch of the imagination activists, never openly promoting equal justice or the redressing of dimly-perceived (at that time) wrongs. In fact, my father declined to join the Civil Rights March on Washington when invited by a former Lynchburg rabbi, fearful of negative business repercussions. And it would have been too revolutionary -- and too threatening to employees and customers alike -- to place a black person on the sales floor or in the credit office -- even if such a thought ever entered his mind.
In further defense of my forbears, their language and behavior towards blacks were, to my knowledge, considerate, respectful, and non-abusive. I suppose in making that claim, I am absolving my grandfather and father -- particularly the former -- of the use of the derogatory Yiddish term for blacks: "svartzers," or, as they pronounced it, "swatzas" -- excusable, I submit, because its meaning was unknown to the general populace, including those to whom it referred. Yes, it was the "n" word in Yiddish, but it wasn't the "n" word, which I never heard either man speak, in a time when it was a fairly common epithet. Thus, I interpret their posture towards their black employees as genuinely caring and not patronizing.
I would also assert that with respect to all three generations -- myself included as the third -- a more tolerant attitude was informed by our Jewish heritage, and not by any prescribed religious beliefs but rather by a knowledge of ethnic persecution. It was surely no secret to any family member that my great-grandfather had fled Czarist oppression in late nineteenth-century Russia, where Jews were deemed second-class citizens, excluded from certain professions, and not allowed to own property, a state of affairs eerily similar to that confronting Southern blacks. While my religious school textbooks were ominously silent on the Holocaust -- this was a period when American Jewry was reluctant to broadcast its victimization and martyrdom -- they consistently emphasized the forceful separation and confinement of Jews throughout history to selected and less attractive living areas, called ghettos, another phenomenon echoed by the contemporary treatment of blacks. The parallels were subtle, never openly expressed, but they were undeniable; and it was left to the individual, student or adult, to look to his own conscience and draw the analogy.
If, looking back on my formative years in a segregated society, I regret anything, it would be an obtuseness, an obliviousness, a bland incurious acquiescence in the shameful standards of the day, a failure to move beyond the benign, isolated connections I forged with a handful of black people. When E. C. Glass High School was integrated in 1963 (or 1964) -- with the admission of two students, one male, one female, into a corpus of fifteen hundred -- reactions were predictable: some violently and vociferously opposed, a small minority supportive, a silent majority in the middle, where I place myself. At least I tried to be cordial and helpful, if not overtly friendly, as both students were in several of my classes. I am proud to report that I had a few friends who actively reached out to the boy and invited him to join their rock-and-roll band. (Or was that just another stereotype: the rhythmic black singer enhancing his white musician back-ups?)
Today, fifty years later, in spite of revolutionary changes that have created a myriad of opportunities for blacks and raised their standard of living significantly, de facto segregation persists as the order of the day. While public institutions are integrated, I suspect interracial socialization is minimal at best, just as it in the greater society. Outside the workplace, I rarely cross paths with blacks, other than at an occasional non-profit meeting or the YMCA. Many individuals harbor hostile feelings towards blacks and some profess them openly. They resent the deployment of tax dollars for social services and public assistance for blacks (and whites), refusing to acknowledge that not every person brings into the world the same intelligence, interpersonal skills, and parental and peer nourishment required for upward mobility and success.
Great minds struggle with these issues every day. The conundrum of our Founding Fathers espousing liberty and equal justice for all while failing to manumit their slaves suggests that solutions will remain elusive.
This theme prompted a brief interchange between the two of us, his perspective on the prevailing racial attitudes in the Tennessee community where he grew up eliciting similar comments from me and subsequently inspiring me to reflect more extensively on the subject.
Although I have no empirical evidence at hand, it would seem safe to allege that no one is born a bigot and that our prejudices are products of parental, peer, and institutional -- religious, educational, and social -- influences, with parental being the strongest, at least during the first decade of one's life. Therefore, in thinking about my own evolving racial attitudes, I tried to assess how each of these factors might have impacted me, especially the parental one.
I have an early memory of my father taking me to a black family's Christmas Day celebration. (I use the term "black" because it is the one I am most comfortable with, even though it may be anachronous. The most common appellation in the fifties was, of course, "colored.") An extended multi-generational group seemed to be in attendance, exchanging gifts and enjoying an abundance of savory dishes: children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, and cousins, in spite of the fact that the house -- located, I believe, on Wise Street, off Fifth Street -- wasn't very big. The patriarch of the gathering was a tall, thin white-haired gentleman of quiet demeanor and regal bearing named Hylan H.
Hylan H. was a man whom my father held in high regard. Whether he was still employed by Schewel Furniture Company at the time of this visit or had retired, I do not recall. But in either case, he was -- or had been -- its warehouse manager.
In the mid-fifties, a period of vigorous economic growth, the Lynchburg Schewel store, a Main Street anchor, was undoubtedly thriving. While the dollar volume of revenue was far less than it is now, when one considers that the items comprising that figure -- sofas, chairs, beds, chests, tables, etc. -- were much less costly, it is entirely conceivable that the number of pieces received and delivered in a given period would match that of today. The warehouse manager, then and now, held an important position, one critical to building good customer relations, since a satisfactory selling experience could be spoiled by poor delivery service.
Hylan H. -- and his successor, another black man named Tom L. -- were responsible for hiring, training, and firing warehouse personnel, unloading trailers and rail cars, checking in new merchandise accurately, putting it away systematically, pulling and prepping it for delivery, and seeing that orders were delivered to customer homes in good condition and in a timely manner. Although not highly educated, these men had to be common-sense smart; they had to be able to judge and manage entry-level employees; and they had to be honest. In a day when there was no automated inventory control system, owners depended solely on the integrity of their supervisors for theft prevention.
I believe my father's and grandfather's racial attitudes were conditioned by their working association with black men like Hylan H. and Tom L. Because the success of their business depended on the talents of these men, they were less likely to see them as inferior and as objects of opprobrium, vilification, and abuse.
In addition to the employment factor, there was a second complementary mechanism by which blacks were drawn into a symbiosis with my father and grandfather: the merchant-customer relationship. In this segregated post-war era, black income levels were severely restricted, and if blacks were going to buy any furniture, appliances, or electronics, it would have to be on credit -- which was not as accessible or widespread as it is today. Schewel Furniture Company was willing to extend credit -- to blacks and whites -- when many other firms would not, and thus its customer base increasingly came to include many blacks, another reason for its owners to view that community with tolerance and sensitivity. (In a striking example of customer appreciation and astute marketing, the Schewel store was one of the few Main Street establishments to provide facilities for blacks; in a peculiar iteration, there were two female rest rooms in the basement, one for blacks, one for whites, and one male rest room, apparently used by both races.)
I experienced a similar acculturation on a personal level when I began working at Schewels in the early sixties during the summer and Christmas breaks. Since I was relegated to light warehouse and assembly duty, my cohorts were all black men, for whom I developed a curious admiration and reverence -- for the strength and stamina they exhibited in effortlessly unloading truck after truck; for their jovial camaraderie and constant verbal jousting; for the skill and efficiency with which they were able to perform any task requiring manual dexterity (at which I was sorely deficient); for their prodigious exploits with women, about which I heard daily, their confident boastful expressions the only evidence I needed to be convinced of their veracity; and for their easy acceptance of me, whether because I was the boss's son, or in spite of that fact, I could never quite fathom.
It amazes me now that I can picture these men so clearly and even remember their names: Eugene P., known as "Hot Dog," a tall, lean, gangling former Dunbar High School basketball star; Smith F., soft-spoken but tough, a coiled spring of belligerence lurking beneath his sly, smug grin; Phil Q., a gentle, grandfatherly giant of a man, his existential nature a consistent, calming presence; Henry J., a chattering, illiterate, middle-aged rogue, whose principal preoccupations were chasing and escaping women and losing and regaining his job, which he appeared to do with unrelenting frequency; and Dry Bones (I don't remember, don't think I ever really knew, his real name), all-purpose janitor and later chauffeur to Messrs. Abe and Ben Schewel, whose paper-thin fragility belied a sinewy strength, and who, it seemed, would crumble to dust in the face of a harsh wind.
Finally, there was the aforementioned Tom L., the Schewel Warehouse manager at the time I came to work there permanently in 1970. Tom L. was short, rotund, round-faced, and bald -- a flurry of activity, brash, outspoken, proud, demanding respect from blacks and whites alike, competent, dependable, and honest, Hylan H.'s protege, with an entirely different personality. He acknowledged me as the boss, or the boss's son, but never failed to put me in my place when I ventured into territory I knew nothing about -- like running his warehouse. Looking back, I believe Tom L., in spite of his genial, garrulous, exuberant manner, saw himself as somewhat of a tragic figure, who subconsciously believed he was worthy of greater achievements if he had been born in another skin, place, or time.
My other youthful exposure to blacks came in the form of my family's female servants, or maids, who were a common sight in many Southern households in those days -- and still are. I remember a series of these women passing through our homes, some even staying for extended periods on a live-in basis, and my mother's constant refrain that she could never find a "good one," whatever that meant.
The maid most clearly delineated in my consciousness is the classically christened Eula Mae L., a diminutive, vivacious, coal-black workaholic with a squeaky, high-pitched voice that never seemed to abate -- a female version of Tom L., if you will. When charged with the task, she was a stern disciplinerian, which ultimately only endeared her to my siblings and me more. Her most compelling attribute -- really the primary prerequisite for any accomplished maid -- was her cooking skill, exemplified by her tasty fried chicken, which we devoured one Sunday evening, only to discover afterwards that we had enjoyed the three chicks our father had brought home six months earlier as pets but had handed over to Eula to raise to maturity in her back yard when they outgrew their tiny cage.
My grandmother's maid, Alice, a fixture in her home for many years, conformed to the model more closely. She was so shy, laconic, and unobtrusive that she seemed to melt into the woodwork.
The question at hand, now, is whether these encounters with blacks -- as customers, as menial handlers of furniture, and as household servants -- engendered authentic liberal, open-minded thinking or whether they merely substantiated a traditional, paternalistic paradigm -- through which blacks were viewed as contented in their roles and inferior in the sense that they were qualified only for these roles.
No matter how fairly we treated her or how sincerely we attempted to define the relationship as one between an employer and employee, it is difficult for me to divorce the the black female's role as a maid from the paradigm defined above; it resembles a little too much an ante-bellum Southern plantation scenario.
The other two circumstances -- black males as menial laborers and blacks as customers -- seem less problematic, the former because of the level of responsibility entrusted to the black supervisor (but, admittedly, ignoring the condition of his subordinates); the latter because it presupposes a certain independence on the part of the customer. Such reasoning induces one to ask: if blacks were so capable, why were they not promoted to better, higher-paying positions? Which leads me to some concluding remarks in further support of my argument that these forms of black-white interaction -- the two noted in this paragraph, at least -- effectively counteracted prejudice and fostered tolerance and understanding.
Like the Founding Fathers -- who, in spite of their genius and courage, were unable to break through conventional racial barriers -- Southerners of the fifties and sixties were constrained by contemporary mores, especially segregation. Other than the contacts I have described, blacks were invisible to us, and the curtains were drawn to keep them that way. I remember blacks banished to the back of the bus and to the balcony of the movie theater, practices which, according to her, shocked my Pennsylvania-bred mother when she first came South. If my parents and grandparents weren't bigots or racists, neither were they by any stretch of the imagination activists, never openly promoting equal justice or the redressing of dimly-perceived (at that time) wrongs. In fact, my father declined to join the Civil Rights March on Washington when invited by a former Lynchburg rabbi, fearful of negative business repercussions. And it would have been too revolutionary -- and too threatening to employees and customers alike -- to place a black person on the sales floor or in the credit office -- even if such a thought ever entered his mind.
In further defense of my forbears, their language and behavior towards blacks were, to my knowledge, considerate, respectful, and non-abusive. I suppose in making that claim, I am absolving my grandfather and father -- particularly the former -- of the use of the derogatory Yiddish term for blacks: "svartzers," or, as they pronounced it, "swatzas" -- excusable, I submit, because its meaning was unknown to the general populace, including those to whom it referred. Yes, it was the "n" word in Yiddish, but it wasn't the "n" word, which I never heard either man speak, in a time when it was a fairly common epithet. Thus, I interpret their posture towards their black employees as genuinely caring and not patronizing.
I would also assert that with respect to all three generations -- myself included as the third -- a more tolerant attitude was informed by our Jewish heritage, and not by any prescribed religious beliefs but rather by a knowledge of ethnic persecution. It was surely no secret to any family member that my great-grandfather had fled Czarist oppression in late nineteenth-century Russia, where Jews were deemed second-class citizens, excluded from certain professions, and not allowed to own property, a state of affairs eerily similar to that confronting Southern blacks. While my religious school textbooks were ominously silent on the Holocaust -- this was a period when American Jewry was reluctant to broadcast its victimization and martyrdom -- they consistently emphasized the forceful separation and confinement of Jews throughout history to selected and less attractive living areas, called ghettos, another phenomenon echoed by the contemporary treatment of blacks. The parallels were subtle, never openly expressed, but they were undeniable; and it was left to the individual, student or adult, to look to his own conscience and draw the analogy.
If, looking back on my formative years in a segregated society, I regret anything, it would be an obtuseness, an obliviousness, a bland incurious acquiescence in the shameful standards of the day, a failure to move beyond the benign, isolated connections I forged with a handful of black people. When E. C. Glass High School was integrated in 1963 (or 1964) -- with the admission of two students, one male, one female, into a corpus of fifteen hundred -- reactions were predictable: some violently and vociferously opposed, a small minority supportive, a silent majority in the middle, where I place myself. At least I tried to be cordial and helpful, if not overtly friendly, as both students were in several of my classes. I am proud to report that I had a few friends who actively reached out to the boy and invited him to join their rock-and-roll band. (Or was that just another stereotype: the rhythmic black singer enhancing his white musician back-ups?)
Today, fifty years later, in spite of revolutionary changes that have created a myriad of opportunities for blacks and raised their standard of living significantly, de facto segregation persists as the order of the day. While public institutions are integrated, I suspect interracial socialization is minimal at best, just as it in the greater society. Outside the workplace, I rarely cross paths with blacks, other than at an occasional non-profit meeting or the YMCA. Many individuals harbor hostile feelings towards blacks and some profess them openly. They resent the deployment of tax dollars for social services and public assistance for blacks (and whites), refusing to acknowledge that not every person brings into the world the same intelligence, interpersonal skills, and parental and peer nourishment required for upward mobility and success.
Great minds struggle with these issues every day. The conundrum of our Founding Fathers espousing liberty and equal justice for all while failing to manumit their slaves suggests that solutions will remain elusive.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Waylaid at Wal-Mart
To paraphrase my previous blog, it's Sunday in late August -- although it could have been any day in this or any other year -- and my wife and I are in Wilmington, N.C., visiting our daughter, Adrienne. In the midst of such pleasant outings, usually after a meal has been completed and future dining options have been thoroughly vetted, which business can absorb the greater part, but, unfortunately, not the whole part, of a day, invariably the conversation turns to that activity upon which so many females of our species depend for sustenance and invigoration and so many males, including myself, cast their most intense aspersion -- shopping.
It's not the idea of spending money that irritates me. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, among whose many attributes is a feverish frugality, most often expressed in proud purchases of stylish, flattering clothes at bargain prices. Rather it is the interminable, indeterminate nature of the enterprise -- browsing racks and shelves, examining, touching, trying on, modeling, seeking approval or rejection -- which I find analogous to strategic planning sessions -- which I also despise and which consume untold hours generating problematic prescriptions seldom practiced.
In addition, I would much prefer to avoid physically forking over the funds, and, instead, pay the bill blindly when it arrives in the mail months later, thereby assuming that every item contained therein is a necessity and not the result of some frivolous impulse (or non-impulse).
If the inevitable decision to shop wasn't grievous enough, the emporium chosen was even more troubling. Somehow I was persuaded, cajoled, or enticed with the possibility of future rewards, to abandon all rationality, risk the equilibrium of a cheery vacation day, and brave the jungle of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Why is it that, when we are away from home, we gravitate to the maw of the beast?
Now, I've been to Wal-Mart before, but, for a 59-year-old man, I believe my scorecard of infrequent visits -- less than ten -- must be close to a record. I acknowledge two perfunctory and satisfactory morning excursions to our local Wards Road store to purchase desperately needed items -- folding lawn chairs and crude sign materials -- and to nighttime grocery shopping in Myrtle Beach--two time periods when the crowds, though certainly sizable, were at least manageable, thus leaving me completely unprepared for what I was to confront that Sunday afternoon.
Our first obstacle -- not easily overcome if you are from out of town -- was finding the store. Oh, we could see it all right, but getting there was a different matter. Apparently, the Wilmington Wal-Mart is located off a side street connecting two busy thoroughfares, and the access from this street is all but invisible to foreigners. We circled our object at least once before sneaking up on it from the rear--whereupon we were immediately confronted by our second daunting Wal-Mart challenge: the parking lot.
I believe the entire ministry in Wilmington, N.C., must have preached the same sermon that Sunday morning: "May God bless you, my congregants. Now, go forth and shop." Not only was every parking space occupied, but the connecting arteries were clogged with vehicles (not to mention the isolated shopping cart carelessly abandoned in the roadway), mostly pick-up trucks and SUV's (in my opinion, a totally gratuitous and wasteful mode of transportation in a place where the temperature never drops below 40 degrees), entering, leaving, or greedily seeking an opening close to the building.
There we were, stranded in a parking lot traffic jam. We might spot a space a row or two away, only to watch helplessly while it evaporated in the shimmering heat. When, after about ten minutes of anxious hunting, we did find a place to park, of course we were facing the wrong direction, and had to creep past it and, in a delicate but rapid manuever, dart in backwards, lest it be cruelly snatched from us in the interim.
To me, Wal-Marts are the concrete and steel manifestations of the current era's weirdly inverted economic realities. They are our modern-day factories: expansive, enclosed arenas with broad, straight aisles, exposed beams overhead, and bleached fluorescent lighting, seething with a contained energy robotically propelling finished consumer goods out the door, differing from their precurors only in the fact that the merchandise has arrived in house already perfected, having been produced in mirror-image, if less pristine, structures on distant continents.
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly sales statistics are tabulated instantaneously by an incessant blip-blip-blip which greets us -- and all visitors -- immediately upon our entrance: the sound of purchases being swiped across a bar code machine and audible evidence that customers are buying at a frantic pace, luring the newly-arrived to join the party.
At this point, I must confess that my wife and I were not so demented as to brazen Wal-Mart without an objective in our sights: a bicycle for our daughter, which objective promptly became obscured in the frenzy which attacked us like an epileptic seizure when we strolled through the inviting automatic retracting doors. Actually, those doors seemed permanently locked in the retracted position, so constant was the traffic passing to and fro.
"Honey, I believe I'll look around," said my wife, words guaranteed to spark fear in the heart of any obedient husband, frightening enough when spoken in a traditional department or clothing store, but particularly terrifying when echoing through a cavernous Wal-Mart. "Sure, honey," was the only meek response I could muster. "I guess I'll look around, too."
"Look around at what?" I muttered to myself, as my wife merrily disappeared into the bowels of this organic building, leaving me to my own meager resources. When I go into a store, there are only three areas I am even minimally interested in scoping out: mens clothing, books, and furniture. And Wal-Mart's inventory in each of these categories is understandably bleak and quickly dispensed with. What passes for a mens department is shelf after shelf of blue jeans and slacks (also mostly blue); the only books on hand are the top twenty hardback and paperback bestsellers and a worthy assortment of Bibles; and the furniture display is confined to one short aisle of ready-to-assemble desks, television stands, and bookcases, for which I should be eternally grateful.
But what an array of other delectable material is spread out before us patrons -- like a Golden Corral buffet in front of a homeless man: rack after rack of apparel, for women and children, anchoring the center of the store, surrounded by: paper, paper, and more paper; detergents and cleaners; small appliances of every make and model; cookware; dinnerware; bath and bed furnishings; lamps and lighting; shoes and boots (male and female); rugs, blinds, and shades; rolls of fabric; electronics and DVD's; tires, batteries, and motor oil; sporting goods; camping, fishing, and hunting supplies; tools; bath and kitchen decor; health and beauty aids; lawn and garden equipment; jewelry; and of course, groceries, fresh, frozen, canned, cooked, processed, and packaged -- none of which held any attraction for me. Yes, there I was, cast adrift in a sea of delights upon which normal folks would engorge themselves, yet which to me tasted only of salt.
I was struck by one undeniable phenomenon: the prices, as best I could judge, based on my limited shopping experience, were, as advertised, consistently low. I do buy some articles of clothing on occasion, but this was virgin territory: $9.84, $10.76, $11.92, $12.67. I hardly see how they can transport the stuff from Bangladesh for much less than that. And even commodities like gum, candy, and bottled water I found to be 20 to 30 per cent less than what I have paid in other places.
Say what you want about Wal-Mart -- its underpricing and undermining of local retailers; its transformation of green fields and farmland into asphalt and big boxes; its dumbing down of service sector wage rates and benefit packages; and its embracing of offshore sourcing, regardless of the consequences, in a relentless quest for lower costs -- it is raising the American consumer's standard of living by saving him money.
Suddenly, my contemplation -- and boredom -- were interrupted by an unfamiliar (to me, that is) sound: my cell phone was ringing. Yes, I had it with me, turned on, even, for how else was I to reconnect with my wife in this supersized labyrinth, both of us wandering aimlessly.
After we exchanged obligatory "Where are you's," ("I'm in Wal-Mart. Where are you?") she abruptly summoned me to the vicinity of the toy department, reminding me of our putative purpose: a bicycle for our daughter.
Of course, since I stubbornly refused to ask directions (Is that really necessary in a store?), it took me more than a few minutes to navigate the packed aisles and dodge the ubiquitous shopping carts, hazards for which one must constantly be on the alert, thus making it even more difficult for me to locate and reach my goal.
If you think modern marketers obsessed with proliferating choices have made selecting a tube of toothpaste confusing, try looking at bicycles. Upon my encountering two long rows of spokes and wheels, one stacked on top of the other -- and basically out of reach -- perplexity and panic set in. Well, we knew we wanted a girl's model, but should it 24 or 36 inches; a roadster, speedster, coaster, or mountain climber; three-speed, five-speed, ten-speed, or twenty-speed; and, the most important question, what color?
After some discussion and surprisingly little disagreement, my wife and I settled on a 26-inch ten-speed, violet roadster with a quirky rear-wheel kickstand, which was securely lodged on the upper level. We managed to corral a horsey-looking store employee, distinguishable from hordes of shoppers only by an apron and his name tag, who grimly pried our newest fixation from its moorings and manipulated it to the floor.
Since we were concerned about fitting the bicycle in our car, I asked the fellow if he could detach the front wheel. "Company policy won't let me," he replied, sincerely apologetic. "But you can buy a wrench in the tool department and do it yourself," he offered, exhibiting add-on salesmanship of the highest order. Following his directions, I stumbled upon bin after bin of fixed and adjustable iterations ("So many wrenches, so little time," to paraphrase a famous wench herself), before deciding on one of each, at the disposable price of $1.19.
I was about to wheel the bicycle to the front of the store when my wife spoke up: "Honey, would you take this?" I looked around in bewilderment for a few seconds, before my gaze came to rest upon a surfeited shopping cart parked innocently on the sidelines, which I had assumed belonged to someone else.
"What this?" I asked, with an obsequious grin. "Just a few supplies for Adrienne's new apartment. Since we were here, I thought I might as well help her out," she replied, thus validating the seductive power of those blip-blip-blips and row after row of irresistible, inexpensive merchandise.
Either the cart was too unwieldy for her, or she wanted me to demonstrate uncharacteristic gentlemanly chivalry and run interference for her on the way to the checkout counter, more aware of the pitfalls of the course than I was. Looking back, I would submit that the vehicular aisles in Wal-Mart in Wilmington, N.C., on a Sunday afternoon are about as congested as I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg and just as perilous.
Since I did not see an octagonal sign at the end of the bicycle aisle, I did not stop and look both ways before entering moving traffic, upon which I was rudely and resoundingly struck by speeding shopping carts (or reckless drivers, depending on one's point of view), first on my left and then on my right. Other than the shock which reverberated up through my hands grasping the cart handles to my shoulder blades, little harm was done, all three of us embarrassed cart-mishandlers exchanging polite "Excuse me's."
From that point, I carefully made my way to the checkout counter -- its blip-blip-blips growing progressively louder like a metal detector striking gold -- my eyes peeled for wayward carts and self-absorbed shoppers. I danced between two counters, trying to ascertain the shortest line, and eventually sidled up to a register, where a young lady -- the factory conveyor belt's last stop -- routinely swiped every item, including the bicycle, and took my payment. I finally got to experience all those blip-blip-blips up close and personal.
I blasted through the retractable doors, joyous at escaping the insatiable beast, only to realize that one is not Wal-Mart free until one has exited the parking lot -- no easy task. Oh, our car was where we had left it; we just weren't sure exactly where that was. And once we found it and loaded it with our newest most cherished possessions, we still had to extricate ourselves from the same traffic jam we had barely escaped two hours earlier.
As we pulled onto the main road, I breathed a welcome sigh of relief -- until my wife commented that we needed a few more things for Adrienne's apartment and, on a wing and a prayer, serenely directed me to our next destination: Target.
To add insult to injury, we later determined that the bicycle's front brakes were defective and returned it to Wal-Mart for credit.
All in all, I'd rather run ten miles.
It's not the idea of spending money that irritates me. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, among whose many attributes is a feverish frugality, most often expressed in proud purchases of stylish, flattering clothes at bargain prices. Rather it is the interminable, indeterminate nature of the enterprise -- browsing racks and shelves, examining, touching, trying on, modeling, seeking approval or rejection -- which I find analogous to strategic planning sessions -- which I also despise and which consume untold hours generating problematic prescriptions seldom practiced.
In addition, I would much prefer to avoid physically forking over the funds, and, instead, pay the bill blindly when it arrives in the mail months later, thereby assuming that every item contained therein is a necessity and not the result of some frivolous impulse (or non-impulse).
If the inevitable decision to shop wasn't grievous enough, the emporium chosen was even more troubling. Somehow I was persuaded, cajoled, or enticed with the possibility of future rewards, to abandon all rationality, risk the equilibrium of a cheery vacation day, and brave the jungle of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Why is it that, when we are away from home, we gravitate to the maw of the beast?
Now, I've been to Wal-Mart before, but, for a 59-year-old man, I believe my scorecard of infrequent visits -- less than ten -- must be close to a record. I acknowledge two perfunctory and satisfactory morning excursions to our local Wards Road store to purchase desperately needed items -- folding lawn chairs and crude sign materials -- and to nighttime grocery shopping in Myrtle Beach--two time periods when the crowds, though certainly sizable, were at least manageable, thus leaving me completely unprepared for what I was to confront that Sunday afternoon.
Our first obstacle -- not easily overcome if you are from out of town -- was finding the store. Oh, we could see it all right, but getting there was a different matter. Apparently, the Wilmington Wal-Mart is located off a side street connecting two busy thoroughfares, and the access from this street is all but invisible to foreigners. We circled our object at least once before sneaking up on it from the rear--whereupon we were immediately confronted by our second daunting Wal-Mart challenge: the parking lot.
I believe the entire ministry in Wilmington, N.C., must have preached the same sermon that Sunday morning: "May God bless you, my congregants. Now, go forth and shop." Not only was every parking space occupied, but the connecting arteries were clogged with vehicles (not to mention the isolated shopping cart carelessly abandoned in the roadway), mostly pick-up trucks and SUV's (in my opinion, a totally gratuitous and wasteful mode of transportation in a place where the temperature never drops below 40 degrees), entering, leaving, or greedily seeking an opening close to the building.
There we were, stranded in a parking lot traffic jam. We might spot a space a row or two away, only to watch helplessly while it evaporated in the shimmering heat. When, after about ten minutes of anxious hunting, we did find a place to park, of course we were facing the wrong direction, and had to creep past it and, in a delicate but rapid manuever, dart in backwards, lest it be cruelly snatched from us in the interim.
To me, Wal-Marts are the concrete and steel manifestations of the current era's weirdly inverted economic realities. They are our modern-day factories: expansive, enclosed arenas with broad, straight aisles, exposed beams overhead, and bleached fluorescent lighting, seething with a contained energy robotically propelling finished consumer goods out the door, differing from their precurors only in the fact that the merchandise has arrived in house already perfected, having been produced in mirror-image, if less pristine, structures on distant continents.
Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly sales statistics are tabulated instantaneously by an incessant blip-blip-blip which greets us -- and all visitors -- immediately upon our entrance: the sound of purchases being swiped across a bar code machine and audible evidence that customers are buying at a frantic pace, luring the newly-arrived to join the party.
At this point, I must confess that my wife and I were not so demented as to brazen Wal-Mart without an objective in our sights: a bicycle for our daughter, which objective promptly became obscured in the frenzy which attacked us like an epileptic seizure when we strolled through the inviting automatic retracting doors. Actually, those doors seemed permanently locked in the retracted position, so constant was the traffic passing to and fro.
"Honey, I believe I'll look around," said my wife, words guaranteed to spark fear in the heart of any obedient husband, frightening enough when spoken in a traditional department or clothing store, but particularly terrifying when echoing through a cavernous Wal-Mart. "Sure, honey," was the only meek response I could muster. "I guess I'll look around, too."
"Look around at what?" I muttered to myself, as my wife merrily disappeared into the bowels of this organic building, leaving me to my own meager resources. When I go into a store, there are only three areas I am even minimally interested in scoping out: mens clothing, books, and furniture. And Wal-Mart's inventory in each of these categories is understandably bleak and quickly dispensed with. What passes for a mens department is shelf after shelf of blue jeans and slacks (also mostly blue); the only books on hand are the top twenty hardback and paperback bestsellers and a worthy assortment of Bibles; and the furniture display is confined to one short aisle of ready-to-assemble desks, television stands, and bookcases, for which I should be eternally grateful.
But what an array of other delectable material is spread out before us patrons -- like a Golden Corral buffet in front of a homeless man: rack after rack of apparel, for women and children, anchoring the center of the store, surrounded by: paper, paper, and more paper; detergents and cleaners; small appliances of every make and model; cookware; dinnerware; bath and bed furnishings; lamps and lighting; shoes and boots (male and female); rugs, blinds, and shades; rolls of fabric; electronics and DVD's; tires, batteries, and motor oil; sporting goods; camping, fishing, and hunting supplies; tools; bath and kitchen decor; health and beauty aids; lawn and garden equipment; jewelry; and of course, groceries, fresh, frozen, canned, cooked, processed, and packaged -- none of which held any attraction for me. Yes, there I was, cast adrift in a sea of delights upon which normal folks would engorge themselves, yet which to me tasted only of salt.
I was struck by one undeniable phenomenon: the prices, as best I could judge, based on my limited shopping experience, were, as advertised, consistently low. I do buy some articles of clothing on occasion, but this was virgin territory: $9.84, $10.76, $11.92, $12.67. I hardly see how they can transport the stuff from Bangladesh for much less than that. And even commodities like gum, candy, and bottled water I found to be 20 to 30 per cent less than what I have paid in other places.
Say what you want about Wal-Mart -- its underpricing and undermining of local retailers; its transformation of green fields and farmland into asphalt and big boxes; its dumbing down of service sector wage rates and benefit packages; and its embracing of offshore sourcing, regardless of the consequences, in a relentless quest for lower costs -- it is raising the American consumer's standard of living by saving him money.
Suddenly, my contemplation -- and boredom -- were interrupted by an unfamiliar (to me, that is) sound: my cell phone was ringing. Yes, I had it with me, turned on, even, for how else was I to reconnect with my wife in this supersized labyrinth, both of us wandering aimlessly.
After we exchanged obligatory "Where are you's," ("I'm in Wal-Mart. Where are you?") she abruptly summoned me to the vicinity of the toy department, reminding me of our putative purpose: a bicycle for our daughter.
Of course, since I stubbornly refused to ask directions (Is that really necessary in a store?), it took me more than a few minutes to navigate the packed aisles and dodge the ubiquitous shopping carts, hazards for which one must constantly be on the alert, thus making it even more difficult for me to locate and reach my goal.
If you think modern marketers obsessed with proliferating choices have made selecting a tube of toothpaste confusing, try looking at bicycles. Upon my encountering two long rows of spokes and wheels, one stacked on top of the other -- and basically out of reach -- perplexity and panic set in. Well, we knew we wanted a girl's model, but should it 24 or 36 inches; a roadster, speedster, coaster, or mountain climber; three-speed, five-speed, ten-speed, or twenty-speed; and, the most important question, what color?
After some discussion and surprisingly little disagreement, my wife and I settled on a 26-inch ten-speed, violet roadster with a quirky rear-wheel kickstand, which was securely lodged on the upper level. We managed to corral a horsey-looking store employee, distinguishable from hordes of shoppers only by an apron and his name tag, who grimly pried our newest fixation from its moorings and manipulated it to the floor.
Since we were concerned about fitting the bicycle in our car, I asked the fellow if he could detach the front wheel. "Company policy won't let me," he replied, sincerely apologetic. "But you can buy a wrench in the tool department and do it yourself," he offered, exhibiting add-on salesmanship of the highest order. Following his directions, I stumbled upon bin after bin of fixed and adjustable iterations ("So many wrenches, so little time," to paraphrase a famous wench herself), before deciding on one of each, at the disposable price of $1.19.
I was about to wheel the bicycle to the front of the store when my wife spoke up: "Honey, would you take this?" I looked around in bewilderment for a few seconds, before my gaze came to rest upon a surfeited shopping cart parked innocently on the sidelines, which I had assumed belonged to someone else.
"What this?" I asked, with an obsequious grin. "Just a few supplies for Adrienne's new apartment. Since we were here, I thought I might as well help her out," she replied, thus validating the seductive power of those blip-blip-blips and row after row of irresistible, inexpensive merchandise.
Either the cart was too unwieldy for her, or she wanted me to demonstrate uncharacteristic gentlemanly chivalry and run interference for her on the way to the checkout counter, more aware of the pitfalls of the course than I was. Looking back, I would submit that the vehicular aisles in Wal-Mart in Wilmington, N.C., on a Sunday afternoon are about as congested as I-81 between Roanoke and Blacksburg and just as perilous.
Since I did not see an octagonal sign at the end of the bicycle aisle, I did not stop and look both ways before entering moving traffic, upon which I was rudely and resoundingly struck by speeding shopping carts (or reckless drivers, depending on one's point of view), first on my left and then on my right. Other than the shock which reverberated up through my hands grasping the cart handles to my shoulder blades, little harm was done, all three of us embarrassed cart-mishandlers exchanging polite "Excuse me's."
From that point, I carefully made my way to the checkout counter -- its blip-blip-blips growing progressively louder like a metal detector striking gold -- my eyes peeled for wayward carts and self-absorbed shoppers. I danced between two counters, trying to ascertain the shortest line, and eventually sidled up to a register, where a young lady -- the factory conveyor belt's last stop -- routinely swiped every item, including the bicycle, and took my payment. I finally got to experience all those blip-blip-blips up close and personal.
I blasted through the retractable doors, joyous at escaping the insatiable beast, only to realize that one is not Wal-Mart free until one has exited the parking lot -- no easy task. Oh, our car was where we had left it; we just weren't sure exactly where that was. And once we found it and loaded it with our newest most cherished possessions, we still had to extricate ourselves from the same traffic jam we had barely escaped two hours earlier.
As we pulled onto the main road, I breathed a welcome sigh of relief -- until my wife commented that we needed a few more things for Adrienne's apartment and, on a wing and a prayer, serenely directed me to our next destination: Target.
To add insult to injury, we later determined that the bicycle's front brakes were defective and returned it to Wal-Mart for credit.
All in all, I'd rather run ten miles.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Race Day
It's late September, and if you find yourself in the company of a fellow past or present, pseudo-athletic, compulsive distance runner, sooner or later the conversation invariably turns to the event by which all Hill City natives of that ilk define themselves.
"I've never really enjoyed running the Ten-Miler," remarked just such an acquaintance, a veteran of well over one hundred races, including many marathons, now, predictably, sidelined by knee injuries. He was in no way disparaging the organization of the race -- which is superb in every respect -- but rather implying that its grueling finish -- one and one-half miles straight uphill -- effectively negates the pleasure and satisfaction normally evoked by such sporting exercises.
Since it is the only race I enter -- and has been for the last twenty years -- it is impossible for me to compare the Virginia Ten-Miler -- race or course -- to any other. However, I believe a mind-numbing familiarity with each -- spawned by thousands of recreational runs and twenty-five serious ones -- humbly qualifies me to articulate a knowledgeable opinion and, in the process, add some insight, both sensory and imaginative, to the term "enjoyment."
I begin by praising the beauty and variety of our journey.
We start -- and end -- in Midtown, to use the newly-coined nomenclature, at E. C. Glass High School, the sprawling, red-brick edifice which majestically straddles the former Lynchburg Fairgrounds, still, after fifty years of expanding boundaries, the natural, if not the geographical center of the city, and, thus, a fitting icon for this annual ritual.
From there, over a gentle uphill and then downhill slope, we pass through a light retail-industrial corridor, highlighted by a small church, a television station, a bank building, a fast-food restaurant, and, on the north side of the road, a recent addition to the landscape, the imposing Centra Health Cancer Center, replacing a two-decades-old former department store and Thomas Road facility, and now gateway to the Lynchburg General campus, its own massive new wing towering in the foreground.
As we coast downhill, leaving behind two more banks, a service station, a florist, and Holy Cross School, development tapers off; natural vegetation sprouts briefly on our left before we encounter a medical center, an apartment complex, and a synagogue, but more luxuriantly on the opposite side, where the overgrown topography declines into Blackwater Creek.
We glide by the Farm Basket and turn sharply uphill, entering a residential neighborhood, a diminutive Greek Church on one side, a prominent red brick ranch set back on the other, its roadside mailbox decorated with an American flag.
Though still tracking uphill, the course levels off, and we contemplate a marvelous assortment of structural and horticultural designs which continues another mile along Langhorne Road: mini-mansions with circular driveways, hidden courtyards, elaborate lawns; comfortably modest ranch and Cape Cod homes with brick or wood siding; ivy-lined brick and stone walls, white picket and rail fencing, huge boxwood barriers; oak, pine, poplar, and dogwood trees of all shapes and sizes shading the sidewalks and front yards.
We crest the Rivermont Terrace incline and swing east down Rivermont Avenue, which exhibits on both sides an enchanting array of private and institutional architecture: stately, spacious Cape Cod houses; the grand, elegantly landscaped, Randolph College presidential home; the sweeping vista presented by the distant, white-columned superstructure of the Villa Maria overlooking its extensive grounds and forest; two impressive churches; apartment buildings of ancient and contemporary vintage; the curiously-located and impossible-to-characterize Cavalier sports bar/diner/pool hall; and, finally, on our left, the distinctive red-brick wall lining the perimeter of Randolph College, now educating males and females, its two historic landmarks, Main Hall and Smith Hall, rising to dominate the Avenue.
The next block, according to legend, unveils Lynchburg's first strip center, which offers a pleasant collection of small shops, offices, and (two) restaurants, planted eclectically in the midst of a traditional neighborhood. From here, it's only a few hundred yards to the venerable, yellow-brick Garland-Rodes School, housing the Virginia School of the Arts and gateway to Riverside Park, itself a repository for odd and interesting sights: well-worn public tennis courts and playground equipment; a sentinel-like gazebo; a decrepit, grass-filled swimming pool, the vestige of a bygone segregated era; a yet-to-be-restored, steam-powered passenger train; the remains of Stonewall Jackson's packet boat, recently sheltered from further deterioration; a stone platform overlooking storied Treasure Island -- all surrounding a vast, open field, the site, on non-race days, of airborne golf balls, footballs, and baseballs.
We emerge from the Park's second entrance, between two thick stone columns, and turn back up the Avenue, just before the streetscape begins to show its age, and embark on the long trek homeward, retracing our steps, the splendid panorama now seen in reverse, like a DVD tracking backwards.
It's a joy to behold -- unique, extraordinary, memorable.
Not only is the Virginia Ten-Miler my only race, unless I'm traveling it's essentially the only course I dine on, starting from my home, either biting off the 5.5-mile loop through Riverside Park or consuming the full ten by continuing to the High School. Thus, the race serves up refreshing and gratifying delicacies in contrast to my routine, tedious outings.
First of all, it validates my putative training regimen: one or two five-milers a week, and one ten-miler, following the pattern described above. My short runs supply all the mental relaxation and physical conditioning I (or anyone) really need; the only reason I run farther, I tell myself, is to maintain the state of fitness presumably required for a decent showing come September. Of course, if the Virginia Ten-Miler were tragically to expire, my obsessive personality would no doubt compel me to persist in those needless extensions, putting the lie to my self-delusions.
Secondly, race day is the one time during the year I can revel in the open road, unconfined to narrow, constricting sidewalks. The broad expanses of Rivermont Avenue and Langhorne Road spread out before me like the parting of the Red Sea, and, oh, what rewards lie therein: a shorter distance, granted by a handful of yards but measurable nonetheless; a more forgiving surface, if the oft-promulgated contention that asphalt is softer than concrete has any substance; a smoother path, absent the curbs and uneven pavement which induce trips and falls; and a safer passage, purged of the vehicular traffic usually clogging the roads and lurking in the shadows of side streets.
Third, in a paradox that informs road races, I am forever solitary, but now part of a crowd. I prefer to run alone; I don't have to adjust my (slow) pace to match that of my partner, or consume valuable energy engaging in idle chatter. But the herd effect does yield two explicit benefits, my companions colorfully camouflauging my stark visibility as a crazed distance runner while quickening my competitive juices to generate a little more speed.
And, finally, like bees to honey, race day rouses interested observers from their hives, who, though slimmer in number than when headliners led the pack, deliver a much-appreciated buzz along the way. When I hear those friendly, encouraging acclamations, "Looking good," or "Go, Marc," I raise my weary head from its habitual downward concentration and respond with a forced smile or limp wave.
In spite of these enticements, I must admit that, as my seventh decade looms on the horizon, my enthusiasm for this runfest may be diminishing, as it already has for so many of my contemporaries, who have gracefully retired from the contest, either for physical reasons or simply because they would prefer to avoid all the gratuitous pain. It's becoming more arduous for me, too -- not to run it, but to post a respectable time, under eighty minutes, eight-minute miles, which I have never failed to attain, and significant because I believe it is the number which separates running from jogging. But just as each passing year inexorably produces another birthday, so too does it add precious seconds, even minutes, to the Ten-Miler record book. In fact, practice runs of 80:50 and 81:35, the only two I could stomach in the stifling heat that blanketed us all summer, suggest that I may never again see 80:00 when I cross the finish line.
I suspect, however, that just as my measure of success has steadily regressed over the years -- from 62:00 (my best time) to 70:00 to 80:00 -- once that standard has fallen, I'll keep running, with the bar set a little lower (actually, in raw numbers, higher, since this game is scored like golf).
Thus it is with studied apprehension that I rise this morning at 6:00 AM, and commence my pre-race routine: stimulate my facial nerves with a splash and a shave; awaken my slumbering muscles and constricted blood vessels under a hot shower; don my pink-and-yellow Elvis tee-shirt, reserved annually for this day only, to which is attached my entrant's identification; perform my normal stretching exercises; nourish myself with two pieces of dry toast; and, forgoing wallet and license, taking only a single car key, drive to E. C. Glass High School, park on Murrell Road, and surreptitiously conceal said key behind my right front tire. Now I'm ready.
And, along with one thousand others, I am in luck. It's a perfect day for running, the first like it we have seen in three months: 55 degrees, low humidity, a cloudless blue sky overhead, a personal best performance there for the taking -- unless, of course, you are 59 and your best days are far behind you.
Warming up, I jog slowly across the overflowing parking lot toward the broad greensward which fronts the school auditorium and is bustling with activity. I skirt booths and tables displaying an amplitude of goods and services, all gratis -- memorabilia, massages, refreshments, medical advice -- en route to the water stand, where I quickly down two cups of lukewarm water, which, in a matter of minutes, tickle my bladder. I hurry towards a lineup of portajohns and wait impatiently to relieve myself; hardly anything comes out.
The race announcer, his voice booming like a brass horn over a loudspeaker, shepherds us to the staging area, interrupting his commands for frequent, but totally unnecessary, weather updates and to introduce today's favorites and three alumni of all thirty-four Ten-Milers (two mutually exclusive groups). I wander among the dense assemblage -- multi-colored tee shirts, sport tops, drooping shorts, and athletic shoes intermingling like magnified pixels -- catch the eye of a familiar face, wish him or her well, and snake towards the front of the pack, even though it will rapidly outdistance me. An imperfect but nonetheless stirring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner sends shivers up and down my spine -- or maybe it's the chill in the air, or the irrepressible excitement of yet another ten-Miler. I glance to my left at the iron sculpture of an Olympian in flight, by Umana, strategically placed adjacent to the starting line, lean forward in imitation, take a deep breathe -- and then, a sharp retort, and we're off.
The initial downhill mile poses a vexing question for first and old-timers: how fast? I believe I will have to run a 7:30 to have any chance of breaking 80:00, but too swift a pace will surely sap my reserves. Inspired by a surge of adrenalin and the mass of fellow travelers, I lengthen my stride. The mile marker is always deceptive; after rounding the curve and passing Holy Cross, I feel it should be right there. It doesn't matter this morning, because I'm cruising in this crisp, cool, Canadian air, my concern now that I've been too quick -- is that possible -- when I see the numerals flashing: 7:15.
Now the grade increases -- in our favor -- and I let gravity pull me downhill. Like hands clapping, my feet noisily slap the pavement, crunching the minimal padding in my aging (four months old) Brooks Terminators. I smile at my neighbor, because I can read his mind: The return trip won't be this kind. Across Blackwater Creek, the first signs of exertion emerge: beads of perspiration on my forehead, a circle of moisture staining Elvis's nose, forced inhalations in lieu of easy breaths -- and a slackening pace as I climb Langhorne Road. I know this hill too well: the closing half-mile of my long runs from home, but today only the second mile, which I complete at 15:10.
After that steep incline, the third mile appears to level out, another cruel illusion; it's all uphill. Pockets of spectators are scattered along the roadway, including a gathering at my own street, whose encouragement I acknowledge with a nod and a wave. I'm holding a comfortable pace, nestled in a sweet spot between adequate speed and energy conservation. My confidence is growing; no longer a mere possibility, eighty minutes is suddenly a probability. I sweep through the Langhorne Road s-curve into a slight declivity, accelerate, and stretch for the mile marker: 23:00.
Yesterday, the Rivermont Terrace hill would have presented its usual stern test; today it's a minor inconvenience, peremptorily surmounted. A large group of well-wishers is gathered at the crest, spurring us around a hard right and onto the four-lane Avenue. The runners are spread out by now, each in a mobile cocoon, struggling to break free of his limitations. We head straight into a rising sun, its warming effect pleasantly moderated by the dry air, the smooth downhill, and my breathing eases on the flatland fronting Randolph College. Just as the four-milers are peeling off towards campus and their finish line, I see the hard-charging race leaders streaking by us on the opposite side of the road, their arms and legs pumping like pistons, and watch the mile marker clock 30:40.
The fifth mile is another flirt, seducing us with a steady run through Rivermont's picturesque storefronts and a gauntlet of cheerleaders, inspiring me to charge up the short rise into the Park and then down the trail which leads to the river, almost floating, I feel so light, my feet barely skimming the surface. I hear a voice calling out the times from above, it's so close, when, like a slap in the face, I confront an almost vertical climb that reduces me to a crawl, while the pregnant seconds tick on, tick on. Grabbing for air, I keep my legs churning, and cross the mile marker at 38:30, still not over the crown.
The sixth mile is critical for me. Halfway home, I peer into the future where the finish line awaits, yet to achieve it I must repress all such visions, and take one mile at a time. I burst free of the Park shadows and feel a wall ahead, the sensation of approaching exhaustion. I'm tempted to slow down, slacken the pace, rest, but I will my body forward, drawing on the reserves of oxygen all those training miles have manufactured and stored, and, like a gear downshifting, my determination is rewarded: a second wind kicks in. My lungs begin pumping reflexively; my stride lengthens. I repass Randolph College at 46:10.
Now I'm counting the hills -- only two more until the Big One, both in this seventh mile, a modest one up Rivermont Avenue, easily scaled, and the other up Rivermont Terrace, where the downward opposite slope almost propels me over the top and to the mile marker. It's best now to block out all externalities and concentrate on the task at hand -- lean into the run and put one foot in front of the other; in this mode, I'm surprised at my own strength. I repass the Williams Home at 54:00.
Believe it or not, the eighth mile is an opportunity to make up a few seconds; once you navigate the s-curve, it's all downhill. A nagging question hovers on the edge of your consciousness: Should I run faster? Or, in actuality, can I run faster? The answer lies somewhere in a Twilight Zone between both. My mind says "yes," my body says "no." Or is it the other way around, since my mind is well aware of the suffering that awaits, and wants to conserve the body's strength. It engages in some wishful thinking, too: if only the the last two miles were like this one, I could cruise in, just like I'm cruising now as I hit the eight-mile marker at 61:30, a 7:30 pace, my fastest since mile one.
My strategy, such as it is, for those last two miles never varies in its naked simplicity: gut it out. I shoot down the hill to Blackwater Creek, and I feel a slight ache stirring in my calves and thighs, foreshadowing a deeper soreness tomorrow. It becomes irrelevant as I hit bottom, tease myself up and over a little hump, and collide with Farm Basket Hill. If I don't stop, I know I can complete the last two miles in, at worst, seventeen minutes. And how tempting it is, with my lungs pumping and my legs carrying dead weight, to slow down, to walk, to catch my breath, just for a few seconds -- but I persist, hardly running, jogging, looking ahead for small victories along the endless climb: Kulman Place, Hill Street, the Jewish synagogue. The grade levels a bit, then resumes its angle, and I'm fighting it, actually conquering it, all the way to the nine-mile marker, which I pass at 69:35.
Now the roadway flattens for a hundred yards in front of Holy Cross, affording a bit of relief and the opportunity to gather oneself for the long, slow incline that is the last mile. I look up, lower my head, and go after it, whispering to myself, "Almost home," echoing the cries of support and polite applause emanating from a few scattered spectators. As Hardee's, then CVS fall in my wake, at the false summit of the hill, I pass a tired runner who gasps, "This is the hardest part," while all I am thinking is how each step is bringing me closer to the end.
I crest the hill, see the goal ahead, and dig deep for a closing kick, not much, but enough to hold my place, I'm sure, until someone sprints by me, intent on saving a couple of seconds. The shouts of the crowd, the announcer counting off the times, the instructions of the chute officials, are all empty noise. I'm almost there, and suddenly I am there; I fall forward across the finish line, and slow, finally, to a walk, stop, bend over, grab my shorts, and breathe the sweet, cool air.
And then I remember the clock, winking at me from overhead: 77:35. I'm still a runner! Old age vanquished for another year! What a race! What a day!
"I've never really enjoyed running the Ten-Miler," remarked just such an acquaintance, a veteran of well over one hundred races, including many marathons, now, predictably, sidelined by knee injuries. He was in no way disparaging the organization of the race -- which is superb in every respect -- but rather implying that its grueling finish -- one and one-half miles straight uphill -- effectively negates the pleasure and satisfaction normally evoked by such sporting exercises.
Since it is the only race I enter -- and has been for the last twenty years -- it is impossible for me to compare the Virginia Ten-Miler -- race or course -- to any other. However, I believe a mind-numbing familiarity with each -- spawned by thousands of recreational runs and twenty-five serious ones -- humbly qualifies me to articulate a knowledgeable opinion and, in the process, add some insight, both sensory and imaginative, to the term "enjoyment."
I begin by praising the beauty and variety of our journey.
We start -- and end -- in Midtown, to use the newly-coined nomenclature, at E. C. Glass High School, the sprawling, red-brick edifice which majestically straddles the former Lynchburg Fairgrounds, still, after fifty years of expanding boundaries, the natural, if not the geographical center of the city, and, thus, a fitting icon for this annual ritual.
From there, over a gentle uphill and then downhill slope, we pass through a light retail-industrial corridor, highlighted by a small church, a television station, a bank building, a fast-food restaurant, and, on the north side of the road, a recent addition to the landscape, the imposing Centra Health Cancer Center, replacing a two-decades-old former department store and Thomas Road facility, and now gateway to the Lynchburg General campus, its own massive new wing towering in the foreground.
As we coast downhill, leaving behind two more banks, a service station, a florist, and Holy Cross School, development tapers off; natural vegetation sprouts briefly on our left before we encounter a medical center, an apartment complex, and a synagogue, but more luxuriantly on the opposite side, where the overgrown topography declines into Blackwater Creek.
We glide by the Farm Basket and turn sharply uphill, entering a residential neighborhood, a diminutive Greek Church on one side, a prominent red brick ranch set back on the other, its roadside mailbox decorated with an American flag.
Though still tracking uphill, the course levels off, and we contemplate a marvelous assortment of structural and horticultural designs which continues another mile along Langhorne Road: mini-mansions with circular driveways, hidden courtyards, elaborate lawns; comfortably modest ranch and Cape Cod homes with brick or wood siding; ivy-lined brick and stone walls, white picket and rail fencing, huge boxwood barriers; oak, pine, poplar, and dogwood trees of all shapes and sizes shading the sidewalks and front yards.
We crest the Rivermont Terrace incline and swing east down Rivermont Avenue, which exhibits on both sides an enchanting array of private and institutional architecture: stately, spacious Cape Cod houses; the grand, elegantly landscaped, Randolph College presidential home; the sweeping vista presented by the distant, white-columned superstructure of the Villa Maria overlooking its extensive grounds and forest; two impressive churches; apartment buildings of ancient and contemporary vintage; the curiously-located and impossible-to-characterize Cavalier sports bar/diner/pool hall; and, finally, on our left, the distinctive red-brick wall lining the perimeter of Randolph College, now educating males and females, its two historic landmarks, Main Hall and Smith Hall, rising to dominate the Avenue.
The next block, according to legend, unveils Lynchburg's first strip center, which offers a pleasant collection of small shops, offices, and (two) restaurants, planted eclectically in the midst of a traditional neighborhood. From here, it's only a few hundred yards to the venerable, yellow-brick Garland-Rodes School, housing the Virginia School of the Arts and gateway to Riverside Park, itself a repository for odd and interesting sights: well-worn public tennis courts and playground equipment; a sentinel-like gazebo; a decrepit, grass-filled swimming pool, the vestige of a bygone segregated era; a yet-to-be-restored, steam-powered passenger train; the remains of Stonewall Jackson's packet boat, recently sheltered from further deterioration; a stone platform overlooking storied Treasure Island -- all surrounding a vast, open field, the site, on non-race days, of airborne golf balls, footballs, and baseballs.
We emerge from the Park's second entrance, between two thick stone columns, and turn back up the Avenue, just before the streetscape begins to show its age, and embark on the long trek homeward, retracing our steps, the splendid panorama now seen in reverse, like a DVD tracking backwards.
It's a joy to behold -- unique, extraordinary, memorable.
Not only is the Virginia Ten-Miler my only race, unless I'm traveling it's essentially the only course I dine on, starting from my home, either biting off the 5.5-mile loop through Riverside Park or consuming the full ten by continuing to the High School. Thus, the race serves up refreshing and gratifying delicacies in contrast to my routine, tedious outings.
First of all, it validates my putative training regimen: one or two five-milers a week, and one ten-miler, following the pattern described above. My short runs supply all the mental relaxation and physical conditioning I (or anyone) really need; the only reason I run farther, I tell myself, is to maintain the state of fitness presumably required for a decent showing come September. Of course, if the Virginia Ten-Miler were tragically to expire, my obsessive personality would no doubt compel me to persist in those needless extensions, putting the lie to my self-delusions.
Secondly, race day is the one time during the year I can revel in the open road, unconfined to narrow, constricting sidewalks. The broad expanses of Rivermont Avenue and Langhorne Road spread out before me like the parting of the Red Sea, and, oh, what rewards lie therein: a shorter distance, granted by a handful of yards but measurable nonetheless; a more forgiving surface, if the oft-promulgated contention that asphalt is softer than concrete has any substance; a smoother path, absent the curbs and uneven pavement which induce trips and falls; and a safer passage, purged of the vehicular traffic usually clogging the roads and lurking in the shadows of side streets.
Third, in a paradox that informs road races, I am forever solitary, but now part of a crowd. I prefer to run alone; I don't have to adjust my (slow) pace to match that of my partner, or consume valuable energy engaging in idle chatter. But the herd effect does yield two explicit benefits, my companions colorfully camouflauging my stark visibility as a crazed distance runner while quickening my competitive juices to generate a little more speed.
And, finally, like bees to honey, race day rouses interested observers from their hives, who, though slimmer in number than when headliners led the pack, deliver a much-appreciated buzz along the way. When I hear those friendly, encouraging acclamations, "Looking good," or "Go, Marc," I raise my weary head from its habitual downward concentration and respond with a forced smile or limp wave.
In spite of these enticements, I must admit that, as my seventh decade looms on the horizon, my enthusiasm for this runfest may be diminishing, as it already has for so many of my contemporaries, who have gracefully retired from the contest, either for physical reasons or simply because they would prefer to avoid all the gratuitous pain. It's becoming more arduous for me, too -- not to run it, but to post a respectable time, under eighty minutes, eight-minute miles, which I have never failed to attain, and significant because I believe it is the number which separates running from jogging. But just as each passing year inexorably produces another birthday, so too does it add precious seconds, even minutes, to the Ten-Miler record book. In fact, practice runs of 80:50 and 81:35, the only two I could stomach in the stifling heat that blanketed us all summer, suggest that I may never again see 80:00 when I cross the finish line.
I suspect, however, that just as my measure of success has steadily regressed over the years -- from 62:00 (my best time) to 70:00 to 80:00 -- once that standard has fallen, I'll keep running, with the bar set a little lower (actually, in raw numbers, higher, since this game is scored like golf).
Thus it is with studied apprehension that I rise this morning at 6:00 AM, and commence my pre-race routine: stimulate my facial nerves with a splash and a shave; awaken my slumbering muscles and constricted blood vessels under a hot shower; don my pink-and-yellow Elvis tee-shirt, reserved annually for this day only, to which is attached my entrant's identification; perform my normal stretching exercises; nourish myself with two pieces of dry toast; and, forgoing wallet and license, taking only a single car key, drive to E. C. Glass High School, park on Murrell Road, and surreptitiously conceal said key behind my right front tire. Now I'm ready.
And, along with one thousand others, I am in luck. It's a perfect day for running, the first like it we have seen in three months: 55 degrees, low humidity, a cloudless blue sky overhead, a personal best performance there for the taking -- unless, of course, you are 59 and your best days are far behind you.
Warming up, I jog slowly across the overflowing parking lot toward the broad greensward which fronts the school auditorium and is bustling with activity. I skirt booths and tables displaying an amplitude of goods and services, all gratis -- memorabilia, massages, refreshments, medical advice -- en route to the water stand, where I quickly down two cups of lukewarm water, which, in a matter of minutes, tickle my bladder. I hurry towards a lineup of portajohns and wait impatiently to relieve myself; hardly anything comes out.
The race announcer, his voice booming like a brass horn over a loudspeaker, shepherds us to the staging area, interrupting his commands for frequent, but totally unnecessary, weather updates and to introduce today's favorites and three alumni of all thirty-four Ten-Milers (two mutually exclusive groups). I wander among the dense assemblage -- multi-colored tee shirts, sport tops, drooping shorts, and athletic shoes intermingling like magnified pixels -- catch the eye of a familiar face, wish him or her well, and snake towards the front of the pack, even though it will rapidly outdistance me. An imperfect but nonetheless stirring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner sends shivers up and down my spine -- or maybe it's the chill in the air, or the irrepressible excitement of yet another ten-Miler. I glance to my left at the iron sculpture of an Olympian in flight, by Umana, strategically placed adjacent to the starting line, lean forward in imitation, take a deep breathe -- and then, a sharp retort, and we're off.
The initial downhill mile poses a vexing question for first and old-timers: how fast? I believe I will have to run a 7:30 to have any chance of breaking 80:00, but too swift a pace will surely sap my reserves. Inspired by a surge of adrenalin and the mass of fellow travelers, I lengthen my stride. The mile marker is always deceptive; after rounding the curve and passing Holy Cross, I feel it should be right there. It doesn't matter this morning, because I'm cruising in this crisp, cool, Canadian air, my concern now that I've been too quick -- is that possible -- when I see the numerals flashing: 7:15.
Now the grade increases -- in our favor -- and I let gravity pull me downhill. Like hands clapping, my feet noisily slap the pavement, crunching the minimal padding in my aging (four months old) Brooks Terminators. I smile at my neighbor, because I can read his mind: The return trip won't be this kind. Across Blackwater Creek, the first signs of exertion emerge: beads of perspiration on my forehead, a circle of moisture staining Elvis's nose, forced inhalations in lieu of easy breaths -- and a slackening pace as I climb Langhorne Road. I know this hill too well: the closing half-mile of my long runs from home, but today only the second mile, which I complete at 15:10.
After that steep incline, the third mile appears to level out, another cruel illusion; it's all uphill. Pockets of spectators are scattered along the roadway, including a gathering at my own street, whose encouragement I acknowledge with a nod and a wave. I'm holding a comfortable pace, nestled in a sweet spot between adequate speed and energy conservation. My confidence is growing; no longer a mere possibility, eighty minutes is suddenly a probability. I sweep through the Langhorne Road s-curve into a slight declivity, accelerate, and stretch for the mile marker: 23:00.
Yesterday, the Rivermont Terrace hill would have presented its usual stern test; today it's a minor inconvenience, peremptorily surmounted. A large group of well-wishers is gathered at the crest, spurring us around a hard right and onto the four-lane Avenue. The runners are spread out by now, each in a mobile cocoon, struggling to break free of his limitations. We head straight into a rising sun, its warming effect pleasantly moderated by the dry air, the smooth downhill, and my breathing eases on the flatland fronting Randolph College. Just as the four-milers are peeling off towards campus and their finish line, I see the hard-charging race leaders streaking by us on the opposite side of the road, their arms and legs pumping like pistons, and watch the mile marker clock 30:40.
The fifth mile is another flirt, seducing us with a steady run through Rivermont's picturesque storefronts and a gauntlet of cheerleaders, inspiring me to charge up the short rise into the Park and then down the trail which leads to the river, almost floating, I feel so light, my feet barely skimming the surface. I hear a voice calling out the times from above, it's so close, when, like a slap in the face, I confront an almost vertical climb that reduces me to a crawl, while the pregnant seconds tick on, tick on. Grabbing for air, I keep my legs churning, and cross the mile marker at 38:30, still not over the crown.
The sixth mile is critical for me. Halfway home, I peer into the future where the finish line awaits, yet to achieve it I must repress all such visions, and take one mile at a time. I burst free of the Park shadows and feel a wall ahead, the sensation of approaching exhaustion. I'm tempted to slow down, slacken the pace, rest, but I will my body forward, drawing on the reserves of oxygen all those training miles have manufactured and stored, and, like a gear downshifting, my determination is rewarded: a second wind kicks in. My lungs begin pumping reflexively; my stride lengthens. I repass Randolph College at 46:10.
Now I'm counting the hills -- only two more until the Big One, both in this seventh mile, a modest one up Rivermont Avenue, easily scaled, and the other up Rivermont Terrace, where the downward opposite slope almost propels me over the top and to the mile marker. It's best now to block out all externalities and concentrate on the task at hand -- lean into the run and put one foot in front of the other; in this mode, I'm surprised at my own strength. I repass the Williams Home at 54:00.
Believe it or not, the eighth mile is an opportunity to make up a few seconds; once you navigate the s-curve, it's all downhill. A nagging question hovers on the edge of your consciousness: Should I run faster? Or, in actuality, can I run faster? The answer lies somewhere in a Twilight Zone between both. My mind says "yes," my body says "no." Or is it the other way around, since my mind is well aware of the suffering that awaits, and wants to conserve the body's strength. It engages in some wishful thinking, too: if only the the last two miles were like this one, I could cruise in, just like I'm cruising now as I hit the eight-mile marker at 61:30, a 7:30 pace, my fastest since mile one.
My strategy, such as it is, for those last two miles never varies in its naked simplicity: gut it out. I shoot down the hill to Blackwater Creek, and I feel a slight ache stirring in my calves and thighs, foreshadowing a deeper soreness tomorrow. It becomes irrelevant as I hit bottom, tease myself up and over a little hump, and collide with Farm Basket Hill. If I don't stop, I know I can complete the last two miles in, at worst, seventeen minutes. And how tempting it is, with my lungs pumping and my legs carrying dead weight, to slow down, to walk, to catch my breath, just for a few seconds -- but I persist, hardly running, jogging, looking ahead for small victories along the endless climb: Kulman Place, Hill Street, the Jewish synagogue. The grade levels a bit, then resumes its angle, and I'm fighting it, actually conquering it, all the way to the nine-mile marker, which I pass at 69:35.
Now the roadway flattens for a hundred yards in front of Holy Cross, affording a bit of relief and the opportunity to gather oneself for the long, slow incline that is the last mile. I look up, lower my head, and go after it, whispering to myself, "Almost home," echoing the cries of support and polite applause emanating from a few scattered spectators. As Hardee's, then CVS fall in my wake, at the false summit of the hill, I pass a tired runner who gasps, "This is the hardest part," while all I am thinking is how each step is bringing me closer to the end.
I crest the hill, see the goal ahead, and dig deep for a closing kick, not much, but enough to hold my place, I'm sure, until someone sprints by me, intent on saving a couple of seconds. The shouts of the crowd, the announcer counting off the times, the instructions of the chute officials, are all empty noise. I'm almost there, and suddenly I am there; I fall forward across the finish line, and slow, finally, to a walk, stop, bend over, grab my shorts, and breathe the sweet, cool air.
And then I remember the clock, winking at me from overhead: 77:35. I'm still a runner! Old age vanquished for another year! What a race! What a day!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Muscle Car
If you were a teen-aged boy growing up in the 1960's, chances are your second favorite fantasy was to own a muscle car. If you were the blue-blooded heir to a burgeoning retail furniture empire, chances are your indulgent parents would buy you one.
It wasn't my first car. No, I initially took flight at the wheel of a slightly-used 1962 baby-blue Falcon, Ford's misnomered compact car posing as a bird of prey and the precurser to its expansive stable of equestrian vehicles: the sporty Mustang, serviceable Maverick, and forgettable Pinto. It was a boxy two-door coupe with Ford's signature round taillights, a bench seat upholstered in a two-tone blue-and-white checked vinyl, and barely enough energy to climb the Langhorne Road hill every morning on the way to E. C. Glass High School.
You would think such a nondescript, unobtrusive set of wheels could be easily concealed -- but you would be wrong. Back in 1965, when I matriculated at Washington and Lee University, freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus, nor within the town or county environs, a policy strictly monitored by the school's stocky round-faced security officer, Bill Murray, aka Murph, although an appellation more appropriate to his appearance and profession would have been Sam Ketchem, Dick Tracy's omnipresent sidekick. I heeded the rule my first semester, but upon returning to school in January, with my father's silent blessing, I saw no harm in surreptitiously stashing the car behind the Schewel store on Main Street in Lexington and reserving it for weekend road trips, until Murph approached me one afternoon and casually informed me that my little blue Falcon needed new front tires.
It almost wasn't my second car, either. After completing that first year and becoming legally eligible to maintain an automobile at W&L, I convinced my father that my well-worn Falcon was inadequate for traversing the mountainous course between Lynchburg and Lexington on a regular basis, in response to which he brought home for my inspection one summer afternoon the most beautiful car I had ever seen: a stunning 1963 or 1964 forest green Thunderbird, with a white vinyl top and leather interior. Why he did it remains a mystery, because, after shifting my salivatory glands into overdrive and inflaming my desires to a fever pitch, he ignominously jerked that masterpiece on wheels out from under me, apparently deciding that it was too flashy, too powerful, and too sumptuous for a college sophomore, thus igniting a grossly immature fit of rage for an eighteen-year-old.
He must have experienced a guilty conscience, because, shortly thereafter, he dispatched me, along with a Schewel employee who presumably possessed some car-buying acumen and negotiating skills, to the now defunct Virginian Motors on Twelfth and Church Streets to scope out a brand new 1966 Fairlane GT -- Ford's version of the muscle car. (If you haven't figured it out by now, my father was a Ford disciple and the happy owner of a 1963 white Galaxie convertible which he drove for at least ten years.) It almost made me forget that Thunderbird. It was coated in a deep, rich, wine-dark burgundy finish, the perfect complement to its crisp, clean, aggressive styling, and featured a rakish horizontal split grill framed by stacked chrome headlights, an elongated hood flowing straight back through a slight bubble to rectangular taillights, a distinctive white racing stripe stretching from fender to fender, and a masculine four-speed gear shift protruding between two black leather bucket seats.
What really defined the muscle car were its mechanics: the powerful, throaty, 390-hp V-8 engine, four-barrel carburetor, dual exhausts, heavy-duty suspension, and disc brakes, all designed to propel the vehicle into rapid acceleration (providing you could shift through the gears fast enough) and speeds far in excess of all legal limits, and the proud driver into the eager clutches of attractive young women. This Fairlane was no exception, as Ford had raced it into production to compete with GM's already popular models: the Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, the Olds Cutlass 4-4-2, and the classic Pontiac GTO, variations of which could be seen cruising the Lexington campus, the envy of every student except for a rare one or two whose parents were well-heeled enough to spoil him with a true sports car: the Chevrolet Corvette.
A necessary prerequisite to owning and operating a muscle car was the ability to manipulate a manual transmission with reasonable dexterity, although editions were available with automatics, which in my mind merely served to relegate them to the status of pseudo-muscular. Keeping the dream alive, I taught myself how to use a clutch and shift gears in a company pickup truck while working at Schewels one summer -- during my lunch hours, of course. I practiced in the sloping parking lot behind the Downtown store, violently shaking the truck, often losing control entirely, and repeatedly bouncing it off the rear wall of the building before realizing that it would smoothly accelerate if I gently depressed the gas pedal, held it, and then eased up on the clutch until it engaged.
My Fairlane GT did not garner me any girls -- its striking good looks and forceful personality could not entirely substitute for my own -- but it did win me a few friends, most of whom wanted to test drive it or borrow it for a road trip to a neighboring female institution -- Southern Seminary, Randolph-Macon, Hollins, or Sweet Briar. Although now a sophomore living in a fraternity house and eager to ingratiate myself with my Greek brothers, I staunchly withstood their entreaties -- for a while. At heart, however, I was a generous, trusting soul, and finally there came the day when my sympathetic temperament overcame my better judgment -- and I could resist no longer.
Of all the supplicants I could have loaned my car to, the one I chose was the worst. Tony B. was an awkward, brash, irresponsible Yankee classmate of mine who had flunked out of school as a freshman, taken a year off, and rematriculated. He wanted to go to medical school, but never seemed to crack a book, and spent most of his time at the fraternity house laughing at his own stories, chain-smoking, and playing bridge. He even looked the part of a ne'er-do-well, with tight curly hair and a visage that was all black glasses and teeth. I was so taken aback at hearing he had actually secured a date in Lynchburg -- and only needed a ride to consummate it -- that I meekly surrendered to his pleadings and reluctantly handed over the keys.
When you consider Tony B.'s reputation and routine misbehavior, the outcome of this foolish act is hardly surprising. You would think I would remember where I was, what I was doing -- but I don't -- when I received that fateful telephone call informing me that Terrible Tony had been involved in a single-vehicle accident on Rt. 501 -- and not a simple fender-bender, either. No, he had ripped up the entire driver's side from stem to stern, squashing it like an empty beer can, while, fortunately, I guess, harming not one curly hair on his bony skull. Cursing Tony, angry at myself, fearful of the consequences, I had no choice but to inform my father of this woeful situation.
He was more lenient and understanding than I deserved. He came to Lexington, took me to the Ford dealership, assessed the damage while I stood nearby, silently weeping, and decided that, since it was covered by insurance, we should authorize this Humpty Dumpty to be put back together again. Without complaint, I walked and hitched rides for the next four weeks, until summoned to the body shop, where I was presented with my vehicle reborn -- immaculate, unblemished, complete in every detail, down to the white racing stripe.
I had learned one bitter lesson: don't let anyone borrow your car. Is it possible that another even more painful one lay before me?
I usually parked my car on a narrow cross street that bordered the north side of the fraternity house, out of sight of the southwest corner where my second-floor room was located -- but not out of mind. Was I dreaming three months later when, about two in the morning, restless and semi-awake, I rolled over in bed and heard a growl eerily similar to that produced by the sudden acceleration of my muscle car? Alas, if only it were so, for what was to greet me as I blithely exited the dining hall and crossed the parking lot that Sunday morning but a bewildering nakedness, a pregnant vacancy, a profound emptiness, devoid even of the imaginary ticking of a silenced V-8 engine. My car was gone -- obviously stolen.
And how, your natural curiosity might prompt you to ask. Let's just put it this way: I made it easy for him; I left the keys in the starter. Whether this was habitual stupidity on my part or some temporary impulsive death wish is as irrelevant today as it was then. Since I was willing to loan my car to Tony B., you might justfiably conclude that I would place a similar level of trust in the general lot of humanity, inducing me to install, figuratively, an invitation on the dashboard of my dearest possession: take me.
But other people's faith in human nature was not quite so naive, especially if said individuals were employed in law enforcement. Fourteen hours after reporting my car stolen, I was ceremoniously shepherded to Police Headquarters, ushered into the type of green-walled isolation chamber you read about in formulaic detective novels, and grilled unmercifully by two of Lexington's finest as to the locus and range of my activities since the previous night.
The devious motive behind their threatening line of interrogation became abundantly clear when one officer leaned forward, peered into my eyes, and spewed forth this disturbing question: "And just why did you leave your wrecked car out in the country and report it stolen, Mr. Schewel?" using the polite form of address favored by Washington and Lee gentlemen.
Mentally bruised and battered, I stared back, swallowed, and spoke softly: "Did you say wrecked?" While an oddly familiar shiver coursed through my body, I knew then that they had found my car, indeed wrecked again, and were accusing me -- a lying W&L mink -- of abandoning it in a drunken stupor and concocting this wretched tale to absolve myself of all responsibility. In other words, I had stolen my own car.
For once, justice was served, not only because I steadfastly defended my innocence, but also because these insolent investigators knew all along that mine was only one of a rash of car thefts occurring in the neighborhood, more of which were to ensue before the perpetrator was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted, on testimony that included your narrator's.
After two hours of relentless verbal fencing, the officers accepted my story and decided to take me to see what was left of my car, disheartened at losing their suspect, but silently smug at the thought of inflicting more torment on this spoiled rich kid. In the dead of night, they escorted me into the bowels of Rockbridge County, where, along some deserted, winding roadway, the thief -- or thieves -- had run the car off the pavement and ripped the entire left side -- crushing it like an empty beer can -- a depressingly familiar sight, exactly replicating what I had wept over six months ago in a Ford body shop. The front and back seats and floorboards were littered with trash and real beer cans, the telltale evidence, according to the cops, of this cunning student's culpability.
Needless to say, my insurance company didn't look too favorably upon my driving -- or non-driving -- habits. On the other hand, the local Ford dealer thought I was the second coming of Robert E. Lee, based on my contributions to the local economy, and expressed his sincere desire that I enroll for the seven-year Law School plan. He put my car back together -- again -- and I guess if you were to put a positive spin on this dual calamity, you could say that, since it was the same driver's side that was twice destroyed, at least one-half of the car was still brand new and all muscle.
I did manage to graduate from college two years later without further automotive incidents, my Fairlane GT remaining intact -- except for a cracked steering wheel, a stark reminder of its storied past -- until I traded it for a more sedate Pontiac Tempest. Even though I came to realize just how superfluous all that power and flash really were, and despite my trials and tribulations, my affection for the muscle car never died. One-half of the Fairlane GT's manufactured by Ford must have been burgundy, because, in later years, it seemed that every one I passed displayed that rich, wine-dark color -- accented by a distinctive white racing stripe. I would gaze with nostalgia at each sighting, reliving the fantasies of my teenage years, when I yearned to own a muscle car, and whisper to myself, "It's mine. Why did I ever let it go?"
It wasn't my first car. No, I initially took flight at the wheel of a slightly-used 1962 baby-blue Falcon, Ford's misnomered compact car posing as a bird of prey and the precurser to its expansive stable of equestrian vehicles: the sporty Mustang, serviceable Maverick, and forgettable Pinto. It was a boxy two-door coupe with Ford's signature round taillights, a bench seat upholstered in a two-tone blue-and-white checked vinyl, and barely enough energy to climb the Langhorne Road hill every morning on the way to E. C. Glass High School.
You would think such a nondescript, unobtrusive set of wheels could be easily concealed -- but you would be wrong. Back in 1965, when I matriculated at Washington and Lee University, freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus, nor within the town or county environs, a policy strictly monitored by the school's stocky round-faced security officer, Bill Murray, aka Murph, although an appellation more appropriate to his appearance and profession would have been Sam Ketchem, Dick Tracy's omnipresent sidekick. I heeded the rule my first semester, but upon returning to school in January, with my father's silent blessing, I saw no harm in surreptitiously stashing the car behind the Schewel store on Main Street in Lexington and reserving it for weekend road trips, until Murph approached me one afternoon and casually informed me that my little blue Falcon needed new front tires.
It almost wasn't my second car, either. After completing that first year and becoming legally eligible to maintain an automobile at W&L, I convinced my father that my well-worn Falcon was inadequate for traversing the mountainous course between Lynchburg and Lexington on a regular basis, in response to which he brought home for my inspection one summer afternoon the most beautiful car I had ever seen: a stunning 1963 or 1964 forest green Thunderbird, with a white vinyl top and leather interior. Why he did it remains a mystery, because, after shifting my salivatory glands into overdrive and inflaming my desires to a fever pitch, he ignominously jerked that masterpiece on wheels out from under me, apparently deciding that it was too flashy, too powerful, and too sumptuous for a college sophomore, thus igniting a grossly immature fit of rage for an eighteen-year-old.
He must have experienced a guilty conscience, because, shortly thereafter, he dispatched me, along with a Schewel employee who presumably possessed some car-buying acumen and negotiating skills, to the now defunct Virginian Motors on Twelfth and Church Streets to scope out a brand new 1966 Fairlane GT -- Ford's version of the muscle car. (If you haven't figured it out by now, my father was a Ford disciple and the happy owner of a 1963 white Galaxie convertible which he drove for at least ten years.) It almost made me forget that Thunderbird. It was coated in a deep, rich, wine-dark burgundy finish, the perfect complement to its crisp, clean, aggressive styling, and featured a rakish horizontal split grill framed by stacked chrome headlights, an elongated hood flowing straight back through a slight bubble to rectangular taillights, a distinctive white racing stripe stretching from fender to fender, and a masculine four-speed gear shift protruding between two black leather bucket seats.
What really defined the muscle car were its mechanics: the powerful, throaty, 390-hp V-8 engine, four-barrel carburetor, dual exhausts, heavy-duty suspension, and disc brakes, all designed to propel the vehicle into rapid acceleration (providing you could shift through the gears fast enough) and speeds far in excess of all legal limits, and the proud driver into the eager clutches of attractive young women. This Fairlane was no exception, as Ford had raced it into production to compete with GM's already popular models: the Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, the Olds Cutlass 4-4-2, and the classic Pontiac GTO, variations of which could be seen cruising the Lexington campus, the envy of every student except for a rare one or two whose parents were well-heeled enough to spoil him with a true sports car: the Chevrolet Corvette.
A necessary prerequisite to owning and operating a muscle car was the ability to manipulate a manual transmission with reasonable dexterity, although editions were available with automatics, which in my mind merely served to relegate them to the status of pseudo-muscular. Keeping the dream alive, I taught myself how to use a clutch and shift gears in a company pickup truck while working at Schewels one summer -- during my lunch hours, of course. I practiced in the sloping parking lot behind the Downtown store, violently shaking the truck, often losing control entirely, and repeatedly bouncing it off the rear wall of the building before realizing that it would smoothly accelerate if I gently depressed the gas pedal, held it, and then eased up on the clutch until it engaged.
My Fairlane GT did not garner me any girls -- its striking good looks and forceful personality could not entirely substitute for my own -- but it did win me a few friends, most of whom wanted to test drive it or borrow it for a road trip to a neighboring female institution -- Southern Seminary, Randolph-Macon, Hollins, or Sweet Briar. Although now a sophomore living in a fraternity house and eager to ingratiate myself with my Greek brothers, I staunchly withstood their entreaties -- for a while. At heart, however, I was a generous, trusting soul, and finally there came the day when my sympathetic temperament overcame my better judgment -- and I could resist no longer.
Of all the supplicants I could have loaned my car to, the one I chose was the worst. Tony B. was an awkward, brash, irresponsible Yankee classmate of mine who had flunked out of school as a freshman, taken a year off, and rematriculated. He wanted to go to medical school, but never seemed to crack a book, and spent most of his time at the fraternity house laughing at his own stories, chain-smoking, and playing bridge. He even looked the part of a ne'er-do-well, with tight curly hair and a visage that was all black glasses and teeth. I was so taken aback at hearing he had actually secured a date in Lynchburg -- and only needed a ride to consummate it -- that I meekly surrendered to his pleadings and reluctantly handed over the keys.
When you consider Tony B.'s reputation and routine misbehavior, the outcome of this foolish act is hardly surprising. You would think I would remember where I was, what I was doing -- but I don't -- when I received that fateful telephone call informing me that Terrible Tony had been involved in a single-vehicle accident on Rt. 501 -- and not a simple fender-bender, either. No, he had ripped up the entire driver's side from stem to stern, squashing it like an empty beer can, while, fortunately, I guess, harming not one curly hair on his bony skull. Cursing Tony, angry at myself, fearful of the consequences, I had no choice but to inform my father of this woeful situation.
He was more lenient and understanding than I deserved. He came to Lexington, took me to the Ford dealership, assessed the damage while I stood nearby, silently weeping, and decided that, since it was covered by insurance, we should authorize this Humpty Dumpty to be put back together again. Without complaint, I walked and hitched rides for the next four weeks, until summoned to the body shop, where I was presented with my vehicle reborn -- immaculate, unblemished, complete in every detail, down to the white racing stripe.
I had learned one bitter lesson: don't let anyone borrow your car. Is it possible that another even more painful one lay before me?
I usually parked my car on a narrow cross street that bordered the north side of the fraternity house, out of sight of the southwest corner where my second-floor room was located -- but not out of mind. Was I dreaming three months later when, about two in the morning, restless and semi-awake, I rolled over in bed and heard a growl eerily similar to that produced by the sudden acceleration of my muscle car? Alas, if only it were so, for what was to greet me as I blithely exited the dining hall and crossed the parking lot that Sunday morning but a bewildering nakedness, a pregnant vacancy, a profound emptiness, devoid even of the imaginary ticking of a silenced V-8 engine. My car was gone -- obviously stolen.
And how, your natural curiosity might prompt you to ask. Let's just put it this way: I made it easy for him; I left the keys in the starter. Whether this was habitual stupidity on my part or some temporary impulsive death wish is as irrelevant today as it was then. Since I was willing to loan my car to Tony B., you might justfiably conclude that I would place a similar level of trust in the general lot of humanity, inducing me to install, figuratively, an invitation on the dashboard of my dearest possession: take me.
But other people's faith in human nature was not quite so naive, especially if said individuals were employed in law enforcement. Fourteen hours after reporting my car stolen, I was ceremoniously shepherded to Police Headquarters, ushered into the type of green-walled isolation chamber you read about in formulaic detective novels, and grilled unmercifully by two of Lexington's finest as to the locus and range of my activities since the previous night.
The devious motive behind their threatening line of interrogation became abundantly clear when one officer leaned forward, peered into my eyes, and spewed forth this disturbing question: "And just why did you leave your wrecked car out in the country and report it stolen, Mr. Schewel?" using the polite form of address favored by Washington and Lee gentlemen.
Mentally bruised and battered, I stared back, swallowed, and spoke softly: "Did you say wrecked?" While an oddly familiar shiver coursed through my body, I knew then that they had found my car, indeed wrecked again, and were accusing me -- a lying W&L mink -- of abandoning it in a drunken stupor and concocting this wretched tale to absolve myself of all responsibility. In other words, I had stolen my own car.
For once, justice was served, not only because I steadfastly defended my innocence, but also because these insolent investigators knew all along that mine was only one of a rash of car thefts occurring in the neighborhood, more of which were to ensue before the perpetrator was eventually apprehended, tried, and convicted, on testimony that included your narrator's.
After two hours of relentless verbal fencing, the officers accepted my story and decided to take me to see what was left of my car, disheartened at losing their suspect, but silently smug at the thought of inflicting more torment on this spoiled rich kid. In the dead of night, they escorted me into the bowels of Rockbridge County, where, along some deserted, winding roadway, the thief -- or thieves -- had run the car off the pavement and ripped the entire left side -- crushing it like an empty beer can -- a depressingly familiar sight, exactly replicating what I had wept over six months ago in a Ford body shop. The front and back seats and floorboards were littered with trash and real beer cans, the telltale evidence, according to the cops, of this cunning student's culpability.
Needless to say, my insurance company didn't look too favorably upon my driving -- or non-driving -- habits. On the other hand, the local Ford dealer thought I was the second coming of Robert E. Lee, based on my contributions to the local economy, and expressed his sincere desire that I enroll for the seven-year Law School plan. He put my car back together -- again -- and I guess if you were to put a positive spin on this dual calamity, you could say that, since it was the same driver's side that was twice destroyed, at least one-half of the car was still brand new and all muscle.
I did manage to graduate from college two years later without further automotive incidents, my Fairlane GT remaining intact -- except for a cracked steering wheel, a stark reminder of its storied past -- until I traded it for a more sedate Pontiac Tempest. Even though I came to realize just how superfluous all that power and flash really were, and despite my trials and tribulations, my affection for the muscle car never died. One-half of the Fairlane GT's manufactured by Ford must have been burgundy, because, in later years, it seemed that every one I passed displayed that rich, wine-dark color -- accented by a distinctive white racing stripe. I would gaze with nostalgia at each sighting, reliving the fantasies of my teenage years, when I yearned to own a muscle car, and whisper to myself, "It's mine. Why did I ever let it go?"
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Cruelest Month
T. S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, teasing us after the harshness of winter,
. . . breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain,
but ultimately disappointing. "Fear death by water," warns the poet, and do not be tempted by the promise of the new season. He accosts an acquaintance on the street and admonishes him:
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?"
Uncomfortably bleak and morbid is this April Waste Land. My readers can rest easy: I will not be nearly as gloomy, poetic, or dense in explicating my cruelest month: September.
Even though it's been a hot one, with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees every day, it seemed, in August, and hardly a drop of rain to boot, who really wants to see the summer end? And end it will, by the calendar on September 23rd, if it hasn't already done so, practically speaking, with the passing of Labor Day and a sighting of school buses.
It's still warm this September 9th, and as I sit at my kitchen table composing this paean to summer, I am clad in the uniform of the season: a splendidly skimpy tee shirt and pair of khaki shorts, the same two articles of clothing -- in design, that is -- I don every evening after work, starting around May 1st, when I can at last shed my cool weather costume of jeans and sweatshirt.
I gaze pensively through the window at a scene so vivid and clear in the morning air, it might be high-definition TV: the lush foliage blanketing the oak and maple trees; the resilient grass still green in spite of the drought; my shirtless neighbor examining his yard, planning his pruning schedule. Then, with trepidation and restlessness, I turn to the calendar hanging on the wall (only three weeks until October 1st) and ponder: How many more days remain before I must consign to winter hibernation these tee shirts and shorts, not to mention the short-sleeved shirts I wear on dress-down work days, themselves soon to be supplanted by their long-sleeved brethren.
Summer, of course, is the season of vacations, usually of a coastal flavor, but whether that interlude is in June, July, or August, it's over and done by September 1st, and the next one looks as far off as a star seen through the wrong end of a telescope. For our family, two vacations bookend the summer: four days in Myrtle Beach the third week in June and four days in New York City over Labor Day weekend centered around the U.S. Tennis Open, between which volumes of days compress almost instantaneously into a few flimsy pages. The beach in June can be complacently deceptive: viewed from a chair anchored in the sand, book, beer, shades, and sunscreen at hand, Labor Day appears as distant as the hazy horizon where sea and sky merge. You confidently reassure yourself that two full months of summer lie ahead, yet before you exhale, they have evaporated.
As summer draws to a close, so too do the extended daylight hours here in Virginia, where at the summer solstice the sun rises at 5:30 and doesn't set until 9:00, and this September eve graced us with its presence until 7:30, illuminating my entire four-hour journey by car and Metro to Washington, D.C. (which incidentally interrupted the composition I so diligently commenced this morning). How miserable that trip would have been in November or December: the skies dark by the time I reached Vienna at 6:00 PM; undoubtedly, a cold rain falling or a brisk wind blowing, making the 15-minute wait at the open-air train station even more irritating and interminable; and orienting myself after emerging from the McPherson Place underground for the one-block walk to my hotel surely a challenge, because I never ask for directions.
I have mixed feelings about Daylight Savings Time. Since, for one who devours automobile miles like popcorn, late afternoon driving is much more pleasant under nature's light, I do not relish days shortened by both the calendar and the clock. On the other hand, DST's later-rising sun leaves early-morning runners -- like myself -- enshrouded in darkness, although I can't deny a stab of delight at watching the skies gradually lighten -- from star-studded blackness, to gray, to violet, to red-orange -- during a chilly outing in late fall or early spring. It's an easy choice, really: who would sacrifice those long, lazy, sun-drenched evenings for an earlier dawn?
Another somber signature of September is the rapidly approaching finale of the baseball season, after which aficionados of the game like myself sink into a deep slough of despond and an endless wait for spring and a rebirth of the box scores. In my book, the October playoffs and World Series are irrelevant appendages, although they do generate some interest for casual observers of the game (who don't deserve to be designated fans): only eight teams are left playing, and when you are an Athletic supporter or a Cub diehard, chances are both teams have already been banished to the golf course; those intriguing statistics, which, with their daily recalculations, enslave us statheads over the course of 162 games, are now cast in stone; and a glance at the scoreboard exposes its fulsome nakedness, only two or three scores on display, an embarrassing dilution from the full slate posted daily during the regular season.
A. Bartlett Giamatti, Renaissance scholar, President of Yale University, and Commissioner of Baseball -- whose brief tenure (September 1988-September 1989) was highlighted by his banning of Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame -- famously lamented the end of a baseball season when his beloved Red Sox were eliminated from playoff contention in an 8-7 loss to the Orioles on October 2nd, 19??.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then, as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it the most, it stops. Today, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains, it stopped and summer was gone."
The last out silently shatters the writer's poignant illusions: "School will never start, rain will never come, sun will warm the back of your neck forever."
By the second week in September, football, mighty football, has eclipsed baseball in the minds and hearts of the American sports fan. How sad. Just when a handful of teams are fighting for their playoff lives, when one or two pitchers are stretching for that elusive and increasingly rare twentieth win, when a 50 home-run or 15o-rbi plateau is in sight, the air waves are saturated with the imposing, inaugural college and professional football games of the season. Analysis begins three days prior and continues three days after each weekend festival, consuming every hour of the intervening period with pigskin talk. And if you want to catch a baseball score on Saturday, forget it. You must wait for the ESPN Bottom Line to scrawl through fifty college football games between teams as obscure as a Slippery Rock.
I can't wait for the Super Bowl. Spring training starts thirty days later.
While I, an empty nester whose grown children have taken flight to make their way in the world, bemoan the passing of summer, untold numbers of younger parents are rejoicing: School's in. I will concede that it's more than a little selfish of me to express regret at this seasonal ritual, but consider these two exasperating phenomena: first, the ubiquitous school bus, as tenacious as a bloodhound, impeding my progress by its own lumbering pace or by its flashing red and yellow lights and retractable stop sign; and, second, the intrusive traffic congestion on the road where I run two mornings a week, a main thoroughfare for three neighborhood schools.
Admittedly, my self-serving attitude has taken a 180-degree turn since my rambunctious brood of five was stationed at home; back then I was promoting twelve months of school and packed highways. Today, like the students -- and presumably the teachers -- I'm rooting for more workdays, snow days, and holidays.
In truth, this anti-Septembrist diatribe has contradicted a fundamental philosophical conceit of mine: embrace enthusiastically the glory of each passing day, especially at the age of 59, when so many more have been left behind than lie ahead. And there are some redeeming qualities to cruel September.
After all, is not seasonal change refreshing, a rhythmic reminder of the cycle of life, providing us with something to anticipate (as well as complain about)? Winter around here seems hardly a threat, with temperatures regularly reaching the fifties in January and February in recent years and the minimal accumulation of a lonely snowfall gone in a few days.
Beyond that, the predictable abatement of the current tropical weather pattern should produce favorable conditions for the Virginia Ten-Miler two weeks hence. My closet is overflowing with long-sleeved shirts and wool jackets and slacks (many of them hideously outdated) just itching to be worn. As baseball ends, basketball begins, a poor substitute, but at least offering a modicum of media competition for that other sport. I could alter my running and driving habits to accommodate the spate of automobiles and buses clogging the arteries (not likely). And, on a materialistic note, September launches the fall selling season for retail home furnishings after the summer doldrums.
Finally, of course, as fall and winter approach, one can always sneak a guilty peek forward to one's favorite month: April.
. . . breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain,
but ultimately disappointing. "Fear death by water," warns the poet, and do not be tempted by the promise of the new season. He accosts an acquaintance on the street and admonishes him:
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?"
Uncomfortably bleak and morbid is this April Waste Land. My readers can rest easy: I will not be nearly as gloomy, poetic, or dense in explicating my cruelest month: September.
Even though it's been a hot one, with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees every day, it seemed, in August, and hardly a drop of rain to boot, who really wants to see the summer end? And end it will, by the calendar on September 23rd, if it hasn't already done so, practically speaking, with the passing of Labor Day and a sighting of school buses.
It's still warm this September 9th, and as I sit at my kitchen table composing this paean to summer, I am clad in the uniform of the season: a splendidly skimpy tee shirt and pair of khaki shorts, the same two articles of clothing -- in design, that is -- I don every evening after work, starting around May 1st, when I can at last shed my cool weather costume of jeans and sweatshirt.
I gaze pensively through the window at a scene so vivid and clear in the morning air, it might be high-definition TV: the lush foliage blanketing the oak and maple trees; the resilient grass still green in spite of the drought; my shirtless neighbor examining his yard, planning his pruning schedule. Then, with trepidation and restlessness, I turn to the calendar hanging on the wall (only three weeks until October 1st) and ponder: How many more days remain before I must consign to winter hibernation these tee shirts and shorts, not to mention the short-sleeved shirts I wear on dress-down work days, themselves soon to be supplanted by their long-sleeved brethren.
Summer, of course, is the season of vacations, usually of a coastal flavor, but whether that interlude is in June, July, or August, it's over and done by September 1st, and the next one looks as far off as a star seen through the wrong end of a telescope. For our family, two vacations bookend the summer: four days in Myrtle Beach the third week in June and four days in New York City over Labor Day weekend centered around the U.S. Tennis Open, between which volumes of days compress almost instantaneously into a few flimsy pages. The beach in June can be complacently deceptive: viewed from a chair anchored in the sand, book, beer, shades, and sunscreen at hand, Labor Day appears as distant as the hazy horizon where sea and sky merge. You confidently reassure yourself that two full months of summer lie ahead, yet before you exhale, they have evaporated.
As summer draws to a close, so too do the extended daylight hours here in Virginia, where at the summer solstice the sun rises at 5:30 and doesn't set until 9:00, and this September eve graced us with its presence until 7:30, illuminating my entire four-hour journey by car and Metro to Washington, D.C. (which incidentally interrupted the composition I so diligently commenced this morning). How miserable that trip would have been in November or December: the skies dark by the time I reached Vienna at 6:00 PM; undoubtedly, a cold rain falling or a brisk wind blowing, making the 15-minute wait at the open-air train station even more irritating and interminable; and orienting myself after emerging from the McPherson Place underground for the one-block walk to my hotel surely a challenge, because I never ask for directions.
I have mixed feelings about Daylight Savings Time. Since, for one who devours automobile miles like popcorn, late afternoon driving is much more pleasant under nature's light, I do not relish days shortened by both the calendar and the clock. On the other hand, DST's later-rising sun leaves early-morning runners -- like myself -- enshrouded in darkness, although I can't deny a stab of delight at watching the skies gradually lighten -- from star-studded blackness, to gray, to violet, to red-orange -- during a chilly outing in late fall or early spring. It's an easy choice, really: who would sacrifice those long, lazy, sun-drenched evenings for an earlier dawn?
Another somber signature of September is the rapidly approaching finale of the baseball season, after which aficionados of the game like myself sink into a deep slough of despond and an endless wait for spring and a rebirth of the box scores. In my book, the October playoffs and World Series are irrelevant appendages, although they do generate some interest for casual observers of the game (who don't deserve to be designated fans): only eight teams are left playing, and when you are an Athletic supporter or a Cub diehard, chances are both teams have already been banished to the golf course; those intriguing statistics, which, with their daily recalculations, enslave us statheads over the course of 162 games, are now cast in stone; and a glance at the scoreboard exposes its fulsome nakedness, only two or three scores on display, an embarrassing dilution from the full slate posted daily during the regular season.
A. Bartlett Giamatti, Renaissance scholar, President of Yale University, and Commissioner of Baseball -- whose brief tenure (September 1988-September 1989) was highlighted by his banning of Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame -- famously lamented the end of a baseball season when his beloved Red Sox were eliminated from playoff contention in an 8-7 loss to the Orioles on October 2nd, 19??.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then, as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it the most, it stops. Today, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains, it stopped and summer was gone."
The last out silently shatters the writer's poignant illusions: "School will never start, rain will never come, sun will warm the back of your neck forever."
By the second week in September, football, mighty football, has eclipsed baseball in the minds and hearts of the American sports fan. How sad. Just when a handful of teams are fighting for their playoff lives, when one or two pitchers are stretching for that elusive and increasingly rare twentieth win, when a 50 home-run or 15o-rbi plateau is in sight, the air waves are saturated with the imposing, inaugural college and professional football games of the season. Analysis begins three days prior and continues three days after each weekend festival, consuming every hour of the intervening period with pigskin talk. And if you want to catch a baseball score on Saturday, forget it. You must wait for the ESPN Bottom Line to scrawl through fifty college football games between teams as obscure as a Slippery Rock.
I can't wait for the Super Bowl. Spring training starts thirty days later.
While I, an empty nester whose grown children have taken flight to make their way in the world, bemoan the passing of summer, untold numbers of younger parents are rejoicing: School's in. I will concede that it's more than a little selfish of me to express regret at this seasonal ritual, but consider these two exasperating phenomena: first, the ubiquitous school bus, as tenacious as a bloodhound, impeding my progress by its own lumbering pace or by its flashing red and yellow lights and retractable stop sign; and, second, the intrusive traffic congestion on the road where I run two mornings a week, a main thoroughfare for three neighborhood schools.
Admittedly, my self-serving attitude has taken a 180-degree turn since my rambunctious brood of five was stationed at home; back then I was promoting twelve months of school and packed highways. Today, like the students -- and presumably the teachers -- I'm rooting for more workdays, snow days, and holidays.
In truth, this anti-Septembrist diatribe has contradicted a fundamental philosophical conceit of mine: embrace enthusiastically the glory of each passing day, especially at the age of 59, when so many more have been left behind than lie ahead. And there are some redeeming qualities to cruel September.
After all, is not seasonal change refreshing, a rhythmic reminder of the cycle of life, providing us with something to anticipate (as well as complain about)? Winter around here seems hardly a threat, with temperatures regularly reaching the fifties in January and February in recent years and the minimal accumulation of a lonely snowfall gone in a few days.
Beyond that, the predictable abatement of the current tropical weather pattern should produce favorable conditions for the Virginia Ten-Miler two weeks hence. My closet is overflowing with long-sleeved shirts and wool jackets and slacks (many of them hideously outdated) just itching to be worn. As baseball ends, basketball begins, a poor substitute, but at least offering a modicum of media competition for that other sport. I could alter my running and driving habits to accommodate the spate of automobiles and buses clogging the arteries (not likely). And, on a materialistic note, September launches the fall selling season for retail home furnishings after the summer doldrums.
Finally, of course, as fall and winter approach, one can always sneak a guilty peek forward to one's favorite month: April.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Adventures in Boating
In 1988 I bought a boat; in 1994 I sold it. In affirmation of a sentiment articulated by thousands of other disillusioned boat owners, they were two of the happiest days of my life.
Science teaches us that life originated in a water habitat. History reveals that man, ever since he emerged from the swamp and discovered the principle of buoyancy, driven either by nostalgia or necessity, has been eager to return.
The first boats were undoubtedly utilitarian -- designed to transport people and products more efficiently than could pack animals or their own two feet, to facilitate the gathering of edible water-dwelling creatures, or to carry the curious and courageous into uncharted territories. But it probably wasn't long before the recreational allure of boating asserted itself, as pleasure-seekers were enticed aboard by sun and spray -- by the prospect of a freedom, tranquility, and escape they could not find on dry land.
My own motives were strictly pragmatic. Recently divorced, I was seeking a weekend activity to engage three lively children and one that might exhibit to single ladies my sportive nature and add some romance to a budding relationship.
My observation of boat owners back then had led me to conclude that, for them, their boats were more than recreational or sporting vehicles; they morphed into those toys so many men of means like to accumulate, revisiting their childhoods on a grander scale, or served to express a pure maleness (hardly any boat-owners were female) and, by extension, masculinity and virility. Viewed either way, bigger was better: the bigger the boat, the bigger the toy, or the bigger the you-know-what. And every boating enthusiast I knew was always trading up.
Actually I didn't buy the boat myself. My father, homebound by the cancer he would succumb to eight months later, brightened noticeably at my new-found interest and volunteered to finance the purchase. Whether this offer stemmed from generosity or perversity is a question for my readers to decide. Fifty years ago, before Smith Mountain disappeared into the lake of the same name, I dimly recall that my father shared ownership of a houseboat he and his partners kept anchored on the James River at Reusens. This experiment was apparently short-lived and not altogether satisfying, since, in later years, I don't remember my father ever setting foot on another boat, even a cruise ship. In more ways than one, I guess, I was destined to relive his misadventures.
Flush with cash, brimming with anticipatory excitement, yet unable to suppress entirely a nagging apprehension, I hastened to the nearest reputable boating establishment, and, upon the advice of an expert friend, drove off with a shiny blue-and-white 21-foot Baybreeze runabout. Foreshadowing an inauspicious future, shortly thereafter the boat store unceremoniously shuttered its doors, while my friend fell prey to a messy divorce, losing his wife, his house, and, most grievously, his boat.
Within days, I was rudely awakened to the pitfalls of boat ownership by the sudden realization that the operation and performance of this machine was not at all analogous to that of an automobile, as I had naively and erroneously assumed. With the simple turn of a key, cars start 99.9% of the time. You steer them through clearly delineated traffic lanes where other drivers observe generally accepted rules of the road. When you are finished using it, you park your car at your destination, lock the door with a remote control, and walk away. And, in spite of constant exposure to sun, snow, sleet, and rain, cars do not rust, deteriorate, or require any special maintenance, other than an occasional oil change and filling the radiator with antifreeze once every five years.
A boat, on the other hand, demands as much coddling as a newborn child. Why this piece of equipment, built for water travel, is best preserved when taken out of the water remains a mystery to me. It collects dirt, grime, and mildew with amazing rapidity and regularity. There are no rules of the road, other than yield to a bigger boat or get crushed. Twice a year you must put your boat (and yourself) through an expensive and bothersome process known as winterizing (and dewinterizing), unless you want to freeze (or burn up) your engine block. And, regardless of the level of tender-loving care lavished on your boat, you nervously approach it each time out with bated breath and one crucial question burning in your brain: will it start?
Most of my boating history has conveniently faded into oblivion. But, in fact, the tantalizing samples I am about to present will more than suffice for you to glean the full flavor. To appreciate these delights, you must know that, for the first two or three years I owned my boat, I dry-docked it on the trailer, a foolish exercise in false economy. Consequently, every time I used my boat, I had to attach the trailer to my boat hitch, maneuver it down a steep incline, back it into the water, unhook the boat, get back in the car, and pull the trailer up from the ramp. This meant that by the time I was ready to get in the boat and start it up, I was thoroughly exhausted. It also meant that the sophisticated stereo equipment I (or my father) had paid extra for was stolen within a month.
Nevertheless, I persevered.
Not long after acquiring my boat, I was smitten by a lady to whom I began to devote serious energy and attention. Since she was, in her words, "a hard-working country girl," I thought a relaxing, peaceful, nautical tour of Smith Mountain Lake might appeal to her sensibilities. I chose a weekday afternoon -- to avoid any intrusive boat traffic -- purchased some cold cuts, cheese, and bread, and brought along a little wine to kindle the romance.
It was a glorious day, the kind that makes a man think all his struggles with his boat just might be worthwhile. The cloudless blue sky formed a perfect canopy over the bottle-green lake expanse and distant shoreline. The sun warmed our upper bodies, yet the heat was moderated by a gentle breeze which ruffled the water's surface, adding a rhythmic element to the idyllic setting.
The day progressed nicely into late afternoon. Overcoming my natural clumsiness, I handled the boat quite well, guiding it about the lake, pointing out significant landmarks (the few that I knew, lying about the others), and locating a quiet, sheltered cove where we could partake of food and beverage and engage in lighthearted conversation. Since I had agreed to get her home to her two boys by a certain hour, we had just begun to cruise across the lake to the boat landing when the engine emitted an ominous cough, sputtered, and then meekly expired, leaving us adrift, in silence, solitude, and suspended animation.
Mechanically challenged as I was, there was no hope of my figuring out a way to restart the engine. Out of stubbornness or stupidity, I had neglected to equip the boat with paddles. Frustrated and despondent, I cursed, fussed, stammered, and appealed hopelessly to the heavens, while my more self-possessed companion exhibited admirable patience and jocularity.
Fortunately, after an hour of hand-wringing, came the deus ex machina, another boater who, grasping our predicament but not wanting to risk either boat on a longer journey, volunteered to tow us to the near side of the lake -- the Franklin County side. He then offered to take me back across the lake to get my trailer.
If you think Smith Mountain Lake is big, try semi-circumnavigating it -- twice. The road was narrow, twisting, and uneven, the ride endless and harrowing, made even moreso by the rattle of the empty trailer on the way out and the unstable weight of the loaded one on the way back. More than once during that trip I entertained thoughts of abandoning the boat where it rested and taking up some less strenuous form of relaxation, but I couldn't bear the thought of allowing it to conquer me.
Shortly after sunset, weary and dispirited, we deposited the boat at the Marina and headed home, my nerves as frazzled as that sputtering motor, the romance of a perfect date evaporating in the wind like the smoke from a burnt-out engine.
I hadn't learned my lesson, however. A few months later I went back for more punishment -- and took my children. Already familiar with their father's manual ineptitude -- at the tender ages of eight, eleven, and fourteen -- they were justifiably skeptical of these marine excursions. Having repaired the motor and coped with a major crisis, I had gained a new level of confidence and was anxious to showcase my proficiency.
The day was somewhat overcast, with lowering clouds on the horizon, but having made the one-hour journey to the lake and packing more sandwiches and beverages (of the non-alcoholic variety), I was undaunted by any threatening weather. We executed a successful launch, motored around the lake for an hour, and were ready to break out the food when we noticed the boat listing precariously and water collecting at our feet. About this time a light rain began to fall, dampening our clothes and our spirits but hardly enough to fill the boat with water.
In a matter of minutes the boat was riding low, rocking unsteadily, and becoming difficult to handle, while the water continued to rise, although at a very slow rate. "This is not looking good, kids," I brilliantly concluded. "I think we need to bring this boat in." Naturally, they were disappointed, but faced with a choice of sinking or going ashore, they finally concurred. Much to my surprise -- and gratification - -the motor started up promptly, and, barely afloat, we crawled towards dry land.
By the time we reached the boat ramp, I was in a state of panic, knowing full well that we had narrowly escaped disaster. I jumped out of the boat, dashed to the car, and, probably on the third try, backed the trailer far enough into the water to enable us to hook up the boat, which had almost swamped. As the rain's intensity increased, further jarring my nerves, I frantically jerked our towels and food supplies out of the boat, threw them in the trunk of the car, and slammed down the top.
I rushed around to the driver's side, reached into my pocket for the car keys, and came up empty-handed. Oh yes, standing there in the thickening rain, with a boat full of water sitting on a trailer halfway up the ramp, I had locked the keys in the trunk of the car. I slumped dejectedly onto the the front seat, pounded my fists on the steering wheel, and let out a stream of curses which were only drowned out by the rain beating on the car's roof.
The rest of the story -- and its embarrassing denouement -- can be swiftly told. My resourceful lads attacked the back seat, which, this being an ancient two-door Cutlass, did not fold down, managed to detach it from its moorings, crawled into the trunk, and retrieved the keys. Slowly, very slowly, as my rear wheels strained against the weight and gripped for traction, I was able to pull the boat far enough up the ramp to allow the water to empty out -- through the bolt hole, which I had forgotten to plug the last time I drained the bottom of the boat, and the root cause of our sinking spell.
I wasn't savvy enough to sell my boat, even after that painful episode. No, I continued to pour more money into it, renting a lift berth, winterizing and dewinterizing it, and paying for miscellaneous service to keep it functioning for the half-dozen times I used it over the next twenty-four months. And every voyage was as tiresome and cheerless as the one before.
At last, mercifully, dawned the second greatest day in this boat-owner's life, when, with a rush of exhilaration and a surge of joy, I was able to relieve myself of this floating albatross. I sold it for a pittance, but it was worth every penny lost. And my psychic remuneration more than compensated for any material shortfall, for I found solace in the thought of having served up a double dose of happiness to the proud new owner, the first being his day of purchase and the second, of course, the day he decides he can suffer no more and sells my boat again.
Science teaches us that life originated in a water habitat. History reveals that man, ever since he emerged from the swamp and discovered the principle of buoyancy, driven either by nostalgia or necessity, has been eager to return.
The first boats were undoubtedly utilitarian -- designed to transport people and products more efficiently than could pack animals or their own two feet, to facilitate the gathering of edible water-dwelling creatures, or to carry the curious and courageous into uncharted territories. But it probably wasn't long before the recreational allure of boating asserted itself, as pleasure-seekers were enticed aboard by sun and spray -- by the prospect of a freedom, tranquility, and escape they could not find on dry land.
My own motives were strictly pragmatic. Recently divorced, I was seeking a weekend activity to engage three lively children and one that might exhibit to single ladies my sportive nature and add some romance to a budding relationship.
My observation of boat owners back then had led me to conclude that, for them, their boats were more than recreational or sporting vehicles; they morphed into those toys so many men of means like to accumulate, revisiting their childhoods on a grander scale, or served to express a pure maleness (hardly any boat-owners were female) and, by extension, masculinity and virility. Viewed either way, bigger was better: the bigger the boat, the bigger the toy, or the bigger the you-know-what. And every boating enthusiast I knew was always trading up.
Actually I didn't buy the boat myself. My father, homebound by the cancer he would succumb to eight months later, brightened noticeably at my new-found interest and volunteered to finance the purchase. Whether this offer stemmed from generosity or perversity is a question for my readers to decide. Fifty years ago, before Smith Mountain disappeared into the lake of the same name, I dimly recall that my father shared ownership of a houseboat he and his partners kept anchored on the James River at Reusens. This experiment was apparently short-lived and not altogether satisfying, since, in later years, I don't remember my father ever setting foot on another boat, even a cruise ship. In more ways than one, I guess, I was destined to relive his misadventures.
Flush with cash, brimming with anticipatory excitement, yet unable to suppress entirely a nagging apprehension, I hastened to the nearest reputable boating establishment, and, upon the advice of an expert friend, drove off with a shiny blue-and-white 21-foot Baybreeze runabout. Foreshadowing an inauspicious future, shortly thereafter the boat store unceremoniously shuttered its doors, while my friend fell prey to a messy divorce, losing his wife, his house, and, most grievously, his boat.
Within days, I was rudely awakened to the pitfalls of boat ownership by the sudden realization that the operation and performance of this machine was not at all analogous to that of an automobile, as I had naively and erroneously assumed. With the simple turn of a key, cars start 99.9% of the time. You steer them through clearly delineated traffic lanes where other drivers observe generally accepted rules of the road. When you are finished using it, you park your car at your destination, lock the door with a remote control, and walk away. And, in spite of constant exposure to sun, snow, sleet, and rain, cars do not rust, deteriorate, or require any special maintenance, other than an occasional oil change and filling the radiator with antifreeze once every five years.
A boat, on the other hand, demands as much coddling as a newborn child. Why this piece of equipment, built for water travel, is best preserved when taken out of the water remains a mystery to me. It collects dirt, grime, and mildew with amazing rapidity and regularity. There are no rules of the road, other than yield to a bigger boat or get crushed. Twice a year you must put your boat (and yourself) through an expensive and bothersome process known as winterizing (and dewinterizing), unless you want to freeze (or burn up) your engine block. And, regardless of the level of tender-loving care lavished on your boat, you nervously approach it each time out with bated breath and one crucial question burning in your brain: will it start?
Most of my boating history has conveniently faded into oblivion. But, in fact, the tantalizing samples I am about to present will more than suffice for you to glean the full flavor. To appreciate these delights, you must know that, for the first two or three years I owned my boat, I dry-docked it on the trailer, a foolish exercise in false economy. Consequently, every time I used my boat, I had to attach the trailer to my boat hitch, maneuver it down a steep incline, back it into the water, unhook the boat, get back in the car, and pull the trailer up from the ramp. This meant that by the time I was ready to get in the boat and start it up, I was thoroughly exhausted. It also meant that the sophisticated stereo equipment I (or my father) had paid extra for was stolen within a month.
Nevertheless, I persevered.
Not long after acquiring my boat, I was smitten by a lady to whom I began to devote serious energy and attention. Since she was, in her words, "a hard-working country girl," I thought a relaxing, peaceful, nautical tour of Smith Mountain Lake might appeal to her sensibilities. I chose a weekday afternoon -- to avoid any intrusive boat traffic -- purchased some cold cuts, cheese, and bread, and brought along a little wine to kindle the romance.
It was a glorious day, the kind that makes a man think all his struggles with his boat just might be worthwhile. The cloudless blue sky formed a perfect canopy over the bottle-green lake expanse and distant shoreline. The sun warmed our upper bodies, yet the heat was moderated by a gentle breeze which ruffled the water's surface, adding a rhythmic element to the idyllic setting.
The day progressed nicely into late afternoon. Overcoming my natural clumsiness, I handled the boat quite well, guiding it about the lake, pointing out significant landmarks (the few that I knew, lying about the others), and locating a quiet, sheltered cove where we could partake of food and beverage and engage in lighthearted conversation. Since I had agreed to get her home to her two boys by a certain hour, we had just begun to cruise across the lake to the boat landing when the engine emitted an ominous cough, sputtered, and then meekly expired, leaving us adrift, in silence, solitude, and suspended animation.
Mechanically challenged as I was, there was no hope of my figuring out a way to restart the engine. Out of stubbornness or stupidity, I had neglected to equip the boat with paddles. Frustrated and despondent, I cursed, fussed, stammered, and appealed hopelessly to the heavens, while my more self-possessed companion exhibited admirable patience and jocularity.
Fortunately, after an hour of hand-wringing, came the deus ex machina, another boater who, grasping our predicament but not wanting to risk either boat on a longer journey, volunteered to tow us to the near side of the lake -- the Franklin County side. He then offered to take me back across the lake to get my trailer.
If you think Smith Mountain Lake is big, try semi-circumnavigating it -- twice. The road was narrow, twisting, and uneven, the ride endless and harrowing, made even moreso by the rattle of the empty trailer on the way out and the unstable weight of the loaded one on the way back. More than once during that trip I entertained thoughts of abandoning the boat where it rested and taking up some less strenuous form of relaxation, but I couldn't bear the thought of allowing it to conquer me.
Shortly after sunset, weary and dispirited, we deposited the boat at the Marina and headed home, my nerves as frazzled as that sputtering motor, the romance of a perfect date evaporating in the wind like the smoke from a burnt-out engine.
I hadn't learned my lesson, however. A few months later I went back for more punishment -- and took my children. Already familiar with their father's manual ineptitude -- at the tender ages of eight, eleven, and fourteen -- they were justifiably skeptical of these marine excursions. Having repaired the motor and coped with a major crisis, I had gained a new level of confidence and was anxious to showcase my proficiency.
The day was somewhat overcast, with lowering clouds on the horizon, but having made the one-hour journey to the lake and packing more sandwiches and beverages (of the non-alcoholic variety), I was undaunted by any threatening weather. We executed a successful launch, motored around the lake for an hour, and were ready to break out the food when we noticed the boat listing precariously and water collecting at our feet. About this time a light rain began to fall, dampening our clothes and our spirits but hardly enough to fill the boat with water.
In a matter of minutes the boat was riding low, rocking unsteadily, and becoming difficult to handle, while the water continued to rise, although at a very slow rate. "This is not looking good, kids," I brilliantly concluded. "I think we need to bring this boat in." Naturally, they were disappointed, but faced with a choice of sinking or going ashore, they finally concurred. Much to my surprise -- and gratification - -the motor started up promptly, and, barely afloat, we crawled towards dry land.
By the time we reached the boat ramp, I was in a state of panic, knowing full well that we had narrowly escaped disaster. I jumped out of the boat, dashed to the car, and, probably on the third try, backed the trailer far enough into the water to enable us to hook up the boat, which had almost swamped. As the rain's intensity increased, further jarring my nerves, I frantically jerked our towels and food supplies out of the boat, threw them in the trunk of the car, and slammed down the top.
I rushed around to the driver's side, reached into my pocket for the car keys, and came up empty-handed. Oh yes, standing there in the thickening rain, with a boat full of water sitting on a trailer halfway up the ramp, I had locked the keys in the trunk of the car. I slumped dejectedly onto the the front seat, pounded my fists on the steering wheel, and let out a stream of curses which were only drowned out by the rain beating on the car's roof.
The rest of the story -- and its embarrassing denouement -- can be swiftly told. My resourceful lads attacked the back seat, which, this being an ancient two-door Cutlass, did not fold down, managed to detach it from its moorings, crawled into the trunk, and retrieved the keys. Slowly, very slowly, as my rear wheels strained against the weight and gripped for traction, I was able to pull the boat far enough up the ramp to allow the water to empty out -- through the bolt hole, which I had forgotten to plug the last time I drained the bottom of the boat, and the root cause of our sinking spell.
I wasn't savvy enough to sell my boat, even after that painful episode. No, I continued to pour more money into it, renting a lift berth, winterizing and dewinterizing it, and paying for miscellaneous service to keep it functioning for the half-dozen times I used it over the next twenty-four months. And every voyage was as tiresome and cheerless as the one before.
At last, mercifully, dawned the second greatest day in this boat-owner's life, when, with a rush of exhilaration and a surge of joy, I was able to relieve myself of this floating albatross. I sold it for a pittance, but it was worth every penny lost. And my psychic remuneration more than compensated for any material shortfall, for I found solace in the thought of having served up a double dose of happiness to the proud new owner, the first being his day of purchase and the second, of course, the day he decides he can suffer no more and sells my boat again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
