The Encounter, Part One

I was president of my local running club in 2009, being forced by circumstances to resign when my presidency was deliberately wrecked by a young contingent on the board (all 20-somethings except for one 30-something) that was made up of the IT department of the club plus a sad-sack lackey VP who was in their pocket. These young men, led by the head IT guy whom I'll call Bryan, loathed me personally and disrupted my administration of the club by doing things like unilaterally removing my president's post from its traditional spot on the club's website and conducting important club business without my knowledge or approval.

This posse of four miscreants took to actively disrupting the board meetings I conducted by sitting in a group and noisily acting like muttering, smirking school children in an out-of-control classroom. When they voted and seconded among themselves to "end" my last board meeting before business was concluded, personally affronting a friend of mine whom I was trying to present to the board as the next newsletter editor, the other board members fled the restaurant to escape the contentious scene and I found myself standing confronting Bryan, the henchman of this gang, while his three juvenile friends pressed in behind him in support. My friend interposed and led me away from this tense impasse before it degenerated into fisticuffs, and I tendered my resignation to the non-supportive board the next day and quit the club.

This was a great disappointment in my life because I had worked hard in a volunteer capacity for years to develop the club's training programs and I did some wonderful things in my six month tenure like overseeing its lucrative association with the country's premiere ten-mile race by becoming the race's official training partner. I wasn't able to properly develop my vision for the club of making it more inclusive of runners of all types by developing more programs and activities, but who ever said life was fair? The VP who took over the presidency, whom I'll call Carol, is a grownup and she stepped down this year whereupon Bryan, now barely thirty, fulfilled his consuming ambition by becoming president.

One Saturday morning last month I was standing on a sidewalk in downtown Arlington after a six mile run when the current president of my former club ran by. He was running alongside a woman as he approached and he caught my eye from thirty feet away. Bryan instantly looked away and, only having a woman for support this time around rather than three strapping young men (well, two strapping men, the rogue VP is a pathetic pint-sized little guy), he found something of absorbing interest to look at in the curb on the other side from me until he was past me even as I looked directly at him the entire time. One president passing right by another, you know?

I have heard that Bryan has said slanderous things about me since I stepped down, for instance to the management of the premiere running store in the area. That conversation with Bryan will have to wait for a time when he doesn't run away from me.

Pirates on the river

Waterfight! Travis announced the upcoming ordeal. The crew in Lindsay's boat following us had hoisted their pirate's flag and were coming on.

(Above: These are the colors the other boat unfurled when they came after us.)

They had all the water guns. Water cannons would be a better description, yard-long hollow tubes filled with river water that fired high-pressure streams of water. But we had all the 5-gallon buckets.

"Don't fill them up too much," Travis commanded as he issued them. "You can't throw the water as far if they're too full." Travis had apparently repelled boarders before.

We loaded our water buckets and cleared the decks for combat. Four of our nine crewmembers were non-combatants, being the peaceful couple from the midwest and the two school administrators. The other boat had eight men with their blood lust up.

The fight was on. It was a running engagement. The trick is to be the lead boat, and to drop back to within grappling distance whenever it's strategic to do so. Steady streams from their water cannons soaked us. We heaved bucketfuls of water into their boat, scoring several direct hits. Most satisfying were the full facials.

The boats closed together again. I dipped a bucket into the water between the boats. A burly pirate from the other boat reached out and grabbed its handle. A hand-to-hand struggle ensued.

(Right: The crew of Lindsay's boat donned their battle dress and came after us. I grappled mano-a-mano with the blond pirate on the left.) We glared at each other from eighteen inches away as we fought for control of the bucket. Neither he nor I would let go. He almost pulled me into the river but somebody grabbed my ankles and kept me in our boat. Taking a trick I learned from watching hockey fights, I grabbed his lifejacket with my free hand and pulled it up over his head as far as it would go. We fought on, locked together. The boats separated. We both clung determinedly to the bucket handle as the gap between us widened. The river beckoned to us both.

He let go. The fight was over.

We decided we'd won. (Left: We had pirates aboard our boat too. That's me after six days on the river. Photo credit B.)

That night a pirate from the other boat who was well into his cups commented that he'd never seen the pirate I fought off bested before, going all the way back to our Swell Hall days. "You must be workin' out, man," he declared as he cracked open another one.

This sophomoric episode had a very cathartic effect upon us after we had lost 10 of 28 passengers on the Grand Canyon trip due to the death of one of our members two days earlier. It pulled us out of our doldrums.