Look out your window.

I was working late but it was still light outside. The phone rang. I answered, and it was a colleague on the street below who had just left work, on her cell phone.

"Peter, there’s a race going on. It’s going by our building right now. Look out your window."

From my third floor office, I looked down at Massachusetts Avenue, two blocks from Union Station. A swarm of runners was proceeding, amoeba like, towards my building down the sidewalks on both sides of the street, and some runners were cutting across the roadway in traffic. Other runners were stopping and starting as if they were looking for something. Odd sounds reached me through my sealed window. I swear I heard, "Talley ho!"

"Oh, that’s a hash house harrier run."

"What?"

"A hash house harrier run. They’re crazy people who get together in the evenings to run, and they follow flour trails that eventually lead somewhere after about six miles, usually a drinking establishment. Then they proceed to get plastered."

"What?"

"Well, that was the short version. They’re known to be drinkers with a running problem. They form clubs worldwide and meet after work to follow a trail that somebody else has left earlier, filled with false starts, to some eventual objective."

"I’ve never heard of it before."

I heard "Are you?" drift up from the street.

"Google ‘Hash House Harriers’ and you'll see. There are probably 25 clubs in the DC area. When they come through an area, they look really strange to bystanders, running and stopping, fanning out, backtracking, following tiny flour spots on the sidewalk. When they get on the scent, they call out to each other to follow them. It’s like a fox hunt on two legs instead of on horses."

"What? Why are some runners running fast, and others are just jogging along?"

"The fit runners, or FRB’s, try to find the true flour trail and follow it, and everyone else hangs around until they do, or else they look for it themselves. The path is littered with false trails and dead-ends."

"It sounds like fun. Why don’t you do it?"

"Checking!" came through the window. Runners were milling around below me.

"I have done it, twice. They’re all crazy though. All they do is talk and drink afterwards."

"They’re having so much fun! Can you see them talking and laughing? They’re all so young. I’d love to do it too but I don’t see anyone my age."

My thought bubble said, "You don’t even run." What I said was, "You have to go to the suburbs to find people in their 30s and 40s who do it, but they’re out there. This could be the White House Hash Harriers, leaving from Union Station, all in their 20s."

I dimly heard someone shout, "On-on!" Like a dozing dog springing to life upon hearing someone on the porch, the horde of harriers turned as one to the sound. They all streamed away towards it and in a flash they were gone!

A strange bunch.

The 2009 DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay

Last month I ran in the DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay for the third straight year, on Bex’s team. The team members joked this year that we’re going to change our name from the Band of Outsiders to the 6:30 Club because every year the team counters some really good performances with some really challenging ones and the result is pretty much always the same, about eleven and a half hours for the 73.2 mile relay around the lake in seven legs. Given the 7 a.m. start, this puts our anchor leg always pulling into the finish at South Lake Tahoe at around 6:30 p.m. every year, Miller Time.

This year was no different as we finished at 6:39 p.m., slightly slower than last year’s 6:30 p.m. finish, which was slightly faster than the prior year’s 6:32 p.m. finish. Running through two states and past some incredible scenery, this race is a must-do. We’re always far off the winner’s time, which was under seven hours this year, but we have fun.

Eric ran the first leg in 1:20:18 (8:22), 9.6 miles of rolling hills in the cool of the morning past the casinos at State Line where the race leaves California and enters Nevada. He came within a minute of the team’s PR on this relatively easy leg. Remember, this is a race with hills at altitude (starting at 6200 feet), so even this “easy” leg is a difficult run for us flatlanders.

Eric handed off to me and I ran the shortest leg, 8.2 miles, in 1:18:01 (9:31). It was practically a mystical experience for me because this is the highest, hardest and hilliest leg, a killer. It literally made me sick. Maybe I'll tell you more about it in a future post.

Next up was K, who had a tough run. Her scenic 10.3 miles was mostly downhill, which aggravated a hip condition she had. She handed off to Bex after being out for 2:02:20 (11:53). (K on the left is done, Ashley still has a five and a half hour wait before her leg starts.)

Bex motored off on the longest leg, 12.3 miles which included a big uphill part. After re-entering California, she brought the baton home to J, an avid mountain biker, in 1:58:00 (9:36).

J was picking runners off right and left on his 10.6 mile run until about halfway through, where he discovered that being in condition for hard biking doesn’t necessarily correlate to running long and he was hobbled by knee problems. He gave back all of his passed runners and more before handing off to Ke in 1:54:57 (10:51).

Ke was new to the team, a runner we picked up the day before. A high school track coach, he had come to vacation in Lake Tahoe and could think of no more relaxing start to his time off than to run a very hard relay leg up in the mountains. We gave him the other hardest leg, comparable to my leg, a 10.5 mile run over large rolling hills that culminates in a steep, relentless mile and a half climb up a mountain pass. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ke. I did this tough leg in 1:37:44 (9:18) last year and injured myself doing it (my hamstring seized up into a clenched, fiery ball 200 meters from the end). Ke was handling it very well until the last hill knocked down his time, but he still finished in a very nice time of 1:35:54 (9:03), setting the team's PR for the leg.

Ashley took it from there. Coming back from injuries, she returned to racing after a year of recovery with a time of 1:28:12 (8:24) on her 10.5 mile run back to the starting point, also setting a new team PR. Her scenic leg included a narrow shelf road portion with no shoulder where the roadway fell away steeply on both sides, and I was going to assist her along here by running with her as a spotter, but I couldn’t keep up with her quick pace and abandoned the effort. She picked off nine runners enroute to the finish so we finished 94th overall out of 150 teams.

A Birthday Wish

I want to wish my old friend a happy birthday and express my thanks, and say good luck in the future because you will need it, I'm sorry to say.

A slow Tidal Basin 3K run.

Yesterday was a special running of the monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K run, a July 4th holiday version that featured a 9 a.m. start, a 3K run, a 6K run and a 10K run, all in the same race. I was one of two officials at the finish line and it was confusing with people coming and going. The start was strange too, with racers lined up facing three different directions, all to accommodate the varying distances and enable everyone to finish in the same place.

If I had started with everyone else I would have placed in the 3K and gotten my name in the Washington Post as one of the top three finishers. I normally come in around 14:00 and the third place runner in the 3K was over 20 minutes. As it was, my official time for the 3K was 1:49:29 (58:44). That’s pretty slow. I was tied for DFL, three quarters of an hour behind the last 10K finisher.

The race director and I didn’t start running, though, until after the last of the other runners came in. Then we all had cake to celebrate a participant's 60th birthday, and after all the party-goers finally left, the RD and I ran the 3K course. We had left the race clock on so we’d get an “official” time.

We made our loop together in 14:44 (7:54) and punched the race clock out at 1:49. The race director was being nice to finish with me as he could have beaten me handily. But hey, we broke 1:50. I love breaking 1:50 in the 3K.

It was fun. And no, Dan didn’t show up for lunch today. The meal at the Lost Dog Café in North Arlington was delicious though, try the Polynesian Pizza if you ever go there. Hey Dan, let's do Labor Day!

Here's the plan, Dan.

I posted on my FB that "I have invited Dan [my youngest child] to lunch on the Fourth at The Lost Dog Cafe in Westover [North Arlington], after the Jump Start Program. My treat. The last time I conversed with him in person was in March 2003 when he was 14. Miss him (and the other two)! That's our American courts in action, a system we want to give to the rest of the world."

That got a friend to send me heartfelt congratulations at my impending liaison. I am afraid my post misled at least her, and I am sorry for any misconceptions it engendered.

As is my wont on approaching holidays, ten days ago I sent Dan, who is not yet 21, a letter inviting him out to lunch on July Fourth, so we can catch up and I can fill him in on all the relatives on my side of the family. Not a one of them has heard a word from him or any of my children for over half a decade. Unbelievable as this is, this is just classic Parental Alienation Syndrome ("PAS") stuff. Some people believe that PAS is child abuse.

The only address I have for Dan (or any of my children) is the house his Mother sold shortly after she re-married last year and moved out of. She has since refused my two requests to her for their current addresses. All of their addresses are big secrets (this teacher uses her first grade class in Falls Church as her return address to me).

The house has been vacant since last fall and is being gutted, as I know from knocking on the door in order to ask for Dan on Thanksgiving, Christmas and his birthday. This long-vacant house is the only tenuous link I have to my children.

That's where I send their letters and holiday cards. That's what their Mother instructs me to do. The phone number, which wasn't answered for years anyway, was disconnected last fall.

I'd love it if Dan came, but he hasn't responded, as usual, and he has never showed up before. But I'll be there at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow in any case (unless he calls me off beforehand).

My 2c: If you ask me, though, my situation shows the total bankruptcy of the American domestic law system and its insidious, invidious effect upon our society. Family values it fosters not!

Going down, going down now, going down.

When I started blogging in 2007 I listed my favorite songs on my Profile. The ten I selected were all produced between 1965 and 1971. Hmm. Last year I listed my favorite albums on my Profile. I've already discussed one by the Beatles and one by the Stones, and one by Procol Harum, leaving seven LPs. The seven remaining represent the core of rock and rolldom. You'll notice that they're all productions of the late sixties, a cultural phenomenon that I experienced as a young man.

I recently read an article that the generational gap so prevalent then is back. I wouldn't be surprised or dismayed. But this is nothing new. The young should question authority and strive to change things, as we did back then. There was a war then, and there's a war now. Undoubtedly it's not a coincidence. For 2009, I'm going back to listing just songs again on my Profile.

Who's Next by the Who (1971). I dropped out of college in 1972 and went to work on the McGovern campaign in an attempt to defeat Richard Nixon's re-election bid and end the amoral Vietnam war. I used to come home during that summer bone-tired after yet another 15/7 day at the campaign headquarters of Staten Islanders for McGovern and put this album on the turntable to unwind before I went to sleep. My favorite cut was Won't Get Fooled Again. Roger Daltry told me all summer long that the shotgun sings the song. McGovern got crushed so badly that I swore off ever again working in a political campaign. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

The Doors by the Doors (1967). An incredible debut album. Beyond the seminal Light My Fire, my favorite groove was Back Door Man. You men eat your dinner, eat your pork and beans, I eat more chicken than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah. I'm a back door man, the men don't know but the little girls understand. All eleven cuts by Jim Morrison are truly classic. Jim Morrison, dead at an early age.

Man With Sticks by Led Zeppelin (1971). Led Zeppelin was good. This untitled album, known colloquially, by me at least, as Man With Sticks, is great. When I saw the perfect photo from my trip last summer down the Grand Canyon, photo by Barry Sevett, I instantly named it after the most famous song on the album, Stairway to Heaven. Your stairway lies on the whispering wind. All the cuts are great. How about When the Levee Breaks. Little did I know as I listened to this driving hip hop riff that the wailing Robert Plant was portending the disastrous tenure of the Decider and his ruination of a great American city three decades early. All for the want of 400 votes in Florida. Going down, going down now, going down.



The rest:

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Eric Clapton (1970). Like a fool, I fell in love with you, turned my whole world upside down.

Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix (1967). We'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sunrise from the bottom of the sea. But first, are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have. Jimi Hendrix, dead at an early age.

If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears by the Mamas and the Papas (1966). Another incredible debut album. California Dreamin' might be the most famous rock and roll song of all time. Its opening chords are instantly recognizable by anyone. This album was on when I kissed a girl for the first time, at a party. It was a long kiss, and I was in la la land for the rest of the weekend. Mama Cass, dead at an early age.

Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane (1967). The San Francisco scene, man. You better find somebody to love. I saw Jefferson Starship, sans Grace Slick, a year ago in Falls Church. Some things are better left strictly in the memory banks.

You come up with your favorite half dozen albums, excepting the Beatles and Stones. It's hard to do.

King of Pop

MJ is dead. What a tragedy. There was a strange guy, but what an artist!

I feel a special connection to his Thriller album because my first born was colicky. For ninety days Jimmy cried. Mysteriously on the ninety-first day he stopped crying and became a delightful baby. But this is a common tale among old wives.

The album Thriller had recently come out, with its long rendition of the suspense-laden, building story line of the single, Thriller. Vincent Price's voice-over in the song is masterful, exciting and very grabbing. Him laughing at the end is a perfect climax.

The boy's Mother, bless her for these parenting efforts, used to put the needle of the turntable on the Thriller track of the LP when Jimmy would cry and as the song slowly built to its shattering end, dance with the balling Jimmy in her arms. Mysteriously, or miraculously, Jimmy would soon stop crying, smile, start to coo and then laugh as Sharon moved around the room dancing while Michael's voice issued from the stereo speakers.

All too soon it would be over, Jimmy would look around, his chin would tremble, and his Mother would drop the needle on the well-worn beginning of the song's groove again and the joyous whirlwind would start all over again for Jimmy.

Those are some of the good memories I have of those two.

The Thriller album is, along with U2's The Joshua Tree, the only album created after 1980 that I regularly listen to. It's not on a par with the best, most influential album of all time, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, but it's close.