Erik got married.

Erik was my best friend as a boy.  Practically every weekend we played army or Rebel and Yankee together on the hills of Staten Island or conducted interminable battles with little green army men on the floors of our bedrooms.  (I saw Erik in late 2012.)

He was 364 days older than me so one day a year, on my birthday which was a day before his, we were the same age.  We were inseparable, having sleepovers, going miles and miles into the hills, assembling models, going to the Army Navy store to buy left-over WWII equipment to equip ourselves for our "patrols" on the Haystack, a nearby hill, or purchasing another set of lead soldiers for 19 cents each (they were the Americans in our massive battles on the floor) at the dimestore.  (A wedding in Ridgewood, NJ… .)

After 50 years of having lost touch we reconnected on Facebook.  Then in 2012 tragedy struck and he lost his wife and almost lost his life in a small plane crash.  (Erik with his sister-in-law Gerta, who took care of him for months after the accident while he recovered, and brother Mark before the ceremony.)

This past weekend he got married to a wonderful woman he met while recovering from his injuries.  I attended and could observe that they are obviously very happy with each other, and I wish him and Nina all the success in the world.  (Erik dancing with his 91 year old mom at the reception.)

Final Dental Visit Post

Having fallen in on my 10 mile run home from the dentist's office on the W&OD Trail with a friend I hadn't seen for years, I passed by my house and went 2 miles further down the trail to retrieve my car.  Although I was sore all weekend long from the unfamiliar distance of running 12 miles, I was glad to get a long run of that distance in.

The weather (it was raining and windy) hadn't been a hindrance; I just determined when my dental appointment was over that morning to proceed with my plan and run home.  As my new-found friend, a personal trainer, said, You just put one foot in front of the other and you're on your way!

The ten (or twelve as it turned out) miles had been a time of reflection now that my series of dreaded dental visits was over and observation of natural beauty in rural Fairfax County.  The feeling of having the miles steadily pass under my feet made me feel invigorated and alive.

It had been a long journey from my my two-year hiatus in running due to injury till now, and now I was back to near my pre-injury weight and my former steady routine of running five times a week, albeit at reduced mileage and a slower pace.  I used to feel that running was life, although life is not running (life is more than just running, and it interferes with running sometimes), and I was back to that feeling again.

Final Dental Visit, Part Ten.

On my long run back to my house from my dentist's office in Reston, I fell in the last couple of miles with a person I hadn't seen in several years, whom I had known from my days when I associated with the DCRRC.  I was president in 2009 and she was on the board later, after I left the club over disagreement with the direction the club was headed in under an upstart group of puissant twenty-somethings who constantly disrupted my meetings and surreptitiously usurped my intended programs, out of personal malice towards me fostered by my being twice their age I think.

It was a pleasure to catch up with Stephanie as we loped along eastwards on the W&OD Trail towards Falls Church.  She too left the club, after some inane remarks found their way into a Washington Post article about running in the District two years ago by the then-president (the ringleader of the afore-mentionted band of pissants) speaking on behalf of the club and dripping contempt towards "recreational" runners (as opposed to "competitive" runners like himself). 

Stephanie is a personal trainer now, working for herself and raising a family, and she was finishing up a 14-miler as she gets ready to run the Richmond Marathon this fall.  When I first saw her, she was on the bridge, tongue planted in cheek, filming a weather and traffic report on the approaching hurricane (which hit the Carolinas instead of us) and its impact on traffic on the beltway below (none).

The miles fell away easily now as both of our paces picked up a little in conjunction with keeping up with each other and chatting easily.  I decided to turn my 10-miler into a 12-miler to travel further down the trail with her into Arlington so I could pick up my car, which I had parked close to the East Falls Church Metro station when I took the silver line to my dentist's office that morning.

Final Dental Visit, Part Nine.

I was on a ten-miler going home to Falls Church from Reston down the W&OD Trail from my final of half a dozen dental visits in three months.  It was raining, but the run was invigorating as my $6,000 worth of dental procedures, just before my trusted dentist retired later this month, were done!

Eight miles in, as I was wearying, I saw up ahead a solitary runner running about my speed.  I caught up with her and lo, she wasn't wearing earbuds.

"How far you going?" I asked.  She looked at me and said, "I know you!"

A friendly runner, not wrapped up in his or her little world as is the won't of many contemporary runners these days, excluding everyone else by dint of displaying a white wire running up each side of the neck connected to earbuds nestled deep in the inner recesses of the ears, ostensibly serving up inspiring running music but also effectively shutting out the rest of the world as undesirable.  As I have learned, here's how the process of offering a friendly hello to a white-wired runner usually goes--an ignored query, then an annoyed look in your direction (you're into the "exchange" by now, unfortunately), and then a petulant ripping out of the bud from one ear coupled with a clearly exasperated ejaculation of --"What did you say?"

Final Dental Visit, Part Eight.

Having left the dentist's office on a rainy morning and started running ten miles home on the nearby W&OD Trail, I was passing through Vienna, the approximate halfway point.  I was getting tired, since I hadn't run more than six miles in quite awhile.

But the run was definitely clearing my head and I enjoyed the quietness on the mostly deserted trail.  The rain had let up so even that wasn't a hindrance anymore.

I passed Gallows Road where, the last time I ran seven miles, months ago, I had found the trail after getting lost on Gallows Road on that run last spring, and hoofed it home from there.  Next up for me, I knew, was the bridge over the Beltway (I-495) and shortly after that, the bridge over I-66.

I passed over each bridge in turn, now a mere two and a half miles from home.  Somebody was up ahead on the last bridge, taking an extended video selfie of her run in the raw elements, and I quickened my pace to catch up with her to see, if she wasn't tucked into her own cocoon of selfhood with earphones, whether she would be good company for a mile or two.

Final Dental Visit, Part Seven

I was running home 10 miles from a dentist's appointment in the rain and it felt liberating.  I was free from the anxiety of further dental work, alone on the W&OD Trail with the elements and my thoughts.

There was no turning back once I'd gone a mile because now the silver line Metro station was far behind me and I might as well go on.  Ten miles west of my house, the trail is much more rural with more natural growth, adjacent water and occasional wildlife.

I saw a crane fly by, its wings outstretched, as I traversed a bridge over a rushing stream.  The rain was pattering but not pouring, and it soon stopped, leaving behind puddles and a wet trail.

At Vienna, I was halfway home.  I could have veered off there to a nearby orange line Metro station, but although my legs were getting weary and heavy, I was enjoying the peace and solitude the outing was providing to me.

Final Dental Visit, Part Six.

Early last Friday morning I was inside the warm office of my dentist, while outside it was raining steadily with a raw wind, the precursor in our region to the landfall in the Carolinas of Hurricane Joaquin.  I would have much rather have been outside, however, in the wind and rain than inside at the moment getting permanent crowns cemented onto three sensitive teeth.

I was looking forward to being outside the moment the procedures were done so I could get on the nearby W&OD Trail, a 40-mile paved-over railroad bed that cuts straight and level across Northern Virginia from Alexandria to Leesburg.  I was going to run home from the dentist's office, a distance of exactly 10 miles, and thus put my dental woes to rest in my mind directly after this last of half a dozen visits to the dentist's office in a three month span.  (In my mind, I was already starting my trip home.)

After having to shoot up all three operative areas with Novocain so that I would sit still, the dentist finally had no further trouble, and I had no further zing moments, and the task was completed by 9 a.m.   A week later, the teeth are all doing fine, the doctor did beautiful work and I wish her a long, healthy and happy retirement.

By 9:05 a.m. I had paid the bill (rather, I had put the amount on a credit card) and I was hitting the trail at MP 17, headed east for MP 7 which is exactly where the trail passes by my house.  I felt liberated, footloose, happy and free, even though I hadn't run 10 miles in over a year and it was raining steadily with a westward sometimes-whipping wind.  (Rain?  What rain?)