If you have ever taken a trip on land or sea, you know that feeling, when you just want to be done. You've been going for hours or days or weeks, and you have had enough of the constant roll of the waves or the rumble of the road. Your butt is tingling from blood stagnation and your neck is twinging so that you know tomorrow, your head will be affixed perpendicular to your spine. You want to be home, but know that you still have miles to go. That is the longest leg of the journey.
Every morning since I started with this middle-aged thing, I go for a run. Well really, it's mostly a brisk walk most days, but I try to get the heart rate up a bit with a little jogging on the way back. I have lost 10 pounds and gotten my blood pressure down to normal human limits. It sucks doing it, but afterwards I usually feel pretty good about myself and have the notion to flail at this writing thing for a bit while I cool down.
And every day, I pass by a little white picket fence on the waterfront of Beaufort and eye the last quarter mile with reluctance. Can I do this without causing permanent damage? Will I stroke out before I reach the little book box that tells me the end is near?
I love that little book box. I think it was put there for wayward sailors who used to be welcomed to Taylor's Creek as a safe harbor on the long leg between Miami and Hampton Roads. The sailors, thirsty for something to break the monotony of a night at anchor, could dinghy over and place a gently used book in the box and take something new to read for the long night ahead.
The box remains with books inside, but the pages grow yellowed and and wavy as the transient boaters have not come of late. They have been given the big middle finger by the wealthy elites of Beaufort who made anchoring in Taylor's Creek illegal shortly after Hurricane Florence. It's a real shame because the town has a 300-year history of being a haven for transients who might come and go, given its central position perched on the the North Atlantic. The book box, likely established by some matronly woman yearning to sail away with the fleets of snow birds each fall, was set up as part of that hospitality, sometime ago I am sure. But as so much goes in this Country, we abandon our civility in the face of "stay the hell off my front lawn" and this book box remains, a sign of hope for my withering lungs and tired legs.
That last quarter mile is the longest part of the five mile loop, not because of its geographic features, but because my body is tired and depleted from the first 4.75 miles, and ready to be done. It is all I can do to keep going and I focus intently on my Bob Marley, blaring in my ear buds, resisting the urge to look towards the book box that lies ahead. I stare intently at the pavement at my feet, hoping a speeding car does not swing wide and get me, because I know I have no strength in my thighs to dive out of the way onto the grass in my depleted state.
When I was in Fourth Grade, I broke the growth plate in my knee. The week before school began, my Mother took my sister and I camping and I was out running wild with the boys from the other camp sites. We were trying to cut through a campsite with an old couple and a RV and avoid detection, when I ran and jumped off a four-foot high berm on the trail next to the campsite we were trying to cut through. I landed hard and felt a burning pain slice into my left knee. My body stopped at the feet of the old couple who I think wanted to yell me, but instead had a look of pity on their face as I lay there crying and clutching my injured leg.
The kid I was playing with ran to get my mom and she came running, apologizing to the old couple for my rude entry into their campsite and ruining their afternoon martinis. She picked me up from the ground and carried my sobbing body to the car. As best as I can recall, we entered into the emergency room where a Dr. Staubb wrapped my leg in a white leg immobilizer and handed me a pair of crutches. Ironically when I dislocated my other knee in a sailboat race twenty years later, he was the same doctor who rebuilt my tattered ligaments and once again handed me a set of crutches. He's a great knee doctor but I hate that man with all my being.
The next week, I took my broken knee and crutches, my back pack and my wonderment at being in the fourth grade, to school. I hobbled off the bus up the walk to the front door, and was petrified at the wide halls of lockers, the throngs of pulsating kids and the booming voices of underpaid teachers. A shrill tone echoed from a loud speaker and the halls magically emptied, leaving me limping down the hall with my crutches and a full backpack towards the staircase.
By the time I made it up the staircase, a silence had befallen the hallways and muffled voices of teachers could be heard from behind closed classroom doors. I was late for class.
I knew when I walked into class, a teacher would call me out for being late and the class would titter at my tardiness. My face would turn beet red and my body would catch fire with embarrassment, as I stood before the class on the first day with no excuse and a stomach full of shame.
Making the 90 degree turn, I entered the long hall way where my classroom sat at the end. It felt as if it were ten miles long to my injured young body and I could feel the sweat drip from my palms down into the saturated foam grips of the crutches. My upper body burned from the double duty of holding crutches in my armpits and backpack straps on my shoulders.
And I thumped forward.
Past a dozen classrooms and a thousand lockers, I clopped down the silent hall,... thump..chunk chunk,... thump ...chunk chunk.
And as I approached the half way mark, a towering man with a ruddy complexion and a shiny bald head, bellowed down the hall to me, "Look down! Don't look at me. " I paused for a moment, wondering what he was talking about and he screamed, "DON'T STOP!"
My head snapped downward and I my entire focus honed in on the sound of my crutches, thump...chunk chunk, and the lines of the asbestos floor tiles at my feet. He said, "you can do it, just focus on your next step, don't worry about the destination."
My body wanted to quit, but my pride would never let me, not while this beast of man with his blond mustache and gruff voice growled at me. "Your're almost there, dig deep now," he grunted.
The commotion caused the door across the hall from the man I would know as Mr. Willis, to turn and abandon his coaching of the skinny crutches kid with the over sized backpack. "Is that Mr. German down there", a voice called out from my math teacher, Mr. Kasper, as he stepped from the opening door.
"We're just looking for a little perseverance here Mr. Kasper." said Mr. Willis as he turned back to me and my struggle. Math was never my best subject and showing up late to math class, made me feel like absolute shit, and now with both teachers watching me hump down the highly polished floors, I wanted to die if I didn't drop dead of a heart attack before I reached math class.
"You did it." Mr. Willis hammered, as my crutch caught on his shoe. I crumpled to the floor, face first, books pouring from my now shredded backpack and crutches sliding out from each arm. I laid there for a moment, eyes closed and sweat pooling under my head, on the cold concrete floor.
"Are you gonna live?" he quipped, turning back towards his own classroom. Mr. Kasper thanked Mr. Willis for his attention and stepped next to me while I lay on the the floor. "We have waited for you long enough, would you like to join us now? "
I rolled over, slid my bad leg out and sat up. My leg would not bend and so I awkwardly slid the books into a pile and shoved them into the remnants of the bag and slung it over my shoulder. Propping the crutches under my arms, I pried myself from the floor, as if I was a new born giraffe balancing myself on new legs.
A lurch forward, a jerk to the side and I was back upright. Thankfully I was so exhausted I didn't hear the pithy remarks of my sarcastic teacher and I failed to recognize the embarrassment I feared was coming when I took my desk. Normalcy came over the class and the incident of the longest hallway in the world was over.
But at that picket fence every morning, when I am approaching the longest leg of my run, the last quarter mile, the voice of Mr. Willis echoes in my head, "don't look up, just focus on your next step." I remember that long hallway and the "perseverance" the old man spoke of. I remember the exhaustion and the fear, and the encouragement he offered me with fondness. And when I hear his voice in my head, I dig deep and keep going. Knowing that before I know it, the book box will be there and the end will be coming soon, when I can stop running, slow down and breath deep, until the next day when I do it all again.
Every morning since I started with this middle-aged thing, I go for a run. Well really, it's mostly a brisk walk most days, but I try to get the heart rate up a bit with a little jogging on the way back. I have lost 10 pounds and gotten my blood pressure down to normal human limits. It sucks doing it, but afterwards I usually feel pretty good about myself and have the notion to flail at this writing thing for a bit while I cool down.And every day, I pass by a little white picket fence on the waterfront of Beaufort and eye the last quarter mile with reluctance. Can I do this without causing permanent damage? Will I stroke out before I reach the little book box that tells me the end is near?
I love that little book box. I think it was put there for wayward sailors who used to be welcomed to Taylor's Creek as a safe harbor on the long leg between Miami and Hampton Roads. The sailors, thirsty for something to break the monotony of a night at anchor, could dinghy over and place a gently used book in the box and take something new to read for the long night ahead.
The box remains with books inside, but the pages grow yellowed and and wavy as the transient boaters have not come of late. They have been given the big middle finger by the wealthy elites of Beaufort who made anchoring in Taylor's Creek illegal shortly after Hurricane Florence. It's a real shame because the town has a 300-year history of being a haven for transients who might come and go, given its central position perched on the the North Atlantic. The book box, likely established by some matronly woman yearning to sail away with the fleets of snow birds each fall, was set up as part of that hospitality, sometime ago I am sure. But as so much goes in this Country, we abandon our civility in the face of "stay the hell off my front lawn" and this book box remains, a sign of hope for my withering lungs and tired legs.
 |
| This part of Front Street in Beaufort is one of the most picturesque spots in town. It reminds me of what I think Charleston looked like at the start of the last Century. |
That last quarter mile is the longest part of the five mile loop, not because of its geographic features, but because my body is tired and depleted from the first 4.75 miles, and ready to be done. It is all I can do to keep going and I focus intently on my Bob Marley, blaring in my ear buds, resisting the urge to look towards the book box that lies ahead. I stare intently at the pavement at my feet, hoping a speeding car does not swing wide and get me, because I know I have no strength in my thighs to dive out of the way onto the grass in my depleted state.
When I was in Fourth Grade, I broke the growth plate in my knee. The week before school began, my Mother took my sister and I camping and I was out running wild with the boys from the other camp sites. We were trying to cut through a campsite with an old couple and a RV and avoid detection, when I ran and jumped off a four-foot high berm on the trail next to the campsite we were trying to cut through. I landed hard and felt a burning pain slice into my left knee. My body stopped at the feet of the old couple who I think wanted to yell me, but instead had a look of pity on their face as I lay there crying and clutching my injured leg.
The kid I was playing with ran to get my mom and she came running, apologizing to the old couple for my rude entry into their campsite and ruining their afternoon martinis. She picked me up from the ground and carried my sobbing body to the car. As best as I can recall, we entered into the emergency room where a Dr. Staubb wrapped my leg in a white leg immobilizer and handed me a pair of crutches. Ironically when I dislocated my other knee in a sailboat race twenty years later, he was the same doctor who rebuilt my tattered ligaments and once again handed me a set of crutches. He's a great knee doctor but I hate that man with all my being.
The next week, I took my broken knee and crutches, my back pack and my wonderment at being in the fourth grade, to school. I hobbled off the bus up the walk to the front door, and was petrified at the wide halls of lockers, the throngs of pulsating kids and the booming voices of underpaid teachers. A shrill tone echoed from a loud speaker and the halls magically emptied, leaving me limping down the hall with my crutches and a full backpack towards the staircase.
By the time I made it up the staircase, a silence had befallen the hallways and muffled voices of teachers could be heard from behind closed classroom doors. I was late for class.
I knew when I walked into class, a teacher would call me out for being late and the class would titter at my tardiness. My face would turn beet red and my body would catch fire with embarrassment, as I stood before the class on the first day with no excuse and a stomach full of shame.
 |
| Stratford Academy in Stratford, CT was a high school before it was my elementary school, so it was built for bodies that were more grown than mine and to my 9-year old mind, was largest place on earth. |
Making the 90 degree turn, I entered the long hall way where my classroom sat at the end. It felt as if it were ten miles long to my injured young body and I could feel the sweat drip from my palms down into the saturated foam grips of the crutches. My upper body burned from the double duty of holding crutches in my armpits and backpack straps on my shoulders.
And I thumped forward.
Past a dozen classrooms and a thousand lockers, I clopped down the silent hall,... thump..chunk chunk,... thump ...chunk chunk.
And as I approached the half way mark, a towering man with a ruddy complexion and a shiny bald head, bellowed down the hall to me, "Look down! Don't look at me. " I paused for a moment, wondering what he was talking about and he screamed, "DON'T STOP!"
My head snapped downward and I my entire focus honed in on the sound of my crutches, thump...chunk chunk, and the lines of the asbestos floor tiles at my feet. He said, "you can do it, just focus on your next step, don't worry about the destination."
My body wanted to quit, but my pride would never let me, not while this beast of man with his blond mustache and gruff voice growled at me. "Your're almost there, dig deep now," he grunted.
The commotion caused the door across the hall from the man I would know as Mr. Willis, to turn and abandon his coaching of the skinny crutches kid with the over sized backpack. "Is that Mr. German down there", a voice called out from my math teacher, Mr. Kasper, as he stepped from the opening door.
"We're just looking for a little perseverance here Mr. Kasper." said Mr. Willis as he turned back to me and my struggle. Math was never my best subject and showing up late to math class, made me feel like absolute shit, and now with both teachers watching me hump down the highly polished floors, I wanted to die if I didn't drop dead of a heart attack before I reached math class.
"You did it." Mr. Willis hammered, as my crutch caught on his shoe. I crumpled to the floor, face first, books pouring from my now shredded backpack and crutches sliding out from each arm. I laid there for a moment, eyes closed and sweat pooling under my head, on the cold concrete floor.
"Are you gonna live?" he quipped, turning back towards his own classroom. Mr. Kasper thanked Mr. Willis for his attention and stepped next to me while I lay on the the floor. "We have waited for you long enough, would you like to join us now? "
I rolled over, slid my bad leg out and sat up. My leg would not bend and so I awkwardly slid the books into a pile and shoved them into the remnants of the bag and slung it over my shoulder. Propping the crutches under my arms, I pried myself from the floor, as if I was a new born giraffe balancing myself on new legs.
A lurch forward, a jerk to the side and I was back upright. Thankfully I was so exhausted I didn't hear the pithy remarks of my sarcastic teacher and I failed to recognize the embarrassment I feared was coming when I took my desk. Normalcy came over the class and the incident of the longest hallway in the world was over.But at that picket fence every morning, when I am approaching the longest leg of my run, the last quarter mile, the voice of Mr. Willis echoes in my head, "don't look up, just focus on your next step." I remember that long hallway and the "perseverance" the old man spoke of. I remember the exhaustion and the fear, and the encouragement he offered me with fondness. And when I hear his voice in my head, I dig deep and keep going. Knowing that before I know it, the book box will be there and the end will be coming soon, when I can stop running, slow down and breath deep, until the next day when I do it all again.
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