Life In A Word

Benevolence at the Ballpark

A man losing his wallet is akin to a woman having her purse stolen, even though a wallet is typically so much smaller. The same level of angst and helplessness ensues when you realize this most personal of belongings is gone. I should know, since I lost my wallet last Sunday at a baseball game in Denver. But it was returned to me sooner than I expected, and that simple act of charity will leave an imprint far deeper than the carelessness of my actions.

Ironically, I made a deliberate effort to protect my wallet from the game-day crowds. I put my cell phone in the same front pocket, making my wallet more difficult to “lift”. It would take some real effort to bring one or the other item out into the open.

But that’s exactly what I did. Unbeknownst to me, when I took out my phone after the game my wallet was pulled along with it, dropping unnoticed onto the gravel of the parking lot. And off we sped for home, none the wiser. Three or four blocks later that moment of angst kicked in when my hand grazed my now empty front pocket. A frantic glance around the driver’s seat revealed the obvious: my wallet was really, truly gone. Even though we were back to the parking lot minutes later (where we wondered whether this was a “loss” or a “lift”), our search through the gravel was fruitless.

Now I’d like you to meet Karen, my new friend. Karen lives here in Colorado Springs, maybe on the south side of town. She enjoys going to baseball games on Sunday afternoons. That’s all I know about her (and may ever know), but let’s add one more thing. Like the fellow from the Bible parable, Karen is a good Samaritan.

My wallet showed up in my mailbox last Thursday – intact and virtually untouched – wrapped in the note you see above. What struck me immediately about Karen’s actions was the following: 1) she spent $2.50 or more for the envelope and postage; 2) she apologized for not getting my wallet back to me sooner; and 3) she chose to remain anonymous. There was no return address on the envelope and the USPS tracking number protected Karen’s contact information. In this day and age I am somewhat in awe of her decent, anonymous gesture. My wallet may have fallen to the parking lot but it also fell into the right hands.

The same day my wallet showed up in my mailbox our local newspaper reported a nearby incident involving a stolen wallet from an unlocked car. The thief is still at-large, and he/she attempted a purchase with one of the credit cards immediately after the steal. I can’t help but think this is more than just a coincidence of events.

So thank you Karen – whoever and wherever you are. I may not be able to repay your actions but I can certainly follow your lead. After all, the world needs more good Samaritans like you.

What’s ‘appening with Dining Out?

After moving our daughter into her college apartment last Saturday, we offered to take a group of her friends out to a local restaurant to celebrate the beginning of the school year. The place we chose did not allow for table reservations but did offer call-ahead seating. Thus did our party of ten arrive during the busy dinner hour and was seated less than ten minutes later. It’s fair to say this call-ahead experience was entirely pleasing to the palate.

Call-ahead seating is an interesting concept to me. It’s somewhere between a full-on reservation and simply showing up for dinner. The restaurant puts you on a list when you call ahead, and then you’re given the next available table after you arrive. In essence, call-ahead mitigates the restaurant’s risk of the no-show reservation.

Call-ahead feels entirely dated if you use OpenTable, of course With OT you’re limited to the restaurants supported by the app, but you’re also given the convenience of choosing cuisine, location, menu, and time; right up to the moment you walk through the door. OT’s website boasts “seating more than 20 million diners per month… across more than 38,000 restaurants”. Clearly the new-age approach to restaurant reservations has arrived.

But is OpenTable also dated? With a little research I was amazed to discover several other companies changing our approach to dining out. Consider the following:

NoWait allows you to add yourself to the wait list of a restaurant that doesn’t take reservations. NoWait is like having someone stand in line for you, with the convenience of knowing when that person gets to the front of the line. Hence you can shop or have a drink nearby instead enduring the crowding and impatience of the restaurant’s waiting area.

Rezhound and TableSweep are boosters for OpenTable. They scan OT for newly-released (cancelled) reservations, then notify you by text or email with what they find. You have to jump over to OT to actually book the reservation (be quick!), but it’s a great concept if you’re in the habit of waiting for last-minute seats at popular restaurants.

Table8 is designed for the more upscale dining experience. Table8’s restaurants set aside a fixed number of peak-time tables every night. You can reserve any available table at a Table8’s restaurant for free, or reserve one of the “set-aside” tables for a fee if there are no other tables. Again, last-minute seats at popular restaurants, as long as you’re willing to pay a little extra.

Settle allows you to book a table, pre-order your food, and pay for your meal on your phone. I’m not a fan of Settle’s time-saving tactics. I think the moments perusing and discussing the menu is part of the fun of dining out, not to mention the brief relationship with your waiter. If saving time is your objective, just get your food to-go.

Shout borders on the absurd. Shout is the ticket-scalper’s approach to restaurant reservations. For a fee negotiated with the “seller”, you the “buyer” can purchase a hard-to-get restaurant reservation, or pay the seller to wait at a given restaurant until your name is called. Really? Is the restaurant that good and your time that important?

To end on a humorous or horrifying note (take your pick), Happy is marketed as the do-it-yourself happy-hour app. Walk into a bar, cue the Happy app, and a timer starts a 60-minute countdown: to enjoy whatever 2-for-1’s or other specials the bar has to offer. So now you can get extra drinks any time of day. Just remember, you only have an hour. On your marks… get set… DRINK!

Just Beyond the Spotlight

34.9 million people (including most of Jamaica) watched on Monday night as Usain Bolt claimed track and field legend at the Olympics by winning the Men’s 100m. It was Bolt’s third straight gold medal in the event; remarkable considering he is eight years older now than when he won it the first time. Like Michael Phelps and swimming, the hype leading up to Bolt’s latest victory was justified. NBC covered every one of Bolt’s qualifying heats in prime-time, and delivered a good twenty minutes of back story before the final. Bolt will be a household name if he is not already.

The 100m run is one of several Olympic events I never miss. It is a wondrous display of athletic power, and I’m always on edge to see who will become the “world’s fastest human”. However, the prime-time Olympic spotlight need also shine on lesser known events and athletes. Herein lies the oft-overlooked beauty of the Olympics: it is these “others” that emerge with the most inspiring stories. They are not so much superstars, yet are still among the best at what they do. A few examples for your consideration:

Charlotte Dujardin of Great Britain rode to a gold-medal performance in Individual Dressage. Show Jumping may be the more popular Olympic equestrian event but Dressage is the more difficult (and defined as “the highest expression of horse training). Dujardin and her Dutch Warmblood horse “Valegro” floated through an almost magical routine, completing one spectacular movement after another. Dujardin and her mount were graceful, elegant, and significantly better – at least on points – than the silver medalist. And her story became even more poignant when I learned Dujardin was engaged to be married shortly after receiving the gold medal, while Valegro has earned his last championship (of many) and will be retired from the sport.

Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands leaped to a gold-medal win on the balance beam in Women’s Gymnastics. It was the first women’s gymnastics medal of any kind in her country’s history. Wevers’ routine featured several jaw-dropping maneuvers I’d never seen before, including several spins while balanced precariously on one foot. The judges were won over by Wever’s creativity and skill. American television tried desperately to keep the spotlight on our own athletes (who were favored to win), but Wevers was clearly the humble star this night. And her story was made even more poignant when the cameras turned to her twin sister Leika in the stands – also a member of the Dutch gymnastics team – as she reacted to Sanne’s upset win with tears of disbelief.

Molly Huddle of the United States ran what should have been a gold-medal performance in the Women’s 10,000m run. Except she didn’t win the gold medal. When a group of eight women broke away from the pack after several laps – most of them Kenyans and Ethiopians – Huddle broke away with them. After twenty-five laps Huddle crossed the finish line in sixth place, breaking the American record for the event by almost nine seconds. And her story was made even more poignant when I learned Huddle’s finishing time would have been good enough for the gold medal in three of the last four Olympics.

The Games continue for several more days. More superstars will be at their best on prime-time television. Just remember to look around and see what else is going on. There are wonderful stories just beyond the spotlight.

Beckons the Printed Word

I have a reading problem. Perhaps you can help me with it. I blame my mother of course. She was a voracious reader (feasting on those 700+ page romance novels) and raised my brothers and I to be readers too. Thus newspapers and magazines; hard-covered tomes and soft-covered easy reads; coffee-table books and cookbooks; news feeds, emails, texts; my ever-present Kindle e-reader; even instruction manuals for God’s sake – vie for my reading time and attention. Books reach out to me with invisible hands, fluttering their crisp pages and silently screaming “READ ME!!!”.

Once upon a time I had this under control. You see, in those first childhood visits to the school library you could only check out one book at a time. Read and return. Read and return. Eventually you earned the right to check out several at once. Small piles of books began to accompany me home.

Newspapers already lived in my house. My dad read the newspaper and nothing else, but in his day you had the morning paper and the evening paper. Then one day I noticed Time and Sports Illustrated arrived every week in our mailbox. More reading. And the ever-present World Book Encyclopedia (WBE) flew off the shelf for the many school assignments that demanded it. Here’s an early warning sign: sometimes I found myself leafing through the WBE for no reason at all.

Those innocent resources of yesteryear cemented the multi-tentacled reading monster that dwells in my house today. Our family room is loaded with coffee table books and the complete works of Dickens (which I really need to finish someday). Our kitchen cabinets are weighted down with ten cookbooks for every one that we actually use. Our bedroom has a wall full of books we simply can’t bear to part with – kind of like the clothes you swear will come back into fashion someday. Our nightstands have several put-you-to-sleep choices in their top drawers. And our home office is so loaded I’ve resorted to “stack” instead of “display”.

It’s a delicate balance, this fanaticism for reading. You have to limit your resources and then limit the time you give them. Thus do I only subscribe to one magazine and one newspaper. I follow 10-12 blogs and only those that publish weekly or less. At any given time I’m only reading one book of fiction and another of non-fiction. But beware that book of fiction. If it’s really good, all other reading is kept at bay until I’ve consumed the very last page. And then I have to scramble to catch up.

Amazon has created the ultimate temptation. Not only can you purchase unlimited free “sample reads”, but you can subscribe to a dozen newsletters advertising new authors or popular reads or “we think you might like this” options. It can turn into a feeding frenzy.

If there’s a rehab program to harness too much reading, I suggest the following as the first step. Stay out of bookstores. Keep battling the monster that has taken over your house instead.

Rings of Summer

Over the next two weeks, the world will be witness to the greatest gathering of athletes and sports mankind has to offer. The XXXI Olympiad -that’s 31st for you non-Romans – will be hosted by the city of Rio de Janeiro. (Just saying “Rio” reminds me of “FedEx” – it’s simply not the whole enchilada). I must admit I didn’t realize “Olympiad” refers to the four-year period between Olympic Games – not the Games themselves. Count backwards by fours and you’ll realize the first modern Olympic games was held way back in 1896.

You may say, non-sports-fan that you are, there is nothing seventeen days of sports competitions can do to stir your soul. But I urge you, put away the electronics and have a look, even if only for an hour or two. A moment will be there and you don’t want to miss it.

The first Olympic Games I remember well was 1976 in Montreal. As a fourteen-year old, I was captivated watching Nadia Comaneci – also fourteen (!) – as she won three gold medals and scored seven perfect 10.0’s in women’s gymnastics. I love this trivia item: the gymnastics scoreboard could only hold three digits, so Comeneci’s perfect scores were expressed as “1.0”. For anyone who watched, it was one of the most electrifying performances in any sport and in any Olympics. It was a moment to remember.

The second Olympic Games I remember well was 1980, but only because the United States boycotted the events due to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan at the time (which is ironic given America’s involvement in that country today).

That brings us to 1984: the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles. I was a senior in college, working a summer internship in Southern California. I was witness to a city transformed. The Games were hosted in a revitalized Coliseum (the same venue where the Olympics were held in 1932). Ronald Reagan was President and opened the Games in person. Sports venues were spread across the city, and the coincidence of several competitions on Fridays caused most businesses to shift to 4×10 workweeks. American flags were everywhere. The Olympic spirit was alive and well in the City of Angels.

I distinctly remember the torch relay at the L.A. Games, passing through the neighborhood where I grew up; John Williams’ glorious musical composition at the opening ceremonies (where dozens of white grand pianos were played simultaneously); Mary Lou Retton’s golds in women’s gymnastics; and Carl Lewis’s golds in track and field. I also remember the women’s 3,000 meter run, highly-anticipated because America’s Mary Decker was racing South African sensation Zola Budd. The two collided mid-race, Decker went down, and she never finished the race (Decker’s anguished face as she lay on the track is one of the Olympics’ classic photos). There were moments in L.A.

Here’s one more Olympic moment which may surpass any I’ve mentioned above. It was the women’s marathon. I don’t even remember the city or the year or the woman who won the gold. But I do remember the woman who won the bronze. As she entered the stadium for the final meters of the race, she looked over her shoulder and saw… no one. The bronze was hers. She raised her arms in triumph as she finished that final lap, crying in apparent disbelief. The unbridled joy and tears on her face as she crossed the finish line is a moment I’ll never forget.

The Olympics. Rio de Janeiro. Starting tomorrow. Watch. A moment will be there and you don’t want to miss it.

The Aging of Independence

Ten years from now – this month – the U.S. will celebrate its 250th birthday. That’s remarkable to me considering I still have vivid memories of America’s bicentennial back in 1976. To put it another way, I’ve been witness to more than 20% of the entire history of the United States. We really are a young country, aren’t we?

Earlier this week my wife and I were driving back to Colorado from California, after a week of vacation at the beach. Passing through Utah we reached a small town called Cedar City. There’s nothing remarkable about Cedar City. It’s the home of Southern Utah University and almost 30,000 residents. But the name stirred a memory in the deep recesses of my brain. And then it hit me. Cedar City was part of a contest the Los Angeles Times newspaper sponsored when I was a teenager – a creative way of celebrating the nation’s big birthday.

The contest (if my vague memories serve me correctly) took place over fifty of the fifty-two weeks that year. Each week The Times published a trivia puzzle consisting of a jumbled American city name and a couple other facts you had to figure out about the locale or surrounding state. As the contest went on you realized The Times was picking one city from every state in the union. You cut out and completed each puzzle by hand, and at the end of the contest submitted the whole pile to The Times, to be included in a cash drawing. Our family’s World Book Encyclopedia – not the Internet that was still twenty years from reality – helped me with the research.

I didn’t win The Times contest but I know I learned a lot about our country in the process – including a few details about little Cedar City, Utah. Needless to say we are a remarkably diverse collection of states, towns and people; especially for a country so young.

America’s 150th birthday – the “sesquicentennial” – was honored back in 1926 when Calvin Coolidge was president. You can find Coolidge’s celebratory address to the people here. One passage in particular resonated with me: “Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.” Powerful words then, but I wonder if today’s leaders would be so bold as to make the same statement? Look no further than the current presidential election: the Constitution and the Declaration are being called into question like never before.

Ten years from now the U.S. will celebrate its “sestercentennial” – fully 250 years of glorious independence. Philadelphia is already campaigning to be the host city for the national celebration. 2026 won’t be a presidential election year nor an Olympic year, but the fireworks and pageantry will surely be brighter. Let’s hope another decade brings not only renewed pride and optimism in America, but also a sense that we are – states, towns, citizens – “united” once more.

Some Kind of Wonderful

I was skimming the headlines yesterday when I noticed Anne Hathaway paying tribute to director Garry Marshall for her acting breakthrough in The Princess Diaries movies. Then I realized the tribute was because Marshall had died recently, at 81 from pneumonia. Something about Marshall resonated with me but I couldn’t put my finger on it (okay, I may have watched the Diary movies with my daughter). When I checked his credits it made more sense. I’ve been drawn to Marshall’s work longer than I ever realized. This guy was prolific.

In the 1980’s, a burst of coming-of-age films hit the big screen. Today they’d still be considered cult-classics. I was particularly drawn to Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). The characters were about my age and dealing with the kind of teenage angst I could really relate to. As it turns out, John Hughes wrote every single one of these movies. He also wrote one of my all-time favorites (still to this day): Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). If you’re a guy and you’ve seen the movie perhaps you made the same connection. Like Eric Stoltz’s character I was madly in love with Lea Thompson, until I realized I was really in love with Mary Stuart Masterson.

In my obsession with John Hughes (and director Howard Deutch), apparently I overlooked Garry Marshall. Marshall entered my life early with The Lucy Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Odd Couple in the mid-’70’s. My brothers and I watched what my dad wanted to watch in those days, so Marshall gets the credit for some fond father-son memories side-by-side on the family room couch.

By the early ’80’s Marshall had moved on to Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley, and Happy Days. I’m sure I didn’t miss many episodes (and I can still hum the theme songs). Along with The Brady Bunch those were my go-to shows. Bit of trivia: Garry Marshall directed his sister Penny Marshall to fame in Laverne & Shirley.

Marshall solidified his influence on my life when he directed Pretty Woman in 1990. I was so taken by the movie in fact, that I mimicked a few scenes for my wife’s birthday a few years later. I woke her up with a handful of hundred-dollar bills, told her to go out and buy a nice dress for dinner; then showed up later in a limousine, standing through the sunroof in a tux with a bouquet of flowers. It was fun to play the part, but alas I am no Richard Gere.

Trivia again: Garry Marshall played a small role as a tour guide in Pretty Woman.

My wife and I took a chance on the movie Mother’s Day this past May – a light comedy with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis (and Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts). Was it a great movie? No. But as it turns out it was the last film directed by Garry Marshall. That little fact gave the movie more substance. With Mother’s Day, Marshall managed to give me more than fifty years of television and movie memories.

Rest in peace Garry. Thanks for so many kinds of wonderful.

Dear Little John

Sports Illustrated occasionally puts out an issue titled “Where Are They Now?”, profiling the next chapters of athletes who were once prominent in their given sport. The latest edition – just this week – fittingly covers the gold-medal winning women’s gymnastics team from the 1996 Atlanta games. I can still picture Kerri Strug landing that perfect vault on a broken ankle; the clinching performance for USA team gold.

If my own friends from twenty years ago wondered “where is Dave now?”, they might stare in disbelief as I navigate my John Deere tractor across acres of ranch property here in Colorado. I like to think of my 42-in. 20HP v-twin hydrostatic front-engine ride as a mean, green, mowing machine. My model D125 chews up the fast-growing grass like a teenager in front of pizza. She’s a veritable beast on wheels.

My wife also has a tractor – a Kubota L4330 “Compact Utility”. Here’s a picture of our babies side-by-side:

Stop laughing now, and step aside with me for some color fun. If you see a yellow tractor it’s probably manufactured by Caterpillar. If it’s blue it’s probably a New Holland. Red equals International Harvester, (though IH stop making theirs in the mid-1980’s). Then you have Kubota in the bright orange and John Deere in a pleasing shade of green. As Skittles would say, Taste the Rainbow!

Okay, back to the photo. I confess my little green kitten is dwarfed by my wife’s Transformer mega-monster. And the stats don’t lie: her Kubota is twice the length and twice the horsepower, and outweighs my Deere by over a ton. She has a roll bar, which suggests she can go four-wheeling in the fields, or even cartwheel her tractor down sand dunes without the slightest of injuries. Me? I pretty much limit my adventure to little circuits around the back lawn.

While I’m at it, I’ll go to full-on confession mode and say my wife is the real tractor pro; not me. She and her Kubota keep the blizzard snow at bay in winter and the pasture grass at a respectable height in summer. My own occasional efforts with the Kubota are far more amateur, but I often make impressive gouges in our dirt driveway.

Last spring my wife rewarded herself with that cab enclosure you see in the photo, complete with side doors and heat. Maybe I’ll get her a stereo for Christmas. Maybe I’ll get my John Deere a seat cover.

Country music singer Jason Aldean had a nice hit with “Big Green Tractor”, but I wouldn’t be able to duet with Jason without thinking “Little”. Craig Morgan also had a hit with “International Harvester”, but I just can’t relate to the lyric “tip your hat to the man UP on the tractor”. Finally, Kenny Chesney made it big with “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”. Okay, now we’re talking (er, singing). Let’s assume my wife feels that way about my Deere, shall we? I’ll keep wearing the JD colors to show my pride.

Even if it’s just a “little” pride.

Grim Reader

While visiting my parents last week, I was delighted to find a few dusty old children’s books on a quiet corner shelf in the family room. The books carry sentimental value because they once occupied a shelf in my grandparents’ house. They were the same books my father read when he was a child. And as we grandchildren were expected to be “seen and not heard”, these books were our refuge, stoking our budding imaginations with dozens of characters and places we longed to be a part of.

One book in particular – The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature – stands out as a literary beacon of my childhood. The stories within included Aesop’s Fables (i.e. The Hare and the Tortoise), the tales of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (The Emperor’s New Clothes), and the works of The Brothers Grimm (Rumpelstiltskin). The collection oozed with fantasy and adventure and innocence.

I reread a few of these stories last week and came to an unquestionable conclusion: The Brothers Grimm were a couple of messed-up dudes. On the one hand the Grimms authored Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rapunzel, which Disney sanitized and gave a more positive spin. But more likely, you know the Grimms for their famous “fairy tales”, like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.

Fairy tales. Doesn’t the term conjure up images of enchanted forests and candy castles and magical sprites? That’s what I thought too, but Hansel and Gretel would vigorously disagree. These kids endured a nightmare on par with today’s R-rated horror flicks. Take ten minutes and read their story (you can find it here). The only detail I recalled was the house in the forest; the one made of cake and candy and spun-sugar glass. But this time around I couldn’t get past the other aspects. Within the first three paragraphs we read that H & G’s mother’s solution to a lack of food is to abandon her children in the forest. Even after they find their way back to the house the mother finds another (more successful) way to leave them behind. Later on, an old woman holds the kids captive in the candy house and prepares to “slaughter and boil” (and eat) Hansel. Gretel gets to watch. But the kids surprise the old woman by pushing her into the oven, and then she burns to death. A celebration ensues.

Little Red Riding Hood (which you can find here) is no less violent. A little girl in red may sound adorable but the story is really about the murderous wolf. Not only does the wolf consume LRR’s grandmother, he has LRR herself for dessert. And it doesn’t end there. A huntsman happens by, recognizes the wolf, decides not to shoot him because “maybe the grandmother is inside”; then cuts open the wolf and pulls out the grandmother and LLR alive and intact. Seriously?

The Treasury introduction says “eight, nine and ten is the fairy tale age”. The Treasury also says “many a child will haul the volume from the shelf and spend countless happy hours…” are you kidding me? This is gratuitous violence disguised as bedtime stories!

I used to cringe at the thought of my young children watching a PG-rated movie. Not anymore. There are over half a million copies of The Treasury out there in the world. I need to find them all and have a bonfire. Those Grimm images go to the grave with you!

Four in the Forest

Three years ago this month, our community suffered a devastating wildfire the likes of which had never been seen in Colorado history. Inside of a week, the Black Forest Fire consumed almost 15,000 acres and displaced 38.000 residents. When the fire was finally contained over 500 homes had been destroyed. It was an almost unimaginable force of nature, and a miracle that only two residents lost their lives.

My family and I – and the several horses on our property – were forced to evacuate thirty miles to the north, waiting almost a week to learn the fate of our home. We couldn’t check our phones for real-time updates. Instead, we were at the mercy of twice-daily television reports. We were glued to the screen as the spokesperson would list impacted streets and addresses. By the grace of God our house was spared, even though the fire came within a mile of our property. But the beautiful Black Forest now bears a miles-long scar that will be evident for decades, if not hundreds of years.

The fire was a testament to a higher power, but also to the efforts of the “first-responders”. Almost 500 firefighters battled the blaze; probably ten times the number manning our local stations. I am in awe of these professionals, working tirelessly as well as putting their lives on the line for people like myself whom they will never meet. They are the epitome of heroism.

A year after the fire our community established “4 Miles in the Forest”, an annual fun run to benefit the Black Forest Fire/Rescue department. “4 Miles…” attracts several hundred participants, including the firefighters themselves. It is conducted at Section 16, a square mile of the forest with a trail around the perimeter for walking, running, biking, and horseback riding. Thanks to an elementary school within the Section the firefighters held the line and saved the entire property.

When I ran the inaugural “4 miles…”, I was delighted to find I was pacing one of the firefighters most of the way. He must have been carrying 50 pounds of gear as he ran. He was being coached by one of his superiors – as if in boot camp. My own effort was buoyed by the thought that I was accompanied by this truly selfless individual.

This year’s run was different. I found myself alone most of the way, well-spaced between the leaders and the walkers. The solitude gave me time to dwell on the significance of the race: a memorial to a tragic event as well as a testament to those who brought the fire to an end. As I completed the run, I realized my participation had nothing to do with winning the race or where I placed or how fast I had run. In fact it had nothing to do with me at all. Instead my running was a tribute to the selflessness of others; their willingness to fight and protect without reward or recognition. I know they would come to my rescue again without question. They are heroes in every sense of the word.