11/16/02
Hi Friends and Family,
I'm writing this update from the Washington County Sheriff's Office (on the good guy side of the fence!!) in Greenville, MS. With the help of Sherron Kirk, Captain David Sessums graciously let me use his office and PC to read and send mail.
Quick status update: As of last evening, I have run 3,226 miles since my start on April 23 on the beach at Playa Del Ray. I am 59% through my planned 5,450 mile Run. Although I am feeling general tiredness, aches and joint stiffness, I have no chronic injury. My outlook remains positive that I will have the good fortune to finish the Run in Boston in mid March.
Through the great efforts of Albert Brien, a good friend and proprietor of The Fiddlers Loft in Kingston, NH, we now have a web-site for my Run. www.RunAcrossAmerica.com went live early this morning and contains all my previous updates, some of the newspaper articles and some photos taken during the Run. More photos, maps, route cities, etc will be loaded in the next week. Thanks a bunch Albert!!
Since my last update in Dallas, I have had many adventures and have met some great folks. Highlights include:
I ran 191.1 miles from Dallas to Shreveport over an 8 day period including my longest single week (seven days) of running (167.4 miles). The weather was unseasonably cool, overcast, with low humidity the entire eight days, which allowed me to cover so much ground with out excessive fatigue. Last weekend the weather turned hot, sunny and humid (the toughest running weather to-date), and I felt considerably more tired with lower mileage.
While preparing for my morning run on 11/1/02, I stopped in a gas station/convenience store across the street from where I had parked my camper the night before. In the small store five men all wearing orange and black polo shirts and ball caps stood around chatting. They said hi and I introduced myself. They proceeded to introduce themselves as fathers of Gladewater,TX high school football players, and that they meet in the store (owned by one of the player's fathers) every Friday before lunch to discuss the evening's football game, competition, etc.
They went on to say that Gladewater has an excellent football tradition and three years ago hired David Huseman, the winningest high school football coach in Texas over the decade of the 1990s. David Huseman is now the Gladewater Athletic Director and Head Football Coach. As we continued to talk Coach Huseman came into the store to buy a can of snuff (the stuff is as popular in Texas as it is in Western Pennsylvania!!). We chatted about sports in general, his team, the upcoming game, and we wished each other well. As I was about to leave, the owner of the store handed me an orange and black Gladewater H.S. football T-shirt and asked me to wear it during portions of my Run. As long as I live, I will always admire and respect the many fine coaches I've had, especially those in the high schools who spend so much time with youth without concern for financial reward. These are some the "real people" of America.
As I have written in previous updates, during periods when I do not have friends accompanying and supporting me, I have been getting excellent support from local law enforcement agencies (police, sheriffs and highway patrol) who give me rides from my camper back to my previous run's ending location. (After each run, I drive my camper ahead 11-13 miles, call a local law enforcement person, and they respond with a patrol car to transport me back to my last ending point where I then run to the camper).
A couple of examples of the great support I've been getting follow:
While being transported from Longview, TX back to Gladewater, TX, Ken Hartley, Wood County Sheriff Deputy, told me he had played football for Millersburg H.S. in my native state of Pennsylvania, that he earned a football scholarship to play at Arkansas, that he came to Longview, TX to live with his sister for two months during the summer before his college freshman year to acclimate to the South's oppressive heat and humidity, that after his college years, he liked Longview so much he decided to make it his home.
During the first mile or two of my run back to Longview, I realized that I had not adequately hydrated before the run. As Glee Peters, a friend I met during the Pike's Marathon says: "long distance runners are chronically dehydrated", so we try to over drink to prevent serious dehydration. (at the risk of being overly graphic and offending anyone, if your leak is yellow, you're insufficiently hydrated). So while thinking of where I might get some water during the run, I notice Ken Hartley waiting at a road about a 1/4 mile away. As I approach, he hands me a large water bottle with a sheriff's badge sticker on it, and says there will be another one about three miles ahead!! He did this on his own without any request or prompting from me!!! That's support!!!
While being transported from West Monroe, LA to Calhoun, LA, James Magee, Louisiana Highway Patrol officer, was so caught up by my Run and its purpose that he took off his LA Highway Patrol brass badge from his uniform shirt and asked me to wear it when I run into Shanksville, WDC and NYC.
John Pritchard and "Reverend Rolex":
While waiting for a sheriff to transport me from Marshall,TX to Hallsville,TX I was parked across the street from the Marshall Police Dept. along a curb of a glass shop. As I waited, I noticed a young man entering the glass shop wearing the neatest red, white and blue "stars and stripes" leather jacket I've ever seen (he also had on a R,W&B baseball cap). I thought to myself, "I've got to meet this Patriot", so I stepped outside just as he was returning to come to my camper door. The young man introduces himself as John Pritchard, and almost immediately Kenny Allen, Harrison County Sheriff deputy arrives. John says he'd like to talk some more and invites me to have dinner with his family at the end of my running day (no matter how late).
During dinner that (late) night John and his wife ask if I'd like to be their guests at a church service the next morning. I explain that I did not have any dress clothes and only running shoes; they said the church is very informal, held in a remodeled and expanded trailer home, everybody shows up in jeans and tennis shoes or cowboy boots. During the ride to church the next morning, John told me that sheriff's deputy Kenny Allen was often falsely considered a corrupt deputy because he lived in a mansion and owned four corvette, but the truth is he played for the Dallas Cowboys for six years and has been "retired" as a deputy for the last 12 years.
What happens next is undoubtedly the funniest and moving experiences I have ever had inside a church!!! When we walk into the "church" (expanded living room of the remodeled trailer home), "Reverend Rolex" is standing at the podium in garish clothes, and gold necklaces, bracelets and rings. The good reverend proceeds to read the announcements in the funniest, most spontaneous manner while dialoguing with the assembled who are responding "Amen", "Praise the Lord", "Yes Saa" and all the other appropriate supportive responses. He epitomizes and pokes fun at the money grubbing wealthy TV evangelists.
The announcements are all real, but "Reverend Rolex" is actually Eddie Nichols, a Marshall, TX police officer and ordained minister doing a monthly skit to "warm up" his audience for the real service to follow. The skit was unrehearsed but was as funny as anything I've ever seen on Saturday Night Live or similar shows. After about 20 minutes of this, "Reverend Rolex", while starting the serious part of the service as Reverend Nichols, and never leaving the podium, takes off his "Reverend Rolex" garb and starts a very moving sermon that all relate to.
He includes real life experiences that he can talk about as a police officer, including some very graphic examples of where good folks go wrong while under the influence of the devil.... John's brother tapes each service so that shut-ins and travelers can see and hear the service and messages. John said he would send me a copy of the videotape. It was an event I want to live over many times!!!
After the service, there was a complete lunch buffet with some fine Texas home-cooking and deserts.
I met Reverend Nichols and learned that he is a legend in Marshall, very active with youth groups and a regular visitor to schools to help lead and guide the youth of Marshall. On the wall of the trailer hallway is a New York Daily News/Readers Digest photograph of an American Flag partially obscured by the dust surrounding "ground zero" on September 11 with the caption "There's Not Enough Dust to Cloud Our Love for Freedom".
Dallas Cowboy Offensive Tackle:
After my e-mail update from Dallas, I got a call from a fellow I met stating that he was surprised I had not related a story during the Cooper Sports Institute Tyler Cup Races that got some laughs. He encouraged me to relate the story in my next update, so here goes:
While warming up for my two mile race heat, I took off my warm-up suit. Another runner came up and said that I looked in great shape and that long distance running had really developed my legs and calves. Later after my race, and after I had put my warm-up suit back on, the fellow came back with a few others and said "Bob, show these guys your legs", I sheepishly pulled up my warm-up pants over my knees, tensed my legs muscles, and heard a guy say "Those aren't runners legs!". In a brief inferiority moment, I anticipated the guy was going to embarrass me by somehow negatively criticizing my legs, but he went on to say "those are Dallas Cowboy offensive tackle legs"!! I felt relieved as we all chuckled.
While visiting the Shreveport P.D and F.D. on Election Day, Albert Brien and I were invited to attend the Election Day returns party at the Shreveport Convention Center. The F.D. and P.D. had a 1/2% tax levy on the ballot to improve their buildings, equipment, and salaries. The fish fry included breaded catfish (catfish farms are all over the place down here!!), fried onions, and pickled tomatoes, and lots of beer!! Oh, and the levy passed by a big margin. A good time was had by all!!
On November 13, prior to my first run, I stopped in the Food Mart and Restaurant in Jones, LA across the road from a Cotton Gin to say good-bye to the proprietors and thank them for letting me stay in my RV in their parking lot overnight. While there, I chatted with Johnny Goodson, a man in his late-50s who was taking a break from his farm work.
Johnny told me of the abundant farming that goes on in northeast Louisiana. Apparently, before the Mississippi River levees were built in the mid-late 1800s, the Mississippi River often overflowed its banks and flooded the whole northeast Louisiana, southeast Arkansas and western Mississippi Delta area, often changing the river's course and leaving the land as flat as a pool table and very fertile and mineral rich. As a result the area is a major cotton, sweet potato, rice and soybean farming region.
I had seen many cotton fields in the previous day of running and was told I would see many more over the next 2-3 days of running. Sensing that I was very interested in the local geography, Johnny asked if I wanted to see Cotton picking first hand. I of course said yes, and we got into his 4WD pick-up and headed down a few muddy country roads to a cotton field where he had been "pickin'" cotton that morning. He invited me to climb up a 20' high cotton picking machine, and into a control room-like enclosed cab where he operated the machine. The machine is like an immense riding grass mower. With many controls, he carefully guides four rows of cotton plants into guide arms that channel the cotton pods into cutting heads that strip the pods from the plants and blow them into a 20'x20'x20' hopper connected to the machine behind. He can make several 200 yard passes (swipes) through the field before he has to dump the cotton into a "packing machine".
The "packing machine" uses large pneumatic driven heads to compress the cotton to maximize the load (minimize the size) that is hauled to the cotton gin. In the old days, the cotton was hand-picked and placed in trailer truckers where 5-6 folks would spend their work days compressing the cotton with their feet and weight of their bodies!!.
We then drove to the Cotton Gin via a sweet potato field where Johnny found me a dozen of the biggest and sweetest sweet potatoes I've ever seen. At the Cotton Gin, I got a tour of the process where the cottonseeds are separated from the cotton leaving the "lint" which is compressed into 500 pound bales (2'x3'x5') which are then loaded on trucks and sent to clothing manufacturers all over the U.S. I learned that all the Cotton Gin owners give all the proceeds of the sale of the cotton "lint" back to the farmers.
The Cotton Gin owners make their money on the cotton seeds (which they keep and sell) that are the source of cotton seed oil which is used in many processed food products including most peanut butters. Johnny told me how his mamma and grandma prepare sweet potatoes: cut them into 1/8" thin slices, fry them in vegetable or olive oil, when brown, sprinkle them with brown sugar or raw (unrefined) sugar while still in the pan, then flavor with ketchup or grated cheese. I tried it with ketchup, and I don't think I'll ever eat another regular old white potato!!
Crossing the Mighty Mississip':
I arrived in Greenville, MS yesterday from Lake Village, AK about 22 miles due west. During my first run yesterday, I crossed the Mississippi River (Old Man River) on a two-lane bridge connecting AK and MS via US82.
The bridge including the approaches over the bayous and levees is about two miles long and 300' over the water. The Lake Village-Greenville Bridge was built in the years 1938-1940 (prior to Pearl Harbor and WWII!!) during the FDR Public Works era. The "walkway" is only 12" wide and very close to the road bed on one side and with a 4' high railing on the outer side. Not much room to run on!!
The day was cool and overcast with a steady 25 mph north wind at land level (~35-40 mph up on the bridge). The wind gusted as I ran past the bridge support structure making it difficult to maintain my balance while running at a 9-10 mpm pace. My heart was pumping, the adrenaline was flowing, and I was trying to wave to the many truckers and motorists giving me their thumbs up and "V" signs through their windshields. Most had seen my RV with attached American flags blowing at the east side of the bridge. The experience and confidence I gained from painting bridges over the Allegheny River in New Kensington and Pittsburgh during my college summer vacations sure came in handy yesterday!!
When I got to the end of the bridge approach and my RV, several folks had assembled to welcome me and ask about the Run. Later that evening, the general manager of the Marriott Fairfield Inn came to my camper parked next door in the Greenville P.D lot and offered me a comp room at the Inn. She had seen me running on the bridge and was surprised to see me so close to her Inn.
This morning I was interviewed by the 'Greenville Democratic Times Newspaper' and tomorrow I'll be interviewed by local Channel 6 TV News. As always, there are many other stories I'd like to relate, but in the interests of all our time, I'll save some for another day and media. Before I close, I want to acknowledge and thank Albert Brien for supporting me for an eight day period just prior to and after Shreveport. Albert rented a car and provided rides while my RV was in for some maintenance and winterizing. We also found a few hours to play fiddle tunes. As previously stated, Albert was the prime mover in getting the RAA web-site, and Albert is planning to come back next Friday for a five day period as I approach Memphis. Thanks to all for your kind e-mails, phone calls and messages of support.
I'll try to write from Memphis after visiting the MLK, Jr Memorial and Museum, and Graceland.
Best wishes,
Bob