I Was a Younger Man Then

When the sands of time begin to pile up in your driveway, it’s probably an opportune moment to reflect on the quantitative past you’ve been collecting over all these years. Maybe the fact that you’re still here and others from your past life aren’t, make it a good time to look in your rearview mirror and savor the fleeting images there.

Last summer, I discovered a ceramic running mug from my first marathon. It was buried deep on some dusty shelf in my office downstairs. It was from the 1982 Twin Cities Marathon. Back then, I had been running for about eighteen years, having started out an asphalt virgin at the ripe age of twenty-one. My PB (personal best) wasn’t that great but at least I was consistent, usually averaging five or six days a week of solid running. This would be my first marathon.

I remember, I began running with a group of loud, somewhat obnoxious, unruly veteran runners. Our first mile was clocked at a sub-six-minute mile and I knew immediately that if I didn’t slow down, I’d be dead (figurative speaking) by mile ten. I slowed down and actually got to mile twenty-four before everything in my body shut down and I died right there on the spot. Embarrassment kept me on my feet but I was done for the day.

Just then, a couple of young healthy women ran by me and their respective gait was something to behold. I began stumbling, running, keeping close in their wake. My eyes focused on their afterdeck until about a half mile from the finish line and then I imploded inside again. Fortunately, this time around, it was the sight of the Cathedral and a downhill sprint to the finish line that brought me home.

My time was a sub four-hour marathon and I’ve never been able to duplicate that again. I’ve notched two more marathons under my belt but survival was my main focus on those two. A sub-four marathon was once in a lifetime. That experience and others like it were memorable and never repeated in my younger years.

Education was a disjointed venture after high school. Rife with distractions and detours, it took me a while to finally finish that jaunt. The Army generously handed me two years going in another direction. Then it was back on campus to finish my degree, moving to Denmark as an ex-pat for a while. Finally returning to Minnesota and stumbling upon a lifetime career in television. Oh, I was a younger man then.

Now my books, plays, movies, blogs, children’s books, and more keep me working well into my senior years. I’m no longer a younger man physically but fortunately my mind hasn’t given up the ghost yet.

Writing has been a life-saver in terms of offering me almost daily cognitive twists, turns, and gyrations that elude a lot of older folks. Unbridled interest in a plethora of topics, sane and not so much, keep my curiosity probing outlets for topics of many different interests. Weekly discourse with friends, especially in Minnesota, has become a welcome opportunity to explore topics of every color, flavor, and subject matter.

Perhaps I’m not alone.

Last summer, I noticed that one of the recurring threads that wove through my C & C sessions was a sense of gratitude. My friends and I found a certain level of comfort in sharing the new, interesting, mundane, common and not so common. It was sharing at the most basic level and very gratifying, not the least of which was because none of us are younger men now.