MAY-B-2
FOLLOWING RE-ENTRY
FROM INDIA AND ITS DISTANT
TIME ZONE LAG,
I RUN THE USO DEFENDERS TEN MILER
AS GUIDE RUNNER FOR JOE,
AND VISIT WITH GENE AND DOLLY CURLETTI IN GEORGETOWN,
IN INTERVAL WEEK BEFORE PACKING UP FOR MICHIGAN VISIT
MAY 5-10, 2001
OK, so maybe I do fade out in early afternoon, and go to bed right after whatever supper I can convince myself that I need, I am able to get up early and compensate for that by an early start—right? It seems that has been true in a few areas, some of the domestic in getting the grass mowed, the laundry done, the trash carted out and the mail opened, with event the emails being reviewed. I have got a few major runs lined up, and one of them done.
THE GOOD NEWS:
MY PHOTO COLLECTION IS ORGANIZED
If you ask what is the biggest project I have been able to undertake since my return and the re-entry process, that is easy: I have assembled all of the slides I took into carrousels, and sorted out a dozen rolls of prints that are all organized into a full volume Four of 2001 in time to make the trip to Michigan with four other volumes since the last ones were seen that dealt with the closing of the year 2000. I had three albums in which the photos still needed labeling, but that is one of the reasons to cart them all along with me on this family weekend in Michigan so that the whole group can see themselves from our last wintry rendezvous in the December Christmas time parties, and all four albums of subsequent events: the Gainesville visit with Donald and the new grand-daughter and growing grandson who had his fourth birthday this week, the Cumberland Hog Hunt, the events around my birthday in January followed by the two volume special exhibit of the Antarctic Exploration and Marathon on the furthest southern attempt ever made at a sporting event.
Volume three follows with the experience of the Mission to Mindanao. Volume Four begins with the Cherry Blossoms in DC and the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler I did with Joe, and then moves on to Boston and the 105th running of the Boston Marathon. That volume is now filled to bursting with the dozen rolls of the Medical Mission to Dharamsala India, which I just had time to put in to this final album before taking off with the suitcase heavy with these five volumes of photos and Philippine souvenirs to lug to Michigan, with the latter three albums subject to my labeling them in the spare time I may have in the air or in airports.
THE BAD NEWS:
What I did NOT get done in this interval week, which was supposed to be the single highest priority, was the outline of the Human Science Thesis after I did not get that into the committee before my takeoff to India. This is serious several times over. AS I said, Andrew William had his fourth birthday on Wednesday of this week. I passed my Comps on the date of his birth, so my degree process has been in limbo for the interval four years while I am continuing enrollment tuition for thins not happening, and my committee has been in and out of touch, on sabbaticals for two thirds of them, and each requiring a brand new start and a scrapping of all the stuff I had assembled each time for them before. The futility of re-re-redoing anything at all I find very unappealing, especially when they are saying not so much that they want something else, but that they do not want what I have already submitted. This is particularly ironic, since it is an interdisciplinary degree and program, and each seems not want to have not a single original idea, but a regurgitation of what can be found in the libraries of a literature that I have rejected up front as most unappealing and unhelpful in settling the problem of professional ethics to begin with. So, my thesis must be connected to a previous body of work, which I understand, but they seem to want it to be phrased in the same failed language with all the lame ideas that have not worked. I got a good dose of the pedantic cant which goes by the charade of scholarship—principally name dropping references to a lot of imported references, when I attended part of the Human Sciences Seminar, and had been invited to contribute to the other seminal leading thinking that is forthcoming in a new conference to be led by the stars of GW on “Bisexuality” or “Queer Theory” or imprinting political power on the body in feminism—none of them my particular cup of tea. I believe I am taking on a much more significant problem with a lot of good implications from it—but the word is to develop something with less power and more argument for a “structural framework” of a language informed theoretic basis etc, etc, with no practical implications necessary, and above all—no original observations that I cannot attribute to a dozen obscure previous writers in schools of scholarship acceptable within the canon.
It is no exaggeration to say that after all the years I have been churning out theses; this part should be the easiest by far of any part of the program I have already completed. But I have been so frustrated by repeated rejections of the basic work I have outlined again and again, that I have such a sizable block against going back into the mess one more time with another send down and “go back to the library for a full year of reading" into the scholarship of writers for whom I have no respect nor any likelihood of staying awake while reading them so that I could not possibly repeat the same tired jargon that has not solved anyone’s’ problems into he long time that this ii9sue of how to help others in any professional capacity can be done from a conflicting power and authority relationship against personal interest on either side. The very thesis process is proof of the problem. So, combined with jet lag, my sitting at the end of the day with the wish to generate the required new thesis outline along the lines that have been prescribed—the antithesis of my position—has met with instant somnolence.
AND, NOW, ONE THING—AT LEAST—THAT IS HAPPENING:
JOE AND I ON THE RUN
Gene and Dolly Curletti, my gracious host in Pittsfield, Massachusetts at the Berkshire Medical Center, had been making a rare visit to Washington for the Eastern Vascular Surgery Society, while Dolly had looked around museums. It is her job more than his that limits the time they can spend away, so they had done what they could in seeing a few sights of the very much changed Washington since Gene had lived here as a GW surgery resident. I had gone to get my running number and Bib from the Sheraton National Hotel, and joined them at a very posh Italian restaurant in Georgetown, from which we could watch the beautiful people strut by in all their Saturday night best trolling costumes. We took a brief walk after dinner to see a few of the Georgetown landmarks, and a few of the mobile ones passing by. I would like to host them for a prolonged visit in the future, since Gene has a brother who moved to north Carolina whom he has not visited, either, and if they could combine the two in one trip, we could go from Chesapeake to the Shenandoah.
The morning dawned bright but cold. Still and all I was planning to wear a Marine Corps singlet, in honor of Joe’s prior running partner, big John Henry. I picked up Joe and we drove to the Pentagon Parking Lot, and from there we started at the head of the pack. There were few of the MCRRC club members present, because today is also the running of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge 10K run—one of my favorites, and a race I had done with Joe on a perfect day two years ago—up and over the Chesapeake Bay. But, I was feeling good as I hauled Joe into the first part of the course, which should be familiar to both of us since we had done it three weeks ago in the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler. This is also a Ten Miler Race, and Joe had hoped for a seven plus minute pace; I had said, let’s see what the day brings for temperature and conditions.
This was not Joe’s day. I had to pull him on the shoestring, and it was a strain for him to keep up with me for the first several miles at an eight minute pace. He fell off on the pint we entered a familiar piece of DC roadway, that was a part of the Marine Corps marathon. We were about at the half, when we heard a familiar voice behind us. Who should come up behind us but Big John Henry, running with a couple of Marine buddies. I heard frequent calls of "Go Devil Dogs!" because of my Marine Corps Singlet, and Joe always gets cheers---such as the one young woman who came up on us when Joe was struggling, talking to himself about "Come on now you know you can do it!" As she passed she said "Joe, you are a TOTAL inspiration!" That helped. One fellow yelled "Go, Team Joe!"This so encouraged Joe that he picked up the pace, now being coaxed along by his two guide runners. Even though it heated up, we finished in an honorably good pace, around eight and a half minutes. I brought Joe to his daughter’s soccer match, where his pregnant wife Betty, due at the same time as the twins of Michael and Judy, as was Joey born at the same time as Andrew William.
I have tried to get a number of the things that have been past due at home accomplished, and had to get out among the deer throughout the Derwood woods, now overgrown with green and the new explosion of the azaleas. So, I had to rehab the lawn mower for its first outing this year, and did other things to clean up and stock up at home, as well as packing up things for the next trips.
I had made an appointment with a fellow named Dale of D. G. Liu who are the remodeling contractors recommended by Richard Reinert’s friend’s wife Victoria, which he postponed until Wednesday. When he did come by, he was very appreciative of the property, saying his heart was pounding a little faster as he came into the woods. He is a hunter, and most of our time we talked about that, including bow hunting. As he left, as if on cue, three deer came up and bedded down within bow range. We talked of the different scale and size to the project, and that he would involve an architect, as soon as he got the ideas of what would be done with deck and added room, and now, especially, with the new kitchen. We will see how this develops, but other matters must be resolved first, including clearance of contrary claims on my home.
My next trips will all be associated with a run of some distance, from fifteen and a half miles, to a marathon, to a double Ultra marathon. The next one of these will be in celebration of Drew’s 12th Birthday, Mother’s Day and the 24th running of the Grand River Bank Run.
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