THE "RUN-UP" TO THE 26TH RUNNING OF THE MARINE CORPS
MARATHON,
AND THE PREPARATIONS OF MY INTERVAL WEEK BETWEEN INAUGURAL BALTIMORE MARATHON
WITH JOE AND THE MCM-INCLUDING THE RECOUPING FROM GARY SIMPSON'S LOSS WITH
A SUBSTITUTE LAWYER, DAN KENNEDY, AND THE TWELVE-YEAR POSTPONED
COMPLETION OF MY TROPHIES AT THE NORTH AMERICAN TAXIDERMY
October 25, 2001
This may b e the end of the most glorious Indian Summer days seen in Maryland-certainly the end of a record in unseasonable temperature. It was a glorious 80* and sunny over the Derwood woods, the high pressure zone now passing on caused all manner of records to fall, since the golden leaves with orange and red and other spectacular colors-whether hanging or lying underfoot-were reflected in both Lakes Needwood and Bernard Frank, which I had to snap yet another year's sentimental photographs of, even while scheduling meetings with the new lawyer to attempt to preserve this from the developers' bulldozers. I met in Rockville with a nice fellow, whom Gary had recommended if he were out of commission, something he never imagined happening quite this way.
I drove around renewing my Books-On-Tape and doing small errands as a way of staying around during the decreasing daylight to enjoy Derwood in all its fall glory. I also assembled the 9th (Attack on America and postponed Spiti Valley Trip) and 10th (Visit with Twins in San Antonio followed by Elk Hunt and Marathons) Photo Albums of the year 2001, even before I had got the 7th (Ladakh) and 8th (Kamchatka) completely labeled.
I had been called by Charlie over at North American Taxidermy, who reports abruptly that I have to get on over and pick up the huge Byk Moral since it is filling up more than two thirds of the work room in the taxidermy shop! After holding on to the Cape Buffalo for over twelve years, the Bushbucks for over fourteen, they had lost the tanned capes I had brought back from South Africa over ten years ago, and had lost the Pennsylvania buck cape I had brought in to substitute for the one that had been chewed up and destroyed by some form of mite which caused Charlie to chop the rack out of the from and to throw the whole of it into the dumpster only a year after it was mounted from the "Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods." There seems to be no excuses for the loss of the deer and bushbuck capes, and an African Rabbits' tail purse. The two bushbuck skulls, the European Mount of the Cape Buffalo skull (heavy all in and of itself!) the tiny Roebuck mount-I took these items home with me. They will have to learn when I can be at home and will arrange to deliver the giant Moral mount, for which they have to disassemble the wall to let it out of the shop-like building a ship in your garage, it is too big to take out without taking down the walls-and then getting it over by truck, probably later this week.
This is the kind of day in which I had put my running shoes in the car, but it was probably good that I had not yet recovered from the hard run through Baltimore with Joe, so I did not do any running-only interval resting, today. That will have to be the case for a few more days, as I go about my errands, including picking up the expensive India visa for the next five years, and going to the Marine Corps Expo to pick up my running packet. It promises to be down into the forties and fifties as this high-pressure zone moves out, taking with it the last of our Indian Summer.
I have worked on getting at least one of the two computers operational, and since the desk top has been out since Spring, I tried to get at least the laptop back in action, so that I could open the backlog of several thousand emails. My principle reason for trying to activate at least one of the machines was in order to get the three rolls of Photoworks pictures transferred to you with the beginning in Kamchatka, then the smoking impact of the Pentagon Crash and the smoldering New York City skyline before completing the mission to Spiti, which you will see in the spectacular desolation of the Himalayas which precedes my meeting the Twin Grandsons in San Antonio. Let me know if you were unable to open these electronic Photo Albums to which I had sent you access before the next roll of the elk hunt in Colorado followed by both the Baltimore and Marine Corps Marathons appears in the same from on the email access.
In the interval, I have caught up with the mail, and I am still working on revision and further editing of the book chapters in each of the tropical surgery books due out at the first of the year. I received a notice that I only have a year since the completion of my comprehensive e exams in my Ph D thesis to get the dissertation done since it was exactly on the date of Andrew William's birth that I passed my final exams-and my mailbox just got the UPS delivery of the special birthday/Christmas present that I had delivered for him I hope to take down to him in the week after Christmas and before the interval in Cumberland Island-for which I am visiting with Keith Carr next week. Suffice it to say that he will be able to fulfill those ambitions he expressed last Christmas time to be "Hunting with his Grandpaw" after he opens this package. In the interval of his entire lifetime, nothing further has happened on my PhD except the payment of tuition each succeeding year and now that time is running out before the process must be done.
Craig Schaefer will be moving back up to Cambridge Maryland, after things did not work out with Rodger Althoff who has seemed over-extended in South Carolina. I will help Craig unpack a few of his guns and hunting stuff in a waterfront apartment they have rented in Cambridge, so he and I will once again b e within easy striking range for the fall hunts. It is curious that the fellow he is going into practice with is the son of the Dr. Behr who had hosted me in Wellsboro PA as well as in The Biltmore in Phoenix Arizona where he holidays in retirement each January-to complete the earlier story-the day after I had got the "Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods!" It is his brother Keith Behr whom I had hosted here in the Spring at Cherry Blossom time, and his friend Margey (who is too paranoid to fly) and who is Don King's former son-in-law and a hunting buddy up in the Pine Creek Canyon of PA. Craig and I may go up there together, and I have been trying to get Don King ready to go to the Cumberland hog hunt, for which he will first have to have a bone marrow transplant-but he says he is counting on joining us this year!
I almost got disqualified, since I had put in for two teams of five of us (the maximum allowed,) under the "Retained Rights" of Nancy's Fancy, and this year there is no Y2K threat or an impending "Fiftieth Birthday" to abort the plans that Gene Moore had made with Reg, so they are counting on going. I had included Craig and David Schaefer, and also included this year the Russ and Christian Elwell, but then had to leave before I heard any confirmation from them, and I myself was abroad when the fifty-dollar certified check was due. So, that would have automatically excluded me-I was warned by Rich Reinert who had called when I was still abroad, and I called down to the Rangers at Cumberland and was told absolutely not-there were 28 people in the same boat for whom no exceptions would be made. This would mean that the group I had entered would not have the Nancy's Fancy nor the retained rights if I were not going, so I called each of the rangers until I got the chief ranger after working my way up from Zack, Rene, Don, and had been told there would be no exceptions -"but for the extraordinary circumstances"-which I claimed as an eyewitness of the Pentagon Hit by terrorists. With this extraordinary exemption, with a sworn statement not to tell any other about my being let in at the last moment, I am finally in. It seems we may be able to go down as soon as Friday, and may even be able to take along the women folk (I have been trying for some time to get the Donald Geelhoed family over there) for the weekend that precedes the hunt and now even Sarah Moore is interested in joining.
The Army Ten Miler-largest ten miler race on earth-had lots of publicity all year about its running, and was abruptly canceled two days before for terrorist threat, so everyone is breathing in a carefully Anthrax-filtered breath that the same things will not happen to the Marine Corps Marathon and New York City Marathon, which are higher profile targets. The Army Ten Miler has proven to us that we are not so close to a very big event that they still could not call it off.
So, I am fiddling with past due details, and paying back bills, and trying
to catch up with the forward rush of events, while trying to keep up with myself
on the run-several marathon runs, to be exact within the course of these few
weeks, which shortly will merge into holidays and year-end special functions,
retreats, reunions and family gatherings. And so goes the year, from this poignant
perspective on this achingly beautiful brief Indian Summer Day.