MAR-B-5
A HEAVY RAIN AND A WASHED OUT MARATHON
INTRODUCES A QUITE DIFFERENT WEEKEND,
AS THE BRONCO, THE SAMURAI SWORDS,
AND THE “PHANTOM OF THE DERWOOD DEER
WOODS”
ARE REFURBISHED AND RETURN TO DERWOOD
AFTER GW “MATCH DAY”
THEN, COMES, “SHOCK AND AWE” OVER
BAGHDAD
March 20—23, 2003
I am typing this up as the cruise missiles are raining
down on Baghdad, as I have stayed home in Derwood to do some home chores and
sit through a rainy couple of days. I
had some simple domestic chores in mind—cleaning up the woods of fallen
branches and trash left out by neighborhood kids, and then carrying down the
ton and a half of medical supplies to my living room warehouse, which should be
packed up and distributed through my fellow travelers. But a few of them were partying it up, since
most of my students got their first choices in the computerized marriages of
hospitals and residents in the “Match Day.”
I have at least four times more surgical an d medical supplies than I
can carry with a number of my fellow travelers
choosing other things to do and a number will be going separate from me. If
each carried two boxes, I still would not get out half of the supplies that are
expected in Malawi—and now George and Betty Poehlman will be leaving from
Raleigh, NC and they had planned on carrying a couple of boxes each.
Two of the pediatric residents had not even known where they will be,
and had assumed that all they needed to do is show up in Malawi and a good time
would be furnished to them. Four of my
students have promised to carry the stuff, but cannot come to help pack it up,
and they will not be going at any time close to mine. I will be the last to leave, and will have to take some of the
medicines since I will be the only one with a medical license to carry drugs,
and I am also the one who will be using the surgical equipment...
I had made another trip to Delta, where I had to
change the five venue itineraries to make a difference in the timing of the
Ohio component of my trip, immediately following Gainesville rather than after
the Long Island grand rounds part before the Boston visit for the marathon.
And, that is the other big news. As seen in Mar-B-3, the directors of the DC
Marathon, assuring me that the “show will go on” capitulated and canceled the “Second
Annual DC Marathon” because of world events.
I immediately tried to sign up for the inaugural Frederick Marathon the
following weekend, but as soon as I had sent in my on-line registration and
submitted my credit card information, the registration closed. I had made a run on a cold windy day as the
DC Mall as the whole city was in gridlock, with abundant police on every
corner. Was this Saddam’s revenge? No, it was a Carolina tobacco farmer who
rode his John Deere into the reflecting pool on the Mall and said he had
explosives with him to protest his reduction in his agricultural subsidy for
not growing tobacco! “The Farmer in the
Pond” held out for a few days, and I ran around the yellow police tape on Wednesday
as he finally was picked up by the police, and—of course—had nothing dangerous
with him, except his shiny new John Deere.
But, who needs WMD when DC can shut down with a single disgruntled
farmer?
As I tried to run through the burning quads and aching
muscles of my out-of-training muscles to get up to marathon and then Ultra-Run
distance, I was targeting the DC Marathon as my first long run—a training run
for the Bull Run Run Fifty Miler, only a week before the Boston marathon. Yesterday morning as I went in to the
office, I got an email that said the DC Marathon was cancelled—no refunds and
no excuses. Bummer!
Joe had called and had asked me to take him and the
kids to the Piece of Cake Birthday meeting of the MCRRC. I was not planning to run a 10K the day
before the marathon, but now I could—and even baked a birthday cake for the
MCRRC. Joe just called to say he could
not, since, once again, his wife has a problem that will not allow him to
go. A
couple of the guys who would be my team mates at the Bull Run Run had suggested in the absence of the DC
Marathon they might like to make a long run through part of the Bull Run
course—but that is the time that Joe would like to have me help him do a short
run. So, a lot of things got screwed up
by the cancellation of the DC marathon without any notice to the Mayor and
Council of DC that had been supporting it.
I had noticed in the last two days, a wobble in the
left rear of the Bronco, which made me think that one of the tires was having a
problem. Indeed it was, and a steel
belt had separated, so I went to Executive Tire to se my friend Jim. He asked what I had planned to do with the
Bronco, and I had suggested that I would continue to commute with it and then
it would probably go to my nephew who could use it up in Michigan. Well, then, Jim said, get all new tires for
it, since you do not want him driving it with unreliable tires. I had a full set of tires in the basement,
so I pulled them up to the Bronco and carried them in. He said they would age in the basement, and
he would not recommend that I use them, so I bought all new tires which were
then balanced and put on the Bronco.
So, it should be good for yet another hundred thousand miles!
At the Executive Tire upper floor, North American
Taxidermy has completed my “Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods” which has been
remounted. But, I wanted assurance that
the same hairsliping they alleged to be due to some form of mite would not
happen again, and tried to get a toxic spray to treat the mounts—but, it was
all mess and zero effectiveness. I have
delivered three successively larger capes for the remount, which Charlie
denies, until I point out how it was true and then he remembered that he had
used them for other customers and then wanted to charge me for a new one he had
got from a meat cutting plant. So, the
big buck is still hanging over there until this issue is resolved, but I have
the new tires on the Bronco, and came home after a long Needwood run just in
time to see the first of three hundred cruise missiles rain down their
precision horror down on the capital of Saddam’s maniacal regime. The intelligence that led to the precise
blowing up of the HQ where Saddam was known to be may actually have done him
in—but he may have made a series of tapes to assure everyone that he is still
alive and his even more reprehensible sons are also well and “conquering” as
the US Marines are in control of over half of Iraq already within a few hours
of the start of the ground war. Turkey
is still playing games, hoping to send their troops across the border into the
Kurds with whom the US has Special Forces.
With friends like the French and allies like the Turks, it is better not
to have a whole passel of them—which is what the failed UN seems to have turned
into. But, as for the moment, the
precision use of the ordnance has hit the palaces and elite regime forces has
pulverized those who have not yet decided to turn themselves over in view of
the awesome firepower of the highly directed attack. The more important ordnance that has fallen are probably the
millions of leaflets encouraging the armed forces of Iraq to quickly surrender
and be part of a living new Iraq—but, we may see what comes after the easy part
of the very “shocking and awesome” start of the official conflict to mark the
end of Saddam and international blackmail and state sponsored terrorism.
But, as this continuing news droll rolls on, I have at
least baked and frosted a cake for the MCRRC Birthday party.
In addition to the full truck load of medical bags and
boxes in my living room, I have unpacked a few items that I had been awaiting
for a while. One of these is a souvenir set that I have wanted to add to my
collection of cutlery, to join the Nepalese Ghurka’s “Kukris” and the Nigerian
swords, the South American machetes, the Spanish bullfight swords, and the
Congolese spears and Azande blades---I have looked a long time at the Samurai
Swords. There are three styles: 1) The Tanto—a foot long blade, and one
stuck into the wide belted cinch around the waist; 2) The Wakisashi –a twenty
inch blade on a short sword like the Roman “Gladiolus;” 3) The Katana—the
special two handed master sword of the Samurai warrior, with a 27 inch
blade. I got a Red Dragon Samurai set
and assembled a hardwood set on which they might be displayed---another item
for the “Discovery Room,” under the mounted taxidermy heads. Perhaps a large sculpture of a
warmblood/thoroughbred cross may be an appropriate next purchase for such a
room, with a wistful gaze from the hunter/jumper at the full mount of the red
fox soon to arrive, along with the later arrival of the grizzly bear rug soon
to be shipped from Knight’s Taxidermy in Anchorage and already several months
past due.
So, all of
these items are being arranged in the as yet only to be imagined display of the
new game room. Now that the final
resolution of the ownership, occupation and use of my house has been “settled”
even if there is some reservation by others who want more than “just money,” it
is time for me to move on with the plans that have been put on hold too
long. So, “Bubba” has the architectural
plans and is going to get back to me, and Dale Kramer is going to meet with me
on Wednesday to see what further changes and plans have evolved since the
contract was suspended last summer.
Now, the amount of work will have to increase, since now the bathrooms
and plumbing will need to be replaced and a security system must be added, at
the same time that the amount of funds available has shrunken down with the
increase in the settlement buyout and the plunge in the market before the most
recent encouragement from the optimistic early reports of the conflict in Iraq
once the hostilities began decisively.
The “target of opportunity” that began the action on
Wednesday morning in a rather low key beginning was a solid bit of intelligence
as to the site of the leadership—meaning Saddam Hussein and his even more
pathologic sons—which was eliminated with the precision munitions that are the
hallmark of this war. So, this was a
scramble before the Shock and Awe campaign, aimed at decapitation which might
lead to a rapid capitulation of the machine.
There was an immediate collapse of central authority, with no further
signals out of Saddam since his undoubtedly pre-recorded series of videotapes
was released on cue, but it seems that all the other infrastructure is still
running, spared by the very careful wedge between the leader and the led.
I am going off to the MCRRC birthday party 10K race
and carrying the cake I had baked and frosted for the celebration. World events may have changed the later
plans of my previously carefully planned accelerated training for the long
runs, but I might well work out an alternate plan. One such plan may involve a one day break from the running by my
going up to Zimmerman’s to pick up my completed Congolese bushbuck next
Saturday, an excursion that I had promised to Craig that we might be able to
make at his first available weekend off.
There is news on the air that the Mayor of DC will sue
H20 Entertainment—the group that had organized the DC Marathon—to refund the
fees the disappointed runners had paid.
Several hundred of the runners who would have been running tomorrow
morning plan to gather at the Memorial Bridge to run the sidewalks (there would
be no police closures of roads or security for the runners) and run the 26.2
miles of the course anyway. I will see
what the word is at the MCRRC meeting to see if I should join them
PIECE OF CAKE 10 K RACE
SENECA CREEK MD STATE PARK
I won an award!
At the 25th anniversary celebration of the MCRRC running
club, I won the certificate for the most Heroic Cake and the Most Patriotic
Cake—all of which disappeared into appreciative judges. I watched the Young Run—the one for the kids
for which I was prepared to bring the Aukward kids before Joe had canceled
out. Then, I ran the 10K race through
the hills of Seneca Creek State Park. I
saw a small group of front runners whom I did not recognize as I made one of
the turns. The winner of the race
turned out to be a fellow from Belgrade, who had flown here to run (and
probably win) the DC marathon. He is a
2:26 marathoner, and he won this 10K race which he entered as a substitute for
the canceled race in 31 minutes. I ran
it in twenty minutes more, finishing in 51 minutes, which still put me up in
the first half, so this fellow is a real rabbit, and could have done very well
in the race now canceled. Joe is eager
to have me run with him tomorrow, so I may pair with him for a long and slow
run after a 10K race today, and may give up either the cumbersome and dangerous
“sidewalk run” without the traffic control, or police protection, of the
official marathon; or, I could drive very early to the trails of the Manassas
Bull Run Run to learn what it is like—or even where it is. But, both of these would be hard for Joe to
run in a trail setting or an unprotected sidewalk run, so we might just do a
point-to-point run to return us each to our other activities of the day.
There are few changes in the Iraq war except more of
the same, and there was a peace protest today in Washington DC which took off
on a street where they had no permit to march, so there are a bunch of arrests
going on today.
But, today the large piles
of snow that had been pushed into position by front
loaders are finally melting under the balmy spring
weather today as the area warmed up after the chilly
early run. I went outside to
clean up the woods again from the junk left by kids
in the woods, or that trash which has been scattered
by the winter, and stopped to take a picture of
the crocuses that have pushed up hopefully through
the leaf litter, where the last of my snow piles
had melted earlier this week.