who figured it would take even more than that.
At any rate, running through the park, not during the Saturday mass sessions but alone, with the leaves’ shadows visibly crossing your hands and arms; the sun streaming through the green overgrowth to get to you; the air thin and delicious, being sucked in desperately as you came up that series of dead man’s hills before the long downhill straightaway that brought you in past the school stadium and to the finish—that was something else. You felt strong and somehow motivated. You had to succeed because you were succeeding already. Running free, so to speak.
The Saturday sessions were regulated mass affairs. We might run—not might, did run—around the same lake. And that was great: catching up to people, being passed by the jocks and a few sworn killers who had to win to prove their absolute sincerity to the cause of the people. The camaraderie and exchanged strength of that was alone worth the whole experience. Afterwards, we might play ringaleerio or touch-football or basketball or baseball. It was full-out physicality we wanted on those Saturdays. The women went out together while we were doing this—a group of young men, mostly single, but many like myself were married, already with children, and some growing sense of ourselves.
The pattern was the weekly mass outings for the collective swelling and growing we were trying to do. Plus, I’d go out a few times a week by myself, because I liked to run. I’d run two and a half for the cross country team in high school and college. Actually, it was a form of meditation, a way for me to get into myself, to let my mind go out and bring back whatever it could. A light wind against my face.
That could be all in passing. I mean, I could relate that running to the later fad or craze and we could speculate as to how that came about. I guess that period of the late ’60s and early ’70s was a period of people pushing themselves, of ideals, of holding oneself up to measure against any number of arbitrary goals or models, convincing oneself, with small difficulty, that the world was the way we wanted it to be. That no matter how horrible it appeared, it was the way we wanted it to be, and we could change it with the assorted words and images we tried to retain inside our otherwise very healthy heads. That itself would be an interesting conversation—limited, but still interesting. But this is not it. This is about something else, perhaps something much simpler.
During this period of running, there was a lot going on. I can’t get into all of that here—it’d scare some people and bore others. But let’s say that while I was running—at the moment of, but also when I went away from Wake-wake, which was most of the time—there was a whole lot going on in Noah. A whole lot going on around the country and throughout the world. You remember the ’60s, don’t you? Well at any rate, you can read about it and whatnot.
Our political action committee was formed to elect black politicians to office. That’s what it really was for. Some of us had more grandiose ideas, either vaguer or more specific, but if there was a consensus, it could be focused on that. We wanted to elect black politicians to office because there weren’t any in Noah. Well, there was one guy, sort of the Jackie Robinson of black politicians. John Walker was his real name. Some of us called him Johnnie Walker Black, after the Scotch. Plus, he’d always have a few glasses of that running around in his system somewhere. He was a good guy—he had been a good guy. When I was a kid, he was a real hero. The first black councilman and whatnot. He knew my parents, and everybody in those days supported him. But he’d stayed around too long. He’d gotten to be too well known for his real self, or the self that had come to be seen by everybody. He’d had a couple of unsuccessful marriages, one to a friend of my mother’s who was a nurse and didn’t want to
At any rate, running through the park, not during the Saturday mass sessions but alone, with the leaves’ shadows visibly crossing your hands and arms; the sun streaming through the green overgrowth to get to you; the air thin and delicious, being sucked in desperately as you came up that series of dead man’s hills before the long downhill straightaway that brought you in past the school stadium and to the finish—that was something else. You felt strong and somehow motivated. You had to succeed because you were succeeding already. Running free, so to speak.
The Saturday sessions were regulated mass affairs. We might run—not might, did run—around the same lake. And that was great: catching up to people, being passed by the jocks and a few sworn killers who had to win to prove their absolute sincerity to the cause of the people. The camaraderie and exchanged strength of that was alone worth the whole experience. Afterwards, we might play ringaleerio or touch-football or basketball or baseball. It was full-out physicality we wanted on those Saturdays. The women went out together while we were doing this—a group of young men, mostly single, but many like myself were married, already with children, and some growing sense of ourselves.
The pattern was the weekly mass outings for the collective swelling and growing we were trying to do. Plus, I’d go out a few times a week by myself, because I liked to run. I’d run two and a half for the cross country team in high school and college. Actually, it was a form of meditation, a way for me to get into myself, to let my mind go out and bring back whatever it could. A light wind against my face.
That could be all in passing. I mean, I could relate that running to the later fad or craze and we could speculate as to how that came about. I guess that period of the late ’60s and early ’70s was a period of people pushing themselves, of ideals, of holding oneself up to measure against any number of arbitrary goals or models, convincing oneself, with small difficulty, that the world was the way we wanted it to be. That no matter how horrible it appeared, it was the way we wanted it to be, and we could change it with the assorted words and images we tried to retain inside our otherwise very healthy heads. That itself would be an interesting conversation—limited, but still interesting. But this is not it. This is about something else, perhaps something much simpler.
During this period of running, there was a lot going on. I can’t get into all of that here—it’d scare some people and bore others. But let’s say that while I was running—at the moment of, but also when I went away from Wake-wake, which was most of the time—there was a whole lot going on in Noah. A whole lot going on around the country and throughout the world. You remember the ’60s, don’t you? Well at any rate, you can read about it and whatnot.
Our political action committee was formed to elect black politicians to office. That’s what it really was for. Some of us had more grandiose ideas, either vaguer or more specific, but if there was a consensus, it could be focused on that. We wanted to elect black politicians to office because there weren’t any in Noah. Well, there was one guy, sort of the Jackie Robinson of black politicians. John Walker was his real name. Some of us called him Johnnie Walker Black, after the Scotch. Plus, he’d always have a few glasses of that running around in his system somewhere. He was a good guy—he had been a good guy. When I was a kid, he was a real hero. The first black councilman and whatnot. He knew my parents, and everybody in those days supported him. But he’d stayed around too long. He’d gotten to be too well known for his real self, or the self that had come to be seen by everybody. He’d had a couple of unsuccessful marriages, one to a friend of my mother’s who was a nurse and didn’t want to
Similar Books
The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep: A New Way Of Getting Children To Sleep
Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin
