Saturday, October 27, 2007
Running in the rain
It's slightly more than one week from the starting moment on the Verrazzano Bridge and it's pouring rain here on the East coast. The NYC Marathon is that astonishing moment when a small town's worth of people don scant clothes and water bottles and supportive shoes, and choose to run through New York City's five boroughs under the steam of their feet instead of just going for a nice forty-minute drive. I give them all tons of credit for creativity and determination, but I am reminded of Bob Newhart's routine as Sir Walter Raleigh calling Queen Elizabeth I to tell her about the colonists engaging in a new activity they're calling, er, tennis. No, he says, he doesn't know what the word is meant to suggest. How does it work?, he seems to answer, well, they take a piece of wood and bend it into an oval shape and wire it with cat's intestines stretched really tight across the center; then they take a small bright yellow and fuzzy ball (yes, he messed with historical accuracy for the sake of humor) and they toss this little ball back and forth, whacking it with the wooden contraptions. After a pause when QEI is presumably digesting what he's said, he answers, no, he has no idea why they do it, but they say they enjoy it.... Exactly.
To those who are training and preparing for November 4th, I wish them all kinds of good luck . . . and a whole lot less rain.
To those who are training and preparing for November 4th, I wish them all kinds of good luck . . . and a whole lot less rain.
Labels: family, friends, modern culture, sports
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