Ah gotcher political correctness raht here...

Runners are in a class all by themselves. From the sub-four minute mile sprinter to the five hour marathoner, they share an indefineable quality of completeness, of the perfect meld of the physical with the sublime, the animal with the artiste─over-achievers almost to a man─or woman, and a source of inspiration to other runners, and to non-runners both. How many have failed to be impressed by the performances of Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, “Pre”? Who hasn’t been awed by the image of Michael Johnson at full speed, or the sight of the breathtaking stride of our gorgeous, tragic queen, Flo-Jo?

Runners seek, not only in themselves but in others who run, maybe that elusive thread to the world that all of us became gradually separate from when we began to let machines and metal conveyances and electronic images and lines of cable come between us and reality. But there’s something missing.

This, despite getting up at the crack of dawn to run with deer as they move in front just outside of the tree line below the reservoir; to run amid the haunted voice of the loon, among the flapping of giant wings and the splashdowns of Canadian geese and the hiss of walleye breaking the surface of the water.

How awesome is nature in harmony with itself!

We would be one of those creatures flying in graceful formation, or running in fluid stride, effortless, untiring, united.

But what we are is what we see on the news being led away in handcuffs, what we see on Jerry Springer fighting over a faithless, graceless mook, what comes out on the street toward us holding a ragged hand out for alms─and we are the man with the warm coat who curses him and denies him a cent---and the guy who thinks Rush Limbaugh has a point. (Concededly, there is some of the noble in us, too).

Figs (who knows?), one of the wags who gather in the mornings at Tony’s and sit at the counter telling stories─either true ones or those which have outlived the truth─says, “There’s never a better man than the one who does something the first time. Like the guy Old Hickory that climbed Mount Eveready, or the guy that swam the English Channel.”

“Or the guy that invented the hamburger, too, Figs.”

“No, I mean it. Take that guy Chick Yoder, that broke the speed of light.”

“It was the speed of sound, Figs. And his name is Chuck Yeager.” The “Old Hickory” thing is a little too complicated to pull together.

“Yeah, that’s it. And the guy that broke the four minute mile, Ronald Barrymore.”

“His name is Roger Bannister.”

George has been drinking his coffee and eating his sweet roll quietly to the side as he always does. When he finishes, he digs in his pockets and counts what he pulls out of them and then pokes his head in the door to the back and says, “Hey, Tony! I’m a little short today, about a quarter. I musta left most of my change on the dresser. Can I owe you ‘til tomorrow?”

Tony walks out of the back and says, “Sure, George. No problem, kid.”

When George goes out the door, Dean the counter man counts the change and rings it up and says, “He was more than a quarter short.”

Tony just smiles. Somebody asks him out of curiousity where George works and Tony says, “I don’t know. He walks in that direction every morning,” and points north, and says, “then sometimes in the evening I see him walk that way,” and points south. He says, “George is a good kid.”

Nobody doubts it. Tony’s a good judge of character. George emits an aura of dislocation, of wanting to belong, to be part of something, and he is always friendly, always smiling. He’s what white people call a “good nigger,” which wouldn’t sound as heavy-handed and condescending if they’d just call him a regular “nigger,” because George is a nice fellow, and it doesn’t have anything to do with anything else, but if George looked more white than he does black─because he’s half of each─people would probably call him “white trash,” because that’s what they do. Take it from someone who is neither but has been called both because people up north don’t really know how to dig deep and come up with the really scurrilous forms of the words for “Mexican,” like the people further south can.

One day George ran all the way down the middle of the five downtown blocks of Main Street. People heard the commotion and saw him coming, chased by some cluck who ran out of breath and threw up right in the exact center of town. There was a small crowd following them. The rest of the business district came out onto the sidewalks to see what the hell was going on. George didn’t look all that extended until the guy shouted. “Shoot him! Somebody shoot him!” and George held out his hands, waving them, shaking his head, “No. No.” And then he really took off.

A hush fell over the people standing outside the line of shops. George’s footfalls on the pavement, subtle as dusk, in the quiet sounded like a heartbeat breaking in from the far reaches of the universe. It was like a gorgeous wind moving on, flinging itself along by the coiled strength of matter itself, graceful, untrammeled by the need for breath or fuel, in synch with the motion of the stars. You could hear your own exhale. That’s what it means to want to live!

It is that property that gives meaning to the things that any one person does, that gives beauty to his motion, because no one should ever take his life for granted. There are those who are born at war, who can never stop running for their lives. It is the nature of us all to judge others by their differences, and then to claim their more noble qualities as part of who we are. But there is where the real difference is. Not everybody has to work all that hard to show their humanity. We should all be that lucky.

Noe.