Forest Hill Park Footbridge

Under Construction, 1939-40

For better or for worse, I am a runner. There are a number of short routes which take me from my home in Cleveland Heights and through the neighborhood or the city, though many of those will include inclines which, depending on the day, can be welcome or not.

Some time ago I realized how close I was to Forest Hill Park, which spans both the Heights and East Cleveland. It’s almost exactly a mile there (and a mile back) and once there, I can take a few different paths to create a 5K, a four or even five miler. And the entire route is mostly flat.

Once upon a time, Forest Hill was the home of John D. Rockefeller. Featuring a bluff from which you could view the city of Cleveland, the estate was a summer retreat for the family until the mid-1910s. In 1939, J.D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the property to both cities for public recreational use. It was at that time that Works Progress Administration funds were employed to create a footbridge to span a 350-foot valley, through which runs Forest Hill Boulevard.

It’s a lovely bridge, built with a steel skeleton and faced with locally quarried Euclid bluestone. More recently, a cage-like addition was added to the middle section for safety. It has also kept the bridge free from tagging.

Photo: J. Mark Souther

I will often take the bridge from East Cleveland to Cleveland Heights and back on my runs, and once even incorporated the bridge into a script I wrote, a play which is intended to be performed live via cellphone, while running through the park.

Over recent years, the bridge at either end had been damaged, the stone walls knocked over, possibly by careless motor vehicles in the park, or in some cases, probably pushed over by mischievous hands.

A couple years ago, however, repair workers replaced and repaired the damage and now they look good again. I stopped in the middle of a run in October, 2021 to thank and compliment the guys who were employed for the project, for their work.

Sources:
Cleveland Historical

Cleveland Memory Project
Daddy Runs Fast Blog
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The New York City Marathon (2006)

The first New York City Marathon was held in September 1970. As last year’s marathon was cancelled due to COVID, they missed out on the opportunity to celebrate the event’s quinquagenarian anniversary. That is happening today. The 50th running of the NYC Marathon.

Fifteen years ago I ran my first marathon, and it was this one. There was something magical about training for New York first. Who knew if I would ever run a second?

Since 2006 I have kept a running blog, recording every run I take, long or short. I have also included some operations and other sidelining events. But I still run. In fact, it was this blog which provided much of the material used in my solo performance And Then You Die (How I Ran a Marathon in 26.2 Years).

Here is the contemporary account of my experience running the New York City Marathon. 

The Night Before

That night I had dinner with two old college friends, Andrew and Missy. Andrew bought me a pasta dinner at this great Italian place across the street from where he works. Andrew designs props for the American Airlines Theater, after dinner he gave us a brief tour of the set of Heartbreak House.

I stopped off at a market for extra food; a banana, pretzels, the odd energy bar, and a way too big bottle of water. Back to Coop's place, I laid out my gear, packed my bag and got in bed around 9.30.

Race Day: Sunday, November 5, 2006

I didn't sleep much at all, I woke up every twenty minutes. At 3.50, ten minutes before my alarm goes off, I got out of bed, cleaned up and suited up. I hate to consume anything when I first wake up, but I forced myself to drink a pint of water and eat a banana. I kissed my wife good-bye, said I'll see her on First Avenue, and headed for the subway.

I chewed a bagel on the way to the subway station. As I waited for the 6, other guys showed up in running gear and their "official" bags. We were each given a clear plastic bag, the only bag, we were told, we could take to the starting area. No bags inside of bags either, it's obviously a security thing. We're all like, hey, and hi, and have a great run. But not very loudly.

By 5 am there was a line of us walking up 42nd street towards the library, and there were at least twenty busses waiting for us. After all that fretting about my bus pass, they never even checked. They just wanted to see that we have numbers, there's no way they could have seen the small lettering on them that said if we had a pass or if this was the right pick up area. Whatever.

I had a great conversation with a guy from Toronto (sorry, I forgot your name) who ran the Cleveland Marathon last May. He kept saying really sweet things about our city and I kept biting my tongue from running the place down because we all do that.

Zelda & Toni

Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island

I was there before dawn, maybe the second bus there. Looked like a refugee camp. There were even experienced runners who had brought sleeping bags so they could just crash until start time. The only thing I missed was a scarf, otherwise I was relatively warm. I spent four hours pacing, having two small cups of coffee, eating another bagel, and another banana, trying to read the Sunday Times with gloves on, going to the restroom as strenuously as possible. When I tried sitting to read my body temperature dropped rapidly and so I got up again and just kept moving.

I even got in line for a massage. I didn't really need one, but it was something to do. She worked my back, I got tense in my shoulders a lot and my lower back hurt from all the pacing. By now the sun was up and I sat and worked on my red shirt. I wrote PENGO in block letters on the front. On the back I wrote:

CALVIN B.
ZELDA D.
ORSON A.
TONI K....

with a heart and a star. They got me to this place, I wanted to take them with me.

The people from different countries amazed me. Close to the start I met a young man named Matt from London. This was his first marathon, too - and he came from London. For his first marathon. So did I. Cool.

In my corral (the 20000 - 20999 corral) I found the 4:00 pace guy. I was going to follow the 4:15 pace team, but I'd already met this Londoner so I stayed there. Regardless, maybe I could pull off something like four hours, and maybe this was a big mistake, but whatever, I'd just let some people pass me first.

We began to move, and I took off the black sweats I'd gotten at Unique Thrift. I would be wearing my Asics all-weather black cap, glasses with a strap (not sunglasses), Lands Ends black long-sleeve tee, red Under Armour shirt, black Under Armour shorts, black running shocks and my Asics gels. I had gloves I planned on ditching. One last pee and we headed for the start. I was also wearing my iPod, had two GUs pinned to my shorts, and a tube of Carmex tucked into my waistband.

All my gear choices turned out to be perfect.

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

I reached the start line roughly six minutes after the gun went off. My headphones were off, I was saving that for later. Just the thrill of, well, finally being there. I was nervous for a fraction of a second back on the bus, then, after hours of waiting, I was just happy to be moving. The sky was cloudless, the weather was mild, it was going to be a beautiful day for running.

Already there were men relieving themselves, over the edge of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I just didn't think that's right. Over the next four plus hours, I would see guys just letting it go over bridges, through chain link fences, anywhere really. I also saw amused photographers taking pictures of small groups of guys, pissing into parking lots.

Good-bye Staten Island.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn was amazing. And very, very long. After a two-mile bridge, we would be in the Borough of Kings until the race was half-over. Shortly after we arrived, we were greeted by large, large crowds of cheering locals. When I saw a guy holding a sign reading FINISHING IS YOUR ONLY FUCKING OPTION I knew it was going to be a good day.

There were Irish runners wearing big green hats, a guy dressed as a rhino. a surprising number of Norwegians, Dutch runners with matching orange jerseys sporting questionable cartoons of Africans, a guy dressed like the Statue of Liberty, and, so they told me, Bobby Flay.

For most of Brooklyn I enjoyed the ambient sound, the bands playing every couple of miles. I drank at maybe every other station, sometimes water, sometimes Gatorade. I forced myself to drink even when I didn't want to, though I found as I was drinking that I really did.

Whenever I took long runs during my training, I would feel terribly drained after a while. I attributed this to a lack of something in my system. At five miles, I took my first GU, right before a water station to wash it down.

10K split: 0:57:33

By seven miles, I began to wonder if we were in Queens yet, and had to remind myself that that wouldn't come until mile 13. I tried keeping the bouncing balloons held by the 4:00 pace captain in sight, but needed to take a leak (at an actual port-o-john) and spent a few miles trying to catch up. I was going much faster than I should have. By the time we reached Queens, I lost them for the rest of the run.

I began getting that drained feeling before the Half-Marathon, and worried I hadn't packed enough to eat. They warn you not to pick up anything not at an official table, which is a shame, because there were kids with small water bottles, old ladies with orange slices, guys with bananas. I took a Twizzler at one point, because I thought that was good luck, until I remembered I never chew Twizzlers thoroughly enough. I had my second GU, this one with caffeine in it. I knew there would be a PowerBar Gel station at mile 18, and hoped I would last until then.

I had read on some message board that you shouldn't put your name on your shirt, that it gets annoying after a while. Everyone else said to do it. Well, I didn't write my name, I wrote my nickname. And I gotta tell you, I never got sick of perfect strangers yelling "Pengo!" at me. That was a big boost, and whenever I needed it, I moved from the center of the street to one of the curbs.

Queensboro Bridge

A steep incline, luckily I read in one of the magazines that there is a stunning view of Manhattan if you look to your left. I did, and it was. It was breathtaking. It was one of several moments during the run I almost, but didn't, burst into tears. God, I love that city.

Choice track: Such Great Heights - The Postal Service

Earlier in the run I was concerned I was dressed just a little too heavily. Maybe I didn't need this thermal undershirt, at least not in the bright sunlight and 50º weather of Brooklyn. But the two miles on the lower level of the Queensboro Bridge made me grateful I had it on, that was brisk.

Choice track: Winners - 7 Seconds of Love

As we headed down the bridge descending into Manhattan, I said the only thing out loud I had said to that point. I said, "That's a lot of people."

Half-marathon split: 2:00:17 

First Avenue

Outstanding. First Avenue, deep with people, for miles. Bright and sunny again, headed uptown. My family was supposed to be waiting for me at 81st Street, but I started looking for them much earlier, on the west side of the street, looking for the SpongeBob Squarepants sign I had gotten for them from the expo. I missed the "official" banana station looking for my wife, but - I kid you not - I almost slipped on a banana peel.

Choice track: Future Sightings - I Am the World Trade Center

They were right where they said they'd be, Coop was holding the sign, which read "Go Go Pengo!" or I never would have seen them. I leaned over to kiss my wife and the children, and headed off again. And then I got really, really tired. It was only mile 17.

I had used the iPod intermittently, but relied on it more heavily to keep my spirits up. I snagged a PowerBar Gel, and then a second one for later.

Choice track: A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Presley vs. Junkie XL

I had no idea whether it was a boon or a curse to be familiar with the geography and relative distances of Manhattan in that situation. I knew I was racing into the hundreds, and that after a brief swing through the Bronx, it would still be a long way back to Central Park.

The Bronx 

On the Willis Avenue Bridge we were greeted by a Scots drum and pipes band. Not as many people were there to see us at the Bronx, maybe they felt slighted being such a short part of the route. I was feeling distress in my abdomen, couldn't tell if it was just all of the synthetic protein and carbs or all the fluid I had been taking in, or just gas. I stopped at another port-o-john, which was a big risk. I tried keeping my legs moving as I pee'ed (that was a very good idea) and then got back on the road.

I applied lip balm every few miles, I never lost the lip balm. I still had the gloves I'd tucked in my waistband.

And then we were back in Manhattan.

Fifth Avenue

I mostly listened to the iPod through Harlem and on toward the Park. The family was going to cross over and meet me there - at first my wife had said she would see me on the avenue, and then she changed that so I wasn't sure where I would see her. So I began looking well up the street. It was a good thing, too, another distraction.

Remember; I had never even run 20 miles before. The one time I tried it I fell slightly short, going from Cleveland Heights to Lakewood. Once I hit twenty, in the Bronx, I thought, well, from here on out I have no idea what I am capable of. I tried to drive any notion of what it was going to feel like stopping, of finishing, of having the medal, of seeing my kids again, out of my head.

Choice track: Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

We crossed into Central Park. After another half mile or so, I found my family again. I wasn't stopping this time, I was just happy to see them. The last two miles were ridiculous. I can't say they were impossible, I didn't slow down any more than I already had (LOTS of people passed me on Fifth Avenue) I just kept going, not too slowly, either, it just didn't seem like it was ever going to end.

Final track: It's My Life (Vocal Mix) - Liquid People vs. Talk Talk

My iPod was on shuffle, and this track was next. I listened to it a lot during my training, one of those songs from my teenage years that was played so much it lost meaning at the time, but creepingly gained meaning in the time since. And the artist who was Talk Talk now goes under the name Liquid People and "remixed" this track, which means he mostly put a thudding beat under it that makes it incredible to work out to. It was exactly what I needed aat point in time, reminding me of all the work I'd put into this. I just shut everyone out except for the deafening cheering that came through.

Out the south end of the park, and then back in, I headed to the finish line. There was no feeling of overwhelming exhilaration, Just relief.

Finish time: 4:15:28
Overall place: 16,838 (out of 38,368)
Average pace: 9:45

Originally appeared in Daddy Runs Fast.

UPDATE: The string in the waistband to the shorts I wore during the 2006 NYC Marathon snapped while running in Central Park last month.

Assessment

I’ve been high and I’ve been low,
And I don’t know where to go.
- The Godfathers, “Birth, School, Work, Death”

This used to be my plaground.

Late August is a time of stasis. It’s all about to happen, but nothing’s happening. We’re still in a pandemic, but we’re behaving as though we aren’t. Sure, we’re vaccinated. Went a few weeks not masked, the change for us came during our trip to Maine this year. Drove up not wearing them, came back wearing them.

That was almost a month ago.

Drove the eldest to school last weekend, a transition made all the more surreal by a two days blackout just prior to our departure. Fortunately, they are always well-prepared and had had most of their packing done before the power went out. Imagine last minute preparation in the hot and dark.

But where am I? Where are we now? As they are attending Ohio University, my alma mater, I have had nostalgic memories rattling around my head, not all good ones. Mostly not good ones. Also, shocked to discover they’re tearing down all the dorms on (old) New South Green. Just as well, I guess. It’s like a graveyard to me.

Anyway, I was thinking of the aforequoted song by the Godfathers, their only single, really. It slaps (as the kids say) but the lyrics are terrible.

Less writing. More reading.

BIRTH

I have not been writing. Like, not at all. For six hundred days I wrote every single morning, and then I stopped. It’s like it never happened. I am not down on myself about this, but it is a lesson, for anyone about anything. You can maintain a process. And the process continues as long as you maintain it. You can resume when you are ready, you are also welcome to stop. No one judges you, and it is best not to judge yourself.

It has been a summer for other things.

SCHOOL

I have found it necessary to adjust my status as a student, which is disappointing. I won’t be taking a full course load this semester, only two classes, both in playwriting. This is good, in so much as that is my major, but I was hoping to continue expanding my literary knowledge and experience.

The workshop starts tomorrow night. An in-person class! It has all been on Zoom since I began last fall. We are expected to create entirely new work. I was planning to take this as an opportunity to develop a previous manuscript, but I am going to meet the challenge with positivity because that is why I am here. To do something new.

Last week's joke.

The fact that I have no idea where to start is daunting, but that’s hardly unusual.

WORK

March 2020 broke with all that was normal as all in-person events, of any kind, were abruptly canceled and after a brief respite we tried to figure out what we were going to do in the interregnum. This time last year we were in the planning stages to create interactive, asynchronous videos to market to schools in place of the residency program.

Next week a new slate of actor-teachers will come together as we last did two years ago, as I first did twenty years ago, to learn lesson plans to bring into schools across northeast Ohio. But we will take precautions. Masks and sanitizer. Open windows. And figure out how to stage scene work without contact.

We know things aren’t normal. We aren’t pretending that they are. We are trying to move forward and do our work without getting sick.

Please don't kill me.

DEATH

I have developed what I find an unhealthy preoccupation with death. I started when mother started ailing, it passed for a while after she passed but it hasn’t entirely gone away. I have become much more attentive to every aspect of my health, getting regular physicals, and trying to eat better and to exercise. It’s all you can possibly do, what is in your control.

I choose to run, while I can still run. I still keep a running blog, I have logged every single run I have taken for fifteen years. The wife says I need more upper body work, and she’s right. But just stepping out into the world is a blessing, that I can still do this. Who knows how much longer I can run. Twenty years? Ten? Five?

On Friday I was feeling low, and motivated myself to take a late afternoon run. And it was a good decision. It was hot, yes, and humid. But that doesn’t bother me, I like it. I ran through the city, stopping at every intersection, giving berth to the pedestrians walking to and from the Greek Festival on Mayfield

A block from my house I spotted a car coming slowly to a stop at an intersection and I waved as I began to run into the street. But they hadn’t seen me, they just rolled to a soft stop and sped up again, missing me by a couple feet.

I wonder how I will die. It may be a long time from now. It might be tonight.

Assessment

It has been two years since I wrote an assessment, which has been a useful tool to reassure myself that, in spite of any sense of inertia, the work continues.

Last week there was a reading of These Are The Times which was very productive, and when I have a moment I will be able to tweak a few things and then, if you can imagine, I will finally be able to begin the submission process. And it only took eight years!

Meanwhile, I composed a piece for Grand Rounds: Four 10-Minute Plays, which will be performed on December 6th at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage as part of the exhibit Beyond Chicken Soup: Jews In Medicine.

Just yesterday I was a "Writer In the Window" at Appletree Books, brainstorming a writing collaboration with my colleague Chennelle which will make its formative debut in early 2018, and tomorrow evening rehearsals begin for a play I will be performing in, to be announced.

Basically, after months feeling a bit adrift, November is packed. Suddenly, I have no time. And you know what? That is a good thing. When I am pressed I am most productive, which is stupid but there it is.

What is not good is how I have almost entirely stopped exercising. Nerve pain has made working out this past summer less than fun, but the fact is I have not gone for a run in over a month. Seriously, October 1 was my last time out. I haven't run so little since 2011, when I was taking antidepressants.

But the kids are all right. My education work is meaningful and sustaining. What I most need is to (literally) get off my ass, and move.

Sands UK Tour, Day Sixteen: Plymouth to London

Ten years ago this month, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity (SANDS UK) sent my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby) on a seven date tour of Great Britain.

Saturday, 23 June 2007

Mayflower Steps

Today I took a two-mile run around Plymouth. I actually ran up the Mayflower Steps, into the Old World. Maybe that's where I belong.

Actually, I ran up the steps next to the "Mayflower Steps," those were steps that led up from the car park in the marina. And those aren't even the real Mayflower Steps, the atucal stone steps Francis Drake descended on his journey to the New World are reportedly in the women's loo in the pub across the street.

I followed the water around the Barbican, up through the city, and back down the West Hoe (yes) making a full circle. It was a fantasy of mine that I would finish by the lighthouse, run down the steps to the ocean, and take an insane, frigid plunge into the Atlantic.

But the tide was out. That would have been an uncomfortable, long wade. I would have looked not like a man triumphant, but rather someone determined to drown himself.

It was a good, brisk run. Two runs in Britain. Worth bringing the shoes.

Original blog post: June 23, 2007

Play a Day: Running On Fire

Aurin Squire

For Saturday morning I read Running On Fire by Aurin Squire, which is available on New Play Exchange.

Plays about running are weird, because running is weird. A race is comprehensible, but "going for a run" can be entirely alien to someone who does not do that. It can appear the most trivial of athletic endeavors, and I say this as someone who desperately loves running.

But the act of running carries weight, because while running for sport is completely passive and innocuous (no contact, no competition, running for running's sake) most other examples of running are fraught. It is the result of fear or aggression. Running at something, running away from something.

I am a runner. I run every other day. I have run three marathons. I have kept a running blog since 2006. I am a white male and have never been jumped, catcalled, or been implicated in a crime while running. I have runner's privilege.

Squire's play presents a "town and gown" conflict, centering around an announced university-sponsored marathon which will monopolize a city park, a park which was recently the site of a sexual assault. One of the disheartening and unfortunately very real elements of the narrative is how far people of privilege will go to maintain normalcy in the midst of a crisis.

Numerous people of privilege have been made aware of social injustice as a result of the election. They ask each other, publicly, what action they should take. Too many follow the path that they had already set for themselves, and work to fit progressive action into their normative, daily existence. But there's no reason we should have to cancel the marathon!

And you know what? We always get to keep the marathon.

Summer of 2004

Any given year can be packed with exciting events, personal and professional. The right song can send me spiraling into memory of summers where nothing significant happened at all.

However, the summer of 2004 went from strength to strength, each successive event more startling than the last.  

Grandfathers

Late spring, we visited my grandfather Henrik in Florida, for his 100th birthday. He'd made it, mind intact. Counting down, he had previously announced he was five! (when he was 95.) He was two! (when he was 98.) Now he was zero. As the man said, second childishness. But not oblivion. Not yet. Never oblivion. He also had all his teeth.

At around the same time, we lost Toni's grandfather Calvin, our first child's namesake. Diagnosed with cancer, he was gearing up to fight it, but that fight never came. Awaiting chemo, a blood clot lodged in his heart and he was gone.

We had prepared for a long good-bye, and were stunned by no good-bye at all. We were grateful he had the chance to meet our child, who delighted him. No funeral, not a religious man, a memorial was planned for the end of the summer.

Spencer Tunick in Cleveland

This was also the summer experimental artist Spencer Tunick came to Cleveland and encouraged us all to get naked in public. Having tried and failed to find an indoor site for  a January shoot, they bumped the date to late June after securing the assistance of the city of Cleveland to stage what was (at that time) the largest mass-nude photo shoot in North America.

The photograph itself is almost beside the point, Tunick was at that time bringing with him a lot of attention, often raising interesting social questions simply by arranging these unusual events. The experience itself was an artistic event, with euphoric highs and irritating lows. Listen to this audio diary my wife and I created with the folks at WCPN, documenting the event for Around Noon, and you will understand what I mean.

This event fell neatly on our fifth wedding anniversary, June 26th.

Radio K

There are moments in time when I become suddenly very interested in new music. Obsessed, really. This year two things came into play which made it urgent to discover the hot new dance music. 1) This is the year I became a fanatically dedicated runner because of 2) The iPod.

Receiving an iPod for my birthday meant successfully being able to take music with me on runs, without requiring a cassette player, which is like running holding a brick that is tethered to your hand.

My brother introduced me to the University of Minnesota’s Radio K back in 1999, but using the “radio” feature on iTunes I was able to play it in my house all the time, and with the music store could spontaneously purchase whatever it was I heard that I never knew I lived without. Music by The Streets, Felix da Housecat, and of course, I Am The World Trade Center.


In a good and decent universe, this is the number one pop song of all time.

Mr. Shakespeare

This summer, and for only two seasons, my employer experimented with resuming a summer season (as opposed to fall-through-spring). One effort in raising awareness was imagined by Andrew May, who was impressed by a serendipitous promotional event that occurred when he was a young man in Chicago.

A performer on break from a Shakespeare festival downtown was reading a newspaper on a park bench in his compete, Elizabethan costume. A photographer happened to catch a passerby in the very second of an expressive double-take, and the picture made the front page of the Trib.

This is how I came to be Mr. Shakespeare, he wanted to recreate that moment but in Cleveland, and my job was to be seen all summer, at a variety of arts festivals and public events. The Rib Burn-Off, a Cleveland baseball game, the Cain Park Arts Festival -- I wasn’t handing out advertisements, I wasn’t putting on an act, I was just this guy who claimed to be William Shakespeare.

One day in early summer (and unfortunately before our costume shop had finished tailoring my beautiful, GLT-branded “plum” outfit) Andrew took me around Cleveland for a few preliminary, promotional shots.

The American Revolution

During its final year, Bad Epitaph Theater presented and I directed the Midwestern premiere of Kirk Wood Bromley’s The American Revolution.

Written entirely in verse, Mr. B. cast the story of the War for American Independence in the style of a Shakespearean tragedy along the lines of Henry V or Othello.

George Washington, traditionally depicted as an unknowable American god, is here a troubled and sympathetic general, finding his footing as general and becoming the man who would be First President. However, it is Benedict Arnold and his wife Peggy Shippen who provided an intimate dramatic tension, like Macbeth and Lady M., full of jealousy and scheming.

Our production was presented out-of-doors, on Wade Oval in University Circle, with bright costumes taking the place of any kind of set. Challenges included creating interesting stage combat with rifles and bayonets rather than swords, but interesting they were with swirling flags and the dramatic (though not frightening) sound of heavy wooden sticks beat against plastic garbage cans, which sound enough like guns and cannons without alarming the police.

Bromley’s clowns, the Rebel Mess (led by Ray McNiece as Appalachian beatnik Johnny Freeman) sang songs and hid from battle and lost limbs. It was awesome. Unfortunately, it was a very cool June that year which kept crowds low until the end of the run … and our final performance on Independence Day was washed out due to a sudden flash flood minutes after call time.

Highlight of the run was when the playwright and members of Inverse Theatre, who originated the work, made a trip to enjoy the performance. We feted them in grand Cleveland style at Nick’s place in Tremont.

As if we were not busy enough, there was a road trip to Maine.

I Hate This @ FringeNYC

That August was the first time I went solo at the New York International Fringe Festival, performing I Hate This (a play without the baby) in a 40-seat walkdown way out on Eighth Avenue.

While it was thrilling to share this work on a national stage, I learned some hard truths on that journey. I do not know how to handle being alone. Also, that a glowing review in The New York Times won’t do a thing for box office when no one wants to see a show about stillbirth.

However, it was that review which led a number of health and/or bereavement organizations across the Midwest to contact me and created the opportunity to carry Calvin's story far and wide and eventually across the Atlantic.

AIDSWALK/RUN

This year I became a runner. I had been an itinerant runner since I was an adolescent. Sometimes I would make a serious effort to maintain some kind of regimen -- ten years earlier, in 1994, I kept it up for several months.

But with one technological advance, I became a committed runner and have never stopped. As previously stated, that device would be The iPod.

For the first time, AIDSWALK included a 5K run, starting at Edgewater Beach. Running a race using the iPod (which I no longer do) gave me some kind of superhuman burst of energy and I broke twenty minutes for the first and possibly last time ever. That included that hill, by the way.

The kid was only a year and half, this was their first race. At first they were excited by all of the runners, starting all at the same time. But when we just kept going, running, running away and not coming back, and me with them, they started crying.

However, in 19 minutes and so many seconds I was back and when they saw me they smiled and shouted, DADDY RUNS FAST!

Summer's End

This epic summer closed with Calvin G.'s memorial, a glorious event where the extended family came together for a beautiful celebration of memory and music ... and someone ripped off our diaper bag, and with it two pair prescription sunglasses, my camera and her wallet. Instead of enjoying the celebration, I was choking down anger, on the phone with the Athens Police Department.

Coupled with a different theft in NYC a month earlier, I fell into a prolonged period of anxiety and fear. How can I care for a little person when I cannot look after myself?

Notes on Fringe (Day Three)

First things first ... we opened! Very nice opening production, very happy. Relaxed, too. Our set-up takes, I kid you not, less than ten minutes. Whole thing. We have this part nailed. There were 42 people in attendance, which is the largest single audience I have ever performed before in New York City.

Following the show we had the opportunity to unwind a little with the dozen or so people who chose to remain for the talkback, which was also extremely pleasant.

Star alert: We were joined this afternoon by Adam Bertocci, screenwriter and the author of Two Gentlemen of Lebowski, who introduced himself after the talkback. Pretty sweet. He told me he appreciated the hidden jokes in the script that only a Shakespeare enthusiastic like himself would get, which was pretty flattering.

Also, too: This one gentleman in the front row asked if I had intended the play to be feminist. Of course, I asked why he believed that it was and we had a very positive discussion about that. The tenor of the entire talkback was joyful and positive.

Another question: How is the FringeNYC run different from the tour? Good question. While I mentioned that it's more sweaty, I did not go into details, like how much more difficult it is to get my boots on and off with damp socks, or that my big hat is sliding down my head over my ears. But we did mention the beautiful space, and the fact that we have proper stage lighting!



And so, we have opened. Four more shows to go. Tell your friends!

Speaking of which, while Annie and I took a five mile run/walk through Lower Manhattan, Diana, James and Emily took a box of cards to the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park to pique the interest of those waiting for free tickets to see Love's Labour's Lost.

Later, I also walked to fifteen of 18 different FringeNYC sites to drop palm cards. Five mile run, two mile walk around the Lower East Side, and an hour-long performance. So I am very tired, and unlike the last several days, I am not waking up tomorrow morning for any reason whatsoever.

Assessment

Perhaps it goes without saying that one who has not been creating regular blog posts may be occupied with other things. That, implies, of course, that anyone who can create daily blog posts has no life. But I used to be able to do that, and believe me I was hella busy then, too.

However, this blog was created for a purpose, first as a research tool in my writing and later as a promotional tool for all of my theater work. (It also happens to be about my Cleveland.) Since the outreach tour closed, my day-to-day life has been packed with events that I either fell anyone else would find uninteresting, are too private to confide, or that I am already holding forth about somewhere else.

1. Training for the Cleveland Marathon, a fact which is well-documented on my other blog, Daddy Runs Fast. This takes up a great deal of time that might otherwise be spent blogging.

2. Performing in the Beck Center production of Eric Coble's The Velocity of Autumn, starring Dorothy Silver, now playing through April 29. I am the other performer in this two-person play. Yes, I could share rehearsal process for the outreach tour, because I wrote that and because it's a different kind of work. Trying to develop a character for a play like this one is far too personal for me to write about. I could have chosen to post the reviews here, but in this case I have decided not to read any of them until the show closes. You have Google, look them up if you like.

You should get tickets. Oh that's right, you can't, the entire run has sold out.

3. Developing a new script for the 2013 outreach tour. Yes, I could spend time writing about writing that. Instead, I am writing it. A one-time Facebook suggestion from the Dramatist Guild inspired me to sign up for Script Frenzy, a "competition" with no actual reward except the knowledge that, through mutual encouragement, you were able to write 100 pages during the month of April. For some this comes easy. For the rest of it, it does not. As of today, I have completed 16 pages. It is April 5th. I am making good time, and there's a three-day weekend coming up. And then there's home and work. However, my discoveries of 1976 will continue (and the script it inspires) and there is a summerful of activities which will be valid sources for observation. But I did want you to know that I am thinking of you. Each and every day. Yes, I am.

Death of a salesman

Every obituary I heard this morning celebrating the life of Steve Jobs compared him to Thomas Edison. This comparison is apt, because much like Milan, Ohio's favorite son, Jobs never invented anything. Thomas Alva did not first create the radio, movie camera nor the (gasp) light bulb, Steven Paul did not invent the graphic interface, mouse, nor the mp3 player. But Steve Jobs made you NEED them.

My first computer was an Apple II+ (see above.) My parents presented it to me on my fourteenth birthday, in 1982. We were on vacation, so they didn't lug the whole thing with them, they just gave me an apple with a Roman numeral "II" on it. See how elegant that is? How were they going to do that with a Trash-80? Every computer I have owned since has been an Apple. I even dealt with a horrid Apple IIci for six years, now that's devotion. You can't blame Jobs for that one, however, they made the IIci during the Apple's Dark Years (1985-1996).


I do not own an iPhone, I do not have an iPad. In spite of my seeing them everywhere, I do not need one ... not the way I NEED my iPod. An itinerant runner since I was 12 years old, it wasn't until the life-altering appearance of this wafer-thin music machine that I have been a consistent runner (did you know I also keep a running blog?)

Steve Jobs made it possible for me to complete a marathon.

The praise that I hear being heaped upon the man today is a bit overwhelming. He was a CEO, I thought we hated those. But he was credited during his lifetime as the man who made technology stylish, cuddly, as my wife put it this morning, Steve Jobs invented the cyborg, and made us like it. For better or for worse, Steve Jobs married humanity to the machine.

Mecha Yenta.

Days of Awe

From American Public Media ...
My brother and I closed the evening at Sweeney’s Saloon in the Selby/Dale neighborhood. Legend has it Sweeney’s was a favorite haunt of August Wilson’s during his time in St. Paul, a place for him to drink, smoke and write. The owner would turn the lights up when Wilson would come in so he could see better to do his work.

If this legend is so, I have to imagine things have changed a great deal in this neck of the woods. Last night it was a very popular place, packed with college students and hipsters, not the kind of place I could imagine anyone being able to concentrate and compose anything like Two Trains Running.

We sat at a table outside, enjoyed a local beer, and had a nice long talk. For me, this was the best part of the trip.

This morning was the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in America®. The race began at 8 AM, and at 10 AM the family and I walked two blocks to Fairview and Summit in time to catch the first few runners. It’s a bright, cool day today, perfect for running. I did not bother bringing my kit this trip, thought my time would be better spent available to my brother, but I did wonder out loud if I might not try the "Full Cleveland" this May.

Maybe you are not aware I also keep a running blog.

Church services at the Unity Church-Unitarian began at 11 AM. I joined Denny and Julie in marriage there in August, 2006. (Didn’t know I could do that, did you?) As a celebration of the High Holy Days, the theme for this morning was forgiveness. It was a painfully well-timed homily.

First step of forgiveness:
We must all give up hope of a better past.
It is a question we ask in The Crucible residency. What is forgiveness? Why is forgiveness necessary? Is it necessary? Who is the benefactor of forgiveness, those who give or those who receive it? Can you forgive and not forget?

“I forgive myself, I forgive you. We begin again in love.”
On our way to the airport, my brother gave me a tour of the MPR studios. It’s a very large, impressive facility, the central nervous system of NPR affiliates around the state, their news, classical and popular music stations. I think I am going to become a die-hard, online fan of The Current 89.3.

And now I am waiting at the gate, informed that my flight took off from Hopkins, and then abruptly turned around for a “maintenance issue.” My departure from MSP is in question, but I have a coffee, cash for dinner if I want it, and a very large book.

LATE UPDATE: Touching down at CLE, 12:30 AM.

We are brothers.