Skip to main content
This morning proved to be one of those mornings that was more rewarding after I completed the run. About halfway through it, though, I was ready to throw in the towel, again. I took the DeCoro hill in an attempt to do a full 60-minute run. Halfway up the hill, I swear I was going to keel over.



My body is really beginning to feel the change in season. I never really paid attention to it, but this year it's like I can't avoid the Fall's pull. I'm tired and my legs can feel the weather starting to shift.



It's those old football injuries. No seriously, stop laughing. I really did play football when I was a kid. Played right up to the first game of my freshman year of high school. I knew I was going to quit after that year. There were several factors involved: 1. I had stopped growing and suddenly I wasn't taller than everyone, I was shorter... and skinnier. I wasn't going to survive. 2. I was going to have to choose between football and marching band. Although my folks said they'd support me no matter what I chose to do (and I really appreciate them for that), I knew my heart was in music and not getting crushed by guys 150 lbs. heavier (and spending most of my Friday nights on the bench or on Special Teams). 3. I hated most of the guys on the football team anyway. I mean, they called all of my friends (who were in band) "band fags". 4. All of my friends were in band. 5. I was more popular in band (i.e. girls actually liked me). 6. I'd lost the "edge". Stop LAUGHING! See, I was fearless up until that freshman year. Call it a lack of self-confidence, but I used the aggressiveness of football to get out all of my frustrations. And boy, was this a great release. As soon as I began using my drumming as that release, I wasn't that interested in getting knocked around.



Alas, I didn't have to make that choice. I ripped my ACL on my right knee in the first game (1st half, even) and my playing days were done. So my right knee is kind of funky; my left knee, which took the brunt of the wear and tear while I was on crutches, is creaky; and my ankles, both of which I screwed up 9MAJORLY) in pick up games in college, hurt ever now and then.



I'M AN OLD MAN!!!!



How did I get on that rant when I was just talking about my run this morning? I guess my point was that it's getting colder in the mornings and the old body isn't getting warmed up as quickly.



Aye yi yi yi yi! I've lost my train of thought.





Aloha

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records...

Basement Songs: "Golden Gates" by John Cougar Mellencamp

I’m not sure when my brother, Budd, bought his copy of John (then) Cougar Mellencamp’s “Uh Huh”. The cassette just showed up in the basement on summer, years after its release. Like most of America, I was a big fan of “Pink Houses”, and I was thrilled that now had copies of his other big hits from that album, “Crumblin’ Down” and “The Authority Song.” At this point in his career, Mellencamp was ready to establish himself as a legitimate artist, hence the use of his real name (the record label wouldn’t allow him to ditch the “Cougar” until years later for fear record buyers may get confused….huh?) In addition, there was the radio staple (at least in Cleveland), “Play Guitar”, on side 2, which borrowed heavily from Them’s “Gloria” (Mellencamp often slipped the “G-L-O-R-I-A”’s into his concerts during that number). The rest of “Uh Huh” is filled with more of the same 60’s garage band type of rock that Mellencamp champions, as well as one of Budd’s favorite tunes, the John Prine co-pe...

In Praise of Kanopy

When I was 17, I worked at American Video, a small business housed in the Great Northern shopping strip. My time there was short, as was American Video’s lifespan. The days of the mom-and-pop video stores were cycling out. Blockbuster had just opened in my hometown and within a couple years, American Video, as well as the store where I first fell in love with movies, First Run Video, would shutter their doors. What I loved about these indie video stores was the variety of choices and the limited number of copies of movies each store had. Come in looking for Back to the Future and it’s already rented? You strolled the aisles until you found something similar like Innerspace , or something completely different, like And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python’s first movie. Blockbuster, and its cousin Hollywood Video, may have offered more copies of movies, but they didn’t always have the quality. Maybe your Blockbuster was different.   When Netflix and the stre...