DFL Runner: Blog

Chapter 9 has been submitted for posting. It may interest you to learn that the events of Chapter 9 are about 90% based on a real experience I had with someone I was dating several years ago.

End of insight into this week's chapter. Instead, here on the day we commemorate the events of the third week of July in 1969, I would instead like to use my little bully pulpit here to discuss the events of the third week of July in 1981.

Some of you may not know the name Harry Chapin, but you probably know the song "Cats In the Cradle", which became his first and only #1 song during Christmas week of 1974.

Harry Chapin took his few appearances on the Top 40, his guitar, his songwriting ability, and his showmanship, and turned it into hundreds of thousands of dollars a year donated to a multitude of social causes, chief among them the issue of hunger - the lack of regular access to substantive nutrition and clean water - in America and in the world. His concerts were part entertainment, part conversation with his audiences, pleading with them to join him in getting involved in his causes and even in their own causes. More than a few Congressmen would later comment that they knew when Harry had performed in their district because there would be a sudden spike in letters and phone calls from their constituents about some issue or another immediately afterward.

From June 1972 to June 1981, Harry performed, on average, 200 concerts a year, half of which were benefit concerts of some variety - mostly local food banks but also local arts programs and the like. As well, all proceeds from the concessions he sold at the show went to hunger-related causes, including his own foundation, World Hunger Year (now called WhyHunger).

On July 16, 1981, Harry was scheduled to perform a free concert at Eisenhower Park on Long Island, NY, to raise money for a local arts program. First, however, he was scheduled for a meeting with his business manager. While driving to that meeting on the Long Island Expressway, he suddenly tried to pull over (possibly as he was having a heart attack) and pulled in front of a tractor-trailer that crushed the rear end of his car under its bumper, dragging the gas tank along the ground and setting it on fire. He was removed from the car, but declared dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.

On December 7, 1987, what would have been his 45th birthday, Harry was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, this country's highest civilian honor, in recognition of his philanthropic work. The concert and presentation ceremony was closed out by Bruce Springsteen singing Harry's song "Remember When the Music" with the following spoken interlude:

"I remember when Sandy [Harry's widow] sent me this tape, I listened to it and I said, "Gee, this is a little on the corny side." And I sat down and I tried to think what the song was about, and I guess there was a time when people felt that music provided you with a greater, oh, a greater sense of unity, a greater sense of shared vision and purpose than it does today.

And my generation, we were the generation that was gonna change the world, that somehow we were gonna make it a little less lonely, a little less hungry, a little more just place.

But it seems that when that promise slipped through our hands we didn't replace it with nothing but, but lost faith, and now we live in, uh, times are pretty shattered, I got my music, you've got yours, the guy down the street, he's got his, and you could kind of sit back and say, not cynically but truthfully, "Well, maybe, maybe all men are not brothers, and maybe we won't ever know who or what we really are to each other."

But I think Harry instinctively knew that it was gonna take a lot more than just love to survive; that it was gonna take a strong sense of purpose, of duty, and a good clear eye on the dirty ways of the world.

So in keeping his promise to himself, he reminds us of our promise to ourselves, and that tonight, alongside Harry, is that promise that his spirit would have us remember and honor and recommit to.

So ... do something, and may his song be sung."

Harry, wherever you are, keep the change.

And if you haven't listened to any of Harry's music before (or haven't listened to more than "Cats in the Cradle") stop whatever you are doing and look up the audio of his "Greatest Stories Live" album on YouTube, or, even better, video from his 1981 concert in Hamilton, Ontario.

Several years ago, I supervised a team that responded to a fire drill by taking almost five minutes to assemble at the meeting point outside.

When I asked about it, I learned that one person had gone back to her desk to retrieve her purse. Another took a minute to wrap up a phone call. A third one walked outside, then walked back in to grab her coat.

It was the only time I ever yelled at them. Then I e-mailed them an excerpt from the NIST report of the Station Nightclub fire, which is one of the subjects of Chapter 8. The fire alarm didn't even go off until 41 seconds after the fire started. Roughly a minute after that, toxic smoke had reached the floor, the main entrance was blocked by a veritable logjam of bodies, and the fire department was still 2-3 minutes away. Almost no one still in the building at that point got out unscathed, if they got out at all.

A purse, a coat, a phone call are not worth your life, health, and well-being.

My public service announcement for the day is this: if you don't already, any time you go into a public building, be it a nightclub, a restaurant, a movie theater, whatever ... make it a habit to find at least two ways out so that you know where they are if need be.

And if the fire alarm goes off, run first and ask questions later.

Chapter 7 is in the queue. Also, as promised, updates have finally been posted for Chapters 1 and 2 to match the tense of the rest of the story.

Chapter 7 is the story of Lisa's first 5K and is, in some respects, the story of my own first 5K, complete with my eyeballs starting to sweat severely as the finisher medal was draped around my neck.

It is, in a way, my hope that this story will demystify running a bit. You don't have to be a size 3 with legs the size of a tree trunk. You don't have to be able to run a seven-minute mile. You just have to be willing to get out and put one foot in front of the other, be willing to train regularly and properly, be willing to challenge yourself, and be willing to commit to finding your best performance - whatever it is - and bringing it to the start line.

The discussion about the music playing before and during the race is completely real-life. In fact, if you're curious, here are my playlists for the 5K I am doing tomorrow morning:

Warmup:

"Come Worship the Lord" - John Michael Talbot

"I Am the Bread of Life" - Collin Raye

"Homeland" - Kenny Rogers

"This Is Me" - Keala Settle

"Home" - Philip Phillips.

Main race:

"Come Early Morning" - Don Williams

"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" - The Proclaimers

"Ride Like the Wind" - Christopher Cross

"Walk of Life" - Dire Straits

"Fame" - Irene Cara

"Born To Run" - Bruce Springsteen

"Camouflage" - Brad Paisley

"Pass My Hat" - Chris LeDoux (yes, this part of Ch. 7 is real)

"Invincible" - Pat Benatar

"The Climb" - Miley Cyrus

"Don't Stop Believing" - Journey

"Are You Gonna Go My Way" - Lenny Kravitz

"If You're Going Through Hell" - Rodney Atkins

"Roar" - Katy Perry

Enjoy, and I will see you all next week as we journey to the land where flight attendants lie to you on arrival.

The wonderful jetson63 has returned chapters 5 and 6, while giving me the requisite smack upside the head for some of my literary and stylistic choices. As promised, both chapters have been added to the queue.

The writing, rewriting, and editing of these two chapters (to say nothing of letting my mind drift as I laid on the couch watching mindless daytime television while recuperating from whatever bug I picked up last week) gave rise to a little voice in my head wondering whether I might need a reality check in terms of the way I wrote Lisa's actions and reactions in these chapters.

As such, I am looking to add a female voice on my editorial team, to provide some balance to both sides of this literary relationship. If you are interested, please send me a message.

And, to all my readers, thank you for continuing to read and thank you for your kind words of encouragement and support. I wish you all a safe and happy holiday week.

Authors who advertise a posting schedule and then don't follow it drive me up the wall. And now here I am doing it. I promised to adhere to a Saturday posting schedule and have missed two in a row, first last week because I was traveling out of town for a medical evaluation, and now this week because some manner of stomach bug hitched a ride home with me and I've spent the better part of the past 3+ days ... well ... being sick. I'll spare you details beyond that, except to say that I feel exponentially better today than I did on Friday.

The word from the doctors I saw last week were - relatively - good. I am not in any urgent need of back surgery, although I was taken to task for not being more diligent about sticking to the treatment plan I was previously given (read: physical therapy, which I've always hated doing).

In appreciation for your patience and as atonement for not sticking to my promise, this week be on the lookout for two chapters! Stay tuned.