The back lot outside my office window is waist-high in a sea of goldenrod with little sprigs of purple asters peeping out here and there, a last feast for the bumbling bumblebees. Little flocklets of tiny birds — warblers, I’m guessing; they flit too fast for me — flow in a moving carpet across the gravel turnaround, getting ready to face south and disappear for the cold winter months. When I open the door to let Kiki out, she charges to get at them like a bald-faced hornet on a mission. They seem to evaporate, leaving her running in a circle.
It was too good a day today to sit at my desk and just look at it, so at four o’clock Kiki and I went for one of our walks up in Hubbard Park. I say “walk,” but it’s over the years degenerated into a sort of elderly shuffle, protected and supported by a pair of hiking poles (a cane, I’ve found, is inadequate in a pinch. If you stumble, it helps, but too often you simply rotate around it and end up on the ground). The poles make it harder to reach into my pocket for dog treats, but nobody seems to mind but me. The dogs know me, and sit patiently while I fumble and apologize.
The smells of the autumn woods evoke hundreds of ancient memories. For years in my youth they were accompanied by the distinctive thuds of footballs being kicked, padded bodies clashing, coaches’ whistles and marching bands rehearsing.
As I shuffled down the first hill today (in what Mark Twain would call an “animated trance”), Kiki scouted ahead of me with her nose, and I heard another old familiar sound of autumn: the rustle of dead leaves around my feet. It was the only sound of cross-country running. It was a warning that there might be hidden rocks and roots underfoot — though I never came close to spraining an ankle, or knew any teammates who had. A cross-country coach with whom I briefly discussed the phenomenon this afternoon, responded, “Of course we had rubber ankles in those days.” He was right.
The local high school team was practicing in the park while Kiki and I sedately made our way around a short loop through the woods. It was lovely to see how lightly they sprang over the trails, and heartbreaking to remember how long ago it was that I was one of them.
I went away to school the year I was 15. The afternoon sports program was open to experimentation; I could try different sports. Naturally, as an all-American boy, I tried football. There were five levels — varsity, open to boys 16 or older; B-squad or junior varsity; the C-squad “Pussycats”; Junior League, for boys under 16; and the Ivy League, for hopeless cases under 16.
I was the skinny, 160-pound fullback for Cornell. Our quarterback, who later became the United States ambassador to Singapore and China, had a strange, English-sounding accent and called each play in clear anticipation of being flattened. His favorite play was “31 on three,” which meant the three-back (me) would plunge through the number one hole if there was one. I usually got through because nobody tackled; they just grabbed. We had the most cast-off of uniforms. I finished many plays running down the field with Harvard or Princeton players grabbing at the ragged remnants of my jersey, and my exposed shoulder pads flapping like noisy little wings. It was not an auspicious beginning to a football career.
Then a friend — an older boy from my home town — introduced me to running. I still have the little black-and-white photo of me trotting around the cinder track on the athletic field. It was an instant romance. The hills and woods all around the school were laced with running trails, and the cross-country team rarely lost a dual meet. The coach was low-key and unflappable, just my type: no pep talks, no unrealistic expectations, no hands-in-a-circle huddle before a meet to get hyped up. I can’t imagine being more hyped than each of us was before tackling Choate or Deerfield.
It was the beginning of about 30 years of running — roads, trails, tracks, and mountains — until the orthopedist finally told me to knock it off. But I was able to keep hiking, as long as I limited the weight of my pack, and managed a few pretty good mountains. Slowly, though, age crept up on my capacity, in the form of shaky balance and diminishing strength, and now, in what I presume is the last chapter, neuropathy.
Those kids I watch bounding past me in the park probably think I’m losing it upstairs, as well. But no; I’m just remembering, and loving the memories.
