<4 The author, in search of omens on the run.

I really wanted to get 3:01:51 for a marathon time at Paavo Nurmi in Hurley, Wisconsin, so I trained hard into summer. But with the heat and a camping vacation to Montana, it wasn’t to be. I entered a short race, Lodi Library Run, a 5K. It went along fine with a hard sprint at the end against Big Mike, who beat me, and I once again managed a first in my age group. The race director called out my time as he gave me the award: 19 minutes and 51 seconds.

NEARLY GROPING FOR OMENS OF SOME SORT

“Hey, that’s the year I was born who were trying not to listen.

That seemed to keep my string of omens alive. Cow Chip Classic was next, a tradition going back 15 years. It was the race where my daughter introduced me to my future wife. We met after the race as my daughter found a place for us to sit down right next to each other. Oops, nother story. Get back to omens.

Cow Chip Classic is where you can race in the morning, watch a parade at noon, and throw cow chips in the afternoon. A rare opportunity, indeed.

Iran poorly. Not nearly as good as in previous years. I took 15th place. Hey, that’s a mirror image. Just like Dick’s 902.

So my streak was alive! Next, on to Wah-zo-sha, a half-marathon in Wisconsin Dells, home of the world’s largest indoor water park, the place where more water is pumped through swimming pools per capita than anywhere else.

This one we always come away winners, as they give free passes to the Dell attractions. We have figured the total value of one pass is $40, and the entry fee of $12 makes you want to enter twice.

Turnout wasn’t as great this year as it had been in the past, but we made the best of it. No significant omens seemed to surface. I was able to place only fifth, first in my age group. The omen streak had let me down. What would Dick do

in my situation? Probably stay open to other omens.

I told everyone who would listen, and a few

High-Quality Time on the Road Can Be the Ultimate Bonding.

Editor’s Note: For the last half-dozen years, legendary runner Paul Reese has graced the pages of the January/February issue of this magazine with a lengthy feature article. Several were on his efforts to run across every state in the United States. Some were ruminations on the effects of aging on running. Others reflected Paul’s upbeat attitude toward life in general and the running life in particular. Unfortunately, Paul died on November 4, 2004, of complications in the wake of heart surgery. He was 87 years old. We weren’t about to let him get out of the obligation to write his annual story for our January/February issue, though, especially since to us Paul is still very much alive. So we asked Paul’s wife and life companion to write a story about their trip across the country and to pick a couple of chapters from Paul’s next book so we could keep his spirit alive for our readers at least one more year. She was agreeable. This is her story—and Paul’s. They were that kind of a team.

ometimes when we reminisce, I’m not sure we were on the same trip, I saw things so differently.

You’ve probably already read some of how it was for Paul. I’ll tell you how it was for me. Many times the first question I get from folks is: “Wasn’t it boring? How on earth did you find something to do all day?” Well, just let me tell you!

Before we left on our trip, I made the decision to keep the motor home as close as possible to a real home rather than a “camping-out” home. This meant sheets, blankets, real dishes, pots and pans, and baking ingredients. I packed our 21-foot motor home full. Plastic bags of flour, sugar, and spices were stored under the built-in double bed. I had another large cupboard, which I crammed full of all kinds of canned goods and other items needed for cooking. We had a nice little refrigerator that ran on propane as well as electricity, so I kept the fridge full, too. I mention the propane, in that electricity was seldom available and we didn’t have a generator to make our own.

» Paul and Elaine start their run

across the United States. ‘ Sprinter ““Massane

You need to understand how I perceived my role in all this. I felt that providing acomfortable home and nourishing food—all part of a total pit-crew service that also included taking on all the worrying about motor-home maintenance, gasoline, water, mailboxes, garbage, dump stations, grocery shopping, and map reading—would help Paul direct all his strength into completing his run.

SEE THE USA—THREE MILES AT A TIME

I lived in a mobile cabin and moved it three miles down the road every hour while Paul ran 26 miles a day for 124 days. I calculate that I moved my little cabin 1,064 times. This does not count the drives to RV parks, scouting missions looking for overnight parking spots, grocery shopping, and driving back to the start each morning.

Since we were mostly on back roads, I kept my eyes peeled for garbage cans, parking spots, grocery stores, gas stations, propane outlets, places to get drinking water, mailboxes (farmers’ or otherwise), telephones, and laundromats, and I watched the gauges on the motor home to be sure all was well and, of course, the odometer so I would know how many miles we had covered on each pit stop.

You can’t imagine how exciting finding a garbage can or a mailbox can be after 50 or so days out in the boondocks. And I constantly referred to the maps so I could be sure we were on the right road. I learned, after a couple of mishaps, to start asking local people whether the road I was on was the road I thought I was on!

I was up early each day around 4:00 a.m. I got the old-fashioned percolator coffee started on the propane cookstove.

I’d half-fill a bucket with warm water and have a soft-soap sponge bath. Get dressed and get some homemade biscuits or sweet rolls in the oven. Paul would prepare his own hot cereal.

By about 5:00 or 5:30, he would be ready to run. Still dark, I would drive along beside him in the motor home so he could run using the headlights to look for snakes and things. This usually went on for a mile or two. Then he would say “Go,” and I would drive ahead for two or three miles and park the motor home on the shoulder of the road.

Time to wash up the breakfast dishes, make the bed if I hadn’t already done so, and sweep out the motor home. I needed to get ready to do my day’s baking.

When Paul got caught up to the motor home, I gave him coffee and cookies or warmed a sweet roll. I kept food warm on the oven pilot light. This was a way to conserve propane.

A CHANCE TO STRETCH MY LEGS

I would drive ahead three miles and stop. Probably about the last half of our trip, I got into my jogging gear and ran back to meet Paul every morning at around 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. It made me feel good to get out and see the country close up and to get some fresh air and exercise. I also got to visit with him and see how it was out there. This is the only way I could relate to Paul’s perception of our RUNXUSA.

Back home in my mobile cabin, I started the cooking. I made a variety of foods in my attempt to keep Paul interested in eating and to give him something to look forward to at his pit stops. For example, on really cold days I made soup (from a can), but I laced it with chopped potatoes or noodles. Or I might give him chili beans, spaghetti, or beef stew.

On cool days, I made warm vanilla pudding or warm old-fashioned tapioca pudding over sliced bananas or coconut pudding over canned peaches.

I made tons of all kinds of cookies and tons of all kinds of coffeecakes. I made jellyroll, brownies, and even pie. I didn’t have a rolling pin; I used a cold nonalcoholic bottle of beer from the fridge.

On hot days, I had jello with fruit or fresh salad with lemon juice. I even did a couple of milkshakes. I had something yummy at every three-mile pit stop.

This was a lot of work when you consider the primitive conditions: tippy motor home (parked on the shoulder of the road), small oven (one rack with no guard on the back to keep pans from falling into the back of the oven and spilling), no mixer (just good old muscles), no counter space, and 36 gallons of water, which might need to last us up to three days.

While waiting for Paul to show up at the three-mile stops, I did a variety of things besides just cleaning and cooking: I read my Bible every morning, and sometimes I read Colleen McCullough, Louis L’Amour, and a few others.

I bought sewing material in Kansas and made, all by hand, a pretty dress, a blouse, and a purse (which I designed). I made baby clothes for my expected grandchild; crocheted doilies, knitted sweaters, designed pig decorations and

embroidered them on T-towels, and played hymns on the guitar (sung at the top of my lungs, especially on Sunday).

Sometimes I fooled around with the motor home, added water to the RV battery, washed windows, added oil, and so forth. I practiced parking the motor home at each pit stop.

I got real good at backing onto narrow culverts that cross the roadside ditches in Colorado and Kansas. Paul always said I’m a frustrated truck driver from Idaho, and I’m sure he was right.

DOIN’ DYE ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

Once, since I was at home in our RV no matter where it was parked, I dyed my hair on the road shoulder. I worried that a highway patrolman might stop and ask if I had a problem. “No, I just stopped to dye my hair.”

When a store was available, I stopped and bought a few groceries. Discovered nonalcoholic beer. Loved it. I felt so wicked drinking a beer at 9 o’clock in the morning.

During the day, Paul and I would discuss RV parks so I knew where we were heading to spend the night. Many times, there were no parks within driving distance, so we made do in roadside open spaces.

When we were in the parks, we had hooking up the RV down to a science. Once that was done, we headed for the showers. I usually had dinner partially started. After my shower, I dove into making a very substantial dinner: salad, main course, veggies, bread, and dessert. Paul started transcribing notes from the tape recorder he carried with him all day. We ate. I did up the dishes, turned the bed down, and tucked him in bed.

If there was no laundromat available, I did hand laundry and cleaned the RV for the hundredth time. Hung the laundry on a long stick Paul had put across the front of the RV to keep his running clothes containers from falling on my head when I was driving. By that time, I was totally exhausted and jumped in bed to read a little and fall asleep. I’m sure I was in bed by 7:00 p.m. every night, and sometimes earlier.

If you were to ask me for some highlights from the trip, I would have to remember the pitch-dark morning that we went out to unhook the RV and came face to face with a family of skunks. I drew on something a high school teacher had told me years before: “Skunks won’t spray unless they are cornered.” So I shooed them away. “Get out of here skunkees, shoo, shoo, get back in your hole.” They apparently lived in the culvert right beside our RV. To my surprise, the skunks ran back to their hole and climbed in, sat, and watched us unhook.

Another incident was when a humongous mother pig (wild with big teeth and a hairy tail) walked right by the motor home leading her family of little piglets. She was rooting and snorting and mothering her babies. As it happened, Paul

was at the motor home for a pit stop. Needless to say, Paul waited until she left before he continued his run.

I’ll never forget the kindness of the farmer in Utah who drove through galeforce winds 17 miles each way to bring us fresh asparagus out in the middle of the desert— the wonderful aroma of steaming asparagus in the motor home early the next morning. Sun was shining and birds chirping!

Crossing the Mississippi bridge at Helena was exciting. I had not seen the Mississippi except from the air, and to actually drive across (while they were doing some reconstruction and it was reduced to one very narrow lane) was exciting for me. The slightest breeze affected the steering on the motor home. The lane was so narrow I couldn’t take my eyes off the road long enough to check the mirrors to make sure where my wheels were. All I could do was pray there would be no wind. God was with me and I made it.

TAKEN OVER BY KUDZU

In Mississippi, the kudzu vine was impressive. I had never seen anything like it before. The natives call it kudzu monsters. If you don’t know what it is, it’s like our ivy, only very strong and very fast growing. It covers trees, bushes, cars, houses, trash piles, everything, and takes on very eerie shapes. It kills the host plants and trees.

Memories of the black folks I met in the backwoods farmlands of Mississippi will be with me forever. I was scared spitless to go up to this old run-down house and say hello, but since I was parked in front of their house, I felt they were owed an explanation, so I gathered all my courage. The folks were warm and friendly to me. I explained about our run, and one of their neighbors took off in his old beat-up pickup to spread the word to other people living along the road. Paul said I was his unofficial PR person. He found it quite embarrassing.

Of course the all-time high was crossing the bridge onto Hilton Head Island and knowing we could crawl in from there. If Paul could just keep from getting hit by a car, I knew we had it made.

I enjoyed seeing the country and the differences in the sky. I have always enjoyed clouds, thunderstorms, rain, and such. We got plenty of it. Every early morning (still dark) when we started out, I wondered what the day would hold. Even though both of us became exhausted toward the end, I expected, with God’s help, we would make it. He didn’t disappoint us. When we put our fingers and toes in the Atlantic Ocean, I had a really hard time believing my job was over. It took me a number of days to unwind and let Paul have a voice in managing our return trip.

Ihave to agree with Paul: it was an experience I wouldn’t trade for a million dollars, and the memories will be with me for the rest of my life.

A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing. —Herman Melville

Chapter 5 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Down the Road

The American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, best known for his dramatic poems concerning the people in a small New England village, was asked if he thought his sense of humor had lengthened his life. “I think,” he replied, “my life has lengthened my sense of humor.” Be that as it may, humor sometimes injected into our day as the result of some incident or situation on the road enlivened the day.

I was the centerpiece of one such incident in Connecticut. Leaving the motor home just after a pit stop, I was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants. As soon as I stepped outside, I noticed that the temperature had gone up and the sweats were too warm. Eager to get started, I hurriedly peeled off my sweats and tossed them in the motor home.

Thad gone only 20 yards when I noticed people in a passing car pointing to me and laughing. At the same time, I heard Elaine frantically tooting the horn of the motor home.

I stopped and yelled: “What’s the matter?”

“You forgot something,” she replied.

“What’s that?”

“Your shorts!”

Good Lord, I could hardly believe it, but all I had on was my T-shirt and jock strap. Until this incident, my highest degree of indecent exposure had been an open fly. With this incident, the degree of exposure graduated. But, then again, so with advancing age have the incidences of an open fly.

Then there was the time in Mississippi when a couple of friendly black farmers, curious about what I was doing on the road, stopped their pickup to talk with me. After I told them, I suspected they might be questioning my sanity. But instead, they were spreading the word, because by the time I had gone another mile I saw six black people on the roadside waiting for me to appear.

They yelled, clapped, and cheered me on. Same thing happened in another half mile. By the time I reached the next pit stop, which happened to be by a country store, 25 people were on hand to greet me. Turned into a real celebration with clapping, yelling, and exchange of some good-natured banter. I felt like a politician because everybody insisted on shaking hands with me when I took off for the next three-mile leg.

WHAT A SMALL WORLD

Sometimes we got a laugh from a story told by someone we met. Case in point: At an antique shop in Arizona a little old lady, seeing that I was a runner—how could she miss with me in shorts, T-shirt, and Reeboks?—told me, “You know, when I lived in California, we had this fellow who ran by our house and he looked like Jesus Christ.

“Well, one day a lady friend of mine was visiting me about the time this runner usually came by. So I went to the window to look for him. Watching me, my friend asked, ‘What are you doing?’

“T told her, ‘I’m looking for Jesus Christ.’ Honest. You could never believe the expression on her face. She thought I had flipped out. I don’t know what would have happened if he had showed up.”

It was doubly funny to Elaine and me because we knew the very runner she was talking about and he did look like Jesus Christ.

One day in Mississippi, Elaine was on one of her public relations campaigns, telling people along the way about our venture. When I came along, people were standing by the road waiting to see the 73-year-old man who runs. The climax of this came about when three guys went out of their way “to see what the 73-yearold wonder boy looks like,” to use their words.

I was beginning to feel like an oddity, especially while in the motor home enjoying a snack when these three guys returned with a friend. Without knocking, he opened the screen door, stuck his head in and said, “I just got to see what you look like.”

We had a situation in Arkansas that could have had a tragic or comic ending. One morning when Elaine and I came out at 4:30 a.m. to unhook our motor home, five skunks were gathered by our rear tires. We were within two or three feet of them before our flashlights revealed their presence.

Elaine yelled, “Get out of here, little skunkies. Go on! Get back in your hole. Shoo, shoo!” Magic words because, tails arched, they all retreated to a culvert. Elaine and I had a few laughs over the silly commands she had given. Had the skunks sprayed us, the experience would be labeled a tragedy.

After crossing a few states, we became aware that there is a joke book for just about every state. The North Dakota Joke Book is typical. Here is a gem from it: “Why does every North Dakotan shoe have ‘TGIF’ stamped on it? It’s a reminder that ‘Toes Go in First.’”

A UNIQUE PRIZE

Going through local areas, we often learned about amusing happenings. A good example: in Connecticut we learned about the door prize for the winner of a

Father’s Day drawing at the professional baseball game between the Alley Cats and the River Rats. The prize: a free vasectomy!

Sometimes the humor was as simple as a sign. When we registered at the Pondera RV Park in Montana, Henry, the 70-year-old proprietor, handed us a sheet of paper and said, “These are our camp regulations. Please read them.”

What Elaine and I read was this: ““Pondera Travelers’ Park. Free water, fresh air and conversation, and special areas to watch the grass grow. Please stay on the gravel, or you will bury your vehicle in mud.

“Good spot for UFO observations, no trees. For you first-time patrons, we offer two seasons—winter and August. In summertime, we farm and make love. In the winter, we can’t farm.”

One day in Wyoming when Elaine and I were enjoying a pit stop, a highway patrol officer, red lights flashing, pulled up behind the motor home and parked.

“It’s your job to go out and talk with him,” Elaine told me.

Excited a bit by the flashing red lights, I dashed out of the motor home, approached the officer, and, unthinkingly, said, ““What’s your name?”

The guy had a good sense of humor because his reply was, “I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.”

Parked alongside the road as she often was for pit stops, Elaine received frequent attention from highway patrol officers who stopped to find out if there was any trouble with the motor home or if she had a problem. Trying to short stop some of this action, Elaine devised a sign that she hung in the back window of the motor home:

NO PROBLEM

RUNNING ACROSS THE STATE

PIT CREW

The sign worked well, and on some occasions the officer commended her for having it. But one time it backfired. Parked for a pit stop, Elaine saw a hefty guy, late 50s or early 60s, go by in a Buick Skymaster, suddenly stop, and back up to the motor home.

He yelled to Elaine: “What’s for sale?”

“Nothing,” Elaine said. “I don’t have anything for sale.”

“But your sign says you have,” the guy contended.

“That’s not right,” she replied. “It says I’m the pit crew for a runner.”

IN WHAT LANGUAGE WAS HE READING?

“That’s not the way I read it,” the guy said. “It said something was for sale.” Then, in a huff, he stomped back to his car and drove away.

All the time he was referring to the sign she had posted in the back window of the motor home that read:

WE ARE OK

RUNNER PIT CREW

In all our 353 days on the road, Elaine had no problem with highway patrol officers except for one day in Arizona on Interstate 10. Seeing her in the breakdown lane, an officer stopped to ask her what she was doing. When she explained, he told her she could not park there. Following his orders, Elaine stayed out of the breakdown lane and parked in the median. She was on her second median pit stop when the same officer came by, saw her, stopped, got out of his car, then bowed his head and looked to the ground as if to say, “What am I going to do about this?” To Elaine, there was humor in the situation because it was obvious that he was fighting frustration.

Advancing toward her, he said, “In no way, under no circumstances should you park in the median. When you do, we get all sorts of calls about a motorist in trouble. I’ll tell you what you do: go ahead and park on the shoulder, in the breakdown lane, but use your judgment in getting all the way off the road.”

When we went through the town of Sardis in Mississippi, I stopped for a haircut. Doing so in this small town reminded me of a scene in Treasure of Sierra Madre in which Humphrey Bogart goes into a barbershop and comes out with a weird haircut, sort of resembling Moe’s of the Three Stooges.

I had to laugh when I wondered: will I meet the same fate in Sardis? First surprise, the barber was a woman. Second surprise, outstanding haircut. Some days you just live right.

Every now and then, someone we met would say something that generated a chuckle. Like the time I was talking with a young guy, about 30 I would guess, in Arkansas. “You sort of remind me of my uncle,” he said. “He does all kinds of weird things.” Then realizing what he had said, he added: “I don’t mean no harm by that.”

When in combat in the Marine Corps, I learned the value of a sense of humor. I came to understand and appreciate it is good medicine to quell a storm. Likewise, on the road, a sense of humor often came in handy and sometimes sustained us emotionally.

Speaking of coming in handy, here’s a case in point. One day in Massachusetts, when I came into the motor home for a pit stop, Elaine said, “I hear you almost got hit by a truck.”

“What do you mean? I ran out into the boondocks because they were crowding the breakdown lane, and I watched them pass.”

“Well,” she said, “here’s what they said on the CB: ‘That old guy looks like he’s taking a risk. He looks like he’s almost 90 and like he needs a rest. Or maybe a rest home.’”

Then Elaine added, “Love it, love it.”

Courtesy of Elaine Reese

Then there was the time that Elaine heard one trucker tell another. “Whatcha think about that old guy here running for a Mexican cause?” Mexican cause? I’m

still trying to figure that one out.

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. —from “Accentuate the Positive” by Johnny Mercer

Chapter 6

So Who Promised You a Rose Garden?

Fading though my memory is, I can still remember the old soap ads: “Ivory is 99 percent pure.” Or was it 99 44/100 percent pure? Come to think of it, was pure even the word used?

Whatever. The analogy here is that during all our travels, 99 percent of our contacts with people were positive, upbeat. This chapter is about the 1 percent who were negative.

On our U.S.A. run, I had gone across California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado with rave reviews; that is, people were saying nice things about what I was doing as an old man. Thus, when I first encountered some negativism, minor as it was, in Kansas, I was not braced for it.

This happened when I stopped by some mailboxes to tie a shoestring and the local mail carrier drove up. Seeing my T-shirt with RUNXUSA on it, he commented, “RUNXUSA? You’re much too old to be doing that!”

<4 Paul stopping to look good—still in California.

“Like hell I am,” I felt like saying. “Your thinking is all screwed up. Seventyyear-olds don’t belong in rocking chairs and convalescent homes. They can do a helluva lot more than people like you think they can.”

But I said nothing. The guy ticked me off to the point where I just left with no comment. One thing he didn’t know was that he had uttered fighting words that would carry me for another 500 miles.

Actually, the Kansas mailman was kind compared with a farmer in Illinois. Seeing me, the farmer, who was standing beside his tractor, came to the edge of the road to ask, “Does that shirt mean what it says?” He was referring to my Tshirt with “Running Across All 50 States” printed on it.

“Yes, it does,” I replied, “but at this point I think ‘jogging’ might be more appropriate than running.”

“Why in the world would you want to do a thing like that? It seems like a waste of time to me.”

“T guess the main reason I do it is because I enjoy it.”

“Well,” he said, “to each his own. It just seems like a big waste of time to me.” Then he added: “Especially at your age.” And with that he climbed on his nearby tractor and drove off.

I was left with the impression that this guy was weaned on a pickle.

A DOSE OF GUILT IS COMING

Trudging through downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, I was stopped by a guy telling me, “I saw you coming down the sidewalk and I noticed your ‘Running Across All 50 States’ T-shirt.”

The guy was standing in the entry to a jewelry store. He reeked of prosperity. Expensive-looking clothes, tassel-adorned and highly polished loafers. He was smoking a cigar. I judged him to be in his mid-30s and desperately in need of some exercise.

“Well,” I replied, “you also probably noticed I wasn’t moving very fast.”

He said, “Well, I was thinking if you’re really running all the way across the state, you must have come from some place in the east near the Delaware River.”

“Oh, no, not quite,” I told him. “I’m just running east to west from the Pennsylvania/New York border on Highway 430 to the Ohio border near Conneaut. Only about 45 miles, and most of it is on Highway 20.”

To this he remarked, “I don’t think I’d consider that across the state. It’s only across a small part. ‘Across’ to me means the full length or width of the state. Do you shortcut all the states like this?”

“Not really,” I said. “Until this year, I was running the length or width of most of them. Like Kansas, which was 499 miles, or New Mexico, 413 miles. But now I’m taking the shortest route across a state I can find.”

“How come you’re shortcutting them?” he persisted.

“Well, in a nutshell, I want to get across all 50, and I’m not so sure I’ll live long enough to be able to run the length or width of those I have left to run.”

Then he said: “I kind of notice you are getting up in years. I’d guess you’re almost 70. Right?”

“Pretty close,” I replied. Why hurt his ego by telling him he was 10 years off. Besides, 70 rode smoother with my ego.

“Who’s sponsoring you for this?” he asked.

“Nobody.”

This surprised him. “You mean you’re not getting any money? Nobody’s giving you anything?”

“Not a penny.”

“Then how come you’re doing it?” he wanted to know. “What are you getting out of it?”

“By way of an answer, let me ask you, do you play golf?”

“Yeah, but not very good,” he said.

“Why do you play?”

“That’s easy,” he told me. “Because I have a good time. I enjoy it. It’s fun.”

This was my cue to say, “And that’s the same reason why I’m doing this.”

BUT PLAY IS PLAY, ISN’T IT?

“But wait a minute,” he countered, “it’s not quite the same. Golf is play. What you’re doing is a lot of work.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” I answered. “Kind of like sex. Some people consider that work. But most people do it because they enjoy it. And, by the way, these people aren’t paid or sponsored.”

That sex add-on just sort of blurted out, and I was surprised to hear myself saying it. Didn’t hurt, though, because the guy was smiling as he left to follow a customer into the store.

The words that echoed in my mind as I continued to plod through Erie were: “Do you always shortcut states like this?”

Judge, I plead not guilty for all those states that I ran border to border, either east to west or north to south (or reverse directions). But I am guilty of running about a half-dozen states border to border on a diagonal—and in those instances Lam guilty of shortcutting.

As we were taught in the Marine Corps, “‘No excuse, Sir!”

Truth of the matter is, could I now run wherever I wanted, I would return to those six states and run the full length or width across each one. Maybe the guy had a point. At least he has given me a guilt complex. On the other hand, though, what the hell. I was 80 years old when I planned and ran those states, and I had

Courtesy of Elaine Reese

Clockwise from top left: Paul plodding along the highway on a cool day; Paul sporting his “Col. Sander’s” white beard; Paul communing with nature in Wyoming; Paul crossing the North Dakota state line.

no guarantee on my warranty in life. In bare essence, I shortcutted these states for good reason. I wasn’t sure I would live long enough to run them otherwise.

Leaving him, I thought back on how he had focused on the negative of what I was doing, taking the shortest route across states instead of the full width, almost implying that I was cheating. No focus whatsoever on the positive: an old man in a T-shirt and shorts playing kid and covering 17 miles a day on foot. Better get used to it, I told myself, because that will be the attitude of many people. “Sure, he ran across all 50 states, but he took the shortest route he could find across half of them.”

PROBLEMS WITH NEGATIVISM

Got no problem with that, true as it is. The problem is negativism overwhelming positivism, people not recognizing that I was doing this at age 80 and then translating this to lifestyle and realizing that they, too, can be active in their sunset years. I don’t care what they think about my shortcutting states. But I do care a heap about whether they choose to live their sunset years miserably or blissfully. That was the negativism of the jeweler; he did not get the message. By my guess, his sunset years will be in a rocking chair or wheelchair.

Negativism, of a sort not directed at me personally, sank to a low in Evansville, Indiana, when I went by a guy standing by his boat and trailer. Being a sociable soul and attempting to cut the conversational ice, I commented, “Looks like we’re the only ones out and about this Sunday morning. Everybody else seems to be in church.”

I was hardly prepared for the verbal barrage that followed. “I’ve got no use for organized religion. Most of it is built around fund-raising and money matters. Oh hell, in fact, with me it goes way beyond that. I don’t believe in God or an afterlife. I believe you’re put here but once. That is the only show in town and when it’s over, that’s it for you. When the lights go out, you go out.”

Talmost choked on my tongue while restraining myself from saying what was on my mind. I wanted to ask, “If you believe it’s all over when you die, which means there is not accountability for what you do here on earth, what keeps you honest, what keeps you from a life of crime?”

Playing it cool, taking no chance of ruffling him—hey, remember, this guy thinks he is not accountable for actions—I replied, “Yeah, I can understand how you feel. I’m still trying to figure it all out myself.” And after that peaceful proclamation, I ambled down the road.

I’m stretching a bit when I label as negative a meeting in Georgia with three old ladies in a Cadillac. (“Old ladies” is what my friend Ray Mahannah would call them.) But it was negative in that they shattered my self-image.

As they pulled up alongside of me, the driver, taking a cigarette out of her mouth, asked, “How old are you?”

I said, “You guess.” But she was polite and didn’t. So I told her, “Seventythree.”

“You’re in great shape for your age,” she said. “How far have you run?”

I told her I had come from California and was headed for the Atlantic Ocean.

“Oh, you’re pulling my leg,” she replied.

My opening to be a wise guy by saying, “No way, not with your two friends watching.” Instead, ever the gentleman, I replied, “No, it’s true.” Then I told her about Elaine, who was ahead of me. Suddenly, the women in the Cadillac seemed to lose interest and drove off.

AND THEY WERE JOURNALISTS BESIDES

Later, at the next pit stop, Elaine told me that they had tracked her down and had asked a number of questions. ““We want to do an interview for our local paper,” they told her. Elaine also reported that when they had asked my age, it was to settle a bet among them. Appraising me prior to the bet, one of the ladies had said, “He’s an old geezer. He’ll never see 70 again.”

Damn devastating to my self-image, lady.

Printer: Insert Marathon Tours ad