The Boston Marathon

To recognize that today is the 119th running of the Boston Marathon, I offer the following attempt at humor. This piece was originally published in my blog Purple Prose almost five years ago and has received mixed reviews ... some find it very funny ... some are offended. I apologize to any of you who are offended, but please note that, in the end, Rosie is honored for her courage.

(stock photo)

Rosie Dispozishen laced and re-laced her sneaker as she edged closer to the starting line of the 53rd Boston Marathon. At this time, the departure point of this increasingly-famous race was not a very big berg ... only about 4,000 souls. However, on Patriots’ Day every Spring, it more than doubled in size as runners from around the world assemble there for this great grandmother of all long-distance races.

Rosie knew that she was in for a tough race. She had competed against all of her low-number rivals at least once before and fully realized that they had the tremendous edge ... they all had two legs. Not that one leg hadn’t served Rosie well in the past. She and her two-legged partner, Butch Dykstra, had won almost every three-legged race in the country. She also did extremely well in foot races as opposed to feet races. But two legs just always seemed to work out better in a marathon, and Rosie knew that her work was cut out for her. So she sidled up to the starting line by leaning on, and then elbowing out of the way anyone who showed her the slightest sympathy. By the time the gun sounded, a beaming Rosie was leaning on her crutches in the front row of runners, somewhat incongruous with her four-digit seeding number pinned to her chest.

The race was on! Rosie quickly dropped her crutches and bounced along on one leg for about a mile before she could go no further in that mode. Then she plopped to the ground and started rolling. Since all the other runners had, by this time, passed her by; this was not the hazard it otherwise might have been. Other than making her extremely dizzy, this method of propulsion was relatively untaxing for Rosie. She had progressed for about another half mile this way before she rolled onto her rump and, putting her arms behind her, began to crab walk. However, her vertigo was, by then, so advanced that she waddled around in circles for a full five minutes before she was back on the bee-line toward Boston (where the race winner was just then crossing the finish line).

So it went for Rosie, alternatively springing forward on one leg, then rotating her torso, and then crab walking. By night fall she had reached Framingham and had acquired a police escort lest she be run over in the dark during her supine or prone race phases. And by early the next morning, a scratched and bruised Rosie was bouncing her way through Wellesley, almost unnoticed by the college coeds on their way to class. Then, she delayed rush-hour traffic in Newton for about two hours as she tried to revolve her way up Heartbreak Hill ... but kept rolling back down. Finally, around eleven PM that night, almost 36 hours after she had crossed the starting line, a thoroughly battered and humbled Rosie finished her most grueling marathon. However, by then she had been noticed by the press and the public. She was said by many to have had more courage than even Amelia Earhart.

And so to honor her one-legged spunk, the small town at the start of this great race rechristened itself as “Hopkinton.”

© Copyright   George W. Potts

An Autobiographical Snippet

from another one of my blog sites: Purple Prose:

The Old Man

I was sleeping in my grandparents’ sewing room. It was a small room at the head of the stairs and beside their only bathroom. My grandmother had moved her old treadle Singer sewing machine away from the back window which overlooked her flower-laden back yard and installed a fold-out bed for me in its stead. My sister and mother shared the front bedroom as we had recently moved in with my mother’s parents.

My mother had left my stepfather, Sarsfield (Sarge) Burns, after about three years of marriage. I, at the age of twelve, wasn’t entirely unhappy about this development despite my new cramped quarters. Sarge (I never called him Dad) was not a good father or even a mediocre stepfather. He adored my mother and older sister. But he treated me with total indifference other than to use me as a gofer and a grunt. This included lugging bushel baskets of dirt around to fill in holes in the front lawn and fetching his Corona-Corona cigars from the drugstore about a half mile away. No, I didn’t really miss my life with him.

My new bedroom had, to the right of the entry door, two large built-in closets containing my grandparents’ mothballed clothes. Above them were two smaller built-in storage cabinets holding, among many sewing notions, at least a dozen large tin containers of A&P black pepper. I was curious about this hoard until my grandmother told me that, during the war, black pepper was hard to come by. I assumed that she was referring to World War II. This room also had a side window which looked out onto the next-store house across a small dark walkway. It couldn’t have been more that ten feet to this modest home of the Trouts and I could see into its back bedroom like it was an ell of off my own little room. Since their house was shorter than my grandparents’, I looked into this room from behind and above at a slight angle.

My mother, my sister and I stayed with my grandparents for about six months and, throughout I had a clear view into the Trout’s lighted back bedroom. And for this entire period it seemed that nothing went on in this room other than an old man sitting on the edge of his sagging bed that had been pushed against the back wall. I assumed that this sad sack was the father of either Mr. or Mrs. Trout, but since I never saw him outside in their company, I could not be sure. He was a rather gaunt soul with a bit of a paunch, an angular face, and usually, a stubble of whiskers. He sat on the edge of this bed, generally in his gray wool pants, suspenders down, and an old-fashioned armless undershirt, staring at the wall. That’s all I really ever saw him do there -- stare, with a haunting hollow gaze, at that floral wallpaper on the opposite wall. Actually, this is not quite true. He did from time to time hack up some phlegm and spit it a dirty old rag that he held on his knee. Then he went diligently back to his task of trying to stare the budding flowers into bloom ... or the perched birds into flight.

This scene repeated itself over and over -- early morning, late night, or even if I was in my room in the afternoon. He just sat there, staring ... hardly ever moving. Often I would force myself to stay awake late into the night to see something happen. But it never did. A few times I did see him go out of the room presumably to the bathroom, but that seemed the range of his physical activity. He sat there staring ... staring until I thought that he must be mad. Of course, there was no way to know what he was thinking, but I would imagine that he was reliving his life in the foreground of that wallpaper ... dancing, going to war, getting married, playing baseball, harvesting wheat, whatever. He just sat and stared until my grandma’s backyard garden had faded and we had moved away.

And so, while still quite young, I had learned a serious lot about getting old.

© Copyright, George W. Potts

Over the River ...

I have another blog that features my short prose efforts ... usually with an unexpected twist at the end ... both fictional and semi-autobiographical ... see: Purple Prose.  Here is an entry I wrote some years ago dealing with a fictional Thanksgiving:

The five of us arrived at Grandmother’s house after a long, chilly drive in Uncle Bill’s old Packard. His over-sized gray sedan smelled of damp mohair and the allspice, mace, and cinnamon that infused the steam seeping in from the pie basket in the trunk. In this hamper were three plump pumpkin pies, a cardamom-mince pie, and two zesty lemon pies with their alpine-high meringues dotted with caramelized sugar drops, all packed in among four dozen yeasty, poppy-seed dinner rolls. We also carried bouquets of the last of the brilliant fall asters and multi-colored maple leaves. Greeting us at the door were most of rest of Grandma’s and Grandpa’s issue and a few neighbors; 22 in all, beaming and chatting with growling stomachs.

We doffed of scarves and greatcoats and were given hot mulled wine or a Bourbon Old Fashion, according to our taste. Scattered around the den and kitchen were the hors d’oeuvres: butter-tender Schmaltz herring in a sweet-sour-cream sauce sprinkled with lots of chopped fresh dill; oysters Rockefeller (saucer-sized and nestling a bed of chopped spinach and a drop of Pernod with a bubbling crust of bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese); mounds and mounds of tender Jumbo shrimp with a sharp horseradish and chili-sauce dressing, crisp celery and carrot sticks with a dip made from butter and blue cheese mashed together and thinned with a vintage port wine; colossal Pimento-stuffed olives; miniature sweet Gherkins; and an assortment of odoriferous cheeses (a runny Brie, a ripe Gorgonzola, a well-aged Gouda, a nutty Emmenthaler, and a creamy Double Gloucester) with lots of crusty French country bread.

After over-sampling this largess and re-acquainting ourselves with each other, we were led into the candle-lit dining room for a family prayer and the object of our sojourn. There on the groaning board were ten chilled bottles of this year’s best Nouveau Beaujolais (fruity almost to the point of a fine Spanish Sangria); a huge cob-smoked ham with a orange-honey-clove glaze over a copious coat of toasty fat; two boned legs of grilled baby lamb basted with its garlic, rosemary, and lemon au jus; a 32-pound roasted capon turkey, cooked to a juicy perfection with its chestnut and sage dressing; and three gravy boats filled with a glistening minced-giblet gravy (made with the turkey pan drippings, arrowroot, and the water in which the giblets had simmered all morning along with celery tops, some carrots and crushed shallots). 

Filling in the voids on this massive table were the poppy-seed rolls, a large chaffing dish of whole cranberry sauce augmented with toothpick-thin candied orange-rind strips and Grand Marnier; Greek string beans (made from haricots vert, an oregano-laced marinara sauce topped with bread crumbs and grated Romano cheese and baked to a nutty crust); golden carrots Vichey (dime sized carrot slices and tiny pearl onions blanched into tenderness and then sauced with a roux made with flour, grated onion, a soupcon of nutmeg, and fresh cream); two casseroles filled with steaming sauerkraut, laced with caraway seeds and nestling fresh baked kielbasa; a watercress, Belgian endive, and avocado salad with its mustardy vinaigrette in a yeoman-sized wooden bowl; and a surfeit of fluffy, butter-and-parsley-topped garlic mashed potatoes.

For dessert, out came all the pies we had brought; a chocolate and vanilla-iced Daffodil cake, a browned and steaming rice pudding studded with currents, candied citron, and dried cherries; a rainbow fruit compote (cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew balls with strawberries, blueberries, Valencia orange slices, and soused with Marsalla and champagne); and steaming pots of Costa Rican coffee and Earl Gray tea. For dessert’s dessert we had pitted prunes that had soaked to a divine softness in Armagnac; the remainder of the pre-dinner cheeses, now surrounded with ripe Anjou pears, Macoun apples, and fresh figs; and, finally, minted chocolate twigs.

We all sleepily threw ourselves into the washing up and, when it was over and done with all the crockery dried and put away; we settled around the roaring fire in the living room with a glass of hard cider or warming cognac. After many war stories, seasonal songs, and familial antidotes, we pulled on our weather clothes and re-entered the old Packard. Following lots of thank-you’s and echoed good-byes, Uncle Bill pulled from the curb with a short toot of the oogle horn. On the way home we all fell into a deep, high-blood-sugar and L-tryptophan induced sleep. Unfortunately, this also included Uncle Bill ... who consequently drove off of the road at over 60 MPH ... directly into a bridge abutment. Contented ... and with full bellies of Butterball ... we all instantly perished in a Thanksgiving fireball.

© Copyright, George W. Potts