Huntingdon, 2012

On the middle shelf of the corner hutch in the second floor Margaret E. Baker Room of the Richard Calhoun Baker Guest House on the campus of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, there sit six books. Wedged between Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Make Bright the Arrows and Davis’ Disraeli, stands Hervey Allen’s novel Anthony Adverse. It opens with a quote by Sir Thomas Browne: “There is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though indeed it hath no history of what it was before us, and cannot tell how it entered into us.”

In the beginning was the hill,
And the hill was long and arduous,
A continual rise that never wavered
And grew steeper close to the crest.
The hill was Part One, First Act,
Testing Ground, Ground Zero.
Here was the place
Where harriers were hewn,
The defeated crestfallen.
The hill divided the men from the boys.
Hah!—we all were boys back then,
Young and strong and fast and free.
And now we all are men,
Come home to pay homage
To the hill that broke and choked
And shaped and molded and melded
And burned and turned us
Into what we have become:
Older men, seasoned men,
Wiser men, and yes, tender men.

At the top of Moore Street
Stands stately Founders Hall,
Formerly “The Building,” edifice original
Of Brethren Normal School,
Now surrounded by a score of brethren.
Together they form this bucolic
Ivy League college devoid of ivy:
Swigart, Oller, Brumbaugh, Ellis;
Good, von Liebig, Carnegie, Beeghly,
North, South, Sherwood, Cloister.

Together we gathered this too early spring,
Hooded brethren huddled beneath
Wide umbrellas to ward off the rain,
To witness the thinclads stride
Round the circular track that runs forever.
Parker shattered Bailey’s 3K record
Set a mere two years before.
Woods bested her own by 19 seconds.
Mandley took first in the hurdles,
McCoy the hundred.
While across the field next the grandstand
An ancient yellow willow watched and wept.

Once we were young,
Our faces shone as these faces shine,
Once we dreamt dreams,
Ran hard, set records, slept well.

We have come back to this place,
To this spacetime dimension,
To witness the prowess of young men,
To applaud the strength of their stride,
To marvel at the joy on their faces,
To mourn the passing of their youth.

We have come back to this place
To bear witness of the world beyond its walls,
Stories of success, stories of defeat,
Stories of imperfect journeys
That render life perfect in our minds.
We return to minister to mind-lost mothers,
We come back to mourn fallen fathers,
We come home to bury our dead
And take our place in line.

Spring came a month early this year.
Snowdrops and crocuses, already withered,
Gave way to forsythia and flowering crabapple.
Patches of pink petals adorned the sidewalks.
We arose early and set out for morning coffee,
Sauntering down side streets
Baptized with cherry blossoms.

In the beginning there was the hill,
And the hill, high and holy, still
Rises to rocky outcrops that overlook
The river that courses through eternal time.
At the base of the cliffs along the river
Runs a set of parallel steel tracks
Along which we once in our youth ran
Till our toenails blackened with blood.
Once more we pause at the crest of the hill
And listen for a sacred whistle, long and low.

2012 © Brian T. Maurer

"Crabapple Blossoms" by Brian T. Maurer

Marking the paces

In the ancient Greek economy athletes were runners. Winning the footrace was the coveted prize. Our modern concept of athletics has expanded to include many recognized types of sport; but for runners, running remains the once and future king.

Forty years is a long stretch. Time and chance happen to us all. But the bonds formed between runners in their youth somehow hold firm over the years. There is more to running than speed, stride and stamina.

Such thoughts ran through my head as the notes of Haydn’s Il Distratto flowed from the car radio. Haydn composed Il Distratto — The Distracted Man — his 60th symphony, in 1774. The Heidelberg orchestra performed their rendition while I struggled to keep my eyes on the road.

It had snowed the night before — an inch of slush — and with the morning rain the highway remained somewhat slick. After two and a half hours I hit a fresh snow squall as the car descended the 1272 foot peak and slipped past the sparse grey cliffs along the upper Delaware.

For another hour I drove through swirling snow, slipstreaming behind tractor trailers with the wipers slapping against the windshield. Below Scranton the snow gave way to a wintry mix. I headed west on I-80 past freshly plowed fields, their expansive furrows limed with a dusting of snow.

Further west the mountains rose in the south like fresh-baked powdered loaves laid end to end. Reddish brown tufts of grass mingled with the dirty yellow remnant of last year’s growth along the hillsides.

Finally up ahead a familiar shape rose up from the valley floor — the Nittany Lion resting beneath a brown mountain blanket. I eased into the exit lane and headed south to Huntingdon.

One by one the members of our party arrived. That evening we assembled around a common table at Kelly’s Bar for supper and then trudged up the grassy hill in the cool night air to our rooms at the inn. The talk continued for several hours: back and forth banter, the merits of recently read books, the intricacies of a Bach fugue, and — beekeeping.

One of the more recent graduates — the son of the organizer of our weekend reunion — was slated to run the 1500 meters as an alumnus at the invitational meet the following day. He had signed up for the event but wasn’t sure if he wanted to run. It would most likely be a cold wet day on the track.

“What kind of shape are you in?” I asked him.

“Oh, I’m a great shape,” he said. “That’s not the issue.”

I looked over at his father, a sub-two half miler in his prime. Then I said: “If you’re in great shape, do the run. Never mind the weather. The day will come when you wish you could stay that pace without pain.”

The other fellows nodded in agreement.

He ran the following afternoon, looking strong as he crossed the finish line.

An older fellow appeared at breakfast in the next morning, a former runner from the early 1960s. He attended college to run, he told us. He had a stellar record, winning many races from that era.

This fellow told how the 1963 Middle Atlantic XC Championships were halted just as the starter had raised his pistol overhead. A policeman bounded over the hill on horseback shouting “Stop the race — the president’s been shot!” He held up a walkie-talkie so everyone could hear the shocking news. The race was run later that day, even though a number of coaches elected to withdraw their runners.

After the conclusion of the afternoon track meet we went out for a run up the winding road to the Peace Chapel, a memorial planned by Maya Lin, the same artist who designed the Vietnam War Memorial that stands on the green in Washington, D.C. A light rain had begun to fall as we headed out. Later, back at the inn, we saw the ephemeral blush of a rainbow sweep across the eastern sky.

That evening we gathered at the home of our former running coach for a traditional Smithfield spiral-cut ham dinner. More stories were shared. One of our group — an orthopedic surgeon and his pediatrician wife — narrated a notebook slide show on their medical mission trip to Haiti last summer. Over lemon cake and ice cream another fellow shared his unlikely journey from a geologist in the Texas oil fields to graduation from dental school. Our retired military man gave us his perspective on the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. We talked late into the night. Back at the inn I crawled into bed shortly after 1:00 AM.

Sunday morning we gathered at Top’s Diner for the final breakfast. The beekeeper handed out sample jars of Oxcart honey. I finished a short stack of sweet potato pancakes and took my leave, shaking everyone’s hand in turn.

It was almost like passing the peace at a church service.