It all started off easily enough. I had a fresh podcast of "This American Life" and the soothing sounds of Ira Glass' voice as I set off on my virtual journey. Even though it was cold and icy outside, it was perfectly comfortable in the fitness room of our housing area.
So I figured I should start out at 6 mph, a flat 10 min per mile pace. Every five minutes, I would increase the pace a little bit, just to keep things interesting. The first piece of the podcast had to do with a guy from Missouri that had been convicted and sentenced to 13 years for armed robbery. The only problem was that he never actually served his sentence. Rather, the prosecutor mistakenly represented to the Judge that he had indeed began his sentence and was not out on bail (even though he was). So, everything seemed to be going well for this guy. He got married, started a family and ran a successful business. He almost got away with it. Ironically, approximately 13 years later, Missouri was going through the process of releasing him. It was only then that they realized he had never actually served any time. So, they sent a heavily armed squad of U.S. Marshalls to his house early in the morning and hauled him in.
I have mixed feelings on this guy. He knew that the State had screwed up. He was guilty and knew that he was only out on a technicality. On the other hand, he had showed rehabilitation. He was a functioning member of society, paid his taxes and was a good father. There seemed little reason to put him away for 13 years at a cost of $20k a year just to exact revenge. Besides, the State shouldered a fair amount of the blame. He wasn't hiding, they knew exactly where he was, they simply failed to come get him. Ultimately the State agreed and released him after a few months. Amazingly, he was picked up on a robbery charge a few months later. However, this time he was innocent, there was video proof that he was not anywhere near where the crime occured. Ultimately he was cleared of that charge as well.
That took me through the first twenty minutes and I was feeling great. I had a couple of miles down and was ready for more. The next piece was pretty lame. It was a short fiction piece that NPR had converted into a "radio drama" It featured a young lady out on a date with a pretty charming guy. Turns out that this guy is a pretty brutal African warlord, but he talks about it all, including the gruesome details inherent in the business of being a warlord, like just another job. The young lady, while taken aback, still goes forward with the date. I think it was well thought out and an interesting concept. The idea that a warlord is a person too, and even warlords may go on first dates where the topic of the absurdity of flour-less chocolate cake is discussed. (Flour is probably one of the healthier things in cake - so are they just bragging that their cake is butter and eggs). Overall, not a terrible segment, but just did not appeal to me.
That one probably took me to about the three mile mark. Three miles is tough, because you have knocked off a fair bit, but in the spirit of Robert Frost, I still had miles to go before I could rest (sleep). The next piece was very short, but good. It was a comedian reflecting on her middle school music teacher. Apparently this guy was pretty laid back and let the kids bring in their favorite records and play them for the class. (Incidentally, I had a pretty kooky guy for music class in middle school - he was big into playing weird music with the lights turned down and just lying on the floor and letting the music "flow" through you - pretty sure he would have passed a bong around if he was just a little bit more nutty). So this lady loved the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and always brought in their records to play. One day, one of the other kids in class asked her for advice on what song to play in class. He had brought his Dad's Rolling Stones album in and she immediately picked the song "You can't always get what you want" I am not a big Rolling Stones fan, but I do know that this song is pretty popular. However, the song is quite long and the first minute or so features what sounds like a children's quire singing the chorus very slowly and at a very high pitch. Unfortunately, for our story teller, the class ended before the song got good. This kid who had asked her for help thought she had played a cruel trick on him.
I think this took me through 3.5 to 4 miles. I almost gave up on the next story. Honestly, I am probably not giving it justice here because I was spacing out during a lot of it. It just seemed that the story teller was trying too hard to make his audience feel a certain way. He told the story of a long cab ride that he took in Israel shortly after his wife had a miscarriage and he learned that his father needed a risky operation due to cancer. In order to stand any chance at beating the cancer, the doctors would need to remove his dad's tongue and larynx. So, this guy is in a bad mood. For whatever reason, he takes it out on his taxi driver who is just trying to be friendly. The issue I had with it is that he never tells his taxi driver that he is not in the mood for talking. He just thinks it to himself really hard. As if this taxi driver is some sort of mind reader! In my opinion, taxi drivers are usually pretty interesting. They are often immigrants to the country, work extremely long hours and have a deep and never ending hatred of Uber! I have no problem chatting with them, in fact provided that they can get me to my destination (see last post) I am generally pretty easy going on them. Not this guy though, he just ends up unloading on his taxi driver telling him to shut the hell up. This is shortly after the taxi driver has told a story of another taxi driver trying to screw his out a few thousand dollars. Our narrator, continuing his theme of being batshit crazy, tells the taxi driver to pull over at a bank and he will withdraw a couple of thousand bucks and give it to the taxi driver. All that the driver needs to do in return is create a scenario where the taxi driver's wife just had a miscarriage and the taxi driver's dad has cancer. What an asshole. I understand that people have different levels of pain that they are dealing with at any given time, but just because one person is going through some tough personal issues does not negate the troubles of others. Also, all this taxi driver did was pick this dude up and talk to him. This guy acted like the taxi driver was somehow responsible for all the bad stuff this guy was facing. I really would have liked to have heard the story from the perspective of the taxi driver. It probably would have been fairly interesting - something about making small talk with a dude and the guy completely losing his mind! I have spent enough on this, but ultimately there was some crap about the taxi getting hit with a bomb or involved in a traffic accident (see how little I was paying attention here) and the guy in the taxi not wanting to tell his Dad, so as not to worry him.
I was really hoping for something good, and NPR did not disappoint. The next segment dealt with the non-fiction story of the meat shortage in the US in the early 1900s. These two guys, incredibly smart and innovative men, came up with the idea of introducing hippopotamuses as a food source. It was actually pretty brilliant, because hippos could live and graze in land that was totally useless for cattle or other livestock. The other issue they could address is there was an outbreak of a particularly invasive plant in the wetlands at the time and the hippos could turn that into meat. While on its face it seemed crazy, it really wasn't. Most of the meat we currently eat (sheep. cattle, chickens) are not native to North America, we have just been eating them for so long that we don't consider them imported. Interestingly, the guy presenting the story seemed to think if they had e-mail and faster communication, it may have worked. Because both of these guys were constantly travelling, they were forever sending letters that were crossing in the mail. One of the guys went on to great success and both Yale and Stanford wanted his papers, as I am sure they will want this blog! Even then, many years later, he still believed that it was a good idea.
So ended the podcast, but not my run. I had hit six miles and was pretty much wiped. But I wanted that last mile. I had to reduce the speed to a pretty pathetic pace for a couple of minutes to get my second wind, but eventually it came and I was able to power through the last mile!
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