Good and Bad Day on the Trail
Distance Up, Speed Down

Today's ride was 43.2 Km on the W&OD trail from Purcellville to the 30.0 mile marker and back. Outbound, that is away from Purcellville, the trail has a slight slope down, which steepens slightly before arriving at Leesburg.

After a short time on the trail I realized that the wind was going to be helping me on the outbound leg. As a result I was zipping along at better than 24 kpm, then up to 32 kpm for the steeper downhill run into Leesburg. My enjoyment of the brisk pace was moderated slightly by the knowledge that both wind and hill would be working against me after I turn around.

Certainly that proved to be the case. At the turn I took a several minute break for a snack and some Gatorade, and have a chat with one of the Loudoun County Sheriff Deputies who ride the trail "to make people feel safe." I had arrived at the turn around about 53 minutes after leaving Purcellville. The return trip took about an hour and eighteen minutes with the labor of bucking the wind and climbing back from Leesburg. Altogether it led to an overall speed of 19.6 kpm. As a result my average speed for the four stages (such as they are) dropped to 20.4 kpm.

Over in France the boys had their Team Time Trial today - first since le tour 2005 - and logged only 39 Km. So, I decreased their distance lead by 4 Km, a nearly insignificant gain. And completely meaningless when we take speed into account.

Stage 3
Dave Falls Farther Behind

Today my distance was 27.2 Km, for a total of 74.4 Km. Time on today's stage was 1:07:30, which results in an average speed of about 24 kpm.

The boys in France finished at 5:01:24. About 30 Km before the end there was a 27 rider break away - if you can call such a crowd a break away. That lead group, which included Lance Armstrong, but neither Alberto Contador nor David Sackrider, beat the next group - the peleton had pretty much shattered into four groups - by 39 seconds. A very exciting sprint finish went to Cavendish, the second consecutive stage win by Cavendish.

Quite a wonderful stage.

Tomorrow don't expect me to lose too much distance since the team time trial (TTT) is only 39 or 40 Km.

Stage 2
The peleton leaves me in the dust

Today Hiroko and I took a mild little ride around town, logging 20.8 Km in one hour and 25 minutes.

The boys in France piled up 187 Km - catapulting past my two stage total of 47.2. I won't be seeing them again until they are enjoying a good meal back in Paris.

le Tour Begins
Here we go! le Tour de France begins today and concludes in Paris on the 26th of July after the riders have logged about 2,200 kilometers.

It has never been my dream to ride le tour. I've come to enjoy the sport of team bicycle racing too late in life for that. By the time I figured out how interesting this sport can be I had matured into a degree of realism that kept me from having the ultimate dream.

However, I had enough dream left in me that I asked Hiroko a few days ago how far she thought I could ride on the 21 days of le tour's stages. She quickly replied, "70 miles."

I was stunned! Only 70 miles! Had she forgotten who she was talking with? I've ridden that far in one day just four years ago.

"I'll go at least 300 Km," I told her. And now I've told you.

So we will keep track of my accumulated distance over the next three weeks or so and see if I can meet my goal of 300 Km in 21 days of riding.

This morning, the day of Stage 1, my distance was 26.4 Km, which took 1 hour and 6 seconds. The riders on the tour will ride only a 15.5 Km today, but they'll do it at much faster paces than I did mine.

Update: The Swiss rider Fabian Cancellera won Stage 1 in Monaco with a time of 19:32, at an average speed of about 46 kph - considerably better than my 26 kph.

Trainwreck 2009
Once again, no casualties

The Winchester Little Theatre Trainwreck 2009 pulled into the old depot right on schedule Saturday.

Once again my sister Ann and I participated as a directing/writing team. On the drive from my house in Round Hill to the theatre for the auditions I told Ann very truthfully that I had no, absolutely no idea what I would write. This was in part because the spirit of 24-hour theatre would dictate no advanced preparation: and in another part because I had spent the previous night with a toothache unmatched by anything in my experience. Sleepless and still in considerable pain throughout Friday I hadn't had one coherent thought about the upcoming show.

Following the post audition dickering Ann and I joined up with the following cast members:

Brittany Rathman, John Chesek, Theo Ollison, and Michael Cordero.

We had worked with Michael in last year's production. The other three were, I believe, total newcomers to the Winchester Littler Theatre world.

After abbreviated greetings and goodbyes we writers (myself and four others) were left to our devices (laptop computers and lots of donuts and cookies) to see what we could craft in the next twelve hours. My first attempt took me two hours to get just about nowhere. About 11 PM I scrapped that and started over.

Surrendering at last to my discomfort I let my toothache have its way and the result was "Four: A Play." In this absurd little three-act for four actors we watch the boundaries between imagination, rehearsal, stage and life wobble then shift, disappear and realign. Under it I hoped to point to an awareness of intentionality's source - the actor, the director, the author, as they represent the overlapping roles we play in our non-staged world.

As was the case last year, when the casts and directors returned to the theatre on Saturday morning the real magic began. Ann maneuvered my script and our actors into something that became worthy of presentation on a stage. Probably the biggest reason I went into this crazy endeavor again was to watch her do this, hoping to learn what goes on in such an amazing process. I don't think I learned much this time either. My awe at her ability, however, has grown.

Throughout the day Brittany, John, Theo and Michael came closer and closer to the Millie, Ed, Martin, and Bob my toothache channeled for me the night before. They all worked hard, for which I am very grateful. While writing is very much a part of my everyday life, acting is something that these four adventurers do only rarely. The dedication they poured into giving flesh and voice to my ideas makes me feel exceptionally fortunate.

Finally, at about 8:30 PM our little play took to an audience.

And ten minutes later is was all over. Except for the happy memories.

I want to thank Pat Markland and all of the rest at Winchester Little Theatre for opening their stage to our band of actors, directors and writers. There is also a debt of gratitude to be paid by mentioning the other writer/director pairs: Jessica Coleman & Becca Parker; Aaron Trompeter & Joey Thorne; Jerry Tracy & Roxie Orndorff; Jan Kirby & Paul Bailey. Without the commitment of these eight there would have been no place for the two Sackriders to do what we enjoy so much.

And of course, all of us are lucky to have found an audience still hungry for the excitement that live theatre provides as nothing else can.

During my participation in this event I learned something - in addition to the importance of flossing - that I'd like to share with you:

Whatever it might be, put something in your life through which you can find as much fulfillment, excitement and joy as we have found in our adventures in 24-hour theatre.

A Question for You
I am not saying this would have been a good thing, or not, but if we had elected Mike Tyson instead of George W. Bush in 2002 (not that we will ever know if we actually elected George W. Bush in 2000) would he have bitten the ear off Osama bin Laden?

I actually don't think that he would have. And I base this on my belief that Tyson would not have been more successful than Bush in leading the capture of bin Laden. I think that Tyson's response to the CIA briefing about bin Laden wanting to hit the American homeland would have been quite close to Bush's.

On the other hand, I think that after a meeting between Putin and Tyson it would have been Putin who would have said, "I looked into Tyson's tattoo and I'm scared."

Andrew McCarthy is Torturing Me
On May 19 Andrew C. McCarthy wrote a piece for National Review Online in which he asserts that two Republican congresspersons made a fool of Attorney General Holder in a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Holder, according to McCarthy, does not know the definition of torture or he does not mind misstating it.

Figuring prominently in the questioning cited by McCarthy was the issue of whether the Attorney General's assertion that "water boarding is torture" means that the people conducting water boarding demonstrations on certain groups of military trainees are committing torture. Holder said this was not torture in response to the matter being raised by the congressperson. He pointed out that the intent was for training purposes and not to inflict serious bodily or mental harm.

McCarthy jumped on this point, emphasizing that the legal definition of torture is completely based upon intent. In the article he gets into the legal technicalities of general intent and specific intent (a judge quoted by McCarthy made much of this specific v. general intent in a torture case) which may or may not be the significant point that McCarthy makes it out to be. To be torture in the legal sense, the article states, the person performing the act must have the specific intent to cause significant physical or mental harm.

Apparently we should think that regardless of what the torturer does, if his or her intent was to get information rather than to cause harm to the source of the information, the acts which result in harm are not torture. This kind of thinking is sickening.

Regardless how the law and subsequent judicial opinions might define intent and mental harm, the crux of the matter lies in the fact that the victim of torture faces his or her treatment involuntarily. A sailor volunteers to become a SEAL. When made aware of the impending water boarding demonstration the would-be SEAL can opt out or volunteer to continue. What the trainers do in such a case is then not torture and they are not torturers - dangerously sadistic perhaps, but not torturers.

The situation faced by someone water boarded by the CIA or its henchpersons does not have a voluntary aspect. At this point the McCarthy and others willing to spend our tax dollars on torture might say that the victims can opt out of torture by giving up the information that they hold. We are to believe that water boarding or other torturous techniques are never applied when probing for information. The water boarders somehow know the victim has the information in every instance. So in effect this line of thinking would claim that in spite of the documented failures of the CIA in so many other cases, when it comes to knowing who has information that will save lives the CIA never makes a mistake.

And as to intent, the actual intent of the water boarder is to get the victim to say to herself, "This time I am going to die if I don't get them to stop this now." How could this not be mental harm? And what of the several prisoners who died while under CIA or other United States government control? Do possible murderers involved in deaths get a get-out-of-jail-free card because they didn't intend to do harm, regardless of the outcome?

The excuses and disgusting justifications promulgated by the pro-torture crowd are torturing me. And killing our reputation in the world.

Does this ever happen to you?
Brushing my teeth I felt something not quite right in my mouth. No surprise there. I had sort of expected an oddity, and I got it.

I spit into the sink. Out came dozens if not hundreds of tiny balls of metal which I recognized as material from old fillings. Spitting again, two teeth clattered into the basin. Rubbing my tongue around my mouth caused a couple more to loosen and tumble to the sink which was now frothy with bloodstained foam.

It was quite disconcerting.

Fortunately I awoke before calling a dentist.

I assume that my dentist appointment for the following morning triggered this dream.

Happy New Year?

Well, why not?

My initial plan for ringing in the New Year included running withHiroko in the Midnight Run through New York's beautiful Central Park.* Hiroko and I made the trip to Brooklyn for a very enjoyable visit with my sister and her son (read into the exclusion of all other Brooklynites what you will).

Unfortunately the old year ended with an incredible cold snap. At about 7 pm on New Years Eve Hiroko, Ann and I caucused and arrived at the decision to stay in Ann's snug coop instead of freeze our sweaty selves on the return trip from Manhattan. In lieu of the run, we watched the odd spectacle of Dick Clark tell us that Time Square and New Years Eve can't be beat. Can't someone close to him convince him that millions, billions, of people will have a Rockin' New Years Eve even if he stayed home.

Risk - The game of world domination

Say, what?

Ah, I can see that was a rather abrupt transition - almost no transition at all. I'll make up for that now.

Back in my high school days I somehow learned to play Risk, perhaps at Jim Maruniak's house at Grand Forks Air Force Base. And somehow, I got to be pretty good at it, and therefore enjoyed playing it every chance I could. Probably I enjoyed it much more than my siblings, who according to family legend almost never beat me.

My nephew, now in high school, has recently become an avid Risk player with a high win percentage. He enticed us into a game during the afternoon of New Years Eve. The players were Hiroko, my nephew Hudson, his buddy Jake, and me. Fortunately we didn't finish the game. Time was called before any players were eliminated. Hudson and I will have to play again to determine family domination.

What does all of this mean?

Happy New Year

*Rarely do I compose a sentence with such a high ratio of capitalized words.

No Answers Today

I've taken pictures published in The Purcellville Gazette and the Washington Post Loudoun Extra. And yet, I didn't take pictures of the subject of this blog entry. Go figure.

But, the topic of the blog today is not photographs or my camera work or even the Post or the Gazette. It is leaf raking.

So, now down to the business at hand - Leaf Raking

The home I share with Hiroko has lots of grass - lawn grass, of course - about an acre of it. The rest of our two acre property is almost all trees. The fifty acre property behind our house is all trees. Most of the property across the street is, you guessed it, trees. Lots and lots of trees in our neighborhood.

As most of you know, except our readers from the treeless sand dunes of Saharan Africa or Arizona, lawn grass acts as a magnet for tree leaves. It's a well established scientific fact. Thus, our lawn of one acre draws leaves from the surrounding sixty or so acres.

Changing the subject only slightly, today was a beautiful day for being outside, once the temperature rose above freezing. And now getting back to our subject, since I wanted to be outside enjoying the day I thought I'd better rake some of the million or billion leaves still on the lawn.

Out I went, carrying my leaf blower, my rake, my can of gas for the leaf blower and my can of gas for the lawn mower, which I was pushing. I had well used appendages, let me assure you.

I began all of this as the clock struck ten and the frost had almost given up its grasp on our leaves and grass. The grass, by the way, hasn't been mowed since about September and is too long to go into winter safely*. Raking and mowing seemed to be in order, in that order**.

But here's another thing that we non-Saharans know: It's much easier to rake or blow leaves across short grass than it is across long grass. Remember, now, the lawn I had to rake was long. What was I to do?

Here's the plan I came up with: rake a small patch of lawn adjacent to the place where I want the leaves to spend the winter - in other words, some of the wooded part of our community. Once that area is raked clean, mow it. The idea in my mind was that when I move the leaves from the next little area of lawn onto the mowed area it will be easier to move them the last leg of their journey into the woods. So, I spent about six and a half hours raking and mowing and raking and mowing little patches of my yard.

I did a lot of little patches this way, raking or blowing the leaves from a small patch of lawn onto a patch with shorter grass, then mowing the newly cleared patch.

And I would have been among those of you who think, that's the way to get the job done.

However, what I learned is that many many little patches of grass is only a tiny portion of our one acre of lawn. My guess is that I was able to clear and mow about a tenth of an acre in those six hours. I need to do many many many little patches of lawn.

It looks to me as if I've only got about another 54 hours to go on this project. A great reason to hope that I stay unemployed for at least another week and a half.

* I have heard that if blades of grass are too long during the winter the grass is more likely to enter spring with some kind of mold or fungus. I don't know if this is really true, but I am haunted by images of a hyperfungal lawn. This fear keeps me awake at night. Really.

** Why would raking come before mowing? Another thing that I've heard, but can't say I know for a fact, is that if leaves are left on a lawn over the winter the chemicals in the rotting leaves will make the soil too acidic for the wellbeing of the grass. I assume this holds true for tiny fragments of leaves left behind from mowing a leaf strewn lawn. This does not rob me of sleep, but I do get jittery between Thanksgiving and New Year when I drive past leaf-covered front yards.

At Last, Almost

Last night Bob Schieffer came closer than either of the other Presidential Debate moderators to actually moderating a debate.  However, even he couldn't eliminate all of the rehearsed talking points*.

I was very glad that John McCain had a chance to bring up the issue of class warfare as he pandered to Joe the Plumber.  Seems Joe has worked his way from not being able to buy a business to having access to the amount of capital that could buy a business.  McCain has decided to champion Joe's quest to own the plumbing business for which he has worked for many years.  McCain says that by "spreading the wealth around" and perhaps increasing the taxes on some businesses, Barack Obama engages in class warfare.

McCain expects us to assume a few things here: 1) that the business Joe wants to buy has profits of over a quarter of a million dollars per year (otherwise the tax increase Obama recommends would have no effect on the business), and; 2) that Joe has labored for the money to buy the company.

How much does it cost to buy a company that has over $250,000 in profits per year?  It must be a heck of a lot more than a million dollars.  If Joe is a regular plumber, as he was portrayed in McCain's touching "Ode to Joe", how does he come up with that kind of money?

If McCain champions folk like Joe, wage earners who have somehow been able to amass a million or more dollars, and leave the rest of us potential voters to select the Obama-Biden ticket, then I'll be a happy American as November 5th dawns.

But I digress.  I had been writing of class warfare.

What McCain didn't mention during the evening at Hofstra is that the class war is over.  The rich people won.  All Barack Obama is trying to do on behalf of the mass of working people is renegotiate the terms of surrender.

---

*This phrase, "talking points", must be one of the dumbest things to come out of politics in recent years.  I'm not saying that a candidate is dumb for having a list of concepts to discuss or mention whenever a topic nearing one of those concepts has been mentioned.  I'm saying the phrase itself is dumb.

The New Age - Dawning Still

My sister told me today about encountering last week a woman, a self-proclaimed born-again Lexus-driving rabbi, who said she doesn't want to vote for Obama because he is "Muslim," a fact that she just has to believe.

I replied to my sister in some flippant manner, because that's the kind of person I am.

And a moment later I told her, in seriousness, this is probably a basis for optimism.  Racial bigotry, while still a serious concern, is on its last legs.  Many of the people willing to grasp at the straw of Obama's "Muslim" religion are aware that the anti-black prejudice that ultimately dictates their vote is now something shameful that must be hidden.  They are the children of a population that couldn't feel shame about disliking blacks;  the parents of people who will begrudgingly vote for Obama.  And they are grandparents of people who will not even remember who the first non-white president was.

The Winning Lie

Last week the GOP gave us a number of speakers drawing attention to the fact that Sen. McCain supported the Iraq war strategy known as "the surge", and that Sen. Obama did not.  At times their criticism of Obama based on spurning the surge sank to the level of mockery.

Typically the speaker would say something about Obama declaring the war as lost and refusing to support the surge, at which point the crowd would boo loudly.  They would follow this up and receive even louder cheers by saying that McCain supported the surge and now we are winning.  There we find the lie.

The claim that we are winning in Iraq is a wonderful example of political misuse of our language.  Winning, you understand, means being better off in some way, than you were before entering the competition.

About nine months ago, I had a serious car crash.  The Ford Explorer I was driving (not too well, apparently) was totaled when I drove it into a tree.  That impact got its start about one hundred meters away, where I drove over some ice covered by a thin layer of snow at the beginning of a left turn.  At that point I lost control of where the car was going.  My attempts at correction were either futile or over compensating.  The car and I crossed the left lane of the two lane road and nearly hit a fence on that side of the road, but continuing in a nearly straight line we crossed the road and went head on into a tree on the right side.  After the jolt, I was nearly overwhelmed by the sound of the horn blaring and the gunpowdery smell of the airbag propellant.  I was alive and relatively uninjured ~ no hospital visit was required. 

Our nation's experience in Iraq since 2003 has been like my adventure in the Explorer: poorly planned; an ineffective reaction to a precipitating event; involving unexpected results; loud; smoky; and, not fatal (except to the 4100 soldiers who have died in Iraq, and whom we are trained to ignore).

There is no way to win a car wreck.  And there is no way to win a war.  When you drop the first bomb, you are merely admitting that you have lost.

Oh, the one difference between the car crash and the war in Iraq: the tree survived my assault without any apparent harm.

Seen This Movie Before

USAToday has a story in its September 3 online edition about McCain's vice-president pick. In one interesting line, it says, "Palin, 44 and the mother of five, has energy, poise, a down-to-earth manner and a compelling personal story: from the PTA to the statehouse."

Something about that brought to mind another vice-presidential pick who used the PTA as a springboard to political prominence and ultimately disgrace: Spiro Agnew who had run as a reformer in a generally corrupt county prior to being selected by Richard Nixon in 1968.

Of course, Ms. Palin was only four years old at that time and probably does not remember that. And since John McCain was out of the country for all of Agnew's time as vice-president he might not remember it either.

Good luck, Sarah. As you return to private life, I hope you don't carry the stigma of having accepted punishment stemming from bribery allegations as did Spiro.

What?! Eagleton Cost McGovern the Election?

Here I am, watching the Republican Convention in the comfort of my living room, and Jim Lehrer asked Mark Shields to weigh in on the importance of the person selected by a presidential nominee to fill the vice-president slot one the ticket.

Shields blathered on for a while about what a problem Eagleton was for George McGovern.  He mentioned that the number of days that Eagleton stayed on the ticket didn't leave the McGovern campaign enough time to recover from the selection faux pas.  He spoke as though McGovern's choice of Eagleton was the nail in the coffin of his presidential hopes.

David Brooks and Jim Lehrer just nodded along as though nothing Shields said was substantially wrong.

Have they forgotten that Richard Nixon and his staff and supporters, many of them later to serve time in prison, made sure that the fix was in before the primaries were over?  Nixon wasn't going to allow anything to get in the way of a second term.  Eagleton had nothing to do with it.  Had McGovern been able to get Abraham Lincoln to come back from the grave to run with him, John Mitchell and his criminal gang would have prevented even that from having a favorable impact.

Richard Nixon, not Thomas Eagleton, harmed McGovern's campaign.

But even more, and this is what should be mentioned every time anyone speaks of that election, Richard Nixon harmed the people of the United States of America.

Ko-Ru-La Report #1

Is this report tardy?  Certainly!

Which excuse will I use?

a)  The seagull ate it.

b)  I was sick.

c)  I'm on vacation and didn't have to finish my report.

d)  Was the report due this week?

Hmmm.  I'm going to go with "b".

On the drive to the beach last Saturday I got sick, threw up on my computer and found the keyboard entirely too icky to touch.  Because it needed a good cleaning I took it to the beach for a dip in the world's wash basin.  It was there that I saw happy young people fairly skimming across the vast face of the ocean, darting before the crest of each wave.  Their glee, perhaps directed by Satan solely for this purpose, filled my being with a need to join them.  At that point I began using my aging Mac as a boogie board.*

With the conclusion of one splendid ride, my computer, by now vomit-free but soaking wet, was driven by the wave and my exceptional weight into the frothy sand at the ocean's margin.**  At that point, my fever much reduced by the cool salt water pushed southward under the effect Bertha's exhalations, I came to my senses.  I realized in a split second that not only my computer was most likely ruined in this foolish attempt to wash it in the sea, but the entire reason for washing it - a sticky, fetid keyboard - had been one imaginary product of the hallucinatory delirium accompanying my fever.

Yet all was not lost.  The silicon of the sand recognized the silicon of the computer's chips.  In something akin to a professional courtesy the sand bowed out, taking all its briny water and small organism associates with it, leaving my computer as dry and clean as it had always been.  More than could be expected, to be sure, and I am so grateful I won't even attempt to put words to my appreciation.

Naturally, I was not completely cured of the disease that set this whole chain of unlikely events in motion.  Barely had I enough sense to return to the rented villa to which my Hiroko and I had repaired from the muggy atmosphere of the Virginia summer.  Presently I will be released from the Currituck County Jail at which time I must post bond and blog, the latter with the continued explanation of its own tardiness.

I thank you in advance for the patience with which you, my dear readers, will receive the blog, once it becomes available.

*Advice to my readers: Do not wash your computer in the Atlantic when still suffering from fever.

**Physicians of note have commented that phrasing of a peculiarly archaic nature might be a lifelasting reminder of my recent illness.

24-Hour Theatre - Finished
Winchester Little Theater's experiment with 24-hour theatre ran successfully this past weekend: 5 playwrights each wrote a play, starting at about 8 pm on Friday night. Each of those plays was on stage just 24 hours later.

My sister, Ann, and I had a great time casting, writing and directing "My Job Went Where?" We are both so happy with our cast of three - Sylvia, Michael and Som (pronounced as if it were "Shome") - and all of the technical crew who helped get things set up. Playwriting was my assignment, which did take me through the night until about 6 am Saturday. Friday night was the first time I sat down with the intention of writing a play, a fact that would have been more obvious except for my sister. As the director, Ann did a wonderful job of finding and highlighting the good parts of my script and downplaying its faults. She is a darned good director, and a terrific sister.

The three actors in our group did justice to my words. Never have I heard so many of my words spoken by other people, and heard by about 100 people at the same time. Hearing the words spoken by people bringing them to life really made the sleepless night and long day of rehearsal worthwhile for me.

Pat Markland, the production coordinator of the program, couldn't have been more attentive to the needs of the performance teams. He deserves a lot of credit for the success of the evening.

I hope that the other playwrights, if they happened to see me in the audience Saturday evening, can excuse my occasional moments of sleep ~ I was, just like them, totally exhausted by that time.

And most of all, I want to express my appreciation to my dear Hiroko, whose enthusiasm for, and patience with my writing are boundless. I adore her.

Highway 51

Yesterday afternoon the clear sky and warm dry air amplified the call of the highway. Who could resist? The day was perfect for opening the windows and the throttle, enjoying gas while we can still afford it, to take a look at the West Virginia countryside.

Beautiful.

Until you give yourself license to spend a few seconds tuning the radio, lighting a cigarette, picking up a phone call.


Driving a car is not as easy as we have convinced ourselves it is.

Just ask the medical examiner ~ yes, she was needed because of this accident. Sure, three out of the four people in these two cars made it to the hospital. But I heard the EMS tech tell a young man's mother, "He didn't make it." Moments later, after the father arrived, mother and father sobbing in each other's embrace, two women - strangers until today - stroked the backs of grieving parents. The beautiful summer had lost its sun.

Be careful, please. Let the phone ring. Listen to that ad one more time. Let the CD changer do its job. You've got your own job to do.

You are driving a car - and you could ruin a beautiful sunny day.

WINC - 1400 AM
This morning, along with Jerry Tracy, I had the privilege of sitting in with Mike Hamon as he ran his Winchester Morning Magazine from the studios at AM 1400 WINC. Mike was kind enough to let Jerry and me talk about the upcoming Train Wreck at the Winchester Little Theatre.

Mike is a very cordial host - for both his listeners and the guests in his compact studio on North Pleasant Valley Road. He helped this first-time radio guest feel quite comfortable, and he gave Jerry and me a wonderful opportunity to plug the Train Wreck.

Train Wreck, the brainchild of Pat Markland, will be WLT's first foray into the adventurous world of 24-hour theatre. The goal is to create five plays within 24 hours. We will hold auditions, write plays, rehearse, and then perform the plays 24 hours after we started.

Jerry and I are among the five playwrights willing to write through the night of May 30th - each of us attempting to create, before rehearsal starts at 8 am on the 31st, a play that runs ten to twenty minutes . Of course, Friday night I don't expect to get any sleep, but already I've spent a few nights tossing and turning, unsettled by what I've gotten myself into.

One thing gives me confidence: On Saturday morning I'll be handing off my script to my sister Ann, who is coming to Winchester from Brooklyn to direct my play. I can be reasonably sure that the relative superiority of her theatrical training (hers: extensive; mine: zero) will save my bacon come Saturday night when the lights come up on our part of the Train Wreck.

But just in case, I hope that some EMTs will be standing by.

Ouch!
As brief as this clip it, it shows the entire duration of my friend Mike's career as a cowboy.



After this event Mike was able to walk around in a reasonable way for about an hour before requiring an ambulance ride to the emergency room. Fortunately, he got to play out his Cowboy dream without destroying anything too serious.