Tag Archives: Boston marathon

A Good Life

By Posted in Books, Faith, Howard in the Media, Life Tagged , , , , , 3 Comments

A few months ago a man and I were engaged in a conversation. The talk ranged widely over the man’s new book and mine, over asylum seekers to indigenous health, then to my odd affection for running marathons. We visited the Boston Marathon of 2013 and the bombing that brought the event to a halt before I could reach the finish line.

While we talked like old friends, as occasionally happens with an engaging new friend, we were not alone. An audience of tens of thousands listened to us on local radio. Our conversation was coming to an end when the interviewer paused, mused for a moment, shot me a half grin and said: “Howard, I see you as an idealist, a person trying to do good in the world. So I want you to give me an answer to a question I ask myself every day: ‘How does a person live a good life?’”

The interviewer is an awarded journalist aged about forty, a father of young children. He smiled, acknowledging how his question had flown in and landed abruptly in a chat that had satisfied itself with surfaces. Stumbling, I gave a suitably useless answer. I groped for something wise but not too portentous and I came up with something incoherent.

Two months have passed since the challenge of that question. I realise I did have an answer. I have had it for ages. It is couched in religious terms but you could remove the divinity from it and still retain an essence that responds to my radio host. It comes to me from a fellow who lived more than two thousand years ago who had gathered an audience of his own (rather like a radio host of ancient day). His name was Micah. He distilled his understanding of life for his public, teaching them as follows: He hath shown you, O man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of thee – only to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?

So Foul and Fair a Day

By Posted in Family, friendship, Life, Poetry, Running, Travel Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Howard at the Boston Marathon 2013

Howard at the Boston Marathon 2013

When I solicited funds as a charity runner in the 2013 Boston Marathon I promised to write a report on the race and my donors’ ‘investment.’ The moment the race started I started to compose my report. The mood was light, the crowd a united force of love, the events and sights all affirming a shared humanity. This would be a report of smiles. The serious counterpoint would be the 26.2 long miles.

At 2.07pm the mood changed. After that the playful response would feel profane. But I did promise a race report.

I slept on the matter. The evil was great and real, certainly. Real too was the goodness. Both demand to be written.

***

Does any runner sleep well the night before a marathon? I don’t. To prevent dehydration on race day I drink plenty through the previous day and every cupful demands its exit through the night. I am excited, nervous, a kid before his birthday party. Boston, after all, is to marathoners as Wimbledon is to tennis players. An enormous privilege, unearned by any effort of my legs, paid for in thousands of donated dollars.

The playful mind must be carried by legs that are 67 years old. Some prudence surfaces. The sixty-seven year old prepares methodically. The experience of forty past marathons insists I vaseline my second toes (which always blister), my armpits (which chafe), my nipples (which bleed) and my private bits (none of your business).
To prevent my shoelaces untying over the distance I double knot them: a trivial detail? No, not in Boston, for it was at the start line of one Boston Marathon back in the seventies that the favourite, noting his arch rival’s single-knotted shoes, bent down and double-tied them.

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Overdue Recognition

By Posted in Life, Running Tagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

The time has come

To pay your share…

Taking my cue from the Oils, I have decided to honour my pledge to donors/investors in Pheidipides’ Foolproof Investment Opportunity.

In case this seems obscure to any newer reader, I refer you to the original post, reprinted at the foot of this.

In March I wrote a light-hearted and whimsical (not to mention extremely witty) invitation to contribute to a truly obscure charity in a small town in Massachusetts. My motive was to raise $2000-$3000, which would buy me a place in the field of the Boston Marathon.

Well, you bought me that place. I ran in Boston on 15 April. And I visited the Michael Lisnow Respite Centre before the race. It is hard to know which of the two experiences left the greater impression upon me. (I’ll remind you of how I felt about the race, by republishing Patriots Day 2013 on this blog – a piece I wrote a few hours afterward.)

You, my readers, my investors, my benefactors, raised $5202 for that respite centre. I walked its halls and I read its walls; I met its workers and its clients and its founders. I met people who cannot run, people who will remain forever children; and parents who will age and die before they cease to care for them. And to my surprise and relief none of this was harrowing. I was ambushed by the circumambient joy.

At the finish line a different ambush waited. And in all that horror, all that profound and unreadable human blackness, a kinder light was seen . Somehow I left Boston thinking better of humanity. Your money brought me close to death and into that light.

A few hours after the race I arrived at my niece’s home in Boston. Soon after there was a knock at the front door: a five year old neighbour heard people had been hurt in the race. She wanted to help a runner – any runner. She brought me a plastic cup of water.

No-one makes jokes at airports nowadays. And America’s Homeland Security guys are deadly serious jokers. Anticipating a grimmer grimness at Logan Airport, I allowed extra hours for my departure. But the security guys showed unwonted tenderness, gentled by the bastardry of the previous day.

***
So many of my readers gave so much. If you are one of those who donated fifty dollars or more, I need your snailmail address and a phone number so I can fulfill my promise to send you a copy of My Father’s Compass. Please reply to this post and I’ll contact you to get your address.

One anonymous reader donated $750.00. I promised a signed and inscribed copy of my novel, “Carrots and Jaffas” to the biggest donor. The novel is with Hybrid Publishers as I write, being tamed, tapered, disciplined and beautified into shape. The biggest donor must wait until early 2014 for that signed copy. (A second munificent reader sent three hundred dollars: Jan, you’ll receive a copy of C and J too. Contact details please.)

Earlier Post (5 March 2013):

A unique offer

I write to invite the reader to participate in a remarkable opportunity. It all starts in the village of Hopkinton, 26 miles from Copley Square in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the Boston Marathon, which I will run on 15 April, 2013. My purpose – apart from winning the race and driving the Mercedes home to Australia – is to raise funds for the Michael Lisnow Respite Centre. The who?.

The Michael Lisnow Centre is, briefly put, a place of joy. As you will see.

All told I have run the Boston Marathon three times and I have never won: a clear case of home town favouritism.

I am coming out of retirement to give it another crack this year because the Michael Lisnow Respite Centre has captured my cold old heart. Haven’t heard of them? Neither had I until someone sent me this short short youtube. Have a look at it: http://www.youtube.com/hopkintonrespitetv

Take a peek at “In 2012”

This program, both modest and magnificent, is located in little Hopkinton, the world’s most famous village on this one day of the year. On the remaining 364 days, in perfect obscurity, the miracles continue.

The deal is this: I do the running, you make the cash investment. I am instructed to raise US$5000.00 by exploiting my friends.

Now I expect many of you are reaching for cheque books and credit cards as you read this, wishing to provide the entire $5000.00 yourselves. I invite everyone who feels a pang of delight at the youtube above to make a modest investment.

Although I lack a Securities Advisor License, I believe I am qualified to comment on this opportunity. This is a BLACK CHIP INVESTMENT, something unique, a guaranteed, dead set, one hundred percent secure opportunity. Unlike other funds, shares, projects and speculations, the fate of your contribution is beyond doubt: you will never see a cent of your money again. Neither will the Tax Office get a share of the funds. Nor will inflation chew away at them.

Every penny goes for the care of these kids. Donors in Australia will not receive a tax deduction in return for their goodness. Finally, I undertake to provide donors with an Investment Report after my return from Boston.

All you need to do to say goodbye to your money is to sponsor me in the Boston Marathon.

Time is short: the marathon will be run – as always – on Patriots Day, falling this year on15 April, 2013. Please send your donations directly through this link– http://www.razoo.com/Pheidipides-Foolproof-Investment-Opportunity

It is just possible that I not win the Mercedes, but together we will certainly improve the life of some lovely children and adults.

Help me to help them, please.

Sincerely

Howard (Pheidipides) Goldenberg

Bostonians reach out and turn their goodness on me

By Posted in Life, Opinion, Running, Travel Tagged , , , , , , , 12 Comments

The Boston Marathon is the oldest and most celebrated of the mass marathons. You need to qualify. Twice I qualified and ran. In 2005 I ran again, this time as fundraising runner.

Today’s Boston was to be my fourth. I was running as a fundraiser for the Michael Lisnow Respite Centre. This morning I visited their HQ in Hopkinton, near the starting line. I met people who face their colossally difficult lives with genuine joy. I met the fundraisers who punctuate their serious marathon training by devoting themselves for months to help fund this small enterprise.

Why am I going on at this length about these small matters in the face of the bombings?

You need to be in Boston on Patriots’ Day to appreciate the celebration that is the marathon. A city of less than one million comes to a stop; people take their chairs, their picnic rugs, the treats they will give to the runners; they line the 42.4 kilometres and stay all day, cheering on every runner; they hold banners – everything from “You are all Kenyans” to “Kiss me, I’m flexible”.
Picture Melbourne on Cup Day or Grand Final day without the booze. Boston is high on its marathon and the runners. Patriots Day is the time to enjoy the embrace of the city’s people.

If you have the good fortune to be a charity runner, you run at the tail of the field, feeling that embrace, the surges of love for the people – usually young – who are supporting local causes. One young woman survived melanoma; another is in remission from her leukaemia. I have close relatives saved from those diseases. So, apparently, do hundreds in the crowd who roar their gratitude.

Someone else came to the marathon today with a different purpose than to celebrate. Someone whose malignity exceeds his knowledge: his bombs exploded near the finish around the four-hour mark; in an elite marathon like this, the ‘bulge’ – the greatest concentration of finishers – occurs 30 to 60 minutes earlier. The terrible toll might have been much heavier.

I plodded to the 35-kilometre mark, when a spectator offered me a slice of orange. His kindly young face looked troubled. “There have been explosions near the finish line. The marathon has been temporarily suspended.”

Naively I ran on.

A kilometre further on, I was one of very few still running. Police and runners were mingling on the course, faces dark. Hands held mobiles, sending text messages; local phone coverage was out. Some wept wrenchingly, their features distorted in grief or shock or anxiety for others ahead on the course. Many had relatives waiting near the Line.

The crowds fell quiet. Overhead, helicopters gathered and clattered. Police vehicles racing everywhere, ambulances, sirens shrieking, tore between barriers as the crowds melted out of their path. Not for the first time, the matter of placing one foot in front of another felt slight. Here was immediate danger and evident bloodshed.

Police turned back those of us who were running into danger. I needed to contact family. Strangers handed me their phones. I asked a teenager for directions to a local landmark, where my relatives would be; the teen insisted on escorting me.
As I waited, strangers stopped to offer help. One bloke wanted to give me his jacket so I wouldn’t get cold. Passers by touched me, or took my hand to shake. One gazed at me, shaking his head. “I am sorry,” he said.

Boston silenced, in shock, in grief. Its citizens reaching out to each other in spontaneous solidarity. More than that, people felt implicated in a wrong, embarrassed: their guests had been hurt, frightened, frustrated. They turn their goodness upon me and I feel like crying.

A terrible beauty born.

Reproduced from The Age 17 April 2013.

The Age Boston piece

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