The Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, AL on 12/14/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 26.2 MI

Time: 2:57:31

Place: 2

Prize: $500

∑ Career Earnings: $26,979

 

The Skinny: Nancy Hutchison won. Race Director Harold Tinsley always treated us very well.

 

Coming next time: The Elizabeth River Run on May 2, 1992

The Tulsa 15 KM Run on 11/2/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 9.321 MI

Time: 0:57:09

Place: 2

Prize: $375

∑ Career Earnings: $26,479

 

The Skinny: Nancy Hutchison won.

 

Coming next time: Rocket City Marathon on 12/14/1991

Dayton River Corridor Run in Dayton, OH on 10/13/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 13.1 MI

Time: 1:23:07

Place: 1

Prize: $800

∑ Career Earnings: $26,104

 

The Skinny: Details seem to have vanished in a memory hole.

 

Coming next time: The Tulsa 15 KM Run on 11/2/1991

REVCO 10 KM in Cleveland, OH on 5/19/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 10 KM

Time: -36:21

Place: 2

Prize: $350

∑ Career Earnings: $25,079

 

The Skinny: Priscilla Welch won.

 

Coming next time: Dayton River Corridor Classic on 10/13/1991

Elizabeth River 10 KM Run in Norfolk, VA on 5/4/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 10 KM

Time: 36:05

Place: 2

Prize: $300

∑ Career Earnings: $24,729

 

The Skinny: Nancy Grayson won, again.

 

Coming next time: Revco Classic 10 KM run on 5/19/1991

Sallie Mae 10 KM in Washington, DC on 4/14/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 10 KM

Time: -36:10

Place: 3

Prize: $250

∑ Career Earnings: $24,229

 

The Skinny: Nancy Grayson won.

 

Coming next time: Elizabeth River 10 KM run on 5/4

Shamrock 8 KM in Virginia Beach, VA on 3/16/1991

 (I started writing about Nancy Mieszczak’s 32-year-old races back in 2010. I thought they’d been too much fun to be enjoyed just once; and, maybe just a little bit, I wanted to show The Kids how the Old Folks used to roll back in the days of yore. Anyways, I initially crammed a bunch of her races into one continuing post. Lately I’ve been writing them up one by one. If you’re interested, you can start from the beginning here.)

Distance: 8 KM

Time: -29:16

Place: 3

Prize: $200

∑ Career Earnings: $23,979

 

The Skinny: Decent payday, considering all expenses were also comp-ed. But I apparently recorded no further details. Nancy spoiled us with some many wins, I guess I wasn’t too interested in a 3^rd.

 

But we cashed the check 😉

 

 

Coming next time: Sallie Mae 10 KM on 4/14

Wondering Whether Winners Never Quit

Although born and raised a city boy, I was magnetically drawn to hunting and fishing magazines like “Field and Stream.” But since my dad didn’t grow up a sportsman in the hardscrabble 1930s, my first hunting adventures had to wait until I was older. Meanwhile, I played the sports boys played in the 1960s, and endured my fair share of coaching. Among the hackneyed nuggets passed along to me, one of questionable accuracy has, like crabgrass, been obdurately resilient: “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

I want to see that statement amended.

Late in 2022, I sent my woodcock hunting diary with a note to Ken S. at the LODGH. Part of the note follows:

“My 25 year old ‘honey holes’ really showed their age this Fall. Hunting only 23 of NY’s 45-day season, my pup flushed only 16 woodcock. I’ve been loyal – stubborn? – in hunting these old coverts. But I now believe that if I’m to get my pup into birds, I’ll have to search out new coverts…. sad. But it’s necessary.

I’ve been blessed to have had such good woodcock hunting locally over the last 25 years. So hooray! to the past. But, by Gosh, I’m going to try hard to give my pup a birdy future.”

I know that my down-the-street patch of redbush that’s produced so many woodcock since 1994 isn’t coming back anytime soon. I know this because there’s a house – heck, a whole development – sitting on that ground today.

There goes the (birds') neighborhood

But I still return to isolated patches of cover near there. I enjoy reconnecting with past hunts enjoyed in productive cover with good dogs and good friends. I wrote about that in 2010. But nostalgia won’t help Jake now.

Recently I read an article by Peggy Noonan. I attach a relevant section below:

“Sometimes you have to realize a dream is a fixation, its object no longer achievable because it doesn’t exist.

(Another) story involves Norman Lear, who produced many… television comedies (in) the 20th century… He said there are two words we don’t honor enough. One is ‘over’ and the other is ‘next.’ There’s a kind of hammock between the two and it is right now, this moment we’re sharing. He was saying: Be present. But as he talked, I heard embedded within his words a layer of advice: That it’s actually a key skill to be able to see when something’s over, when it’s the past, not the future; that you have to have eyes that can find the next area of constructiveness, which may take time; and in the time between, the hammock, you must maintain your peace and poise.”

I’m going to recall that paragraph when I try to find whatever’s next for pup and me. I’ll find “peace and poise,” even if not many birds, in what’s left of my beloved local covers. Meanwhile, I’ll redouble my efforts to find new opportunities essential to bringing Jake along.

Maybe “Winners would at times do better to redirect” is a better course of action, even if not better locker room bulletin board material.

How Yellow Perch Can School Us About Social Media

 John Glenn first stepped onto the moon nine months before the Old Duck was graduated from college. This factoid is included here to provide my approximate age, hence to indicate when my values were formed, and to give the lie to malicious gossip that I am Abe Lincoln’s older classmate.

 

Back in college I learned in statistics class about the normal or bell curve. It looked like this:

 

 

This curve is very useful in describing the way many things occur in nature. Lots of stuff, that is, comes in a variety of sizes. The normal curve shows that most of the items usually are about an average, or "middling," size while fewer and fewer items are bigger or smaller the farther they are from average. For a simple example, think of catching a nice bucket full of perch in the honey hole on your favorite lake. Two or three are probably going to be runts, and another three or four are going to be relative “hogs,” but the great majority of the perch are going to be about the same size.

 

 

Most are average, or “normal.” I hope the perch take no offense at the term. 

 

When I listen to many radio or TV commentators these days, or browse the Internet, I get the impression that the normal curve has it all wrong. There seem to be two enemy camps, each thumping its righteous chest while decrying the ignorant vicious hordes of the opposition. Someone only casually observing such reporting might get the impression that the great majority of our fellow citizens occupies the far right and far left tails of the curve, with a scant few milquetoasts wavering in the middle. Such a curve might look like this, with more items in the tails than in the center:

 

 

I spend most of my time living a geezer’s retired exurban life. I walk the dog, buy some groceries, play some golf with my buddies, enjoy suppers with family and friends, all the while gladly taking people as I meet them. I find almost every single one of the flesh-and-blood people I meet “normal” in the curve’s sense. Those using social media to make outrageous claims on both the right and the left are having, if you’ll pardon the expression, the tails wag the dog.

 

So there you have it. Who are you going to believe? An honest mess of beautiful, tasty perch, or some nasty nameless gnome who’d rather tap a screen all day than have fun fishing?

On The Joys Of Walking Your Dog

 How many times have you heard words like “…but first I’ve got to walk my dog” from friends you’d like to meet later in the day? Well, yes, your dog does love to go for a walk, specially if he gets to sniff all the guest books along the way before signing them himself.

 

But I think this has the walking-my-dog relationship bass ackwards. I own my dog precisely because I greatly enjoy walking with him. We are partners in enjoying the opportunities and challenges that every day outdoors presents. As classical Roman poet Ovid wrote, “We two form a multitude.” In a contemporary wording of this sentiment, “our whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

 

Just a phrasing quibble? Or maybe a demarcation between dog owners and dog lovers?