Like a Fox

Imagine that you're 19 again, and that instead of the world being your oyster, its your prison.
Imagine that instead of being given the keys to a new car, you have your right leg amputated at the knee.

Imagine that instead of being told how bright your job prospects were, you were informed that your chances for surviving this type of cancer were 50-50...up from 15% a few years before thanks to new (but expensive) research being done.

Imagine that instead of being wide open to your first job, you were suddenly confined to your first wheelchair.

Would you crumble?

Or would you win three Canadian National Wheelchair Basketball Championships?

Would you waste away from the cancer?

Or would you run? I mean, literally. Get up. Get a prosthetic leg with a clunky, late Seventies metal foot attached and teach yourself to run.

Would you cry about your plight?

Or would you attempt to raise $1 from each of your fellow Canadian citizens for cancer research by, get this, running across Canada?

Need a new hero? His name was Terry Fox. He died after his cancer spread to his lungs and robbed him of the ability to breathe. He died after dipping a gallon jug into the Atlantic ocean in St. John's Bay and setting out with a best friend driving in a donated Ford van alongside him with two goals:
1. Raise money for cancer cures and awareness.
2. Don't stop running until he could dump that water into the Pacific.

He died after running for 143 days in 1980. He ran with a painful gait on technology we wouldn't permit today. His right leg cut off at the knee would bleed and blister as the prosthetic went on grinding against his stump. His height changed with the limp. His back grew tired. He ran 3,339 miles. That's a marathon every single day. That is not a typo.

A few years ago, my wife started running. It was for a cause, but it was for herself too. She was good at it and found solace. An injury has forced her to tone it down and swim for cardio now, but I know she misses it. Running under streetlamps that would go out or come on just as she passed beneath them. The sign of her running angel.

I took her lead and started to run. Not as far and not as frequently, but I started. Then I quit. Started again. Quit for a while. It was like watching a bad last thirty seconds of "Intervention":
           (Fade to black)

"Chris ran for three months. His family visited him once after running and were elated."

        (Fade to black...new frame)

"In June, after a particularly long weekend at the lake and some pretty hot temperatures, Chris relapsed and stopped running."

        (Fade to black then show fat, slovenly Chris sitting on the couch eating a Ho Ho)

"He hopes to restart running some day. We just don't know."

I'm 40 and a little chunky in that, "well I'm 40 and don't always eat salad" kind of way. I want (and now have) exactly the inspiration I need to run far. Chugging up and down Ward Parkway for three or four miles ought to be less of a chore than I make it. I mean, I have two legs, and although I'm carrying a couple of extra chins (4), it's not as if there are any other physical restraints keeping me from going really far.

Maybe it's my equipment. Let's see...I have a shirt. Got some shorts and socks. SHOES! That's my excuse. They were like $12 at Target last spring after I finally blew out the sole in my $11 Target shoes I bought in 2003. Nope. They hold up just fine. In fact, I see plenty of people running barefoot all-ninja style these days. That dude from Discovery Channel's dual survival climbs volcanoes and kicks cactus without shoes.

No excuses.

I have a loaded iPod and a dog (named "Trotter" for cryin out loud) that starts to gnaw on his own leg if he doesn't run for an hour a day.
I have the perfect trail for running 20 yards from my front door.
I have a healthy body (with 4 extra chins) and pretty fair lungs.
I have a role model named Terry Fox.

He intended to raise $1 from every Canadian when he began his quest. There were 24 million of them at the time. He died having raised the eyebrows and hearts of every citizen, and his foundation has subsequently raised $500 million for cancer research.

There are 32 roads and streets names after Fox. There are 14 schools, 14 buildings and 9 running trails with his name in Canada. He has a mountain named after him and a Canadian Coast Guard ship.

A mountain.

Time to take these chins for a really far run.

A Common Sense of Humor

Things I Should Do More Often

-Run far
-Make tons of money and spend it/give it away each day
-Get up ten minutes earlier and pack a damned lunch
-Partake in "drawing contests" when my 8 year old begs it
-Go to soil service and find out what kills my grass every summer
-Listen to my own advice and leave my moody 13 year-old alone
-Watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart

I've been preaching centrism and moderation for most of my adult life, and, thusly, have never really felt much of an allegiance to either political party. About a year ago, I wrote:

"Conservatives spit at Liberals...Liberals spit at Conservatives. Whatever doesn't hit one side in the face falls into the middle, and I make it my politics by sifting through the mud in the middle to find some rational understanding of the human heart and brain. Most of the time, I find solace in the middle. I can rationalize and empathize with the greatest rationalizers and empathizers in history...Most notably musicians, poets, comedians and huggers (not trees, but huggy people)."

That was in light of the big hubbub over schools not airing Obama's speech to school children. I could be wrong, but I think more and more people are joining me in the mud. The proverbial Pelosis and Palins keep on spitting across the political Mason Dixon line. Increasingly, the mud somehow seems the cleanest place to stand.

Nudging the muddied troops in the ribs with a big shit-eating grin is Jon Stewart.

Stewart plans his D.C. "Rally To Restore Sanity" as a not-so tongue in cheek tip of the cap to Glen Beck and is laying the common sense ground rules with sign suggestions that make me grin, really big.

-"Take it down a notch for America"
- "I'm not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners or Gays ... but I am scared of spiders."
-"Got Competence?"
-"I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler"
-"9/11 was an outside job."

Doesn't it make sense to step back and filter from time to time? In the same vein that 20% of the world has 80% of the money, 20% of the county has 80% of the venom, hatred and time to be a "winger". Those same people rile people up and give their respective Party a bad name with muddy centrists; creating rifts that lose elections by cutting off their nose to spite their face. I'm not going to even type the name  Christine O'Donnell.

I think a good sense would save our country. Sense of duty, sense of responsibility to self and others, sense of humor, and the ever fading and not-so-common common sense.

George Bush did not plan the 9/11 attacks to win an oil war. Obama is not a Muslim terrorist.

Depeche  Mode said it well back when I had hair, (a sweet soccer top swoop-mullet with badass bangs in case you're wondering):
~"People are people so why should it be, that you and I should get along so awfully?"

The answer, of course, is pride and ego and cowardice and envy and greed and sloth and every other reason that people argue, fight and divide. So no, I will not sit here and type Lenny Kravitz said it best in his lyrics to the song "Let Love Rule a bunch of lovey-dovey crap about turning the other cheek and loving thy neighbor...err..wait? When did that become uncool?

Anywho...I like Jon Stewart. He's smart. He gets the story straight, or tries to. He picks on everybody and demands sense where there is none. To top it off, he's damn funny (or his writers are) and that's why I need to make it a daily habit to watch the Daily Show. Maybe the country could save itself with a little common sense of humor.

Sticker Shock

A recent survey conducted by the Midwest Institute of Fabricated Surveys has revealed the top 5 experiences people most want to avoid, but cannot according to rules of society.

Number 5: The Awkward Office Hallway Head-Nod.
You know, the one you share with everyone in your office you either don't care for, or that you've never met, or that you've already said the Office Hallway Hello-To on that particular day. And heaven forbid you get the Head-Nod from someone you've already said Hello-To and you forget and say Hello-To for a second time in the same day. There are only so many shades of red.

Number 4: Renewing your tags
You know, the longest line ever, regardless of how many people are in it. I've been the second person in line before at the DMV to renew tags and still waited 4 hours to be helped because 1. everyone except the person helping the old lady in front of me took the day off, and 2. because the old lady in front of me was required to ask every conceivable question about tag renewal know to man in the slowest, loudest possible voice. Now I would never punch an old lady...again.

Number 3: Jury Duty
You know, the human gene pool meeting at City Hall. You're the only normal one there, and you get to sit in between people who are employing the Stanislavski Method for mental illness/incompetency to try for a pre-coffee excusal.

Number 2: Public Speaking
You know, everyone finding out you're a fraud and an idiot, and that you say "bowlth" instead of "both". People who die from this fear, and there are thousands of them per year, usually soil themselves front and back before kicking the bucket.

Number 1: Buying a Car (in a freaking landslide that makes the Stevie Nicks version look like a, uh, I don't know, a really small landslide.)
You know, the experience where you have your IQ reduced by 75 points the minute your feet hit the sales lot, and everyone wearing a name tag inherits those lost points. You know, the day you go home and scrub your hands harder than a brain surgeon with OCD to get the filth of being swindled from under your nails.

Well, sometimes fear is nothing more than a big old nasty lookin' self-fulfilling prophecy, that doesn't quite swallow you whole for one reason or another. I just went though meat grinder number 1 from above, and while I make it a point not to be overly gracious to anyone who hasn't endorsed or sponsored my blog, I did want to say a public thanks to Mike Williams and Molle Volkswagen in KC.

Two days of talking, test driving, education, haggling and getting to know him have changed my mind about the fear of buying cars. Don't get me wrong, I did lots of homework and tried to be as educated as possible, but there isn't a trick in the book that could have swerved him off the path of simply being an honest guy selling people a car. You can tell he loves what he does and that probably makes all the difference. If you're shopping for a Punch Dub in the KC Metro, go see Mike.

I think you'll leave with a car and without feeling lighter in the wallet. Who knows, perhaps you'll get the strength to leave the diapers at home the next time you have to give a presentation at work...