Posted in Stories

I’m going for another run.

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Lots of folks enjoyed reading a previous post “I’m going for a run,” so here’s a little more of the story.

By the end of 1981, I had only been running for about two years. The Jersey shore running community really encouraged and inspired me. But I got a job offer in Austin, TX, and headed south.

The duplex I rented was just uphill from the Colorado River on the south side of Austin, which was lined with running trails on both sides. Each night after work, I would take my yellow Labrador Retriever, Gabriel, out for a run. After being inside all day while I was at work, he was more than happy to join me for up to eight miles runs along the river. Once we got off the sidewalks, I would let him off the leash, and he would run up the path ahead of me and then back, so his runs were probably a couple of miles longer than mine. He would also jump in and out of the water, so the summer heat was never a problem for him. And he would intercept any frisbees being thrown at the park, leaving a tooth mark on more than a few. The toughest part of the run was the final half-mile home, a steep uphill to the house. But we always made it.

I left Gabriel at my dad’s house in Philadelphia when I moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana and began my seminary studies. I still got out and ran thirty or forty miles a week, but only ever ran one real race there. It was the Run Preacher Run 5k around the campus. There were six entries, and I won. The course was short, because I finished in a little over 16 minutes, and there’s no way I was in that kind of shape. But I won my one and only running trophy!

It was a little harder to run in Baltimore during my vicarage year. We lived in an all Black neighborhood in the inner city, and I usually didn’t go anywhere without wearing my clerical collar. But early in the mornings, hardly anyone was up and around. So Gabriel, who was back with us, and I would go up to a park that had some nice running paths. These paths circled around baseball fields. We would be just trotting along when Gabriel would suddenly veer off the path and into the tall weeds, pulling out a baseball, which he carried all the way back home.

The first church I was called to was in Coventry, Connecticut, out in the eastern hills. There I ran up and down lots and lots and lots of hills. Since there weren’t any sidewalks, I didn’t take any dogs out with me. They got plenty of exercise running around the church’s eight acres were we lived and nearby fields and horse farms.

We next lived in West Des Moines, Iowa, and there were a few hills there, too. A lot of my runs would take me up the mile long hill of Grand Avenue towards Des Moines or downhill through Valley Junction. We lived across the street from the old Valley High School stadium, and I would hop the fence to run intervals on the track.

Then we moved to the northeast coast of Florida, where it is flat. The only hills are the bridges over the intracoastal waterway. When we arrived, there were no sidewalks and just a few stoplights in Palm Coast. I did some running with Michael and Blondie, successor labs to Gabriel and Rachel. But I did much more running with Samson, a shepherd lab mix who had limitless energy. About ten years into our life in Florida, my Morton’s neuralgia in each foot began to limit my running to no more than three or four miles a couple of times a week. My hips and knees held up over forty years of running, but my feet starting pleading for mercy. I can do OK with a very cushioned neutral shoe like Hoka One One. But most of my exercise now is non-impact, another story for another day.

Posted in Moments of grace

“What a waste of time.”

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Joe L. was a friend of a friend I got to know a few years ago. I think he was a little younger than me, a United States marine, and had done quite a bit of work with the homeless before he had to retire with disability. Because of a variety of ailments, I occasionally visited him in hospitals, rehab facilities and at his home.

He knew I was a pastor, but we never talked too much about God. He was straightforward about what made him angry, what he wanted, what he needed and what he thought about others. I enjoyed that about him. I knew where I stood with Joe. No games. No pretense. No pretending.

One time I thanked him for that. He replied, “Why are you thanking me?”

I said, “Well, most of the time people tell me what they think I want to hear.”

Joe said, “What a waste of time.”

I have often thought about that conversation and that gem of wisdom. It is so true. There are precious few people with whom we can be completely honest and say what’s on our minds. We harbor far too many fears about what others will think of us, so we rarely express how we feel. And if Joe’s perspective is correct, we waste a lot of time telling people what they want to hear.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone this past year. Some people are still distancing from worship at church, so I just call and say, “Hi. I was just checking in to be sure you were well. What can we do for you?” After a while, the responses are predictable.

“Oh. Hi, Pastor. We were just talking about how we need to get back to church.”
“Don’t worry Pastor, we are mailing our offerings to the church.”
“I know we haven’t been to church lately, Pastor, but don’t worry, we still pray every day.”
“Pastor, we are still staying home, just to be safe. We don’t go anywhere, except for our doctors, the grocery store, the post office, physical therapy and the veterinarian.”

All I wanted to know was if you’re healthy and have everything you need.

Of course, we in ministry are guilty of the same thing. How often do I tell someone what I am really thinking about them? How often have I dulled the edges of my preaching so as not to offend as few people as possible? How often do I simply keep my mouth shut? It’s a skill you learn early in life and perfect as the years go on.

A lot depends on how you say something. There’s a time and place for honesty, but it’s also important to listen and understand before you speak. I believe you also need to examine your motives. Why are you telling someone something? To help them, or to hurt them? Is it for their benefit, or to make yourself feel good?

And of course, the more important skill is listening. Listening is never a waste of time. I always learn something. And I often hear what I need to hear, not just what I want to hear.

Posted in Stories

A cascade of dark roast

Posted on by William Douthwaite

We were spoiled. The Airbnb we usually stayed at when we visited our son in Garland, Texas was always stocked with pods for the Keurig coffee maker. After a long, two day trip, it was nice to know the morning cup would only be a few minutes in the making.

But we were staying at a different place. Very nice and very comfortable, but with a Cuisinart drip coffee maker. “Well,” I thought, “they must have some coffee here somewhere.” I looked in every cabinet, nook and cranny, and came up empty-handed. The Kroger is still open? Awesome. I’ll be right back.

There must have been a run on coffee that day. The shelves in the coffee aisle weren’t completely empty, but there wasn’t much to choose from. Ah, there we go, Dunkin’ dark roast. Just what the doctor ordered. However, when I grabbed the bag, coffee grounds started pouring out for a large slit in the side. Well, not exactly a slit. More like a slice right down the side of the bag. I must have caught it on the edge of the shelf. I was so surprised I didn’t react right away, and almost half the bag was on the floor before I could get it back on the shelf. I looked up and down the aisle and there was no one around. I carefully grabbed another bag, knocked the grounds off my shoes, and made my getaway.

It wasn’t exactly like knocking over a stack of cans or a pile of fruit, but the sight of the coffee cascading out onto the floor still makes me chuckle.

Oh, and yes, I went to a different store the next day for more groceries. If you are the guy who had to do clean up on that aisle, I apologize. I deserve whatever words you used to describe me that night.

Posted in Stories

It’s time to go.

Posted on by William Douthwaite

He thought about leaving early. His mind was mush. He just wasn’t getting much done. Maybe he should go to the gym. A quick workout now usually meant a productive evening later. 

Commotion from the hallway startled him.

By the time he heard the words, “You can’t got back there,” the man in the dark suit with credentials in one hand and a warrant in the other burst in. Laying the papers on the desk, he closed and scooped up the laptop in one smooth motion and left.

“Wait a minute…” he started, following him out the door. Other dark suits were already walking out with the computers, boxes of files and even the recycling bins. Stunned, no one was talking. No one was moving.

Except him. What choice did he have? As soon as the handcuffs were on, he was escorted out the door.

In just three short years, the business had flourished far beyond anyone’s imagination. They had to celebrate. They deserved it. He made arrangements at the best restaurant in town. Dinner was excellent. Glasses were raised. Bonuses announced. Laughter filled the room.

His own smile and laughter covered up the truth. A truth only he knew. As he looked around the table, he saw more than just employees. He saw friends. Yet he knew one of them would make the call. One of them would give up evidence. One of them would rat him out. One of them would betray him. And he knew exactly who it was. 

It was one of his first hires. Someone who knew a lot more about finance than he did. Someone who had helped them navigate a couple of audits. Someone he had always trusted. Someone who could be bought. Someone who would bring him down.

As he sat down in the back of the black sedan, a scuffle broke out in the office. Was that blood on the side of someone’s head? Don’t do that. Just go. He would take the fall. He would go to prison. Everyone else would walk. It was the only way.

Posted in Stories

I’m going for a run

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I started running in the fall of 1978. I was a junior at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. Jim Fixx had just published The Complete Book of Running and it seemed like everyone was jogging. So I started jogging, too.

A complete loop around campus was 1-1/2 miles. So I jogged 1-1/2 miles. My running shoes, dark blue Pumas were heavy and not really designed for running, but that’s what I had. It’s a distant memory, but I am sure I didn’t completely run the whole loop without a few walking breaks. But it was the most running I had ever done in one stretch.

That summer I ran a few out and back courses around Ridley Park. I also stumbled upon a copy of Runner’s World at the library. It was filled with articles about how to get started, how to train, and what kind of shoes you should be running in. There were’t a whole lot to choose from, but I bought my first pair of Nike running shoes before classes started in the fall. They were feather light and so much nicer to run in.

Through that fall, I began going out for a run more regularly, branching out on other loops that once around the campus. I had enough credits after the fall semester to graduate, and got my first job in West Long Branch, NJ early in 1979.

By that time, the running boom was in full swing, especially at the Jersey Shore. Five miles was the standard distance for a road race back then, and there was a race in a different beach town every Saturday and Sunday.

My goal was to run one of those five mile races. In my mind, to finish a race like that, I needed to be able to run five miles every day for a week. When begin running consistently five, six or even seven days a week, I rapidly improved. I carefully logged all my runs and within a few months, I had a thirty-five mile week.

I entered a five mile race in Belmar, NJ early in the summer. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had never even seen a road race before and didn’t know anyone who had run one. But I sent in my $5 registration fee and wrote the race in on my calendar. I did know from my reading that you didn’t want to go out too fast. After all, you had to keep going for five miles!

I finished that first race in about 37 minutes, about halfway back in the pack. Not too bad for a first time out. I got a t-shirt, too, the first of many. The winner of the race finished in about 25 minutes. I doubted I’d ever be up front, but I could certainly improve.

I ran a couple of races a month that summer, in towns like Ocean Grove, Asbury Park, Monmouth, Red Bank and Spring Lake. Entry fees were cheap and I got a t-shirt each and every time. I learned how to run different distances, take a day off each week, and found a nearby high school track where I could work on speed by doing 200 or 400 yard intervals.

And I got another pair of running shoes. New Balance because they were the only maker with wider widths and I had fat feet. They had much better cushioning and I could run much further much more often with them.

By the fall, I had my five mile race time down to 32:30, about a 6:30 pace. I ran a 10k in a little over 40 minutes that fall, my first attempt at a longer race.

When it got colder, I adapted my wardrobe. Remember, this is 1979, and few stores sold winter running gear. I word a long sleeve turtle neck when the temperatures got below 50, and added a hat and gloves in the 40’s. The gloves I wore were painter’s gloves from the hardware store. They were warm enough but not bulky. Temps in the 30’s? That when I added a pair of navy long underwear under my running shorts. I generated plenty of heat while running, so I had to make sure I didn’t wear too much if it was above freezing.

With an increase in training, up to fifty or sixty miles a week, I took on the Ocean City half marathon. Most of that run was on the boardwalk, and I finished in decent time, somewhere around an hour and a half. I felt pretty confident going into 1980, and decided that I should train to run a marathon.

I found a marathon in Virginia Beach, VA in March of 1980, and set my sights on training for that race. I figured I needed to run seventy to eighty miles a week to be ready. I got my mileage up pretty well, but didn’t do any really long runs. I drove down to Virginia the night before, spent the night in a hotel, and ran the next morning. My time was 3 hours 24 minutes. Not too bad for the first time out But I knew I could do better.

I ran a lot of five mile races that summer and collected a lot of t-shirts. I would ride my bike about ten miles to work, run a few miles or do some track work at lunch time, and then run again when I got home at night. When you’re in your twenties, you can really push the envelope. I began to run the 5K races at Lake Takanassee in Long Branch. Four laps around a lake that attracted a lot of really good runners. By the end of that summer, I was running my five mile races close to 31 minutes. Never a front runner, but better and better all the time.

I set my sights on the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC in November. It was a flat course, past all the major monuments. I was pretty sure I could break three hours, a sub seven minute pace for the 26.2 miles. I stayed in a hotel in Arlington, just across the Potomac River. I don’t remember too much about that race, except for the last half mile. The final stretch was uphill to the finish line at the Iwo Jima Memorial. My race certificate put me just over three hours.

I would do a lot of running before my next marathon, the Philadelphia marathon on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1981. I really upped my mileage, logging quite a few 80 and 90 mile weeks. I had my best race weekend the summer before that marathon. I ran a 30:00 five mile race on a Saturday, a 36:00 at the Asbury Park 10k on Sunday and then I broke 18 minutes at Lake Takanassee. I felt strong and ran a 1:23 half marathon in the fall at Ocean City. I really felt like I had a chance to break 2:50 for a marathon and qualify for the Boston Marathon.

I was ready that race weekend. I had run a few twenty mile workouts at a six minute pace. I had raced, I had tapered and I was confident. My dad drove me outside of the city to the starting line, and would meet me at the finish in center city, Philadelphia. It was a cool clear day, and I made it to Germantown, the ten mile point in 65 minutes. From there it was mostly downhill. I reached the twenty mile point at 2:10. all I had to do was run that last 10k in 40 minutes. That’s when I hit the wall. Those last six miles were a bear. I crossed the finish line in 2:54, four minutes too slow for Boston in my age group. That would be my last real race. A lot would change after that weekend.

Posted in Stories

Camping coffee crisis!

Posted on by William Douthwaite

It was our first time out in a new camper trailer, a Forest River Rockwood Roo hybrid. We didn’t go far, just about a half day’s drive to Red Top Mountain State Park in Georgia. It was late October, a little early for peak color, a little late for the best apple picking, but still a pretty time of the year in northern Georgia.

The weather was a bit warmer than we expected, but enjoyable until Thursday night. That’s when the remnants of a hurricane that had come up through the Gulf of Mexico blew through the northern parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The wind and rain really picked up over night, and somewhere around two or three in the morning, the power went out. Lots of mall pine boughs and cones hit the camper, but nothing big.

As the dawn approached, we got word about the big stuff that had fallen. When the storm blew through, the hosts who were camped about half a mile away heard some big trees cracking and took refuge in the shower house. A few forty foot maples fell and took out some of the power lines that ran through the campground. No one was hurt and no campers were damaged, but there were lots of close calls!

We weren’t too worried. We had water to drink and propane to keep the refrigerator cold. What’s a little power outage?

Until I went to make coffee. We had was a Keurig and pods. It must have tried to draw too much current because I couldn’t get it to work with either the camper battery or the truck’s inverter. As you might have guessed, we were not happy campers.

I really impressed my wife when I declared, “I know what to do.” I put a saucepan of water on the stove while I opened up five or six coffee pods and threw them into the water. When my brew reached a rolling boil, I let it simmer a bit, threw in a cup of cold water to take the grounds to the bottom and filled our first cups of the morning through a paper towel filter. I think some call it “cowboy coffee.” It tasted great! I was proud and basked in my wife’s praises for my ingenuity. I even brewed another batch later on and the next day before we broke camp.

For the future we’ve got a pour-over coffee maker we’ll stow in our camper, just in case.

Posted in Stories

Family vacation!

Posted on by William Douthwaite

My dad always got two weeks of vacation when I was growing up in suburban Philadelphia. Though we kids had three months off from school in the summer, dad only got two weeks when the company he worked for shut down, usually in July.

We didn’t always go away, but when we did, it was usually to the Jersey shore for at most a week. We usually stayed at a motel in Ocean City, which we three kids thought was just the greatest thing in the world. It’s only an hour-and-a-half drive from where we lived, but it seemed to take forever. The windows were open because the car had no AC. And of course we routinely fought over who had to sit in the middle. No one wanted to sit on the “hump.” Our days were mostly spent on the beach, digging in the sand, building castles and getting sunburnt. My dad always swam pretty far out, but we didn’t roam too far from shore. Or, we would roam the boardwalk, begging for ice cream, saltwater taffy or miniature golf. We would go out for one nice fish dinner while we were there.

One year, my mom found a nearby church that had vacation bible school the same week we were there. She wasted no time getting us signed up and out of her hair every morning. If I remember correctly, it was actually a two-week program, but we only attended for five days. My memories of that week are vague but positive, so we must have had fun.

One year we headed out the other direction and spent a few days at Hershey Park. Before the days of big amusement parks, the rides here were a big deal. Plus, you got to tour the actual chocolate factory, which I thought was the best part.

On the beach in Wilimington, NC

A family vacation that really stands out is from the summer of 1971. I was confirmed that spring, turned 14 that July, and would have been a high school freshman that fall. We began with a drive to Wilmington, NC where my dad’s older brother Thomas lived. (No AC, windows open, fighting over seats in the blue Ford Falcon station wagon.) The beaches were white, wide and gorgeous. We got to see the fabric mill where Uncle Tommy worked. Operating at full capacity back then, I remember all the colors of spinning spools of thread and the deafening sound of the looms weaving yard after yard of fabric. Another vivid highlight of Wilmington was touring the battleship North Carolina. You could sit and pivot in an antiaircraft gun, stand way up in the bridge and pose for pictures beside some of the huge guns.

Somewhere in the outer banks.

From there we drove up the Outer Banks of North Carolina, including two ferries. At the top of the Outer Banks we spent time at Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers Museum. From there we spent a couple of days at Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, VA before heading home. We desperately but futilely tried to convince dad to take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel home. Instead we went via Washington, DC.

Williamsburg, VA

A few years before that, instead of taking a vacation trip, my dad used the money to buy a pool for out backyard. It seemed huge back then, but I think it was only twelve feet across and three feet deep. We all helped dig yards and yards of dirt from the top of the hill so we had a level circle for the pool. It wasn’t always warm, but we swam, jumped, snorkeled and splashed the next few summers. It was definitely worth staying home.

In the pool with my brother Jim

Posted in Stories

What’s on tap?

Posted on by William Douthwaite

Photo by Fábio Alves on Unsplash

We were on our way home to Florida from Dallas after a wonderful visit with my son and his family. Though we usually stopped for the night in Jackson, MS, we decided to press on a little further to Hattiesburg, for a lighter second day of travel. We dropped off our stuff at hotel and headed out to find a place to eat.

It, was, however, Super Bowl Sunday. Might be a little crowded, but we weren’t in a hurry, just hungry. Yelp helped us find a couple of places worth trying. The first, a little Mexican place had a sign on the door, “Closed for the Super Bowl.” Interesting. I thought this night was pretty important for the restaurant business.

We headed across the street to our second choice, O’Charley’s Restaurant and Bar. The parking lot wasn’t crowded here either. But the lights were on, so we headed in. The hostess asked if we wanted to to sit at the bar. That was the only TV with the game on. We weren’t there to watch, so we just took a booth in a quiet section.

As we looked over the menu, a very nice waitress stopped and asked if we would like to start with some drinks. Absolutely. I asked, “What do you have on tap?” “Hold on,” she said, “I’ll go check.” A few minutes later she came back to let me know, “We don’t have any draft beer.” Really? At a bar? OK, I pointed to one of the bottled beers on their list and said, “How about one of those?” “And a glass of red wine for me,” my wife added. “Great,” our server replied and headed off.

A few minutes later, a man wearing a manager name tag told us they didn’t have any of the beer I had ordered. So I asked, “OK, what do you have?” He said, “I’m not sure, I’ll have to go and check.” Interesting. I guess that’s why they weren’t all that crowded on what should have been a busy night.

I think I ended up with a Corona. To be fair, the food was pretty good and we enjoyed a quiet place to rest and eat. And our server did tell us that she usually worked take out rather than table service, so she was a little out of the loop. I thought all hands would be on deck that night. But I’m not in the food biz.

Posted in Stories

The wrong door

Posted on by William Douthwaite

“It’s the Target on Plano Road. There’s a Sonic out front. And a Bank of America. The car is silver. Texas plates…”

Right next to her, another woman wasn’t as composed, sobbing over and over again, “I parked it right here. It was in this spot. I just ran in to get some paper towels. My kids were in the car!”

Along with others, we walked closer to learn what had happened and try to help. A young mom had run back into Target for a roll of paper towels, leaving her two children in the car. It was just for a moment. When she came out of the store, the car – and her children – were gone.

My wife went over to comfort her. The woman on the phone with 911 spoke quickly but calmly, and told us, “The police are on their way.”

Someone asked, “Are you sure this is where you parked your car?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

“What kind of car was it?” I asked.

“A silver Olds.”

I scanned the parking lot, wondering if somehow the car might be a row over. Or maybe behind a truck.

Another asked, “You came out this door?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

For a moment, everyone was quiet. There are two front doors, thirty yards apart.

Is it possible? I walked a few rows over, looking for silver cars. I saw one. Running. With two crying children inside.

I shouted, “Is this it?” I shouted out the license plate numbers and letters.

The young mom ran over, confused, relieved, embarrassed. “Yes. That’s my car. I must have come out a different door.”

We were relieved and headed home. But the night was not quite over for this mom. The police car blocked her from leaving. They would want to know why she had left two young children alone in a running car at night in the Target parking lot.

We wondered the same thing.