Run and Don't Look Back

Not long ago, I visited a podiatrist.  My primary care doctor had referred me for a problem I was having with my foot and ankle.  At the end of the visit, the doctor recommended that I stop running.

Prior to the visit, I had not been running very much due to the pain, but his insistence that I stop doing something that I had been doing since I was nine years old; something that was ingrained in my existence; something that I equated with breathing and being, struck me the wrong way.  He seemed oblivious to what he was asking me to do.  When I told him as much, he did not blink an eye, saying only that he was surprised that I had been able to run as long as I had.  "We get old," he said, "things fall apart."

On top of this, he told me about a surgery that would probably take care of the problem but would result in me never being able to run again.

"Just give me the word and I will set it up", he said.  I never gave him the word..

I left his office thinking about Satchel Paige.

Satchel Paige was a major league pitcher who was elected to the Baseball Hall of fame in 1971 and was the first player to be inducted based primarily upon his play in the Negro leagues. 

 He was the oldest rookie to play in the Major Leagues at the age of 42. He pitched his last game in 1966 for the Carolina Leagues's Peninsula Grays at the age of 60, although some say he was older.

Maybe more famous than his pitching were his rules for staying young, which were:  

1.  Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.

2.  If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3.  Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4.  Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society- the social ramble ain't restful.

5.  Avoid running at all times.

6.  And don't look back- something might be gaining on you.

I believe that Paige was right on the money with all of his rules with the exception of number 5.  If I was given the opportunity to rewrite it, my rule number 5 would read as follows: 

Run whenever you get the chance.  Run when the sun is shining.  Run when the sky is filled with clouds.  Run when the rain is pouring down.  Run whenever it snows. 

Run when you are happy, but especially when you are sad.  

Run and be filled with the wonder of things.  

Run and listen to your thoughts.  Run and feel the movement of your body.  Run until you get that feeling of power and energy and you begin to believe that everything is possible.  

Run to learn about the world around you and the people in it.  Run to learn about yourself.  Run to meditate and to turn inward.  

Run to feel the wind in your face. Run in the hot stillness of a summer afternoon.  Run to the buzzing rhythm of cicadas.  

Run to leave it all behind.

Run to feel the quiet, still peace that comes after the run.

Run; against all rules and despite all rules; run.  No matter how old or worn out you are; run; for as long as you can, for as far as you can, for as fast as you can; run.

And don't look back.

My next race will be the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.  I will send my podiatrist a picture of me at the finish line.

The Thanksgiving Guinea Hen

It was a wet fall Saturday afternoon in 1992 and the kids were inside.  They were complaining about being bored and not having anything to do.

“You are bored because you think you’re bored,” I told them.

“Nuh-uh,” said Erin.  We really are bored.

“Sometimes,” I told them, “you have to make yourself have fun.  And other times all you have to do is walk out into the yard and fun will come right up to you.”

Jeremy laughed.  “Fun can’t do that.”

“Yes it can,” I said.

“When did fun do that to you?”

“It happened when I was about eleven or twelve, somewhere around 1963.  It was Thanksgiving morning.  Mom was baking a turkey in the oven.  The house was filled with the smell of food and the clatter of dishes.  The parades were on T.V.  .  My brother, Keith, and I went outside looking for something to do.  The weather was wet like it is now and it felt like it was going to snow.

No one else was outside.  We walked out to the street.  Two houses down we saw Tommy come darting out from under his carport and start running around and around a tree in his front yard.  We walked closer.  In front of Tommy ran a strange looking bird about two feet tall, with two legs, and covered with feathers.

“What’s that?”  I asked as Tommy took another lap around the tree.

“Dad says it’s a Guinea Hen,” yelled Tommy as he chased the bird.

“Where’d you get it?”

“I didn’t.  I don’t know where it came from.  It was in the yard when I came out.  Help me catch it.”

Keith went to the left side of the tree and I went to the right side.  As the Guinea Hen came around the tree towards me I grabbed for it.  Like a highly skilled NFL running back the hen faked first to the left then dashed to the right.  My feet went out from under me and I hit the ground back first.

The Guinea Hen tore across Tommy’s yard, through the neighbor’s yard and into our front bushes with Keith, Tommy, and me close behind.  As we dove into the bushes, the hen darted out and ran across the street into old man Saunders’ yard.  Old man Saunders was sweeping his carport and he came out swinging his broom. 

The bird dodged the broom and ran into Ricky’s yard next door.  Ricky was playing on his porch and saw the bird.  “Grab it.  Grab it.”  I yelled.  Ricky did his best imitation o Zorro and leaped over his porch rail to the ground, barely missing the hen and old man Saunders’ broom handle.

Keith, Tommy, and I ran to the left of Ricky’s house around to the backyard.  The bird, followed closely by Ricky and old man Saunders, saw us directly in its path and froze; then with lightening speed it whirled to the right.  The last things I saw and felt were a tangle of arms, legs and a broom handle as all of us collided. 

The hen ran through Jimmy’s yard.  Jimmy heard us thrashing about and fell into the chase behind us.  We circled Jimmy’s house, then ran through his carport, and then the bird did what we all feared worst of all.  It ran into the yard across the street; Groucho’s yard.

Groucho was a fat man who smoked cigars and kept his yard green and in perfect shape.  Not one pine needle was out of place.  When some unfortunate, innocent child who didn’t know any better happened to trample his flower bed on the way to Jeffrey’s basketball goal, Groucho would yell like a demon through cigar smoke, “Get out of my yard!  Don’t come through here again.”

The hen stood in the middle of Groucho’s yard, sensing that it was on safe and hollowed ground.  It was wrong.  Jimmy looked at Keith, Keith looked a Ricky, Ricky looked at old man Saunders, old man Saunders looked at me, and we charged, yelling at the tops of our lungs.  Needless to say, the Guinea hen ran through every flowerbed and every mulched area of Groucho’s once well groomed yard.  Still, the bird eluded us.

“Get out of my yard!” screamed Groucho.  What do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re chasing a bird,” yelled Ricky.

The bird ran up the street to Danny’s house with us behind it, plus Grouch, plus Jeffrey who lived next to Groucho.  Danny and several friends were playing basketball in his backyard when we ran by with the bird in front of us, and they all joined in the chase.  There were now almost twenty of us running after this Guinea hen, when it stopped to rest in Bobo’s yard.  This was a big mistake, because Bobo was crazy.

“We’ve got him now!” yelled Jimmy.  He’s in Bobo’s yard.

“Somebody get Bobo.”  I said.

Ricky gently rang Bobo’s doorbell.  When Bobo came to the door, we explained the situation to him, who seemed to understand it all very well.

“Open the gate to the backyard and run it in,” said Bobo.  “Then close the gate.  “I’ll get my shoulder pads on.”

“Bobo’s getting’ his shoulder pads on, y’all,” whispered Jimmy.

We smiled.  Even Groucho smiled, with his cigar in the side of his mouth.  We all knew that anything was bound to happen when Bobo got his shoulder pads on.

We ran the hen through the gate and slammed it shut.  We all piled over the fence into the backyard.  Bobo was standing on the back porch with his shoulder pads, hip and knee pads on.  He was wearing a jersey that said, “Central Restaurant All Stars” at the top and at the bottom it said, “Try our grilled cheese.”

The hen was at the back corner of the yard, standing against the fence, looking at us.  Bobo walked off the porch and we followed.

“Spread out” shouted Groucho, a Korean War veteran.  We spread out across the yard.

“Let me take the first crack at him,” whispered Bobo.

Bobo lunged.  The hen flew straight at Bobo’s head and landed on top of it, flapping its wings wildly.  Bobo grabbed it by the feet.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted.

Then the hen sank its claws into Bobo’s skull.  Bobo fell, shrieking with pain.  The hen flew over the fence, into the neighbor’s yard.  Bobo dove after it and the rest of us followed.

We chased that bird through every yard in our neighborhood, but we never caught it.  We finally lost sight of it near Hammond Street, near the Presbyterian Church.  The twelve o’clock chimes began to play and we all realized that it was time to go home and eat our Thanksgiving lunch.  We were all laughing and talking about that hen on the way back home, and Grouch even invited us to walk through his yard on the way home.”

“Daddy,”asked Erin, “Did that really happen?”

“Well,” I said, “I like to remember it that way.”


Copyright ©Eric Lanier.  The right to download and store output of the materials from this website is granted for your personal use only, and materials may not be produced in any edited form. Any other reproduction or editing by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the express written permission of Eric Lanier is strictly prohibited. For additional information, contact Eric Lanier at ericelanier@gmail.com

The Magic of Falling Leaves

Several weeks ago, my wife Melanie and I attended her Aunt Vera's 95th birthday party.  Most of her family was there to celebrate this milestone.  Missing were Melanie's father and mother and several of her aunts and uncles who were celebrating Vera's birthday in another dimension.  We all felt their absence as we remembered them in our conversations about previous family reunions.  One of those absent family members was Melanie's uncle Ozzie Osborne.  Yes, his name was Ozzie Osborne (he would tell you that he was the first Ozzie Osborne and that the other Osborne had used his name without permission).

As I sat on the porch eating and talking with Melanie's cousins, I watched the leaves from oak and maple trees falling to the ground and I remembered something that Ozzie once said.

Uncle Ozzie was an artist.  His pen and ink drawings of old tobacco barns, old houses, and trees decorate the walls of most of Melanie's relatives' homes and the pages of several books about rural life.  But I remember him most for a notebook that he kept with him. Whenever he heard something he liked or if he ran across an interesting fact, he wrote it down.  Inside the notebook was esoteric information like how to make rope; how to measure the height of clouds; how to build a fire in wind and rain...

Ozzie's drawings were filled with trees with limbs full of leaves or piles of leaves laying in the grass beneath trees.  And as I sat on the porch watching the leaves fall, I could hear Ozzie telling me again, "You know, there is something magic about falling leaves. Look at them... red, yellow, and all the colors in between, twirling and swirling down to earth, enriching the soil and our lives".  He said this as we stood on the porch of a cabin, watching leaves falling all around us.

For Ozzie, all of life, the big moments, the small moments, the insignificant and trivial, were important.  Each moment contained a truth to be discovered.  There were no lost moments and every moment was a chance to be transformed.  Ozzie thought life was an amazing journey and he knew that it was the journey, not the destination, that brought happiness.

Ozzie liked to share this happiness.  At our family gatherings, Ozzie would hug our children and whisper in their ear, "You are so special to me," meaning every word.  Then he would take me aside, his arm around my shoulder, and tell me about his latest discovery.


Copyright ©Eric Lanier.  The right to download and store output of the materials from this website is granted for your personal use only, and materials may not be produced in any edited form. Any other reproduction or editing by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the express written permission of Eric Lanier is strictly prohibited. For additional information, contact Eric Lanier at ericelanier@gmail.com

The Fear of Falling

My wife, Melanie, and I visit Virginia Beach once every four years.  This is our favorite beach and we began going there for vacation when our children were still at home.  We like it because the hotels, etc., are built back from the beach, and the beach is wide.  Between the beach and the development is a 3 mile stretch of concrete that is called a boardwalk.  Along the walkway are the hotels, a variety of restaurants and entertainment consisting of bands, magicians, street actors, artists, dancers, and you name it.  There is such a wide variety of things to do along the boardwalk that we never have to touch our car the entire week that we are there.

Needless to say, the boardwalk is filled with people walking, running, biking and skating throughout the day and night.  I like to watch the skaters, especially the good ones who turn skating into an art form.  They seem to float and glide effortlessly as they turn this way, then that way, wind blowing their hair.  There are couples who skate while holding hands, dancing on their skates to music in a nearby park; kids who race by like hockey players; lone skaters listening to their ipods.

So, I decided to try it.  "It's not like I have never been on skates", I explained to my worried wife. "I was an athlete in high school."   I didn't tell her that it had probably been 25 or 30 years since I had laced up a pair of skates, or that I  had never been on a pair of inline skates..

I could barely stand, and, as I was reaching for the nearest something, anything to hold onto, my feet flew out from under me and I hit the pavement of the boardwalk.  Falling at age 56 seemed to hurt worse than when I was 12.  So, I crawled over to the iron railing facing the ocean, pulled myself up, and baby-stepped my way down the concrete path holding the rail.

I could never seem to let go of the railing.  Each time I tried, I could see and feel myself falling and I would grab the rail.  People standing along the railing would see me coming and jump out of the way.  Where was the grace of this?  Where was the beauty?

And then I realized that the skaters I had admired were not thinking about falling.  They were not thinking at all.  They were in the moment; totally present; at one with the motion; not worried about technique or form.  My fear of falling was my foremost thought.  I was ruled by my fear.

And I never overcame it.  I sadly took the skates off and remembered the days I had spent at the skating rink with my sister.  What was different?  Maybe guys my age were not supposed to be on skates, I rationalized to myself.  But then I saw several who were my age or older on skates, gliding along.

Our fears hold us back, not just in skating, but in everything we do, whether they are real or imagined.  Our fears keep us from enjoying life the way it is supposed to be enjoyed.  They hold us back in our relationships, in our jobs, in our friendships, and even in knowing God.

Our biggest obstacles in life are internal; our fears that we are not worthy; fears of letting go of the past (even an abusive or dysfunctional past); fears of being ridiculed; fears of seeming foolish; fears of not fitting in.

The first thing that God asks of us is to "fear not".  When we fear not, we are free.  Free to experience God and life to the fullest extent; free to live in the will of God.  The spiritual life requires that we live in a different way, think in a different way, and see things in a way that is contrary to the material world.  Living a life dedicated to love, hope, forgiveness and peace will often attract the opposite- hate.  Being different requires great courage.

But, once we overcome our fears, anything is possible... even skating.


Copyright ©Eric Lanier.  The right to download and store output of the materials from this website is granted for your personal use only, and materials may not be produced in any edited form. Any other reproduction or editing by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the express written permission of Eric Lanier is strictly prohibited. For additional information, contact Eric Lanier at ericelanier@gmail.com

The Only Thing That Matters

Henry David Thoreau was an American writer, naturalist, abolitionist, and social activist, who once described his occupation in this memorable way:

“For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; …. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons.”

His message, truer now than when he wrote it, is to slow down and live life; to stop looking ahead and behind and experience the now; “to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.” 

I look at my life and wonder how so many years could have passed.  Where did they all go?  What happened to the time?  What occupied my time?  And finally, when I look at the whole of my life, what has really mattered?

To answer that question, I look at my father’s death.  I was with him the last two weeks of his life.  We had a chance to talk a little that first week and say some things to each other that needed to be said.  The second week he was unable to communicate.  So, I sat by his bed.  And it was there that this great truth dawned on me. 

When it is all said and done, a person’s life boils down to those you love and those who love you.  That is all that withstands the test of time.  And into death you will carry the love of those you love.  And into life your love will be carried by those who love you.

The present moment is where life happens. Let us live in that present moment, fully realizing the wonder and the miracle of it.  Let us be self appointed inspectors of snowstorms and rain-storms.  And in those present moments let us take the opportunity to give and receive love; an eternal, everlasting gift.  The only thing that matters.


Copyright ©Eric Lanier.  The right to download and store output of the materials from this website is granted for your personal use only, and materials may not be produced in any edited form. Any other reproduction or editing by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the express written permission of Eric Lanier is strictly prohibited. For additional information, contact Eric Lanier at ericelanier@gmail.com

Standing Up

 On September 20, 2013, Coach Matt Labrum of Union High School in Roosevelt, Utah, stood up.  In an amazing act of courage, he met with his team and told them all that they were suspended; all 80 of them.  As of that moment, there was no longer a football team in Roosevelt, Utah.  In a small town where Friday night football and the welfare of the local team is on everyone’s mind, this is amazing.

Some parents were upset with the coach, but when they heard the coach’s explanation, they supported him.  Coach Labrum suspended his team because of reports of physical and cyber bullying, and attitude problems both in and out of school.  The coach did not like what he was hearing about his players and decided that there were more important lessons to be taught to these young men than playing football games.  The entire team needed to refocus their priorities.

So, how did the coach do this?  The day after the suspension (a Saturday), he met with his team and explained to them that if they wanted to play for him, they had to sign a contract in which they agreed to do the following:

• Perform acts of community service such as pulling weeds in flower beds around the school, go to nursing homes to talk with and read to the elderly, clean school hallways, and wash windows.
• Attend character building counseling sessions
• Take classes on character
• Memorize a poem about character
• Do more things with and for their families

By the end of the week, all but nine players had signed the contracts and were reinstated to the team.  The newly reinstated team elected new team captains for a new beginning.

The Union High players who are going through this experience may not fully understand what Coach Labrum has done.  At a time when they needed him most, he stood tall for them.  When they were at a crossroad, Coach Labrum pointed them to the road less traveled; the road that leads to success not necessarily on the playing field, but in the field of life.  When the going got tough, Coach Labrum stepped up and put his job on the line for them; risking his livelihood and the financial security of his family.

One day each of these boys will know the full extent of Coach Labrum's sacrificial love for them.  And I hope they look him up and shake his hand.

Old Chicken Feet

I recently read a UPI.com article about a shipment of smuggled chicken feet from Vietnam that were seized by the Chinese police, which were 46 years over the recommended sell date.  Not days.  46 years!

Here are the issues that were floating around in my head after I read that snippet:

·         Why do chicken feet have to be smuggled?

·         Are chicken feet so rare, with a demand so large, that there is a black market for them?

·         Can chicken feet that are smuggled from Vietnam into China be sold cheaper than homegrown Chinese chicken feet?  I suppose that chicken feet 46 years over the recommended sale date can be sold rather cheaply.  But why would the Chinese look toward Vietnam for chicken feet in the first place?  Are there not enough domestic Chinese chickens with feet?

·         How do you keep chicken feet for 46 years?

·         Were these chicken feet passed down from Vietnamese father smuggler to son smuggler as an inheritance?

·         How many generations of smuggler family members are chicken feet good for?  Could the son smuggler have passed the chicken feet to his son smuggler?

·         Do 46 year old chicken feet still resemble feet?  Should we still be calling them feet or chicken nuggets?

·         How do we know the age of these feet?

·         Do people eat chicken feet?  Why?

·         Is there any chicken meat on chicken feet or do people just gnaw the talons?  If so, why?

·         If people do not eat chicken feet, why are they kept for 46 years and smuggled into China?

It seems that there is an answer to the last three questions.  According to Wikipedia, the world’s foremost authority on every subject in the world, chicken feet consist of skin and tendons.  No meat.  This gives the chicken feet a “distinct texture different from the rest of the chicken meat.”  As a result, “they are very difficult to eat”.

So, why is there such a demand for chicken feet that they are being smuggled into China 46 years after their expiration date?  Well, they are used as a beer snack, for soup, or a main dish.  They can be deep fried, or steamed to make them puffy before being stewed and simmered in a sauce with beans.

In this throw away world in which we live, isn’t it good to know that there are some things that never get too old or go out of date?


Copyright ©Eric Lanier.  The right to download and store output of the materials from this website is granted for your personal use only, and materials may not be produced in any edited form. Any other reproduction or editing by any means, mechanical or electronic, without the express written permission of Eric Lanier is strictly prohibited. For additional information, contact Eric Lanier at ericelanier@gmail.com