run on sentences

It is a mere two weeks before the Austin marathon. It was 20 degrees when Suzanne and I started our run, but it soon warmed up to 40 and our jackets came off. We ran well and easy for two "older girls" for the three hours or so we were out there. What does a person talk about for three hours while running? People ask me this and the answer is, pretty much everything and anything - usually not sex though - we women do have some limits on our conversation. Today we discuss how cool it was that we viewed a half marathon as something that we hardly had to train for. We immediately realized we could not say this to any one else but each other, otherwise we would be bragging. We talk about our children, our jobs and how we will spend the Saturday. We mention how good a coffee and Baileys would be and the thought of that keeps us from noticing that our quads are sore and my Achilles tendinitis is making itself known - but not enough to make me stop. A young girl - maybe 18 or 20 y...

To Whom it May Concern: I am writing this letter as a character reference for William (Billy) Thomas, who is applying for admission to the Johnson School of Business at Cornell University. I have known Bill for most of his life, serving as his landlord, supervisor and mentor, at times (and at times, all three at the same time - or so my inflated sense of self would like to think). I can vouch for his character and persistence against all odds, despite being told "you can't do that" many times in his life. He is creative in meeting his goals and kind in dealing with his friends and people he doesn't know and even those he doesn't like. He has the qualities of a good leader. And if all else fails, he has his sense of humor and spontaneity to get through the inevitable times when life doesn't go the way one wants. I will share a few examples of these traits. As the middle child, he was a challenge to his parents; consistently breaking rules but using good logic t...

I grew up in the 60's. It was a great time to be a kid - except if you were black. As a child, I was mostly oblivious to all the prejudices in the world because in my little town, there were no African Americans or "colored people" like my mom and dad called them. There was a kids book called "Little Black Sambo" and we could go to Born's store in our town and buy "nigger babies" which were little black licorice candies shaped like babies. I didn't know this was bad and I didn't know about the klu klux clan or that some kids my age had to go to all black schools, couldn't eat in certain restaurants and that there were designated drinking fountains for blacks and whites. I grew up sheltered in a town where everyone was pretty much like me. I didn't see an African American except on TV, until I was in high school and my sister and I took a trip to Milwaukee. By then, I was aware of the injustices in the world. I was not brought up to ...

Nothing like having a bad cold to make a person feel lucky for usual health and good runs on Saturday. And nothing like 3 good friends who show up in 17 degree weather to run with me to make me forget I feel like crap. Yeah I am lucky. I never get sick. I wrote an email to my friends, suggesting we do the Cottonbottom run, which is 13 miles. When I woke up with my dry cough, headache, and general feelings of lousiness, I thought "I will never make it". I had my coffee, passed what I call the "coffee test" and then I was thinking "maybe". When I saw Suzanne, Paula and Tom pull up to my house, I thought "Hell, I can do this". My friends who I have been running with for years, gave me some added energy that I didn't know I had, and Suzanne and I made it to the Cottonbottom - I felt pretty good. I had violated one of my own rules though....never decide how you feel on the run until you have gone 3 miles or 30 minutes - whatever comes first. I fel...

When I was at the abandoned house that I grew up in, emptying the scattered contents of my dad's bedroom, I came across a calendar on which he had recorded the weather. It was a week in January, sometime in the late 70's. On Monday he had written "snowed all day, 6 inches". The next day, he again commented on the snow fall amounts. By the end of the week he was writing "still snowing". On Saturday of that week he wrote "yet even!". "Yet even" has become a phrase my sister and I now use, in memory of my father. We use it most frequently about the winter weather. I will call her and ask "Is it still snowing?". She will say "Yet even". Or I will say "Is Ray (my alcoholic brother) still drinking". "Yet even", she will reply. I can see my dad, sitting in his cluttered bedroom that no one, not even my mom (after his head injury) was allowed to enter and certainly not clean, writing about the we...