Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You: A good beer joint is hard to find and other facts of life by Lewis Grizzard

Author:Lewis Grizzard [Grizzard, Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: essay, bestselling author, Southern humor, humor, columnist
Publisher: Green E-Books
Published: 2012-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

BOSTON

BOSTON—AS I SIT on my rump smoking cigarettes and typing this, I can still see runners coming in from the suburb of Hopkinton, 26 miles and 385 yards from the Boston Marathon finish line at the downtown Prudential Center.

It will be hours before the last of the 7,800 official entrants, and maybe a couple of thousand more who ran anyway, finally come to the end of their exhausting journey.

The big names arrived to the cheering throngs what is now nearly two hours ago. Bill Rodgers was first. Actually, a cop on a motorcycle was first, but Bill Rodgers was right behind him with a record time of two hours, nine minutes, and twenty-seven seconds. It was his second straight Boston Marathon victory.

Appropriately, Bill Rodgers is from Boston and he sells sneakers. For accomplishing his feat, Bill Rodgers had a laurel wreath placed upon his head, and a medallion was hung around his neck by the governor of Massachusetts, Edward King. The crowd booed Edward King on Patriots Day in Boston.

What else the winner of the Boston Marathon gets is a bowl of beef stew. I hope they never change that. What occurred here Monday in cold and drizzling rain was a sporting event—a human event—that is still relatively pure and unspoiled by promoters and agents and television, not to mention candy bar and beer companies that want to get their names in the newspapers.

Bill Rodgers crossing the finish line at the Boston Marathon Mon day was as thrilling a moment as I have seen in sport. My goose pimples from the cold doubled in size.

But what is even more thrilling is watching now, watching the stragglers, the “nobodies”—the teachers, the housewives, the doctors, maybe even a cop or two, or Joe Futz the insurance salesman from Pottsdown—push their tired and worn bodies to limits they probably never believed possible when they ended a two-pack-a-day habit and decided to become athletes.

Grown men are hugging each other at the finish line. Many are finishing in tears. A medical center is located in a nearby garage. Freezing, cramping runners are wrapped in cellophane sheets and placed on cots. Doctors move from cot to cot treating frightful blisters. It’s the rescue center after an earthquake.

I asked a man who looked like he was dying was it worth it.

“I ran the sonuvabitch,” he said, “and I beat it.” On his soaked T-shirt were the words, “Human Power.”

As I looked at him, I thought about Bob Horner of the Braves and Pete Rose and what’s-his-name Parker with the Pirates and Reggie Jackson of the Yankees, as well as Jim Rice of the Red Sox, who at that moment was only a few blocks away at Fenway Park, lolling around in left field for something like $50,000 a game.

Columnist Leigh Montville of the Boston Globe was apparently thinking of the same sports millionaires’ club when he so aptly advanced the Boston Marathon Monday morning.

“There are no agents involved today,” he wrote. “There are no options being played out, no deals being made, no fleets of Mercedes being pulled into any special parking lot.

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