I just got back from a trip to Jacksonville, Florida and Hilton Head, South Carolina. I was in Florida for meetings about a consulting job and movie financing but Hilton Head was more important; I drove there from Florida to help my daughter Gracie pass the final two days of spring break since her sorority sisters had vacated early. Gracie is a junior at FSU and opted to stay at a Marriott resort instead of parachuting into Cancun chugging tequila. Because of decisions like this, she remains the favorite employee of Daddy National Bank.
Hilton Head is a small resort island 30 minutes north of Savannah. It is 150 miles from Jacksonville but seemed ten times that far while driving my Nissan Cube rental car through a torrential rainstorm. It rained dogs and cats, pups and kittens, strays and purebreds. My red Cube, a jack-in-the-box on tiny wheels, was a late, surprise substitution for my supposed PT Cruiser. Cubes have a lot of interior head room but as easy to fly as a kite. This was easily the worst, most dangerous windy day automobile I’ve ever driven.
Faced with a dreary all day rain and gloomy forecast, Gracie and I decided to creep the Cube through Hilton Head’s terrible traffic and visit several of the island’s consignment shops before catching an afternoon movie. We were late to the theater and they didn’t take plastic but the manager ushered us quickly inside anyway. She said to go to the nearby bank’s autoteller after the show and then come back and pay. We were surprised by her kindness and grateful. Gracie had not seen Hurt Locker and wanted to.
At night we had sushi and then went to the Hilton Head Comedy Club. The owner opened, which is never good. The headliner, a loud and proud New York Jew, worked very hard and earned his money. We know he is Jewish because he reminded us 2,345 times. A lot of guys do not work that hard on a rainy Thursday night for a small crowd of chuckling non-guffawers but he did.
We saw in Friday’s paper that the 15th annual Shamrock Run 5K footrace was scheduled for Saturday morning. While my ego was willing to run it, I didn’t want to drop a lot on shoes just to run three miles. We visited another consignment store and fate intervened. Amidst a halo glow was a nearly-new pair of size 13 Nikes. Five bucks. Running socks cost fifty cents.
I used to run a lot but don’t any more. Two years ago I had an allergic reaction to statin drugs and both of my quad tendons ruptured. Without them, legs don’t work right because there’s nothing that connects the thigh to the knee. The injuries made me rubber-legged like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. The repair surgery is miserable and rehab on the first one was a year or so. The second, which snapped five months after the first, was even more severe. Rehab for that one was estimated to be eighteen months. Maybe it’s seventeen months because on Saturday I ran the 5K start to finish. I was slower than a rock formation but in a sadistic way it felt really good, especially since my last run was 2008.
I took it slow because I had no other option. All I wanted to do was finish safely. Even so it hurt, especially the first half-mile. My knees felt like rusty hinges but gradually loosened up. Back when I ran often and very far, no one in the world was twice as fast as me. On Saturday several were, and this was an intimate neighborhood race of 287.
The course was out and back, which Gracie didn’t like but I did because it gave me a chance to swerve my rusty-hinged, scarecrow legs over to give her a passing high-five with words of encouragement as she sped back past. She beat me by a mile, finishing in the top third overall and second in her age group. Nor did she perspire; but I sweat enough for both of us and crossed the finish line gasping like a grouper flung to the deck of a party boat. I finished top Coloradan in my age group and weight division.
What mattered that morning is nothing I own but everything I have: a daughter who dragged the old man around Hilton Head’s side streets for morning exercise and love of the effort after a long road back. It was the highlight of my trip, even better than handing back the keys to the Cube.
Shoes: five bucks. Socks: fifty cents. Losing by a mile: priceless. And as trite as it sounds, I have a funny feeling that creaky knees or not, better days loom ahead.
Next time I will pay seven dollars for shoes instead of five. If I pay 40 percent more for the shoes, I should be able to run 40 percent faster. If I do that, I beat her. Like the adage says: Age and treachery shall always prevail over youth and skill. Some day I’ll prove it.