Mary's birthday, Tower Records .....

Last night a few friends gathered to celebrate a birthday, the 50th birthday of Mary, a dear friend who passed away this last summer. It was a bitter-sweet occasion; it was great to see everyone and to be included in that group of friends, while the reason for our gathering was indeed a sad one.

Mary was a wonderful friend, one half of Bob and Mary, a couple that were so much of an entity, so much in love, so suited to each other, it is hard to imagine one without the other now. Mary was diagnosed with a brain tumor a couple of years ago now. She had a valiant battle with her cancer over 18 months and finally lost the battle last summer.

Paralleling Mary's struggle, a BBC reporter was documenting his own struggle with a brain tumor on the BBC Online site - his Tumor Diary is worth reading. It is a difficult story of someone's fight against this malignancy, finally ending with the reporter's death early this year.

On a lighter note, as yesterday was for the most part a happy event, I was talking with Sue who had been a long time employee of Tower Records, joining the company in her teens in the 60's and moving up and along as the company grew. For those of you who don't know, Tower Records, the once mighty global purveyor of music, grew up in Sacramento, in a store just a stone's throw from my present house. This young kid Russ Solomon started selling records in his dad's drugstore and eventually built it up into a mighty organization with shops all over the world (including one on Piccadilly Circus).

Of course the Internet came along, then Amazon.com and the rest is history; no one wanted to buy CDs at a shop anymore. Tower has been through a bankruptcy reorganization and is now a shadow of its former self. I and many others have great memories of wandering among stacks of LPs. All that great LP cover art, now all you get is a measly CD cover, or worse nothing at all if you download a music from the internet. Anyway, I think Sue should write a book about the early Tower days, there must be some stories to tell I am sure.

Good-bye Pork Pie Hat

So today is a damp Monday here in California and its a holiday - President's Day (one of the earlier President's Birthdays). Not much of a day for doing anything outdoors and we have a music lesson this evening so we are practicing the guitar today. This week's tune is "Good-bye Pork Pie Hat". A great tune by bassist and composer Charlie Mingus from the late 50's. The song is a tribute to saxophonist Lester Young ("The Prez") who must have worn a Pork Pie Hat. The song has been recorded by a multitude of people. I remember it from the 60's when the English folk band Pentangle did it. From that same era there is a great rendition by Jeff Beck that is well worth checking out. Then Joni Mitchell wrote some lyrics and it was on her Mingus album (1980's?).

No matter how good a song it is, I still end up mangling it and, as with all the other pieces that I have been learning, I will likely completely forget if I don't play it for a week. There's something about that musical memory, and any other kind of memory for that matter, that is not so good these days. Oh well.....

The Training Run

So on Saturday a few of us did the a long run in the Sierra foothills. It is three weeks to Way too Cool), a 50k race in Cool, California so it is time for a long run this weekend. The run was organized by the Western States 100 Mile organization and it was the first of a series of training runs that they put on. It was a chance to run alongside some more elite (or fanatical or obsessed or deranged) runners from the true ultra-running crowd. When one gal was talking of having done an easy 100 miler in Huntsville earlier in the month, you know you don't quite have the same frame of reference - how could a 100 mile run of any type be "easy".

As always, it was interesting how my mood changed during the day, it felt good at the start, a lot of friends there, a lot very experienced ultra runners and really good atmosphere. We were bused out from Auburn to Georgetown and the Sliger Mine Road (just above the Rucky Chucky crossing of the American River). The course we ran was the last 22 miles of the Western States 100. The first 12 or so miles were excellent, great conditions, a lot of flat and downhill, some spectacularly beautiful country and I was feeling soooo good.

Then the whole thing turned bad, I hit some kind of wall, and had no energy and the toughest part of the run followed, it started to rain, it seemed to be all steep uphills with sucking mud.... I was having no fun at all. I just about decided to throw the towel in on anything longer than a marathon in the future. Of course that frequently happens and I know to pay no attention to it afterwards.

At the end of the run, the rain turned really bad, and so the finish line "celebrations" turned into a hose me down, get some dry clothes on and get the hell out of there.
A day later now and I am sore from the run, but I am forgetting all the bad bits and looking forward to the next chance to get out in the foothills. Of course I haven't registered for the American River 50 yet, so I still have time to bail on that one.