As mentioned in an earlier blog, Mer and I have carved pumpkins for eleven years now. Here are the 2006 editions.

Mer came up with a very nice Shakespeare, while I carved the second in my Christian pumpkin series.

Saturday evening, Mer and I got to go to the wonderful Kent Stage to see John Gorka in concert. John has a great deep baritone voice, plays a mean guitar, and has clever and thoughtful vocals. He also has a good stage presence – he is funny and relaxed and is not afraid to interact with the audience quite a bit. Check out these songs (open with Quicktime) – Land of the Bottom Line (a song about surrendering freedom for security), Raven in the Storm (a song that creates a creepy mood), Let Them In (a song about WW2 soldiers that were killed), and People My Age (a song about getting old and fat). The concert was almost two hours long, and it was great.

Mer and I hung out in the lobby to get to meet John, who was supposed to come out after a few minutes (and he did). What was surreal about waiting was that the street outside the venue was the main place for Kent State students to show off their Halloween costumes. There was an endless stream of young folks in costume roaming up and down both sides of the street. My clear favorite was a guy in a Fred Flintstone costume. In his car. In his foot-powered car. What an awesome costume. It was just a little weird to come out of a concert that was mostly full of 30-somethings and older, and come out into a world of semi-sober costumed college students. I *really* wish I had had my camera.  [Mer’s note – semi-sober and semi-costumed; maybe it’s just as well you didn’t have your camera!]

Folk music is great. I have been a folk nut for about 18 years now, and I have been going to folk concerts for much of that time. Oddly, NE Ohio is a hub of folk music. I get to see as much (or more) folk music here as I did in Chicago. My guess is that 1) Ohio is on the way to everywhere for artists who drive, and 2) WKSU’s folk program is highly regarded. So, we get lots of good folk music coming our way. In fact, the 40th annual Kent State Folk Festival is coming up in two weeks. My favorite part of the Kent State Folk Festival is the **free** workshops that are given on the Saturday of the festival. You can choose what workshop you want to go to, and you can be in a small room with good artists who want to explain what they do. It is much fun.

I love folk music for many reasons. I find the music more interesting than most pop music. The lyrics are usually thoughtful (or at least funny). The instrumentation is great, and the artists care about their art. They obviously want to make a living, but they are not making millions playing music – they really do it because they love it. I also love that folk concerts allow you to be up close and personal – at most concerts I am usually less than 50 feet from the performer. I love that intimacy. I can watch them play the instruments and wonder how they get that much sound out of the instruments. Many of the performers make themselves available before or after the show, or during intermissions. I also love the variety of folk music – it has roots in many cultures. My favorite folk music is heavily Celtic influenced, but I have seen or heard great African music, Klezmer bands, Russian music and more. Folk music has a great diversity in it. Ironically, my least favorite folk music is the “popular” folk music of the 60s – I tend to find it a little irritating (singing slightly off key seems to have been “in” in the 60s). I also prefer songs about people to general protest songs. Give me a good song about farming or breaking up or sailing or escaping the British or wrestling with God or factory work or music or friends or dancing.

It is kind of an odd phenomenon to go and see live music. Why pay $20 to see Gorka, when for $15 I can get a CD and listen whenever I want? I’m not sure. I like having “date nights” with Meredith, so that is part of it. I like getting to see how artists play the instruments, so that is part of it. I like being part of the experience – there is something fun about live music – it is organic. Sometimes the performer will explain why a song was written, and that is enlightening. You often can see the personality of the singer. You get to support them in what they do – I’m pretty sure that they make much of their living by performing concerts. Economically, it does not make perfect sense to go see live music instead of buying CDs, but there you have it. I love live music, and I’ll keep going. I recommend it to you, even if you are a poor college student. Go to music on campus if you can’t afford to go to hear more established artists. Expose yourself to new music (especially if it is free or cheap). You might find music you fall in love with.

Gorka was much fun. I’m looking forward to him coming back in April. Folk music is great, and I love that it comes to me. Folk on, dude!

What weird weather Saturday. We had sun, then rain, then wind, then hail, then it all repeated several times during the day. We had rain that was horizontal with winds over 50 mph. Our neighbor had a pine tree fall over. I like extreme weather – it feels wild. I usually like being inside when it is happening. I was mostly in during the weird weather – I did get caught in the rain during a few errands. The weather mosly cleared up for the evening (much to the delight of the Halloween folks).

Our friends Matt and Liz came over this weekend for our Halloween/All Saint’s Day/All Hallow’s Eve/Harvest Festival/Fall Party. Matt and Liz are among the most educated of the folks that will still associate with me – Liz is a lawyer (and former CVCA Latin teacher), and Matt is a dissertation away from a PhD in English. Matt is way-out-there smart – he taught Latin at CVCA for two years, knows more theology in his arm than I ever will, and is getting durn smart in English. Matt reminds me very much of my father-in-law, Dale. He can quote Milton, Shakespeare, the church fathers, Homer, and more. This makes Matt’s fascination with monster trucks, motorcycles, and Johnny Cash unexpected and much fun. (Note: I am not saying that monster truck folks can’t be interested in Milton – I just think it is unusual. Also, anyone that reminds me of Dale does not remind me of monster trucks.) So, Matt was very excited to learn that this year’s corn maze at Maize Valley Farms was Bigfoot-themed (this helped make up for the pain of missing the Nascar-themed maze two years ago). In honor of the occasion, Matt wore his “Official Redneck” hat. I expect this picture of Matt and Bigfoot will end up next to his wedding photos.

It was a very nice day – sunny and in the mid-50s. We got to Maize Valley just as they were shooting the much-coveted Pumpkin Cannon. I had missed it the last two years, so I was happy to get to see it. They were shooting it initially at a junk car, and then they put it at a 45-degree angle and shot for distance. I have no good sense of how far the pumpkins went, but I would term it as “far.”

After seeing the pumpkin cannon, I clearly needed to sit down, so we took the hay ride. In past years, the hay ride took you to the pumpkin patch to pick out your pumpkin. They moved the pumpkin patch, so this year the hay ride was an end in itself. We had a nice ride and chatted. They fired the cannon while we were down range from it, but we could never find the pumpkins in the sky, so we were not able to watch them.

After the ride, we went and looked at the farm animals. For fans of Travels With My Donkey, here is a gratuitous picture for you.

After the animals came the serious business of getting pumpkins. Carving pumpkins is the only holiday tradition that Mer and I have – this will be year 11 of carving pumpkins (for those doing the math, we did indeed have 2 illegitimate pumpkins before we were married). Getting the right pumpkin is important, and thus you can understand Mer’s happiness at finding her pumpkin. Matt and Liz each claimed to have not carved pumpkins in about 15 years! I tried not to judge them too harshly for this, and I was pleased at the thought that went into their selecting pumpkins. Oddly, they both ended up with green pumpkins. I look forward to seeing what they carve (we were not able to carve our pumpkins this weekend because of time constraints, but Matt and Liz promised to carve them and send pictures along).

Included in admission was the Bigfoot-shaped corn maze, but these things are more fun in the dark, so we headed the three miles back home for chili, rolls, and peanut-butter chocloate cake provided by the Hartville Kitchen. You are probably starting to get the idea that this kind of evening is very much my speed, and you would be right – good food, good company, nice weather, ambling about a field, and projectile gourds. Life is good.

After supper, I talked about carving pumpkins, but Mer pointed out that we might run out of time for the corn maze, so we headed out. I love corn mazes – there is simple fun in wandering around lost in the dark, in corn. Maize Valley also has a popular haunted corn maze, which we did not do. However, it adds to the fun to be wandering around in your corn maze and hear a chainsaw followed by screams from the haunted maze.

Our maze looked promising. The corn was really high – about 7+ feet tall. It adds considerably to the experience if you cannot see over the corn. We wandered into the maze, following Liz’s lead. She soon stated that as a lawyer, she merely advised, so someone else would have to make decisions. The first slight hitch of the maze was that one section we came to was under about 2 or 3 inches of water. We decided to go another way – no great harm there. The object of this maze was to find a bell in the maze and ring it. We heard it every once in awhile, but not very often. After being in the maze a short while, we did hear it nearby. We went in the direction of the sound, and saw the bell. One slight irritation I have in corn mazes is that people trample the corn down to make their own paths. The place we saw the bell was at the end of one of these unofficial paths. If the corn was still standing, we would have been five feet from the bell and not been able to see it or get to it. As it was, it seemed a little silly to pretend we had not seen it. That, combined with the water in the maze, convinced us to ring the bell and exit the maze. Ringing the bell was a challenge – the bell was about nine feet off the ground, and the pull rope had come off and was lying on the ground. I picked it up, and managed to loop it around the pull arm. I got one ring out of the bell when the rope jammed in the pivot point and jammed the bell. Then, trying to fix that, I pulled the pull-rope off again. Smooth. Still, I did get it back on for one more ring. We were only in the maze for about 15 minutes, but there is always next year.

We did run into two guys who were carrying a spotlight flashlight – it was probably the brightest flashlight I have ever seen. It took several seconds to stop glowing when the guy holding it turned it off. Neat.

On the way out, we passed the entrance to the haunted maze. They had a  cool pumpkin there that made me think of Sonotmu (thinking he would like it). There was no wussy candle in this pumpkin – it had a real fire in it! It was pretty darn creepy and cool.

Once we got back to where we had parked, we spent several minutes looking up at the stars. It was a clear evening, and Matt and Liz do not get to see stars often (they live in Akron where it is not dark enough to see many stars). We got to see a shooting star. We discovered that we know almost nothing about the stars – we did find the Big Dipper, but could not agree on where the North Star was (later, I looked it up and it was not very high in the sky, which was not really where we were looking).

So, we ended the evening back at our house, where we chatted some more (after I looked up some stars and planets using Stellarium). Matt and Liz had to take off to let their dog (Charlie) out. It was a pretty great evening.

I
was sick for about 10 days over the last two weeks. The
cold finally cleared up enough for me to get out and run on
Thursday and Friday. It has been a little rainy over the last few days,
so it has made running around the CVCA property (including the new
woods trail) just a little muddy…

Today in chapel, we got to see the Lion Players,
a Christian dance/mime team that came to CVCA to talk about God,
holiness (especially regarding sex), and the realization of
forgiveness through a loving Savior, Jesus. It was excellent. The dance
pieces were much fun, and the mime stories communicated the message
really well (for fellow improv nuts, their object work was superb).

I
was very happy about the audience. CVCA decided to have this as a
“joint chapel,” meaning it was the whole school, 7th-12th grade. The
Lion Players talked very openly about sex, pornography, dating, fooling
around, and so on, without becoming rude or obscene. All of our
students need to hear about these things, whether in seventh grade or
in twelfth.

Getting to see dance and mime used to minister to
people in the name of God underlined the need for Christians to be in
the arts. We need talented Christians in dance, drama, music, and
visual arts. I sometimes think Christians want to concede an area as
“off limits” to Christians (dance being a prime example), but we need
to use the talents God gives us to glorify him and to minister to
others (as long as it is not unbiblical).

Art is largely about
truth and beauty (apologies to Mr. Keats). Christians have the best
example of Truth and Beauty available. How can we not share that? How
can we not take joy in that?

For some good examples of visual arts, I recommend the Vatican Museums. I liked the Christian modern art – I found it compelling.

Good job, Lion Players! Keep up the good work.

On Saturday, Mer and I got to catch up with Ombudsman and the increasingly fuzzy Adminion. Ombudsman was bachin’ it, and that is a state of life for the collegiate Adminion (who, shockingly, does not have a blog! What is wrong with young people these days?).

We picked up Adminion and proceeded to a local Applebee’s, where we met up with Ombudsman. There was much contemplation over what to eat (see picture), especially where celebrity chef Tyler Florence was personally going to cook our meals and then juggle for our entertainment. We eventually all settled on “food” and had an enjoyable meal with some actual talking (including getting to see pictures of Adminion in a lime green leisure suit that was made before he was born).

Oddly, Tyler Florence had not done much with dessert, so we decided to drive to Handel’s Ice Cream, voted the best ice cream on the PLANET by National Geographic. Ombudsman and I were manly and got sundaes, while Adminion got some ice cream in a shade of pink not designed by nature. Mer got two scoops of ice cream (different flavors, of course).

Happily full, we then drove (with me in the dubious lead) to Kent State University’s School of Theater and Dance to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I am very fond of this play – it is funny, makes lots of allusions to Hamlet (naturally enough), and has enough tie-ins to ideas from quantum mechanics that I get to do a guest lecture on the subject in Mer’s classes in the spring. Mer had offered extra credit to her students if they saw the play this last weekend. About 10 or so students took her up on it. The play is still plenty fun, but these were kids who have not yet read Hamlet or RosenGuild. I was both amused and sad that they had to see the play like that. I’m sure there were many “what is going on?” moments. Hopefully, it will increase the anticipation for studying both works in the spring (for the seniors – the juniors who saw the play have to wait 18 months).

We had a great evening – it is not often we can get together with Ombudsman socially (he has something called “family” that keeps him busy), and Adminion is off at college gettin’ smart and stuff, so we do not see him much anymore either. Food, friends, and post-modern plays about being pawns of chance. That makes a good evening.

Oh – I should point out (lest my other college-aged friends feel left out of the fun) that this evening of festivities was my “thank you” to Ombudsman and Adminion for helping me hang projectors and wire racks in very hot ceilings for most of last summer. Working with me is its own reward, of course, but I felt they earned a little extra on days when the temperatures in the ceilings went above 90.

  Because
there were a few hours between Stan Hywet (see entry below) and my
half-marathon (entry below), Mer and I filled the hours up by going to
CVCA’s Homecoming banquet. This is the CVCA equivalent to public
schools’ Homecoming dances. We don’t have dances at CVCA (although we
have had one square dance, last spring), but we DO get to eat.

It
is good fun to see the students dress up, but Mer has instructed me
that if we ever have a kid, that we need to tell her that when you are
gussied up, you may want to lose the gum. 🙂  That aside, the kids
looked great, and they were well behaved. Most spent the pre-meal
wanderings visiting friends and taking pictures. Mer and I got to sit
at one of two teacher tables, and it is MUCH fun to be at the teacher
table. I think the kids have all of this pressure on them to behave for
their dates, to look good, to see all of their friends, etc. Too much
work for me! The teachers don’t worry about most of that stuff – we
want to eat and laugh. We did quite a lot of both.

The evening entertainment was the kids playing Family Feud based on questions asked at CVCA. It was much fun, and surprising how many had not seen Family Feud
before, and so only knew partly what they were doing.  [Mer’s
note:  Apparently, after we left, there actually WAS some dancing,
of the hokey group variety – word is that our principal does a
kick-butt chicken dance.]

Mer and I had to go a little early (because we had to be up at
5:00 the next morning), so we took off in the middle of CVCA Family
Feud (probably about 9:15 or so). A nice evening. So, all in all, this
last weekend was very busy, but it was also nice.

 Stan Hywet is
always a fun place to go. It is a beautiful house, and the grounds are
extensive and well maintained. Mer and I see Shakespeare at Stan Hywet
every summer, and there are other things that go on there as well.

This
last Saturday was Ohio Mart, a fundrasier where craftsmen set up booths
on the grounds and sell their wares. Stan Hywet gets part of the
proceeds to help maintain the grounds. Mer and I got free tickets, so we
decided to go. We pictured a few booths scattered around the grounds
with a few people milling around looking  at handmade dresses and
stained glass.

Boy, were we wrong. Our first clue that maybe Ohio
Mart was a bigger deal than we thought was that the parking at Stan Hywet,
which is ample, was full. We were directed to Firestone High School to
park, a 1.3 mile walk. We could have waited for a shuttlebus, but the
line was enormous and it was a perfect day, so we walked.

Once we
got on the grounds, we saw that there were lots of people, and there
were several huge tents for the vendors. There were people everywhere.
We decided we would take things mellow, and we wandered around the
grounds, heading toward the back of the property. We found a small road
that took us to the back of the grounds, where we had never been. It
was wonderful. There were no people back there, and it was really
pretty. Here are (many) pictures of the back side of the property. I
recommend checking it out if you get to Stan Hywet sometime.

A perfect day!

The grounds have a Japanese-influenced garden.

We
did poke around in the vendor tents, and the stuff was nice. There was
a cool exhibit of quilts in the house itself. Still, the real show was
the grounds. We stayed for two hours or so, then walked
back to the car. A very nice afternoon.

Sunday morning, things were not looking good. Conventional wisdom is
that you want a good sleep the two nights before a race. Friday
night/Saturday morning I woke up early and often. Saturday itself was
very busy (that is another post), and I did not get to bed until 11:00
and I woke up at 4:00 with cramps. I was tired and did not feel good.
But, I had been training for this for months, and spent $45 to run a
long ways, so I was going to give it a try.

Conventional wisdom
also tells you to hydrate by drinking a lot. I drank a glass of water
and a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade for breakfast, along with two
English muffins with raspberry jelly for the carbs. Mer, ever
supportive of her insane husband, was up early for the privilege of
getting to see me for about a total of 1 minute during the actual race
– in this case, the start, once in the middle, and at the end. I
married me a good ‘un.

Anyway, after I went to the bathroom
(again), we climbed into the car and started off north. I got all of a
half hour away before I had to stop at a gas station to use the
bathroom again. Then, we made it another 15 minutes before I stopped at
school to use the bathroom. Again. We finally made it to our
destination around 7:30 a.m. for the 8:00 start time. By 8:00, I really
had to go to the bathroom. Again. So started my first ever
half-marathon at the Cuyahoga Valley Towpath Half-Marathon.

Here
is my “before” picture standing in front of the Boston Mills ski slope.
For those of you not from NE Ohio, there is one major valley, known as
“The Valley.” Everyone around here will know what you are talking
about. The few ski slopes in the area ski down into the Valley. As far
as I could see, Boston Mills makes my hometown ski slope, Spruce
Mountain, look huge. But I digress.

Despite the sleep and
bathroom issues, the day itself was shaping up to be a wonderful day
for running. The sun was out (if not yet really over the horizon), and
the starting temperature was somewhere in the low 50s. This is the
first year the Towpath Marathon had offered a half-marathon, so there
were about twice as many people at the starting line as had been in
previous years – probably close to 900. I somehow was near the front
(probably from my wandering up to the starting line early to stretch).
The organizers had a man sing the National Anthem just before the race
started. There is something special about hearing “The Star Spangled
Banner” in the early morning light with a bunch of anxious runners who
all cheer when they hear the song. Neat.

Anyway, the race
started, and I started running. As an additional bonus to my morning, I
had forgotten my watch, so I had no idea how fast I was running. I just
started running at a pace I thought was comfortable. To my great
surprise, I started passing a lot of people. To be fair, the
marathoners were in the group, so they had a long ways to go yet. But,
still, I was surprised. I have not been a “passer” in many a year, and
I was worried that I was going out too fast. Without my watch, I had no
way to know, but I felt good, so I just kept running. Well, I mostly
felt good. (***ATTENTION – perhaps too much personal
information ahead!***) I really really needed a tree so I
could relieve myself, but the first two miles of the race were on a
road, so there was no good opportunity. Even after we got into the
park, things were looking dim on the bathroom front. The few
porta-potties on the course had lines, and I have no great aversion to
using the woods (I did grow up in Maine, after all).

Imagine my
surprise when I rediscovered that the Towpath (as in an old towpath)
had a river on one side, and the old canal on the other. I did not
relish the idea of getting my feet wet to go to the bathroom, plus I
did not want to go in a body of water. Plus, I am shy, and I prefer a
private area for these things. If I seem to be spending much time on
this issue, I am. It was a very important issue to me! I did not find a
nice field until around the four-mile mark. I tore my legs up on
pricker bushes, but boy, was it worth it. I felt so much better!

I
also felt good. I still had no idea how fast I was going, but I felt
strong and I was still passing people. I was worried about burning out,
but for the time being, I went with it. I also discovered that for much
of the race, I was with serious runners who were focused. While most of
the runners would respond to a “Nice job!” or “Good morning!”, that was
it. There was very little banter or conversation. This is odd to me,
since I have often hooked up with another runner in long races just by
chatting. Odd.

Anyway, the trail was stunningly beautiful. The
sunlight was slanting through the trees (keeping us in shade!), the
leaves were pretty and falling and smelling wonderful. My body felt
great, and I experienced some rare moments of true beauty.

As the
myriad fans of Musings know, I am a Christian. My faith is largely
intellectual – Christianity makes sense to me, logically and
intellectually. I occasionally “feel” God, but not often. I am 1) male,
2) from Maine, and 3) a Riordan, so I do not express emotion very well,
so sometimes I struggle to have an emotional link to God. Sunday, God
gave me one of those rare times. I was surrounded by natural beauty and
I was rejoicing in the gift of my body – I felt strong and “the nature”
around me was so beautiful. I felt a peace and love that connected me
back to God. What a great feeling. Those moments are rare, but are so
worth the training.

The trail also has some pretty cool man-made
stuff going on too. Since the trail is in the Valley, we got to run
under one of the bridges spanning the Valley. I don’t often get to see
a 150-foot bridge from the underside, but it is pretty darn cool. There
are also some remains of the old canal still in existence too. I’ll
have to bring Sonotmu there sometime – he likes bridges, and OrangeJoJo
will like the trail too (Orange leaves! Everywhere!).

I got to
the 6.7-mile turn-around spot (a painted dot on the trail) and I turned
around. I was still feeling great. I felt a little wind in my face, and
that worried me – maybe I had been feeling good because of a tailwind,
and now I was going to have to run 6 miles into that wind. But after a
minute or so, I never noticed the wind again.

Soon after the turn around, a man I passed announced “only 45 minutes
left to go” and I thought he was nuts. We still had 6 or so miles to go
– that is almost an hour by my normal pace. Still, I took this as a
good sign – maybe I was going fast, and I still felt good.

I got
to see Mer at a trail head around mile 9. I love that she supports me.
It gives me something to look forward to, and for all her waiting and
patience, she gets a nasty, sweaty kiss for her troubles.

After
the morale boost from Mer at the trail head, I only had about 4 miles
to go. Mile 9-10 was the first time I started to feel tired, but I was
still passing people. Finally, at mile 10 (3 miles to go), I started to
get really tired, but I also managed to strike up a conversation with
another runner. He had run a half-marathon before, and he was running
about my pace. I told him my goal was to break two hours, and he said
that was not going to be a problem – we were going much faster than
that.

At that point, we started pushing each other – I did not
want to leave him by my walking, so although I was tired, I kept up the
strong pace. A shared burden really is easier (especially when some
competition is involved!). I was taking things one mile at a time, and
I was determined that my will could be exerted to keep my tired legs
pumping along. I was very happy when we got to mile 12 – only one more
mile to go. There was a group of three of us by that time running
together. We pushed each other until we could hear the finish line.
Brian (the runner I had hooked up with at mile 10) gave us some
encouragement and took off. I got to the finish area (the Boston Mills
General Store) and passed the 13 mile mark. You would think that .1
mile would not be much – only about 530 feet. How hard could that be?
Darn hard! I gutted it in as hard as I could. I was thrilled – I had
shattered my goal, and I had “left it all on the course” – I had run
hard and was beat. I was thrilled. What a great day!

For
those who like numbers, here they are. I am very proud of this race. I
had a goal of breaking 2 hours with a secret goal of 1:45 (I always
have a secret pie-in-the-sky goal). I broke both! 🙂

2006 Towpath Half-Marathon (13.1 miles), Sunday October 8:

1:40:28 finish time, 7:40/mile pace

Finished 9th out of 37 in my class (35-39, male) and finished 47th out of 399 overall.

What a great race. Thanks to Mer for her uncomplaining support and thanks to God for some very special moments.