The Retiring of a Pair of Running Shoes

    This may be kind of an odd, little post for most, but those who run will understand I think. I hope. There comes a time in the life of every pair of running shoes when it is time to be hung up; no pun intended. You can feel it coming a little at a time. They feel a little slippery on some surfaces. The heal feels hard or begins to feel as if it weren't there at all. The forefront or toebox feels hard and you begin to feel as if you are running in just socks. When your feet ache after even a short run, you know that it has become time to get rid of them. It is all very sad.

    This all may sound a little over dramatic, but if you are a runner then you will understand. A pair of running shoes are not just a regular pair of shoes that you may occasionally wear out on the town. They are something you have had on your person for over 300+ miles. That is same distance as Macon to North Carolina, or from Macon to New Orleans, or from Macon to Tampa, Fl, or from Macon to Kentucky. We aren't talking around the block. We are talking distances that make most weak in the knees, but you did not do it in a day. The shoes and two legs did it in a span of months.

  Your running shoes have felt the run beneath your feet. They have felt your body escape gravity every three strides and felt what it feels to be weightless if only for a second or so. They have felt sweat, snow, rain, mud, sand. They have watched the sun come up and the sun go down. They have brought you moments when the whole world was a trail and you were moving towards the horizon as if you were gliding with no effort at all. They have heard your curse the ground beneath you and struggle to make the next steps. They have heard you smile and con yourself into another mile long after you should have quit. They have crossed finish lines with swagger and toed starting lines with all the caution of a wise man. They have sat with you after each run. They are sitting by the stairs waiting for their next run. They do not know what sitting in the closet feels like.

   They were the shoes you stalked. The shoes you read 100 reviews about. The shoes you went and held in your hands many times before you brought them up to the checkout. They were the shoes you couldn't wait to get home, so you could try them out. And now, it is over for them. They have just grown too old. It is time for them to retire to a life of slow walks behind a lawn mower or a nap in the hammock, but it is so hard to tell a pair of racers that it is time. They take it so hard. And you know they have seen the new kicks waiting in the wings. They have heard you tell your girl about the possibilities of what the new ones will help you accomplish. They know that there are now times when they are left behind to dream of the places you have taken the new pair, but they know it is time. The ache too. Their skin is no longer thick and rough. It is smooth and worn. It is no longer new and white, but tired and dirty. They are sad the road has ended for them, but know that they have done what they were built to do. There isn't another mile left in them. They are ready for the soft grass and will only occasionally miss the road that is waiting for you and them to glide over just beyond. That has been there life's wish. To just know what is over the next hill and what lays beyond. Oh' to know what is beyond. The great, wonderful, euphoric, tragic beyond.

Wired Running 1

        
                                            I am about this bad, but let's not jump the gun.


       My twin is a purist in the most extreme fashion. He runs for pleasure. He reads for the story. He eats for the pleasure of the taste. His clothes are for warmth and protection. He doesn't have his t.v. hooked up to Cable. I could keep giving you examples, but you probably get the idea. He is an idealist and purist. He is dangerous. I am sure you would agree.

       Believe you me....I am not like him. I am a firm believer is running wired. How else would I know how far, how fast, how long, where to, how good, etc? Are you wanting me to just listen to my body and my breathing? Then, you my friend are crazy; almost as crazy as my twin. I couldn't do it. I want to, but just simply can't do it. I have been talking myself into a once a week "naked" run. (Don't worry--the clothes stay on all the time while running. No one is ready for that. No one. It is a running term that means running without a watch.) And I just can't do it. Maybe after November 13. We will see.

      Anyway, that is not what this little post is about. It is about my addiction to running with gadgets. This also yields to an addiction of "logging" my runs or recording them. I am now up to four locations for one run. Once again, please, please do pray for my wife. She is such a patient woman, but am afraid I am reaching the horizon of that patience. It is time to get down to the "logging" business.

       For the past two and a half years, I have been addicted to this contraption:

   
         This is the Nike SportBand. It cost $59 and can be purchased at a host of places. I bought mine at Dick's Sporting Goods. It is a good tool for a runner who wants to see his/her progress. No, it is not a perfect tool. Yes, it has weaknesses and flaws, but it did cost $59. The alternatives cost $200+ and until recently have only been about a tenth of a mile more accurate and that to me is not worth $150. This is what my first SportBand looked like. It had some water resistant problems. This is also what my second SportBand looked like. It also had some water resistant problems. This is what my third SportBand looked like. I wasn't allowed to come back to Dick's for a little while. I sent my wife. She wasn't allowed to come back for a while. I swore off the SportBand and Dick's, but came back to both. I am insane and have an addiction. I need help. There currently exists no counseling options for this type of addiction yet.

       You may be reading and thinking that I would have some extreme dislike for the SportBand, but the opposite is true. I love the SportBand. It cost $59. I have had, including my current one, four of them and have only bought two. Using the SportBand is easy and fun. Yes, I said fun. Nike has been working on it since they put it out and every year it gets a little better. The SportBand comes with a chip that you put in your left shoe, if they are Nike+ capable, or on top of the shoe if you have an adaptor. The chip looks like this:

  
    Once you put the chip in your shoe and the SportBand on your left wrist, you are almost ready to run. The only thing that you have to do is calibrate it. You have to run or walk a distance greater than .25 mi. I ran a mile on a track. It does have to be calibrated on occasion due to you changing shoes, pace, routes, etc. After this is done, you are ready to run.
  
     I have run over 2500 miles wearing the Nike SportBand. I love it. The SportBand keeps track of your distance, pace, time of run, time of day, and calories. Once you have finished running is where the real fun begins. You plug the SportBand into your computer (Yes, it does double as a USB stick!). The computer uploads your run to the Nike Plus website. It looks like this:

  

     Once on the Nike Plus website, you can see your run and the progress you are making. You can set goals for speed, distance, weight, amount, time, pace, etc. You can also join into challenges against other Nike Plus users. I love these; sometimes it is what motivates me out of the door and onto the street. They are all different, but are usually something like, "The First to 100 miles in October." These challenges are too much fun to participate in. It always makes me try to get in just a little bit more everyday. And they also give out virtual trophies for the achievement of goals and winning a challenge. I have a trophy case! (Just wanted you to know I am humble) But also know it is much like Little League. I could set a goal to run 2 miles this week. I could run those two miles and achieve my goal and I would get a trophy. So, having a lot of trophies is not as awesome as it sounds.

   Anyway, if you see me running, know that the SportBand is on. Know that once I finish running, I will record that run in four different places. I am insane. I know. Did I mention that I love the SportBand? Get one fast!

   Looking forward to my next run with the Nike SportBand,
       David

Number 1

(Drum Roll Please!)

(Maybe even some festive fireworks...We are talking about the Number 1 book here, aren't we?)

And the winner of the Number 1 Spot in my Top Ten Book List is:

     You cannot (should not) read a book by an American author, since the early 20th Century, that has not at least been in the smallest fashion influenced by Sherwood Anderson. He talked publishers into taking a look at both Faulkner and Hemingway (who was also greatly helped out by Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound). Faulkner mimicked him in his book, Mosquitoes. Hemingway parodied him with both, Torrents of Spring, and, To Have and Have Not. Sherwood Anderson came quietly onto the American literary scene after he was well into his 40's (this gives me hope) and changed the way Americans wrote forever. Up until Sherwood Anderson, they (American writers) tried to imitate European authors, but after Anderson, they decided what would be true American literature. It was to be plain and under spoken. It was to be raw and beautiful. It was to be transparent and hidden. Sherwood Anderson's work is all of those things. He built the model that they would later copy or emulate. Others merely added onto it. I know some will disagree, but that is fine. I have much to learn and even more to read.

   I like this book because of a multitude of reasons. The first isn't found in this book, but within the life of Sherwood Anderson. During his early forties, he had a mental breakdown and ended up disappearing for four days. When found, he said he had been wrestling with who he really was; which turned out to be a writer, something he had not really tried his hand in. Something that would transform who he was and who we remember him as: Someone who wrestled with their humanity. And that is what he writes about. People who wrestle with their places in life, their obligations, their weaknesses, their pasts, their jobs, their emotions, their relationships, etc.

   Winesburg, Ohio is a great book because it is a novel of interrelated short stories centering around the character of George Willard. The characters of this book are flawed, ineffectual, and incomplete. Anderson does not try to separate realism from fantasy. He allows the real world to collide with dreams because he knows that life is full of both the natural and the phantasmagorical. He knows that within the realness of life lays dreams and those dreams live in the quiet of each human who is compounded by their own weaknesses. These stories, although centered on the town of Winesburg and George Willard, are about a number of people in and around the town. Each of these characters and for that matter, the town itself, is fighting to live in the place where life takes place; somewhere between realism and fantasy.

  Anderson writes of the grotesque, the imperfect, the weak, the frail because he is writing of humanity as it is and not as it might be.  He focuses on single moments that define lifetimes. Single choices that are lost or won in a matter of seconds. He writes about a life that can be found in death. He writes about the beginnings of a fractured belief in the pastoral themes of sacrifice, initiation, and rebirth; something we see the negative effects of today in both life and literature. He writes of how progress may seem to be helping humanity out, but is really leaving it behind; something we see today as we live in a time of human history where we commonly think it is okay where 5% unemployment means that everyone is working that "means" something, where 5% of humans (children and the elderly) don't have purposes or a place. 

   I will not say that some of the images are not disturbing because they are. I will not say that much of the loneliness and dispair could not be remedied with Christ because they could. To me, it is books like this that highlight where the world was before Christ; hopelessness and true damnation (eternal separation from the Great Comforter).  The stories are full of simple language and simple grammar. He does not waste words or try to include every detail. He leaves room for imagination both of scene and emotion. He leaves room for the reader, or in Harold Bloom's terms, the active reader.

   However, to me, the number one reason why this book receives top honors is because I cannot read other American authors and not see Anderson's hand holding their hand as they build their characters. I cannot read McCullers, O'Connor, Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Capote, Harper Lee, Wolfe, Berry, Eliot, and a host of others and not feel them looking over their artistic shoulders and making sure that Sherwood is watching and will in the end approve of what they have written or at least tell them they are headed in the right direction. Maybe this means I am not seeing well or that I do not know enough to see properly and this just may well be the case, but for now it is the way things are.

  Wishing to write as Anderson did,

           David

Number 2

    Have heard from a good friend of mine that the Rain Dance was a little over the top, so we are back to a pleasant drum roll please.

   The book that makes it into my Number 2 spot of this Top Ten List is this book:

      I know. I know. I know. This is once again a group of novels, stories, essays, and letters, but very few items that I have read beat any thing Miss O'Connor ever wrote. The cover that I am showing comes from somewhere I love very much: The Library of America. It is a wonderful organization. They compile large amounts of an author's works, compare them with the author's notebooks, correct any mistakes that made it through the printing process, update the works to include what censor's may have taken out or excluded, and then they publish them in nice, cloth hardback editions. They also only cost $30-$35. Which isn't bad considering you are getting a book that contains over 1000+ pages. Some of them have like 4-6 books or several collections of short stories. This exact book includes all of Flannery O'Connor's works except some book reviews and some personal letters. It has two novels, two short story collections, essays, and some personal letters. I think it is $30 well-spent.

  The reason why Flannery O'Connor makes it into the coveted Number 2 spot in my Top Ten List is for a multitude of reasons and here are a few:

  5. The comic genius portaryed in these stories is rarely rivaled.
  4. The dialogue in the novels and stories is excellent.
  3. Her essays about writing make me strive for better writing/to be a better writer.
  2. Enoch Emory and Hazel Moates
  1d. The way she ends her stories like, A Good Man is Hard to Find, "She'd a been a good woman if someone would have shot her every minute of her life."
  1c. The way she shows that religion in the South in truly the poetry of the people.
  1b. Her belief in a truly violent Grace and odd apiritions of Redemption that drives someone to the Savior and her ability to write wonderful fiction that is a deep down picture of the Gospel, but on the surface is so well-written that few rival her.
  1a. Her belief that the writing life is truly hard work when you are doing it correctly. She only wrote two novels and 30+ stories in over 20 years of writing.

  Looking to have a little fun with Enoch Emory and his gorilla costume,
    David

Number 3

  For the Number 3 selection of my Top Ten List, I want to focus not on a single book, but rather on two authors. Those two authors are: Wendell Berry and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

         Wendell Berry

                                                                                                                  F. Scott Fitzgerald

    I chose these two authors because to me, they are two examples of both why we read and why some try to write. Few, if any writers, do it better than they. Both writers allow you to leave reality while reading and partcipate in the worlds they create with words. Both writers couldn't be any more different. They both live  (ed) completely different lives and write about really different things. However, to me, they both write about one thing: Memory.

  Wendell Berry has written more than 40 works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He is a loud voice among the conservationalists in this country and abroad. However, to me, they (the conservationalist) do not really understand him nor do they understand what he writes about. I have only read somewhere between 6-7 of his works, but to me, they were all so very insightful and captivating. I am not a Wendell Berry expert in any way, shape, or form, but it seems that Mr. Berry is trying to write about one very important concept and that is: Affection. I believe that all of his writing, or at least, what I have read can be traced back to this concept. And as a bystander who loves being outside and in Nature, this is not what the conservationlists are screaming or pushing.

   This affection that I think Mr. Berry writes so well about is something that exists on a much higher level than what he is actually writing about whether it be a poem, a short story, a novel, or an essay. This is the very meaning of affection. It is not mushy or romantic because both of those two feelings get old. It is not idealistic or rash because they get old and calluoused as well. It is a deep, deep love for a place. And that love of place is home in every good sense of the word. It is about doing good to the people in your home. It is about doing good to the land that is your home. It is about doing good to the community that surrounds your home. And the whole reason you are doing all this good is because you love it. You care for it. It is not easy because true love is all choice and little feeling.

   

    You can read this affection in his rage-filled poems or essays about land waste, politics, progress, crime, etc. You can read this in his wonderful short stories and novels about the fictional Port William townspeople and community. You can read this in every word  that he has written. He has an Affection for his wife. He has Affection for the land he lives on and farms. He has Affection for the people who populate his community and country. He has Affection for God. And to be honest, he does not tolerate anyone or anything that does not have this Affection. He hates it and will not tolerate it.

    To me, Wendell Berry is the finest living author. No one writes better. I know this is an extreme statement, but if you know me, I have a bad habit of these. I can't help it. They just come out. I am not well-read, so I may be missing something, but I will tell you of the author when I come upon him or her. I am sure it will be a while.

My favorite Wendell Berry selections are:

1. Hannah Coulter--the opening chapter of this book is the finest writing that I have had the priviledge to read in a very long time.
2. Jayber Crow-novels
3. What Are People For?-essays

  The other author that claims the Number 3 spot is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Everyone has heard of him. Everyone has read the Great Gatsby. Most hated it because their English teachers spent too much time talking about Fitzgerald's lifestyle and no time talking about the genius it would take to write a book that is still a bestseller 75 years after it was written. And no time talking about how the small book defines the sense of longing filled with delusions of granduer that America is still feeling 60+ years after WWI and WWII. In my humble opinion, no writer that lived during the time that Fitzgerald lived wrote better than he did. Yes, he was an alcoholic. Yes, he squandered some of his talent. Yes, he partied a lot. Yes, he was always in debt and had to write for popular magazines in order to live an extravagant lifestyle, but when you can look past all of this and only look at the facet that I am talking about, the writer: F. Scott Fitzgerald, then you can see that no one wrote better. Better than Hemingway. Better than Dos Passos. Better than Wolfe. Better than a slough of other names. I know there will be some disagreement and I am biased. (Very)

     The author and essayist John O'Hara said that matching every American author word against word, no one rivals F. Scott Fitzgerald. No one. I agree and will again say I am biased. Fitzgerald write 160 short stories, 4.5 novels, numerous reviews, numerous essays, one travel book, one Broadway play, and worked on movie scripts in Hollywood. No, he did not win the Pulitzer or the Nobel Prize for literature. No, he did not use all of his talents wisely. But when you look at his short stories or his novels many of them are lacking, but most of them could be lessons in writing and how to write. They are studies in character, emotions, and plot formation. He worked for 11 years on his novel, Tender is the Night. That is not the work or effort of a slack or "slick" writer. If you read his notebooks, you will know that he did not just "throw" stories together. However, this is my list and I do not need to explain why I think that FSF is a great author, I guess. To me, he is not just an author. He is on the next level, he should be called an American Man of Letters.

   When you read Ftizgerald, try to not feel the over-arching lonliness. Try not feel the aching for how things should have gone; might have gone. Try not to feel the soul searching and the beauty of the night. Try not to feel as if you are not hurting for the protaganist and wishing to guide them into the right choices, but know it will not come. Try not to find yourself lost among the pages. Try not to laugh. I learned to love Keat because of FSF. If you get a chance listen to FSF read the Keat's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" and try to not feel as if you are not a part of the poem. It is writing in the highest degree to me. It is what reading and writing is for.

My Favorite Fitzgerald Works:

1. The Beautiful and the Damned-novel
2. May Day-short story
3. 10,000 False Starts-essay

"In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."
   F. Scott Fitzgerald

Still watching the Green Light at the end of the dock,
  David

Number 4

     It is really hard to believe that this list is only four away from the top spot....I know the anticipation is almost as strong as it is when one waits for the ketchup to come out of the glass bottle. So here we go with

Number 4!

   I am so sorry that I have to do this to you, but making this list has been so hard on me and the books I claim to like so much. It makes me feel like I am constantly doing this:

or this:

with a number of my so called favorite books. The bookcases sit right across from my bed and every night it seems that I can't look some of them in the eye. So, to heal some wounds and straighten some spines (caution = library joke!). The book (s) that make it into my Number 4 spot in this Top Ten List are:

And:

   Both of these books come from men who were considered or are considered "great writers". They both wrote a large amount of material and left behind even more that wasn't published during their lifetimes. Most of you probably know more about these authors than I do. I read both of these books when I was in high school, but reread them once I graduated from college and have read both of them in the last 5 years again; one of them again last month.
    To me, both of these books are the same in one important way. I love to write, but have much to learn and am in no way an authority on writing or writers, but to me these books say all that both of these authors tried to say in all they ever wrote, but in them, they said it the best that they were ever able to say it (write it). Both of these books are short in comparison to the other works of the specific authors. They are both a little over a hundred pages long. Both of them do not waste words. They are both very simplistic stories on the surface. Both of them are taught in high school, which sadly turns both of these books off for a lot students. (Much more of this later courtesy of Harold Bloom)

   I do not need to retell for you the story that is found in, The Old Man and the Sea, because you have read the book or watched the movie, but will help you remember it. In short, it is the story of an old man and a young boy who are both fisherman by trade; one of them at the beginning of his vocation and one at the end. The old man goes out to fish and catches the largest fish ever caught by any fisherman that has ever been in the village he is from. He struggles to bring in this fish till his hands are bleeding. He spends days and days fighting to bring this fish in and then making it back to land with this fish. Sharks eat most of the fish before he can get back to land because it is bigger than his boat and he doesn't have the strength to bring it into his boat. He comes back and is no longer a joke to everyone, but goes away to die in sadness and alone. I have cried numerous times because of this story because it is such a good and wonderfully written story. I am not a big fan of Ernest Hemingway. His macho-driven male characters are too much for me, but this story is not that. It is simple. It is honest. It is brutal. It is beauty. It is to me about life's struggles. I could read this book once a year and still get something from it. The number one reason why I love this book is because of that. To me, there are not too many books that deserve a second, sometimes a first, reading, but this is not one of them. I learn something new about myself every time I read it.

   To me, the Old Man and the Sea, is a sad picture of life. We spend our how lives killing the most important and most beautiful thing about life and that is Life itself, but we do not realize it until we at last reel it in and struggle to bring it home and end up having nothing left except the bare bones and scales of it and it is too late to go back. It is a story about time and how quickly it fades and how we will miss the beauty by trying to live, but there is no escape from it. Yes, it would have been great if Santiago found in hope in Christ, but I have done my best not to Christianize any of the purely fictional books, but feel that even Hemingway would mind us seeing this as long as we let him drink and fish.
 
   The other book that ties for 4th in my list is, Of Mine and Men. I like the book immensely and like it more and more after each reading. In short, it is the story of George and Lennie, two harvest tramps, that travel around together and work on farms until the work is through and then move to the next. George is small and smart and Lennie is very large, but is handicapped mentally. They have hatched a plan where they will earn enough money to buy a small farm and work their own piece of land and be their own bosses (a little bit of the American Dream). Lennie loves to hear this plan as often as he can and George pretends to hate telling him about it, but in all actuality, it is the Hope that gets them both through their slavish existence. Part of this plan includes Lennie being allowed to take care of some rabbits. Lennie is forever doing something very bad without realizing it due to his mentally incapacities and George is always having to rescue him and them. He hates Lennie for this, but is scared (he doesn't admit this) to be truly alone in this world. The story begins with them fleeing the scene of something terrible Lennie has done and George plans one last job for them to work in order to get the necessary funds to buy this dream place. Everyone knows the rest. You had to read it in the 9th-11th grade probably. You probably hated it. I am so sorry. While they are on this new place to work, Lennie accidentally tells their dream plan to a couple other guys who are hopeless and it ends up becoming a story that they too begin dreaming and hoping in. A long story short, Lennie ends up killing the ranches' owner's son's wife by mistake. They want Lennie's blood, but George instead has to run him down and protect him from them. I won't tell you exactly how it ends because you already know, but it ends wonderfully and tragically all at the same time. It is really to sad almost to write about.

  This story is our story. Humanity's story without Christ. No, I am sure Steinbeck did not want us to get this out of the text and it is not really there, but that is what I get out of it. Without Christ, we have so many things to hope in, but in the end, we are Lennie, and ruin that hope and remain once again, hopeless. This book is well-written. It is simple. It is complex. It is about Hope. It is about friendship. It is about humanity. Read this book.

Sorry for the longer post,
David

Number 5

Let's do a Rain Dance this times!!!

This:

Or this:

Or even this will do if you are not in Africa or with some friends who are American Indians:

The book that takes the Number 5 Position of my Top Ten List is.....

  
  This book was written by this man:

    His name is Brennan Manning. He was once a Catholic priest. He is a sinner. He was once an alcoholic. He makes no excuses. He has only one claim to fame. He was once sitting in a rocking chair and God spoke to him and told him how much He loved him. He has written 14 books trying to tell other about how much God loves them. He is greatly hated on the internet. A lot of people are vary skeptical about him. What is his real agenda? Why does he write so much about grace and God's deep love for us? Is he pushing Catholic ideals on us Protestants? Does he not read about the justice of God? I love this book because the answer to all of these questions are easy. I love this man/writer/Believer for all of those same reasons.

  This man is a sinner. The biggest sinner he knows is himself. Mr. Manning has a giant view of sin. He knows how just God is. He knows the price of sin; both now and in the future. And because he has such a giant view of sin, he knows that this sin needs an even Bigger Savior. This Savior was sent by God to atone all of humanity's sin. This man, Brennan Manning, knows that this Savior died on the cross for his sins: past, present, and future. He knows that that death was final in everyway except the person who died did not stay dead. He talks to him everyday. This Savior tells him how much he loves him because this love with which the Savior loves depends on nothing he does. He, Brennan, can do nothing to deserve this love or to not deserve this love. So, Brennan, is happy to crawl up into the lap of his Abba and accept His love.

    Many people hate all of this. God is just. Sin has consequences. Sin has to be paid for, atoned for. Christians have to work very hard to earn this Savior's love and respect. Christians need to earn their place within the Kingdom. The Bible says so, doesn't it. Isn't the saying goes that God loves those that help themselves? Isn't the verse in Romans clear: Sin = Death. Aren't some sins worse than others. Most think so. Brennan doesn't.

    Brennan writes to us because he knows that his sin has separated him from all that is good and all that is God. Brennan knows that John 3:16 isn't a joke. Brennan knows that when God looks upon him and all he has done in this world He (God) sees His son, Jesus, of whom He is well-pleased. That is the jist of this book. God loves you. You don't want to believe it because it doesn't seem right. It doesn't make sense. You know how truly sinful you are. Why would a perfect and good God send his perfect and good Son to die for someone like you, like me? It just isn't fair. Brennan knows these things. This Savior told him how much He loved him. He shocked his system so much that he is still writing about it. It is a message we can't hear enough. What would really happen if we all truly believed the Gospel? I am pretty sure I know. Look at the work of the lowly, twelve disciples. We are still seeing the effects and feeling the afterschocks. God loves us. God loves the biggest sinner I know: Me. I will never understand why. Read this book.

   Knowing my sin is very big and in great need of an even Greater Savior,
                                  David

Number 6

Drum Roll Please!!

And the book that makes the Number 6 place on my Top Ten List is:

Into the Wild, is the book that makes it to the Number 6 position of my Top Ten List.

   This book makes my list for a multitude of reasons, but I will only name a few:

1. This book is the true story of Christopher McCandless. He is a young man from a well-to-do family who graduates from Emory University. He leaves everything behind, even his name, and tries to find the true meaning of life. He changes his name to Alexander Supertramp. He leaves his car behind and burns his money. He does his very best to leave life as we know it in the 20th Century behind. He wants to and does his best to get to what Thoreau called the "marrow of life". Jon Krakauer is the writer and he weaves one of the best adventure/searching/biographical accounts that I have ever read. I read this book in one day on a rainy Saturday while I lived in Mentone, Alabama. The main reason that I like this book is that within its pages is the great yearning to explore that most all boys have. The feeling deep inside that we don't have many outlets for in the 21st Century. This feeling drove past generations to push the boundaries of civilization far past that of safety. It drove men to get on ships and sail to where conventional wisdom said that you would fall off the horizon and cease to exist. It is the feeling that makes me not want to live in a subdivision and spend all of their life playing it safe. This book is about getting to that point and actually taking the greatest risk of life: To strip life down bare and examine it for what it is really all about. Chris McCandless does this and does not blink. And through many wonderful and tragic adventures and relationships, he finds out what life is all about: human relationships. This is what all the men and women who have attempted to do this have found out. It is what drove Muir back to civilization. It is what made Thoreau walk to town often. McCandless finds out that the truest wilderness of the world that surrounds us is a real, deep, meaningful relationship with another human.

2. This book is a true story, but Krakauer does not infuse the book with subtle lines of his own judgement on the character and person of Chris McCandless. He just writes the story as it actually took place and played out. He leaves all judgments to the reader. Very few writers are able to do this. At times, I was tempted to do the same. I think all guys are, but you constantly say that you can't and shouldn't. Other times, through his very own actions, I was able to see Alex Supertramp for exactly who he really was: a young, often-times immature, hidden egoist. Yes, he had a good heart and did good things, but he was also selfish. He disappeared from life for four months and never let his parents know where he was. They had to come retrieve his body from Alaska and never got a chance to say good-bye. The reader is able to see the paradox of Chris McCandless and if one is honest, he/she will know that this paradox exist in us all. We have good inside us, but all of that good is very tainted.

3. The quotes in this book are incredible. Krakauer choose quotes from Thoreau and others to explain this longing and then writes about through the life examples of Chris McCandless/Alex Supertramp. They add much to this book. Without them, the account would seem lacking.

   Yes, they made a movie out of this book. It is an okay movie. They actually keep pretty close to the actual story. Many have now read this book or say they have because they have seen the movie. This comes to one of my many dislikes. Why must a movie be made out of every book like this and why do people, myself included, wait till the movie has been made and seen to read the book? I hate this, but play a part in it. Read this book. My wife advises no night reading. I advise reading with a headlamp on your porch. Read it quickly so you don't lose the ire urgency that is found within the pages.

Living within the Wilderness of Life and Marriage,

   David

My Favorite Books-An Infamous Top Ten List

   
       One of my favorite things to do is read. Which is strange because I had such a hard time learning to read. There is a very sad story that goes with that and it entails a Fourth grade boy crying to his mom over a stack of phonetic flash cards that his younger sister, by three full grades, had just completed. He just could not remember the sounds that "A" made. Flashforward 20+ years and I really like to read and still remember all the phonics flash cards and actually enjoy reading. I know what this makes me. My students let me know all the time. On a 1-10 scale of nerdiness I am an 11. I carry that rating around sort of like a restaurant puts up their Zagat rating in its front window. I teach science for a living and coach one of the nerdiest sports there is. The closest I get to be cool is when I have to break the news to my Physical Science students that there isn't such a thing a coldness. It is all about either absorbing heat, releasing heat, or having an absence of heat.

     Anyway, this post will be a post that goes on for ten days. We will be counting up from 10 to number 1. I will give a brief explanation for why I like the book or why it makes it into my Top Ten list when there are millions of books. Also, for you keeping track or worried about changes, this list is subject to change. So, here we go to the list. (If you would feel better doing a little drumroll, then that would be fine as long as the drumroll doesn't get too loud or earn any odd glances from the people that you are around. We are already talking about my favorite books. We don't need anything else "helping" us out.)

Number 10:

   I know what you are thinking. I love this because of the movie, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth. Now, to be honest, I did like the movie, but as the sayings goes: "The book is way better than the movie" or "The movie/books is so much different than movie/book". These both are true, but the movie is good, but to be honest ( a lot of honesty in this post!) the book ruined the great imagery in this book. I wish that I would have read the book and then watched the movie instead of the opposite. Here are the reasons why this book makes it into the bottom spot of my Top Ten list:

1. The writing is good writing. It took Charles Fraizer a multitude of years to write this book. He wrote it before he was famous. You can tell or at least it appears that he took great care with each paragraph. It is the retelling of an older story, The Odyssey, but it is here in America.

2. You can visualize what he is talking about. You see in you mind this story taking place in the locations in which he is describing. You can see the mountain. You can feel the coldness or warmth. You can feel the dirt.

3.  He leaves just enough out for you to have room to imagine. This is the part that a lot of writers leave out. It is the most important part of a book in some cases. If a writer tells you everything, then there is nothing for you to do while you read. They have already told you the motives, feelings, colors, etc. Having a story that you can add to is one of the joys of reading. Much of this book is about hiking in the cold in the mountains of North Carolina. He does not fully tell me everything about the hike. He doesn't have to. I get to add my experiences of hiking in the cold in the mountains of N. Carolina. I know how the ground feels. I know how my lungs feel and how my face burns on summits. I get to become Inman walking. I have walked. I have journeyed to find a way home in a way. I have longed.

4. The emotions seem real. In a lot books, the emotions seem so fake. You think about how you would feel or act in a certain situation that is taking place in a book and a lot times, the characters act nothing like the people I know, see, interact with would act or even how I would act. They seem plastic. The characters in this book seem human. You can feel the joy, shyness, sadness, longing, pain, futility, etc.

5. The colors and characters seem vivid. As mentioned in the previous reasons, this book feels real.

6. The dialogue seems relevant and not contrived. This is one of my biggest beefs with most books. The dialogue is painful. I know writing dialogue is hard. As a writer, it feels very fake no matter if it is or isn't something you would actaully say. I know that the dialogue in the few things that I have written seems a little contrived, but the dialogue in this book does not. You can actually picture these characters saying these things and you can imagine them feeling these ways.

    I know I said I'd be brief, but don't always believe what you hear or read. Imagine if I said I would be very detailed. You can now say a small prayer for my wonderful wife. I have been told that when I was much, much younger that I used to tell my mom about movies by starting with the part about the lion growling. Sorry, mom and now Mel.

Be looking for Number 9 tomorrow,

   David

Facing Some Beasts

As of recently, I have been secretly scared of two things which are one in the same. I am running (hopefully) my first marathon on November 13th of this year. It is the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon in Ft. Oglethorpe, Ga. I signed up to run it last year, but after getting beat up by two, sixth-grade girls, I had to withdrawl and ended up only getting to run the half. (I wasn't really beat up, it was an Ultimate Frisbee game that had gotten way, way out of hand. And few people sacrifice for popsicles on a Friday afternoon like middle school kids.) It was sad and running the half was fun, but it was sort of like getting to go to Disney, but not allowed to ride the rides. I know some of you, if you are like my wife, would be just as happy, but I am only speaking for me. I am not truly happy till I am hearing about the Pirate's Life and how its for me and pretending to be scared in the dark while riding a roller coaster that feels faster than it really is going. (On a side note, in high school, I used to go to Disney all the time for a multitude of reasons. I once went to ride Space Mountain and they turned the lights on. It was so....so...so disappointing. I think I will post about some disappointments later.)
I know this post has been more about chasing rabbit trails instead of talking about being afraid, but rabbits are not scary. The two things I have been scared of are my marathon and doing my long runs. I have been telling myself that I really can't run that far and that doing my long runs would be miserable as well. The longer I am involved in running the more I fear any distance. I once read an interview about an elite runner and she said that at every start line she panics and wonders if she will be able to run the whole way. I laughed and thought it was one of the silliest things I had ever hear. How can someone who runs 120 miles a week worry about a 3 mile race? I didn't think it possible, but know it is me. I know that I can run a long, long way. I know I can run for at least 3 hours without stopping, but at the starting line of a recent 5K, I asked myself if I thought I could do it. I felt more no than yes. Too weird. I hope you are laughing at me like I laughed at her. No, I do not run 120 miles a week. No, I am not even close to an elite runner, but I have run more than 3 miles before, but I still thought about not being able to make the distance. It was a strange sensation.
Anyway, this weekend was about facing some of my fears. Yesterday after church, I changed my clothes and laced up my running shoes for the second time of the day. I walked down my stairs and stretched and then took off. I returned 2 hours and 24 minutes later. I had run 17 miles. I had stopped four times for less than a total of 5 minutes. Once to stretch, once to use the restroom, once to get a drink, and once because a guy that I started running with at mile 13 stopped to snag a drink from his wife. It was hard. It was long. It was 17 miles, but as I sat at the top of the concrete stairs that make their way up to my front yard from the road, I stood staring at one and both of my fears. I had run a long way. I had done it. I had run 21 miles in one day. I was tired, but not whipped out. My legs were sore, but not finished. I wanted water, but could have run another couple of miles without it. So...long story short. I am not too afraid of running a long way. And I am only a little nervous about my upcoming marathon. We will just see how Sunday goes when I need to run 20 miles without stopping. My tune will change I am sure and I know my pace will.

Running Against the Wind (like Bob Seger, but without the beard)
David