The one Thanksgiving that was different

For many years, Thanksgivings had always been a very pleasant time for our family in Indianapolis to get together and enjoy a traditional feast and each other’s company. 

The one exception to this was 2016, when the holiday landed in the wake of what I felt was this country’s worst-ever decision for electing a new president of the United States. For the first time that I can recall, the subject of politics surfaced in our discussions at the Thanksgiving get-together that year. 

One family member who enjoys needling people started it by needling me because he knew I detested the Republican candidate, who I shall not name. It’s true; everyone in the family knew how I felt.

As a career newspaperman, for years I’d made a point to stay on top of current events and explore topics below the radar of most people. So long before Election Day, I’d formed an opinion on the 2016 Republican candidate for President based on:

*** His history of demonstrations of greed (even to the point of slighting people in his own family)

*** His insatiable appetite for the public spotlight

*** His failed casino investments and ensuing bankruptcies

*** His shafting of small contractors on his casino construction projects

*** His association with an attorney with lengthy known ties to the mob

*** A superiority/me-first complex perfectly fitting the classic definition of narcissism

I feel that such a person should never be installed in a position of power and authority as a national president. 

Did the Democratic candidate have her faults? Yes, but I also knew she would never do anything to undermine our democracy as I feared could happen with the power-hungry Republican. Another family member, bless him, mentioned his distaste of both candidates for the two major party candidates, so he took the Switzerland route and voted for the Libertarian candidate. As he explained at our Thanksgiving Day get-together, he also felt strongly about the Libertarian Party philosophy that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and limiting the size and scope of government.

I happened to opine how taking such a course wasn’t risky in most elections, but the 2016 election was not like most elections. I explained why the election outcome presented an existential threat to the country, and that in this instance country before personal ideology should have been paramount.

The family member who started this ruckus in the first place told me the country needs to give the new guy a chance. By this time, the discussion had transitioned to mid-level argument, so the women stepped in and told us to nip it in the bud (apologies to Mayberry Sheriff’s Deputy Barney Fife). 

It might seem otherwise, but this whole lively “debate” transpired over just 15 minutes or so, and thankfully, calm was restored in relatively short order.

I do not feel smug today even though my worst fears in 2016 proved to be correct, given all that happened in the previous president’s administration. It was a toilet bowl term that began with large tax cuts for big corporations and the richest Americans, though the administration tried to masquerade it as a boon to average citizens. 

The former president’s botched handling of the COVID pandemic is also high up on the list of utter failures. But his signature transgressions were the false claims of illegal voting during the 2020 election and his tragic attempt to undermine democracy and violate the Constitution — not to mention the laws of the land — in the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And make no mistake, that was an attempted insurrection, replete with loss of lives (plural). People today forget about the loss of lives ... or conveniently choose to overlook them.

This is all a prelude to the real purpose of this post, which is to share a current op ed column by John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College. From 1989-91, he was deputy director of research at the Republican National Committee.

His column appears below, topped by the headline that appeared with it Thursday in my local daily newspaper, the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer. He speaks with more clarity on the subject than I could have:

I’m a ‘Never Trump’ conservative who voted third party in 2016. Here’s why I won’t make that mistake this time.

Some right-leaning voters who oppose Donald Trump are thinking of voting neither for him nor Kamala Harris.

I understand how they feel. In 2016, I published an article urging Never Trump conservatives to consider casting their ballot for a third-party candidate. In the election that year, I did just that.

I regret writing that column. I regret casting that vote.

To people like me, Trump represented a repudiation of everything that Ronald Reagan stood for. But as a conservative and former GOP staffer who had never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, I harbored reservations about Hillary Clinton.

Voting for neither Trump nor Clinton seemed to be a “safe” way to express disapproval of both. Most polls at the time showed her on track to win comfortably. It seemed reasonable to argue that a significant tally for a third-party candidate might check her liberal ambitions. After all, the number of votes for independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992 may have nudged Bill Clinton to accept bigger budget cuts than he wanted.

But the 2016 election did not go according to expectations. Despite losing the national popular vote, Trump squeaked into office by edging out Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College tally, claiming key states where polls were way off the mark.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson won 3% of the national vote, a high-water mark for that party. An exit poll asked his supporters whom they would choose in a two-person race. Though many said they would abstain, more picked Clinton than Trump.

We will never know whether Trump would have lost if more such voters had switched to Clinton. We do know what happened because he won. He blew up the federal debt. His incompetent handling of COVID-19 caused tens of thousands of needless deaths. He finished his term by trying to overturn an election he lost and instigating a violent rebellion against the government he had sworn to protect.

Trump turned out to be a catastrophe for our country. Hillary Clinton just was a candidate with whom I disagreed. I wish I had voted for her and encouraged others to do the same.

The next president of the United States will be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, not anybody else. The election will almost certainly be close. We don't have the luxury of voting third party or writing in the name of a fantasy candidate. (In most states, those write-ins won’t even count.)

Currently, many states are likely to give a lopsided margin to one candidate or the other. For example, California will probably go for Harris and West Virginia for Trump. Voters in such states might think it is OK to skip the election or vote for somebody who can’t win, thinking: “What the heck, it won’t make any difference in the electoral count, right?”

That attitude is wrong in two ways.

First, “likely” does not mean “certain.” As we have already seen, the polls can err. Never Trump folks do not want to wake up on the day after the election to find that their wasted votes have helped him score a narrow upset in their state.

Second, the popular vote matters. Under any circumstance, Trump will almost certainly refuse to accept defeat. But if he loses big in the popular vote, as well as losing the electoral vote, it will be harder for him to claim that he is the people’s choice. The larger the margin, the weaker his claim.

For us Never Trumpers, as for everybody else, the 2024 election is a binary choice.

If you abstain or vote for somebody other than Kamala Harris, you effectively vote for Trump. Consider the consequences for our country. Don’t do something you’ll regret.

Smiles in shooter’s porch photos brightened neighborhood

It was a challenge for photography enthusiasts — both amateurs and professionals — to indulge their hobby or livelihood during the COVID-19 pandemic and state-imposed lock-downs in 2020 and 2021.

I played it extremely safe and did not venture outside the homestead except to seek life-supporting provisions such as food and fuel. Early on in the lock-down here in North Carolina, I dropped a note to the governor’s office asking if a photography enthusiast such as myself might be allowed to photo document the downtown Raleigh landscape — which I expected to be sparsely populated — as long as I observed proper social distancing.

I received no response to my inquiry. So rather than risk a few variable consequences for proceeding with my idea, I stayed home.

This post evolved after Kelley Jordan Schuyler, a professional photographer in Indianapolis, went on the Facebook page of my old neighborhood, Garfield Park-South, during COVID to pitch an idea to help bring some smiles and cheer in the neighborhood to help distract from the gloom and doom: She offered to walk through the neighborhood on a near-future evening to take portraits of residents with their families and/or fur buddies on their porches — and, most important — at a safe distance separating photographer and subject in observance of the community social distancing admonition.

Kelley was a relatively new resident of the neighborhood. I thought hers was a brilliant idea, and the neighborhood responded immediately and positively, so she did a walk-through on May 3, 2020. Not long afterward, she posted some of the photos on the Facebook page and offered to do additional portraits for anyone still interested.

Kelley pitched her idea by characterizing the portraits as “porch photos,” but in most instances, the subjects — as you can see from some of the samples in this post — were not under cover of the porch. They are seated on steps of or to the porch. I certainly understand that; a shooter trying to photograph anyone standing or seated on a porch would have to get close up, which would compromise needed social distancing space in the pandemic.

Kelley no doubt chose early evening for her shoot appointments to allow for almost uniform lighting —shade. She started at 6 p.m., which in Indianapolis meant the sun was low in the sky — which in turn means it was behind buildings, thereby preventing any chance of throwing unwanted white key light on people’s faces if they were facing the western sky.

I contacted Kelley to ask if she would welcome a little splash about the project on this blog, and she agreed enthusiastically.

“I'm delighted by the positive response our neighbors have had to this idea,” she said. “I couldn't tell if people would be skeptical about it, but it looks like I have a lot more work cut out for me — there’s a lot more interest!”

With her permission, I sprinkled this post with a few shots from her first wave of results, posted at the Facebook site Thursday. I found them uplifting. I didn’t want to steal all of her thunder, though. If you’d like to see the full gallery of first-round of porch photos at her site, just follow the link I dropped into this sentence.

What can friends do to help those mired in bad times?

For weeks now, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had me seriously contemplating mortality. Mine, my close family and friends, and ... humanity.

It wasn't bad enough that state authorities were asking -- and in some cases, requiring -- people to stay at home except to run the most urgent errands (mostly to replenish food and medicine, but also fuel for the automobiles).

But then today, while I was already mired in anxiety and concern, I learned about the drug overdose death of a woman from my former home of Indianapolis. Thing is ... she was only in her 30s, and I first made her acquaintance when her family would bump into mine while we watch our sons play Little League baseball in the summer on the Southside of Indianapolis. Ashley was younger than her brother, Derek, who was close to my oldest son's age.

Derek and Ashley's parents were good people, so we enjoyed running into them and having someone to talk to on the grandstands as our boys played on the field. Joey and Derek even spent nights at each other's home on several occasions. And there, alongside her parents, or playing with other small children, was little Ashley.

That goes back almost 30 years now, and we lost touch with Derek, Ashley and their parents not long after the boys moved on from Little League.

The familiar phrase "Oh, but for the grace of God go I" is running through my head repeatedly. From what my daughter tells me, Ashley had two sons of her own, and they are still pretty young -- preteens at the oldest, probably.

So what is to become of them? Ashley's boys lost their father figure -- Ashley's husband -- two years ago. Also to a drug overdose. And I'm told they all lived with Ashley's parents not far from my former home in the Garfield Park neighborhood. So they have their grandparents. But they no longer have their mother. And that's the part that's killing me. Mothers are so vital in a home. I lost mine 43 years ago; that's a lot of time to go motherless, but the difference here is that I was a few years removed from living in my parents' home. Still, the "home" was not the same after mother died.

I don't know all of Ashley's story, especially the why or wherefores behind her drug usage. We all have our minefields to dance around on that perilous path through life. Whether it's addiction, medical ills, domestic violence, financial difficulties, depression. Whatever it is, there are people and professionals out there you can talk to -- and possibly even help you -- so you don't have to do it alone.

Just be careful how and who you give such advice.

I say that because just yesterday, in a casual and brief email exchange with a guy with whom I go way back -- to high school years, in fact -- I learned that he apparently still wrestles with some issues that date to his first assignment in one of the military branches, a period during which he feels he was mistreated and handled unfairly.

The subject came up when I asked him if he was discouraged that I tried to correct some issues I had came across in a published project of his. I didn't want to discourage him with what I intended to be helpful and constructive heads-up because his project is actually quite impressive and has made lots of people happy. He said he wasn't discouraged; he explained that he is such a perfectionist who easily frustrates that when he slips up, something akin to flashbacks from that military assignment tends to mess with his mindset.

So I rolled the die and responded with a risky suggestion -- that if he hadn't already done so, that maybe it would help if he talked to a professional counselor about it. I told him I did so after my divorce nearly 30 years ago, and found that it helped me not beat myself up with guilt, frustration and unsettling feelings of failure.

In my heart, I had a sense that with him being a military person, my suggestion probably was not going to be welcome advice. And indeed, I got no response. I'm thinking it was his way of telling me that "What you suggested is so ridiculous that I'm not going to dignify it with a response."

OK. And so it all begs the question ... what can we do to help people in these predicaments? Maybe just listen?

Other ideas anyone?

Slippery Noodle Inn CDs take me back to some fun nights of live blues in Indy

It has been over a year (a year and a half, to be precise), since I last added to this blog, and so much has happened in the interim. There are so many places I'd like to go for my homecoming post here, and unfortunately, too many of them are upsetting (think in terms of today's politics).

So instead, I decided to start with something upbeat. In the mail the other day, I received the three-disc milestone anniversary CD produced and issued by the Slippery Noodle Inn live blues bar in my former hometown of Indianapolis. (I moved to Raleigh, N.C., two and a half years ago.)

I moved to Indy in October 1978, and I sheepishly admit that I came upon the Noodle (as the locals refer to it) late. I did not set foot into the oldest, continuously operated bar in Indiana until 1992. An news associate working at the Indy bureau of the Associated Press (which worked out of the same Star-News building where I worked) tried to coax me and a small group of Star co-workers to go there two years previous, in spring 1990, but for whatever reasons, that never materialized.

When I finally landed there on that cold January weekend night in 1992, the venue was crowded and

live music was pouring from its two weekend stages -- one in the front, the other in the back. I saw the familiar Slippery Noodle Inn logo (right) -- outlines of the Blues Brothers -- for the first time.

After a quick swing to check out the back stage area, the person I was with and I sat in the front stage area. There, where Gordon Bonham and the Kings of Rhythm (which is what Bonham's band at that time was called) were performing. I was immediately taken by this "live blues music."

Over the next 10 years, I returned to the Noodle several dozen more times (at least), often for the last set of the two bands performing on Friday nights. I would head to the Noodle at 1 a.m. on Friday nights, because that's when my late shift at The Star ended, and the beauty of that timing, I learned early on, was the Noodle ceased collecting the $5 weekend cover charge after 1 a.m. (That would change some years later, but I digress).

The Noodle made a decision in those 1990s, when I was routinely dropping in, to enter the CD production business under the label Slippery Noodle Sound. It released albums by some of its best-known performers -- David Morgan, Gene Deer and the Blues Band, Gordon Bonham, Blue Lou and the Accusations ... and even the legendary Yank Rachell, Indy's best-known classic blues icon, who did a CD, Pig Trader Blues, in collaboration with Morgan.

The establishment also released, in 1993, a 30th anniversary live double CD featuring performances of the best-known bands to populate the stage in the 1990s. For reasons only Noodle/label owner owner Hal Yeagy knows, he released a second volume live CD the following year (1994) and a third volume before the end of the decade.

Slippery Noodle Sound took a long hiatus from the recording business after that, until 2013, when it wanted to do something to mark the 50th anniversary of the purchase of the bar by Yeagy’s parents. Hal sprinkled in pictures of his family and the bar in a montage inside the 50th anniversary CD package (above). A few of the performers who were featured in the live CDs of the 1990s — such as Harvey and the Bluetones, Gene Deer and Gordon Bonham — were still alive and kicking, and appear on the 50th anniversary CD released in 2013.

I'm listening to the 50th anniversary CD as I type this, and boy ... it puts me back in those seats where I could get as close as I could or wanted to enjoy those wonderful performances. Good times.

Kroger grocer is exiting market in Raleigh N.C.

For as long as I can remember -- certainly since I've lived in Indianapolis, where I moved in 1978 -- there has always been a Kroger grocery in the vicinity of where I lived. Next Tuesday marks my first anniversary in Raleigh, where like in Indianapolis, there was a Kroger among the grocery options ...

Until Aug. 14. That's when Kroger will shutter all 14 of its stores in the Raleigh area, citing a glut of grocery stores. A story in today's Raleigh News and Observer says the closings will result in the layoffs of 1,652 employees.

The story didn't say how long Kroger had been in the Triangle, but I know Kroger is one of the oldest grocery chains in the country, so it no doubt has had a presence here for some time.

A News and Observer story from two weeks ago opines that Kroger might not be the only grocer leaving the area, where the current grocery market seems to be shaking out with low-budget stores on the one side (e.g., Aldi, Lidl, Walmart) and "unique experience" and slightly pricier stores (e.g., Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Harris-Teeter, Lowes) on the other. Kroger, the article says, finds itself stuck in the no-win middle. Also in the mix are the popular wholesale membership stores Sam's Club and Costco.

Kroger owns the Harris-Teeter grocery chain, which is popular in this area, and the Harris-Teeters will remain open here. In fact, Harris-Teeter will take over eight of the Kroger stores here. Food Lion (which I've personally viewed as one of those Kroger-like "in the middle" store chains) has made arrangements to take over two others.

Publix also has a presence in the Triangle grocery market, but I've never visited any of those ... although I have mixed up my shopping destinations quite a bit through the years. And even though I possess a Kroger shopper loyalty card, I can't say that I have been a strictly loyal Kroger shopper in that period.

With Lee Ann's daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons heading here to visit, we needed to restock the kitchen supplies today, so ... in a mini-wave of nostalgia, we stopped at the Kroger nearest to us, which is in Garner. I took these pictures during the stop. This store is 7 miles or so from home; the nearest Harris-Teeter and Food Lion are just a mile away (we prefer the former). So it's not likely we'll be back to Kroger again.

To view a larger, sharper version of a photo, just click on the image. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog from a mobile device.

The front facade of the store in Garner (above), which is not one of the stores that Harris-Teeter will move into. Fortunately, there is a Harris-Teeter only a mile from our home. The store shots out its discount to customers who near the main doors (below). If you look at the window reflection below the 50% discount sign, you'll see the legs of the photographer.

The yellow and orange ticketed items are discounted items. Peanut butter had been on these shelves that are empty now.  

Above: The bakery isn't producing sweet treats anymore, but I did see some breads on display elsewhere.

Above: There were several aisles with gaping emptiness like this throughout the store.

Even a lot of the beers were being discounted. The craft brew Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (in the green cases) was marked down from $17.89 to $12.99, among the largest discounts in the beers. There were markdowns on some mainstream brands, but not this much.  

A confluence of shelf emptiness (above) and the empty packaged seafood refrigerators (below). 

Above: I think this aisle is where cookware items (knives, pots, pans, spoons, spatulas, etc.) had been stocked, but I'm not positive. 

Above and below: For now, at this store, Kroger is keeping its produce section fresh and fully stocked. We even found some organic cauliflower heads. 

Note: This post is a pickup from a sister blog, Photo Potpourri

There was a time I had to find a goal ... and the motivation

Everyone needs motivation at some point in their lives. Sometimes you need it a lot.

Like to getting up in the morning to go to work. In my latter years of employment, it was tough to get motivated to return to a place where I would weather long days and leave utterly fatigued.

In early 1991, I went through the final stages of divorce, a process that I’m sure emotionally debilitates everyone who goes through it. I count myself among those.

So in January of that year, I decided I needed to find something serious to focus on, something on which I could direct my stress energies. I settled on entering and running a half-marathon in Indianapolis. Indy had held an annual half-marathon — it’s called it a “mini-marathon” — for quite a few years already. It was staged at the end of May as part of the festivities of the annual running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race.

Several colleagues at work had been running the mini-marathon in recent years back then. They talked about it among themselves a lot, and they all seemed very proud of themselves for going the distance. I'd been running short distances for exercise for quite some time, so I found the idea of increasing my distance into a training regimen might be something I ought to consider.

This was my thought process: Up to that point, the longest “races” I had entered and finished were a couple of 10Ks, which converts to 6.2 miles. A half-marathon — 13.1 miles — is the equivalent of a little over 20K, so it would be about twice the longest distance I’d gone.

At first, that seemed intimidating. But then I realized that no one would be policing the course to force me to RUN every inch of the distance. In other words, if I started feeling fatigued, I could walk a bit of the course. So I told myself this is something I wanted to do.

So I began training. The Mini-Marathon organizers offered group training programs especially geared toward newcomers, but that required a commitment to a time of the day when I worked, so I had to do it on my own. I had a late shift at work, one that ended around 1 a.m. So I logged all of my training miles at night — in the very early morning hours immediately after work. I mapped a course that involved a nearby park and the sidewalks in the neighborhoods near my house.

I felt better and better each week. I was increasing my distance, and by the week before the race, I was going as long as 7 to 9 miles each night. That probably wasn’t enough to feel total confidence, but it was longer than I had ever gone before, and on some nights I even felt I could go a little longer. The only other concern I had was the majority of my training was done at night; the actual race would be in the early morning daylight hours. Would that affect my mental approach?

On the Sunday before the race, I made a point to do my training run during daylight hours. It was a struggle. So, yeah, I was concerned that I’d see a recurrence come race day.

I started consuming large amounts of carbs on Monday — four days before the race — and followed suit every day thereafter. I was consuming more water each day, too.

On race morning, I drove out to the finish line — the 500-Mile racetrack — where I parked on the grounds then boarded a race-provided bus that shuttled participants back to the start line in downtown Indianapolis, at Monument Circle. There was a mass of humanity there, waiting for the official start. The throng of people was a bad thing for anyone who was claustrophobic, but a good thing for those feed off the energy flowing from all those people looking to log 13+ miles in the very near future. Fortunately for me, I was in the latter group.

I brought a sweat towel with me along with a music player (I think they called them Walkman back then) and wore a bandana. I remember I had a white tank singlet (to reflect sun rays) and bright red running shorts (I'd wear that same top and shorts the following two years as well). I believe my running shoes were Nike Pegasus; I would switch to Asic gels in the next year or so.

The race started very slow for those of us in the back of the pack. In fact, I walked for what seemed like a good 500 meters before reaching and passing the start line. You just couldn’t run because there was no room to do so. I'm sure I lost as much as a minute of time on my final official clocking because of that (this was a few years before the running chip was introduced in running events).

Things went pretty well for me for the first six to seven miles, but then I started feeling the heat. So I'd prolong my walks through the water stations, or pull off to the side so runners could pass me. I probably stopped to walk three or four times, but I didn't walk for long on any of the occasions.

On West 16th Street, a mile or so before we turned into Indianapolis Speedway to do the loop around the track, someone behind me tapped on my shoulder. They asked if a set of keys they showed me in their hands belonged to me. I was shocked; I'd put the keys in my shorts pocket, but somehow they’d fallen out. I was so fortunate that someone noticed and got them back to me. I had no backup plan to get home.

Along that long route, I noticed a few people leave the course to relieve themselves behind bushes. I had read that when the body is stressed in exercise like I was involved with that morning, it normally shuts down the urge to pee until you’re relaxing again. (And that’s despite recommendations to runners to drink a lot of water before and during the race.) I was counting on that pee shut-off thing to work for me, and fortunately it did. Unfortunately, it didn’t for others. (Note: In all the road races I ran over the years, I never had to pull off the course to pee.)

The back stretch of the 500-Mile racetrack was brutal. The pavement is banked, and if you’re not at the bottom — along the inside section of that bank — you're running at some degree of angle. The higher you are up the bank, the more uncomfortable the slope for your running. So most runners made a point to stick to the inside, which is what I did. It was exhilarating when I saw the finish line after completing the fourth turn. I actually picked up my pace slightly until I got about 100 meters from the finish, when I broke into a sprint.

All I would think of when crossing was “Wow.” I saw quite a few people turn around and return to the yard of bricks to kiss the bricks. I think I did that, too, but to be honest, I don’t really remember. The photo leading off this post is me crossing the finish line of that 1991 half-marathon.

Within 15 minutes after my run stopped, the pee thing kicked in. I had to go several times as I cooled off and continued hydrating even after the race. I hung around a while, because there was a huge line of traffic — race finishers — stopped to a crawl trying to exit. I knew there’d be no way I could wait in the line and not have to pee again. So I waited at least 45 minutes, enjoying the view of the hallowed racetrack. I had opened blisters on my toes and the balls of my feet, and I had chafed the inside of my thighs and underarms (I’d  neglected to apply preventive Vaseline, a mistake I would not make again), but I was still floating on an endorphin high.

It was, indeed, a huge sense of accomplishment I felt on the drive home, the soak in the tub after getting in the house ... and relaxing aftermath the rest of the day ... and several days thereafter. When I received my official clock time a week or so later, it was 2 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds. I experienced similar senses of accomplishments after each of the next three mini-marathons I would run.

There would be one more Mini-Marathon, in 1992, on that same course. My finish time, as shown below the photo above, would be 2:12:37.

In 1993, organizers changed the course to have it start and finish downtown, negating the need to shuttle participants from the finish to the start, as it had done in previous years. The racetrack would become the midpoint of the course (a slight disappointment that it wasn’t the finish, but ... I did prefer starting and finishing downtown).

Each year, I managed to reduce my finish time by 5 minutes or so. In 1993 (photo of my finish is above), it was 2:07:31. Of all the half-marathons I ran, the temperatures and conditions were the hottest and most uncomfortable at that one.

In my final mini-marathon, 1994, the race was moved to the early part of the month so temperatures were cooler. In fact, there was a very light rain during portions of the event. I wore a sleeved T-shirt instead of tank, but still the red shorts. I cruised through the first 10 miles and was excited that I could finally log what I had hoped to do — a sub 2-hour half-marathon. But near the beginning of mile 11, I hit that dreaded runner’s wall, and my knees started to ache. I had run — no stopping — the whole course up to that point. But the wall and aching knees ground me to a walk, and I spent at least 5 minutes walking while trying to compose myself.

I jogged the final mile and a half at half the pace I was doing through mile 10 and finished (photo below) in 2:02:36, still bettering my previous times.

The knee issue persisted for some time after that 1994 race, so I passed on doing the 1995 mini, and unfortunately, I never again found the desire to go through the training to do another. I came close in the early 2000s when another work colleague got me interested in joining him. But I declined at the last minute.

My kids and I would run and finish the 500 Festival 5K run a few times in the 2000s, and while those were cool things to experience with family members, it wasn't quite the same as those Mini-Marathons in the early 1990s.

More than ample motivation to help me feel better about myself.

My current music 'funk' is 1990s music

In my previous post, I discussed nostalgia, one of two “funks” in which I am known to dwell. The other is music, and I lapse into that periodically.

Lately, I've been in a 1990s music funk. Fourteen years ago, for my kids' Christmas presents, I made them each 10 mix CDs containing major hits from their prime growing up years, which was the ’90s. I've held onto the digital files (mp3s) I used for those, and I also have a half-dozen copies of the discs I burned for them. Actually, the discs are discards -- I tossed them from the finished package in the final stage of production when I realized I had duplicated songs in one or more of the kids' collections.

I reached for a few of those the other day and put them into my computer media player, and when the tunes started playing, I found myself smiling. A rush of memories swept over me. When Jesus Jones' "Right Here, Right Now" came on, what came to mind immediately was a moment the kids and I were in the minivan on I-465 in Indianapolis, returning home from a summer day at the Fourth Estate (a private recreational grounds owned by The Indianapolis Star at the time). In that flashback moment, that song was playing on the minivan radio, and we all chimed in to sing along.

When Sophie B. Hawkins' "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" came on, I thought of my oldest son, because I remember him saying how much he liked that song. When Mariah Carey's "Anytime You Need a Friend" came on, I recalled a 1990s conversation about contemporary music that I had in the cafeteria of my kids' grade school with one of the teachers. She said Carey was one of the few contemporary artists she really liked.

And Haddaway's "What Is Love?" made me think of the Saturday Night Live recurring comedy sketch in which that song was the background music for a couple of loser guys (played by Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan) trying to pick up women at a cheesy disco (the sketch was later parlayed into "The Roxbury Guys" motion picture, which itself turned out to be a cheesy loser of sorts.)

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Before the '90s music funk, I had been mired in a prolonged funk with my New Age music list on the computer media player. New Age is a recurring music funk of mine -- probably THE most recurring of them all. I listen to it a lot. It relaxes me and puts me in a happy place mentally and emotionally. It brings back fond memories ... of relaxation. To that music. I guess that's doubling down on the funk, huh? Artists on the list include George Winston, Danny Wright, Wayne Gratz, Oystein Sevag, Eric Tingstad, Joe Yamada and Kevin Kern.

A few years back, I remember being in a nine-month-long funk -- yes, nine solid months! -- of various works by Mozart -- mostly concertos, sonatas and symphonies. I'd listen to Mozart on the car CD player during the commute to work, as well as at home while working on the computer. I don't turn to Mozart for any length of time often, but it really hit me the right way back them.