Herkirmer (2 lengthy morality tales, 1 classic ending, 0 lessons learned)

Author’s note:  So, this is my first blog of the year.  Yes, I’m familiar with the fact that it’s mid-April.  I would like to blame my busy schedule, and believe me, I do.  I will blame anything and anyone I can to disguise the real truth.  It’s not that I’m busy.  I mean, it is, but everyone is busy, right?  However the truth is that one always find the time to do what one is passionate about.  It’s not that I don’t have any ideas.  In fact, I would say I have too many!  A list of no less than eight topics, all having years of research and thought invested into them.  However, that’s the thing.  They are all intimidating and I find myself a little lost knowing where to begin.  Perhaps “lost” is not the right word here.  There is an old saying that goes, “God hates a coward”, meaning that success and fortune usually follows those who make quick, brave, often fool-hardy decisions.   I hope this is not true, because I’m being a coward.  Putting pen to paper is no less a risk than taking that first step out of your front door that Tolken warned about…

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Ok, enough whining.  I’m in the process of finding my courage.  In the meantime, why wait till I have deep content to share?  Why not start with something light and timely.  So, with that said, here’s some meaningless drivel that I had way to much fun writing.  Enjoy!

Tale #1: A Healthy Choice

I bought a map of the United states, a highlighter and a pair of running shoes.  I was finally motivated enough to start, and it came from the most unlikely of places.

Putting down the short story from one of my favorite authors, my mind swam with both conviction, not a small dose of worry and a large serving of inspiration.  The short story in question was a supernatural thriller about an overweight man.  The protagonist’s doctor spelled out the grim reality that the middle-aged life of an fat man could become.  It was enough to send the protagonist out to purchase a stationary bike, clear off a workout area and put up a map on the wall.   The map was one that spanned the distance from his house to an obscure little village in upstate NY named Herkirmer.  Every day he progressed, peddling on his virtual journey to the point on the map and progressed on his real journey to fitness.

Well, that wasn’t the point of the story, but it definitely was MY point in the story.  If he, nothing more than a figment of someone’s imagination could do it, then why couldn’t I?  (a point of illogical logic I still use to this day!).  Living in upstate Louisiana at the time, it was a fair hike all the way up to upstate NY, but why not?  Who cares if it takes me ten years.  Let’s start.

I wasn’t interested in stationary bikes, but I always wanted to be a runner.  So I mounted a map of the United States on my wall, mapped out the route between West Monroe, Louisiana and Herkimer, NY (only 1,439 miles to go!), laced up my shoes and launched myself into the world of fitness!

I ran a very messy half-mile and proceeded to celebrated it by throwing up violently on my front lawn.

But it didn’t matter.  I was a runner.

Soon enough I was entering the virtual limits of Jackson, Mississippi and then started up the path of the Natchez Trace Trail (I wanted to take the scenic route… even though the actual route was the same every time) heading towards Nashville.

Every week I went on.  Some weeks were great.  Some weeks miserable.  Some weeks nothing happened at all.   But bit by bit I progressed slowly up that map towards my goal.

I started to share with my wife a daydream I had.  One day, who knows when, I’m going to be on Highway 90 between Syracuse and Albany finally closing in the last few miles to my goal of the Herkimer town limits.  What if we worked it out that on that festive date, we go to visit my friends and family up there.  Then I can save the very last mile!  I can be dropped off a mile or so from the town lines.  As far as I know, I had never physically been to the town of Herkimer, so how awesome would it be if I finished my journey by running victoriously into the town for the very first time thus completing my virtual journey with a physical victory?

It was a beautiful dream.

I wish I could tell you it was a beautiful dream-come-true.

I cannot.

I cannot because in many ways, I’m just a lazy man.  Oh, the running never stopped but life got in the way.  We moved, and then moved again.  The map came with us a number of times, but got updated less and less.  Finally after a couple more moves, it never got unpacked and will become lost in obscurity and out of this tale forever.

So I never ran victorious into the small town of Herkimer, NY.

Yes, it’s a sad thing.

But I’m happy to say, it’s not a tragic thing.  The map was never completed, but the motivation found a way into my heart.  No, I’m not a world-class, die-hard runner, but I’m happy to say I still run to this day, 10 years later.   I’ve ran a half-dozen half-marathons and still feel there might be a marathon in me somewhere.  I still love to get out there when the sun is either creeping up over the horizon, or slowly disappearing behind it.   I still count the miles, after miles, after miles of asphalt below my feet.

In fact, later this week or early next I will reach my 2000th mile.  If you figure that out, that would be all the way into Herkimer, and then back towards Columbus, Ohio.  And now that I have this great milestone on my near horizon, I think it’s time for a new goal….

Running the Appalachian trail!  That’s right, starting at Springer Mountain, GA and heading up to the fabled Mount Katahdin in Maine.  That’s about 2200 miles so it would be a perfect next goal.  All virtually, of course (although I’m slowly working my way physically to Katahdin year after year also).

So I bought a map of the trail, a highlighter and a pair of running shoes.  I’ve put the map up on the wall of my home library.  I’m ready to begin!

Some people never learn.

Tale #2: A Unhealthy Choice

I’m not a smoker.  Never have been really tempted, to be honest.  Never even had a puff of a cigarette until I was well beyond 30 yrs old.  Not only was it not an attractive proposition to me as a young man, but the price of buying them and threats of dying a horrid death were always a effective deterrent.

However, one thing did tempt me.  My grandfather always smoked a pipe and I, to this day associated that musky, rich smell with Christmas morning in cold lands around warm fireplaces in loving places.  My heroes smoked pipes.  The romantic in me dreams of sitting around village pubs decorated with rough-hewn wood and deep mahogany inlays discussing far-away lands with the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolken while a lit chimney belches out decadent smoke from my mouth.

Yet, I don’t because, as I said earlier, I’m lazy.  So much work to get the pipe, buy the tobacco, learn to light it, smoke it, clean it with that Swiss army knife-like multi tool and then to do it over and over again.

Maybe one day…

Until then, I will remain more-or-less smoke-free.

I did say “more-or-less”, however.

I do have one small exception.   Let’s not call it an “exception”.  Let’s call it a loosely abided by tradition….

… that’s much more romantic a concept, I think

I was alway enamored by the culture of the cigar smoker.  The (what my mind associates with) manly undertaking of scattered leather high back chairs around the large fireplace with large, hand-rolled stogies glowing with rosy embers lighting up a cloudy room….  that might sound unattractive to you, but has always held an air of intrigue to me (a smoky, slightly nauseating air, if you will)

So a number of years ago, being strongly self-motivated, I decided to try a cigar.  Now I couldn’t do anything as crass as going out to my local tobacco emporium, buy one, lighting it up and smoke away.  No, that wouldn’t do at all.  That would be bad form.  It also wouldn’t do to make a habit of it.  So maybe I can think up a excuse, a timing and make it an annual tradition.  That would be acceptable.  Good form dictated it had to be done correctly.

So I discussed the matter with my friend, Jason.  It was decided that we would buy one at the beginning of our yearly Appalachian Trail trip.  I always traveled to Rochester to meet up with him where we would begin the road trip to Boston to pick up our third, Aaron and then head to meet the trail.  It would be a celebration of our reuniting.  Once a year it would mark the beginning of that dangerous business of walking out our front door…

I got some advice from a cigar-smoking friend.  He told be not to start with anything too exotic or rich.  It was a learning curve.  He told me how to clip the end and how to light it.  He educated me on the proper way to hold the smoke and to puff it out as opposed to breathing it in.  And one more thing…

“You are not use to nicotine in your system.  What you really need to look out for is how it will effect you.  It’s very common to make you nauseous and dizzy.  Often people will throw up the first time they have one.  My advise is buy a reasonably priced one and only smoke HALF of it.  Trust me on this.”

So the trip began.   We went to a small north Rochester cigar emporium and to my delight it was furnished with leather clad high backed chairs.  A number of old-timers sat around talking about what I could only imagine was the outrageous prices of spices on from the Asian markets, the new batch of teas imported from the mysterious regions of South America and the events of their hunting safaris into the dark continent.  The room reeked of a dense fog cloud that both repelled and enticed me.  Speaking briefly with the proprietor we were taken into the walk-in humidor, selected the recommended house brand, clipped the end, paid and began our road trip.

What can be more freeing or gratifying as an endless road before two friends who have a years worth of life events to catch up on and an adventure before us?  We smoked our cigars and spoke of deep truths, lost dreams, spiritual realities and lofty principles.

I expected to like the cigar, but was rather unprepared for the fact that I would simply love it.  It was everything I desired.  “This could be dangerous”, I thought.  I held on to the smoke in my mouth and savored the rich aromas.   Before I knew it, the time had passed and I looked down and half of the cigar was gone.

I remembered the sage words of advice… don’t overdo it the first time.  Smoke half and then put it out.  You don’t know how it will affect you.

But I felt fine.  No, I felt GREAT.  This was all that I had wished for.  The open road kept going forward, so my cigar kept being smoked. In fact, it kept on till it was nothing more that a stub that I heartbrokenly put out.  What a wonderful experience.  What a wonderful experience that I seemly been made for.  Others might have adverse reactions but truly mine was a iron-clad constitution!  I was clearly built for greater things.

This prideful bragging continued for the next 20 minutes as I slowly began feeling a slight bit queasy.  The thing about feeling “a slight bit queasy” is that it rarely allows itself room for improvement.  A “slight bit” becomes “rather” with almost always become “quite a bit”.  I was “quite a bit” queasy.

I mentioned this to my friend who laughed at my not-so-much iron-clad constitution.  I lay back in my shotgun chair and tried to will myself into letting the feeling pass.

Let us both take this moment in the progressive dialogue to admit to one another that we know the direction this story is going.  At this point in the narrative, if I were to simply say I “tried to will myself into letting the feeling pass… and it DID and I had a wonderful time”, while you would feel happy for past-Kevin, you would be understandably disappointed in present-Kevin as both a storyteller and a protagonist.   It’s not a matter of IF this story ends with messy and by default slightly gross but entertaining conclusions, but rather just HOW gross and embarrassing.  Chalk it up to our fallen state of humanity, but at least acknowledge that about yourself.  I hope not to disappoint.

I progressed through all the stages of queasy…. slightly, mildly, decidedly and shockingly.  I went from the moment you fear you conceivable MIGHT vomit, to the point you realize that, if you chose, you COULD vomit till the inevitable knowledge that you WILL vomit.

I told my friend this and told him to prepare to pull over to the side of the road upon command.

Then I gave him the command.

I wish I could tell you we stopped the car in time.  I wish I could tell you I neatly expelled my recent lunch of roast beef and mustard sandwich followed by a Boston Creme donut into a lonely bush, wiped my mouth and continued on down the road with most of my tack and discretion in place.. but again, it wouldn’t make much of a story, would it?

Instead let me simply say that as my friend put on his signal and slowly pulled to the side of the road, I decided to start the party early.

The floor was coved as well as the door handle and the little map pocket now filling up in a manner its designers most likely never intended.  The door frame was splattered as I managed to open the door on the still moving vehicle and launch myself on to the gravel shoulder and into the high grass on the side of the road.  My ghastly trail that marked the conclusion of my first expedition into the smoker’s world finally concluded in a few spasms of unspeakable foulness there on the side of a lone road in the middle of a great adventure.

Panting and in slight shock, I wiped my mouth and waited for the encore.  It did not disappoint.  Finally when I was sure that I was emptied from everything I had eaten over the past 12 years of my life, I spat, wiped my mouth off and looked up at the two legged sign that stood looming before me… and my blood ran cold.   A low, heartbreaking moan escaped my mouth as I reread the sign in sheer unbelief and disappointment… blinked, and reread it again.  Didn’t it just figure!  There it stood in all of its glory and simply read…

“Welcome to Herkimer”