Running for Your Life: Eye on the Prize II

Today (Nov. 25) the winds came on a run. Thurber had the morning; I had a blissful hour before going to work. These are the days that I feel I can run forever. Brisk fall. Up and into the park, the leaves crunch underfoot. I ran – and it was beautiful – but, alas, I did not catch my leaf.

Ah, yes, the leaves. I fear another season is upon me during which I will not catch in my bare hand a falling leaf as I run through the park. Tomorrow (Nov. 26), the forecast is for a final leaf shakedown of a nor’ easter, within which I will not run because of the very real possibility of injury from fallen branches, a clearer danger now than in years past due to the decline in tree maintenance from budget cuts that swept every public department in my adopted country since Ronald Reagan and his merry men and women perpetrated the fable that government defunding would encourage private investment in job-creating capital, the bastard son of trickle-down, what was good for the billionaires was good for the nation.

All of which is to say that if I were put odds on my catching a leaf of those that will fall from near-barren trees during the days after the nor’ easter, I’d have to put it down to about one in a million.

But, in my running-for-your-life life, I like those odds.


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