BREAKING SPEED LIMITS
Apr 26, 2006
By DREW McQUADE mcquadd@phillynews.com
ONLY A COCKY cheetah smirks at the world's fastest human.
Hyenas might laugh because that's what they do. Cheetahs can back up their arrogance. In research 6 years ago, "The Physics Factbook" determined cheetahs could run three times faster than Michael Johnson, who was the world's fastest human in 1996 when he high-tailed 200 meters in an unfathomable 19.32 seconds at the Atlanta Olympics. It's a good thing the meet was restricted to humans because in another study, cheetahs without adidas were clocked at 70 mph. Hyenas broke 40. Humans jogged a tad under 28.
Despite the limits of the WFH, fellow humans bow in awe. With thousands of trackheads descending upon Franklin Field for the 112th Penn Relays this week now is a decent time to wonder how fast a man can run.
The WFH is no Captain Kirk, so he can't get beamed from point A to point B in 1 second. Jamaica's Asafa Powell, who is arguably the current WFH, zipped 100 meters in 9.77 seconds to set a world record in Athens last year. If you took the time to read this far, Powell would probably be going into his lean at this point. It's mind-boggling to think he can go faster.
Can he burn 100 meters in under 9 seconds?
"If they change the rules," answered Dave Johnson, Penn Relays director. "If they can start the clock when a runner actually leaves the blocks as opposed to when the gun goes off and if they let him stick his hand across the finish line and count that instead of his torso. "
Can the WFH run the 100 in 8 seconds?
"Why not?," answered Charlie Powell, University of Pennsylvania track coach. "The limits are in your own mind and if you can open your mind things are limitless. You can achieve great things. The human potential is based a lot on what you can believe. The people who work in genetic engineering say when man can conceive it and believe it he can achieve it.
"There are ethical questions in genetic engineering of course but in my mind there is not a question of limits. As a coach you set goals but you never tell a runner there are limits to how fast he can run.
"Thank God for Roger Bannister. He proved there are artificial barriers. They said no one could run a 4-minute mile before Bannister. They said no one could long jump 26 feet. They said no one could ever pole vault 20 feet.
"Can a person run 100 meters in 8 seconds? Why not? "
Muscles might scream but the mind has the wind at its back.
"Any time we try to place limits on what humans can achieve, we are proven wrong," wrote USA Track & Field chief executive officer Craig A. Masback in an e-mail.
"While 9.5 seconds seems way out there given the current group of athletes and below 9 seems impossible, as athletes around the world have access to better coaching, better diets, better tracks and track spikes, better training insights, and all the other inevitable advancements, an athlete will always come along that breaks any barrier we choose to set.
"Remember that people said a human would die if he ever ran under 4 minutes in the mile and only 50 years later sub-4 minute miles are commonplace. "
And there are no morticians at the finish line.
The WFH rep expected to attend the Penn Relays this week is Justin Gatlin, a Brooklyn native and reigning Olympic champ in the 100. The WFH is an unofficial title that often sticks with the Olympic 100 champ even if someone beats his time at another venue. Gatlin is on record he will trim two-hundredths of a second off Powell's mark.
In track world, mental restrictions tend to be much looser than physical limitations. It's the kind of discussion that keeps the lights burning into the wee hours in the labs of sports medicine men.
"The answer is yes, there are limits to how fast a man can run," said Dr. Brian Sennett, chief of sports medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "To tell you what those limits are I'm not exactly sure. The genetic response to the question is based on the performance of the body as a machine. Muscular makeup, nutrition, oxygenation, hydration, training, they all dictate how fast you can run.
"You are born genetically predisposed to be a sprinter or a distance runner or something in between. There are specific muscle types and fibers within each muscle that come into play. Those with fast-twitch muscles are more likely to be sprinters and those with slow-twitch muscles distance runners.
"The more slender the build, the more aerobic physique the more likely to be a distance runner. Large muscle mass, more likely to be a sprinter.
"Plus of course there's the mental side. The classic example of breaking down barriers is the 4-minute mile. There was a time breaking that was unheard of. Now they shatter it all the time. "
Bannister, who once ran at the Penn Relays, would not be so legendary today. Today, there are more Bannisters than legends. The limit to a man's speed is in a state of flux.
"You take 2 seconds off a mile record and it might be 1/1000 of the time," said Sennett. "With sprinters, you're talking .01. The number has never been fixed. You can't. There's clearly a number there. No one will ever run the 100 meters in 1 second. The record might be leveling out and not likely to go much lower but it will go lower, only the increments get smaller and smaller. Theorists could say 8 seconds. Training styles might allow man to get faster and quicker. If you can change the technique and the training progresses, who knows? Maybe there'll be an 8-second 100. "
It takes me that long to get out of bed. The WFH has no such time constraints. To get a read on the future one need only to look back as a reference point. In 1896, American Thomas Burke won the Olympic 100 in 12 seconds. What a turtle.
"The next breakthrough will be genetic engineering," said John-son. "The scientist will tell you we're near the limit. One statistician will tell you the points on the curve are flat; another will tell you it's just a straight line with no end point. A sprinting coach will tell you you have to go beyond the limits of the human mind. "
Scientists and statisticians alike might tell you the curve on the graph is a dotted line with openings for dreamers to slip through.
"I don't know what the next horizon is on training," said Sennett. "I heard talk of a coolant device to reduce core temperatures in a human which will improve muscle recovery. "
Sounds like something you put in your car. On your mark, set, start your engines. *
AGENDA
What: 112th Penn Relays
When: Yesterday through Saturday.
Where: Franklin Field, 33rd and Spruce.
Schedule: Today: Men's decathlon final; women's heptathlon final; Tomorrow: College, high school girls events; Friday: Colleges, high school boys events; Saturday: High school, college championships, Olympic development, USA vs. World.
Ticket office: 215-898-6151.
Web site: Thepennrelays.com
Honorary Carnival Referee: Herman Mancini, 93, Relays Chief Clerk of Course, whose 68-year streak at the meet ends due to health issues.
Notable names competing: (No relations): Mike Schmidt, Tom Jones, Keith Jackson, James Brown, Romulus, Marcus Allen, Joe Greene, Jackie Gleason.
Unique names: Tyler D'Amore Doo, Pinky McBurrows, Hello Eugene, Kojo Tweedie, Nohjay Nimpson, Lady Comfort, Man Child.
Longest name: Nutthawut Orataiwaiwattanakul, a senior from St. Raymond High School in the Bronx.
Numbers : 883 high schools, 233 colleges, 127 clubs.
Food: Out-of-towners looking for Philly staples can get a cheesesteak for $6.25 and a soft pretzel for 2.75 at the concessions stands.
Flavor: The Jamaicans as usual will provide talent, especially in high school athletes on the track and enthusiasm in the form of green and gold flag waving frenzied fans in the stands.
Friday, March 23, 2018
Thursday, March 22, 2018
RELAYING IT ON THE LINE
Running the 4x100 successfully takes near perfect planning
Apr 23, 2013
BY DREW McQUADE Daily News Staff Writer mcquadd@phillynews.com
A PERFECT 4 x 100 meter relay explodes with the gun, maintains speed around the curves, accelerates on the straightaways and ends in the infectious euphoria of raised arms, plastered smiles and bear hugs.
It's also a fantasy.
"There is no such thing," said LSU track coach Dennis Shaver about the flawless relay.
St. Augustine believed there is perfection in anyone who even unreservedly chases the ideal. He was also known as St. Augustine of Hippo so there is a good chance he was not a sprinter. But his philosophy of perfection would describe any coach.
Hundreds of them will be chasing relays without blemishes this week as the Penn Relays get into full swing Thursday at Franklin Field. Since no one has been able to clone Usain Bolt, the mad scientists of track have to work with what lesser humans bring with them into their lab.
"First thing you do is analyze the pool of athletes you have," explained Shaver. "The fastest ones, the ones with kicks. Some run turns better. Some run straight better. The group has to perform under significant pressure.
"How successful you are has a lot to do with where you place them. "
Shaver, who will be bringing a strong team to the Relays as usual, has been practicing his craft for years with considerable success so he knows how to move his chess pieces around the board.
"For the leadoff leg I usually use my best hurdler," said Shaver, whose women's teams have won seven SEC outdoor titles. "Someone who is explosive and frequency oriented. The turnover is more important there. You need a great starter.
"The second leg I use my best 200-meter runner. The athlete's 100 is great but 200 is out of sight. With 20 meters lead in and 20 meters on the other end, the athlete runs more than 100 meters. If it's done right it's 116 meters and the athlete has to be strong over the total distance.
"The third leg has to be good at taking and giving, a good turn runner with frequency of steps. No long strides.
"The anchor has to be cool, calm and collected. Can't go early. Often the second best 100-meter runner, the anchor has to have great sprint mechanics. Can't tie up.
"If they can run down an opponent when they are behind that's a big plus. "
A program with the good bones of LSU attracts a high-quality talent pool. It might recruit four high school stars who all ran the last leg. Getting the anchors to swim and not sink while singing kumbaya takes a psychological coach who knows both tracks and couches.
Egos are much harder to train than arms and legs.
Shaver's 4 x 100 anchor last year was Kim Duncan, who handed off that responsibility this season. Outsiders believe anchors are the stars and the other legs are also-rans. That's why they are outsiders.
"Kim was our anchor and we won the NCAA," said Shaver. "Now she runs the second leg. She has no problem with that. If you teach the athletes and get feedback, talk to them, fully communicate what might be in the best interests of the team they'll respond.
"You get them to believe in the kind of things that will give your team the best chance to be successful. Once they buy into that, ego is not that big a deal. "
Let's say for argument's sake the egos are checked as they enter the stadium and picked up later on the podium. That takes care of four members of the relay team. What about No. 5?
The baton has no ego, no brain, just sits there and contributes nothing. A necessary evil. It might be great at conducting symphonies in the hand of a guy wearing a tuxedo but it can create all sorts of discord when it slips out of the hand of a guy wearing a singlet.
It can ruin a perfectly decent run when it bounces on the track as the relay team members writhe in agony.
"It's not the No. 5 member of the relay team; it's the No. 1," Shaver said.
If only competitors could just tag each other in the exchange lanes. It would cut down on red faces and heads in hands.
"No, then it would lose the drama," said Penn track coach Steve Dolan. "I like the baton. You have to get it around. It creates excitement. "
Check back with him after one of his team's exchanges comes up empty-handed. It happens to the best of teams, as Olympic quartets, full of men and women of ungodly speed, have learned.
In the 2008 Beijing Olympics both USA 4 x 100 teams dropped batons in the last exchange in the finals.
"Maybe someone has a voodoo doll of me, " said anchor Lauryn Williams, who also was involved in a botched handoff in the Athens Olympics 4 years earlier.
No voodoo doll was ever found but emotional scars were everywhere. Passing a baton seems oh so simple in theory. If you are standing still with nothing at stake maybe.
"It's better if there is a synchronized movement of the baton through the zone," said Dolan. "The challenge is there is a short window to get the baton through the zone without decelerating.
"The one coming in has fatigue. The one going out is accelerating. You want to maintain the speed through the zone. "
The exchange zones can be chaotic with multiple teams arriving at the same time, with elbows flailing and feet kicking and hands outstretched trying to make a connection amid the deafening background music of primal screams from the stands.
"Focus," said Dolan. "You can't lose your focus. You can't let the loud crowd noise or converging teams force you to leave early or late and throw everything off. "
There is a grade-school team in Northeast Philadelphia, which once used a dented baton it nicknamed "Sunny. " It had other, less cheery monikers when it fell to the ground. No one wanted to hang with "Sunny" on those occasions.
"The last thing we always say before the relay team runs is, 'Remember to get the stick around the track,' " said Dolan.
In a perfect world, those words are heard.
Agenda
What:The 119th Penn Relays
When: Tuesday through Saturday
Where: Franklin Field on Penn campus, 235 S. 33rd Street, between Walnut and South Streets.
TV: USA vs. the World live, NBC on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. Additonal coverage on Universal Sports, Saturday, 3-5 p.m.
Website: ThePennRelays.com
Tickets: General admission is $18. Check the website for reserved seating or call 1-855-UofPTIX.
Security: Additional measures are in place in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Backpags are only permitted for participating athletes. Coolers, glass bottles and cans will not be permitted.
Tuesday: CYO night, 6-9 p.m.
Thursday: High School Girls, College Women; Nighttime Distance Races, 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Friday: High School Boys & Girls, College Men & Women Olympic Development Events, 9 a.m to 7 p.m
Saturday: College Men & Women, High School Boys, USA vs. The World, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Field events: Pole vault, long jump, high jump at Franklin Field; hammer, discus, shot, javelin outside stadium, over the bridge , take a right past tennis courts and down to fields.
Scrapped: Men's decathlon due to lack of competitors.
Getting there: Public transportation recommended. Limited parking at garages at South and Convention, 34th and Chestnut, and 40th and Walnut.
Weather: Events go rain or shine on all-weather track. Events might run up to 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Wall of Famers: Among those going in are Alberto Salazar, who ran a Relays record in the high school 2-mile run with a time of 8:53.7 in 1976 and Michelle Bennent, from Cardinal Spellman (Bronx) High School (1987) and Villanova ('91), winner of seven Relay Championship of America watches.
Names: As usual Frank Bertucci provided a plethora of names competing, although Ben Franklin, who has participated in the past, is not expected to run in buckled shoes on his home field this year. Others competing include Gaby Go, which is her plan when the gun sounds, and the headline writer's nightmare team from Pennsbury High - Uche Onuoka, Husniyyah Rogers, Worada Sanghanphet and Sarah Hludzinski.
Numbers: There are more than 22,000 entries. The 3-day attendance is likely to top 110,000 for the third year in a row.
Running the 4x100 successfully takes near perfect planning
Apr 23, 2013
BY DREW McQUADE Daily News Staff Writer mcquadd@phillynews.com
A PERFECT 4 x 100 meter relay explodes with the gun, maintains speed around the curves, accelerates on the straightaways and ends in the infectious euphoria of raised arms, plastered smiles and bear hugs.
It's also a fantasy.
"There is no such thing," said LSU track coach Dennis Shaver about the flawless relay.
St. Augustine believed there is perfection in anyone who even unreservedly chases the ideal. He was also known as St. Augustine of Hippo so there is a good chance he was not a sprinter. But his philosophy of perfection would describe any coach.
Hundreds of them will be chasing relays without blemishes this week as the Penn Relays get into full swing Thursday at Franklin Field. Since no one has been able to clone Usain Bolt, the mad scientists of track have to work with what lesser humans bring with them into their lab.
"First thing you do is analyze the pool of athletes you have," explained Shaver. "The fastest ones, the ones with kicks. Some run turns better. Some run straight better. The group has to perform under significant pressure.
"How successful you are has a lot to do with where you place them. "
Shaver, who will be bringing a strong team to the Relays as usual, has been practicing his craft for years with considerable success so he knows how to move his chess pieces around the board.
"For the leadoff leg I usually use my best hurdler," said Shaver, whose women's teams have won seven SEC outdoor titles. "Someone who is explosive and frequency oriented. The turnover is more important there. You need a great starter.
"The second leg I use my best 200-meter runner. The athlete's 100 is great but 200 is out of sight. With 20 meters lead in and 20 meters on the other end, the athlete runs more than 100 meters. If it's done right it's 116 meters and the athlete has to be strong over the total distance.
"The third leg has to be good at taking and giving, a good turn runner with frequency of steps. No long strides.
"The anchor has to be cool, calm and collected. Can't go early. Often the second best 100-meter runner, the anchor has to have great sprint mechanics. Can't tie up.
"If they can run down an opponent when they are behind that's a big plus. "
A program with the good bones of LSU attracts a high-quality talent pool. It might recruit four high school stars who all ran the last leg. Getting the anchors to swim and not sink while singing kumbaya takes a psychological coach who knows both tracks and couches.
Egos are much harder to train than arms and legs.
Shaver's 4 x 100 anchor last year was Kim Duncan, who handed off that responsibility this season. Outsiders believe anchors are the stars and the other legs are also-rans. That's why they are outsiders.
"Kim was our anchor and we won the NCAA," said Shaver. "Now she runs the second leg. She has no problem with that. If you teach the athletes and get feedback, talk to them, fully communicate what might be in the best interests of the team they'll respond.
"You get them to believe in the kind of things that will give your team the best chance to be successful. Once they buy into that, ego is not that big a deal. "
Let's say for argument's sake the egos are checked as they enter the stadium and picked up later on the podium. That takes care of four members of the relay team. What about No. 5?
The baton has no ego, no brain, just sits there and contributes nothing. A necessary evil. It might be great at conducting symphonies in the hand of a guy wearing a tuxedo but it can create all sorts of discord when it slips out of the hand of a guy wearing a singlet.
It can ruin a perfectly decent run when it bounces on the track as the relay team members writhe in agony.
"It's not the No. 5 member of the relay team; it's the No. 1," Shaver said.
If only competitors could just tag each other in the exchange lanes. It would cut down on red faces and heads in hands.
"No, then it would lose the drama," said Penn track coach Steve Dolan. "I like the baton. You have to get it around. It creates excitement. "
Check back with him after one of his team's exchanges comes up empty-handed. It happens to the best of teams, as Olympic quartets, full of men and women of ungodly speed, have learned.
In the 2008 Beijing Olympics both USA 4 x 100 teams dropped batons in the last exchange in the finals.
"Maybe someone has a voodoo doll of me, " said anchor Lauryn Williams, who also was involved in a botched handoff in the Athens Olympics 4 years earlier.
No voodoo doll was ever found but emotional scars were everywhere. Passing a baton seems oh so simple in theory. If you are standing still with nothing at stake maybe.
"It's better if there is a synchronized movement of the baton through the zone," said Dolan. "The challenge is there is a short window to get the baton through the zone without decelerating.
"The one coming in has fatigue. The one going out is accelerating. You want to maintain the speed through the zone. "
The exchange zones can be chaotic with multiple teams arriving at the same time, with elbows flailing and feet kicking and hands outstretched trying to make a connection amid the deafening background music of primal screams from the stands.
"Focus," said Dolan. "You can't lose your focus. You can't let the loud crowd noise or converging teams force you to leave early or late and throw everything off. "
There is a grade-school team in Northeast Philadelphia, which once used a dented baton it nicknamed "Sunny. " It had other, less cheery monikers when it fell to the ground. No one wanted to hang with "Sunny" on those occasions.
"The last thing we always say before the relay team runs is, 'Remember to get the stick around the track,' " said Dolan.
In a perfect world, those words are heard.
Agenda
What:The 119th Penn Relays
When: Tuesday through Saturday
Where: Franklin Field on Penn campus, 235 S. 33rd Street, between Walnut and South Streets.
TV: USA vs. the World live, NBC on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. Additonal coverage on Universal Sports, Saturday, 3-5 p.m.
Website: ThePennRelays.com
Tickets: General admission is $18. Check the website for reserved seating or call 1-855-UofPTIX.
Security: Additional measures are in place in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Backpags are only permitted for participating athletes. Coolers, glass bottles and cans will not be permitted.
Tuesday: CYO night, 6-9 p.m.
Thursday: High School Girls, College Women; Nighttime Distance Races, 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Friday: High School Boys & Girls, College Men & Women Olympic Development Events, 9 a.m to 7 p.m
Saturday: College Men & Women, High School Boys, USA vs. The World, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Field events: Pole vault, long jump, high jump at Franklin Field; hammer, discus, shot, javelin outside stadium, over the bridge , take a right past tennis courts and down to fields.
Scrapped: Men's decathlon due to lack of competitors.
Getting there: Public transportation recommended. Limited parking at garages at South and Convention, 34th and Chestnut, and 40th and Walnut.
Weather: Events go rain or shine on all-weather track. Events might run up to 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
Wall of Famers: Among those going in are Alberto Salazar, who ran a Relays record in the high school 2-mile run with a time of 8:53.7 in 1976 and Michelle Bennent, from Cardinal Spellman (Bronx) High School (1987) and Villanova ('91), winner of seven Relay Championship of America watches.
Names: As usual Frank Bertucci provided a plethora of names competing, although Ben Franklin, who has participated in the past, is not expected to run in buckled shoes on his home field this year. Others competing include Gaby Go, which is her plan when the gun sounds, and the headline writer's nightmare team from Pennsbury High - Uche Onuoka, Husniyyah Rogers, Worada Sanghanphet and Sarah Hludzinski.
Numbers: There are more than 22,000 entries. The 3-day attendance is likely to top 110,000 for the third year in a row.
Thursday, March 08, 2018
By Drew McQuade
The Vet held its last Sunday service yesterday, dramatically disintegrating into a pile of rubble and dust. All those home runs, touchdowns, foul balls and fumbles swiftly fading into a future parking lot.
The Vet is dead, yet I can dig it up and dust it off whenever I want from the shelf in the back of my mind. There are decades of collective memories of the former home of the Phillies and the Eagles but it’s the personal ones that truly grab you. They can be awakened anytime in vibrant colors and emotional warmth.
For me, there are two such pieces of eternal fabric.
In 1976, I took my ailing dad to the Vet as the Phillies hosted the All-Star game. It was gut-wrenching to see my fragile father, a skeleton of the strong, yet sensitive man who raised me, labor up those long ramps to our seats in left field. The former Marine drill instructor, who was decorated for bravery in World War II, moved as if his legs were made of the same material as the surface below him.
I went to grab his arm to support him. He waved me off with a nervous smile.
There was no need for feeble toughness. For a couple hours, my dad put his daily struggle with mortality on hold. When we finally made it to our seats, we had a ball. Father and son eating hit dogs, cutting up the players and some of the strange characters selling concessions.
It didn’t matter that from our angle we really couldn’t see the home run ball hit by Phillies’ slugger Greg Luzinski. It landed somewhere just below us. We craned our necks in vain. Without binoculars, the mammoth Luzinski rounding the bases was no more than an ant with an eating disorder.
I was able to smile momentarily when we left the Vet that day, the last time we went there together. I wish he could join me for a day at the ballpark now.
In 1995, I took my 12-year-old son to the Vet for a playoff game between the Eagles and Detroit Lions. We climbed to the 700 level but before we sat down we had to pass through an impromptu inspection from a massive guy dressed like a Viking, not the Minnesota kind; the kind named Thor.
For a moment, Thor and I almost squared off because my blue Penn State jacket looked like Detroit Lions’ garb through his blood-shot eyes.
My son and I had a ball. The Eagles annihilated the Lions. We hugged and high-fived perfect strangers all afternoon. The highlight to my son was the reaction to defensive back Barry Wilburn’s touchdown after an interception. A fan was tossed through the air a couple rows before bouncing off the ground and instead of checking for injuries, he immediately conducted a painful, futile search for what was left of his cup of beer. Then he cheered anyway.
If it wasn’t so much fun, it might have been scary. All those inebriated crazies united in glee.
I was able to smile deeply when I left that day. We’ve been back plenty of times. We’ve been to the Eagles new home and we have tickets to the Phillies new home.
There is nothing as pure and as pleasurable as taking your dad or your son to a game. The Vet was just a building. Anytime I want I can still see it. My dad and my son are sitting beside me. They’re laughing hard.
Friday, September 01, 2017
JC with paragraphs
By Drew McQuade
They called him J.C. for obvious reasons.
Long stringy hair over a gaunt face. Sandals in the summer. A toga might attract attention, so it was wrinkled shirts with long sleeves and long tails over solid-colored T-shirts. A quiet, near-mute serenity. Expressionless. Open-mouth, squinty-eyed, silent zombie.
He walked on cement like he was sinking in and out of foam rubber.
How else would he float through life? He spent the better part of most days with his face two feet from a paint trough inspecting bomb shells as they trudged along a conveyor.
Inhaling paint fumes up his nostrils to his brain cells.
The abuse toward him was constant, yet it rolled down the steep, skinny excuse he had for a back. He never reacted to the taunts. Did he hear them? Nobody knew.
I caught a glimpse of his eyes once on a rare occasion they weren’t staring at his own toes. There was a kindness, not a dark abyss as most suspected.
They were green and sparkling. Maybe it was the drugs. Or the fumes.
He would absolutely stump those slick, cocky carnival age-guessers. He could visit them and rack up the giant stuffed Pandas. Was he in his 30s or 50s? J.C. was barely alive in whatever decade he was trudging through.
He would mumble a song incessantly. Had to be made up. A blues song, of course. Caught some of the words but they were faint moans:
“I used to be ruggedly handsome but now I’m just ruggedly…”
The words leaned more toward country western but J.C.’s execution was more Muddy Waters on crack:
“I used to go nakedly swimming but now I just go nakedly…”
On and on and on he sang. Day after day after day. It stopped only at lunchtime when he disappeared.
I ate lunch at lunchtime. Silly me. The convicts on work release boxed during the break. Bare-fisted, bloody brawls on a cement canvas. No ref. Heavy betting. Scary men with fresh red on their tattoos. Three rounds or less. The bosses weren’t always stupid. They looked the other way. The fights cut the tension. Less bombshells made it onto the skids after lunch, but the ambience shifted to mellow.
The bouts were draining. I hung on the fringes and watched with my friend, Bud, who kept putting his hands over his eyes. He could still see through the split fingers. You had to watch. Had to.
With the blood on the ground and lunch coming back up toward your mouth, it was back to lifting bombshells onto skids before easing the prongs of the flat hand truck under the medal platform and pulling the load toward the back of the plant where the trucks sat idling.
Never once thought about how some of these bombshells would eventually kill Vietnamese people in a couple weeks. Never once. Just a summer job in suburban Philly for knucklehead high school kids more interested in hippie girls than revolutionary causes.
The best part of the job was pay day when we snuck into the dive across the street after work and pretended we were 21 while the bartender pretended he was blind to the so-called adults with peach fuzz faces and adolescence demeanors.
Mostly we eavesdropped while sipping on watered-down drinks. The conversations were more fantasy than fiction with the recurring themes of sex, alcohol and sports. In that order.
We mostly laughed like goofs till our guts hurt and yearned to witness just one of these stories in person. You know, out of the way observers behind a tree or in a dark corner where we could enjoy in nervous silence without commitment.
One night we actually stumbled upon an eerie set of circumstances which no one ever believes. So Bud and I rarely bring it up. Makes us both shiver some so maybe it’s for the best.
We rolled out of the dive toward the dingier dive known as Jack’s. The owner and bartender was named Bob. If you asked him why the bar was called Jack’s, he spit out the same refrain with disdain. “I don’t know Jack.”
The heavy rain outside melded through the cracks on the window sills and slid down the walls near the dark corridor. Fresh legs nearly wipe out on the first trek to the bathroom, using the term loosely. You pissed on the wall and checked for roaches on the ledge of yellow and brown water below. They can’t jump but they can crawl upstream like insect salmon.
At the bar, fiberglass surface on rotting wood base, the two Jims were monopolizing the conversation if you consider grunts and guffaws conversation.
They had the verbiage and makeup of Neanderthals. The worst kind of cavemen. They never aspired to stand upright and favored bringing back the wielding of fat clubs and hair-pulling as the perfect date. They had plenty of nicknames but my favorite was Jim the Lesser and Jim the Even More Lesser. It had just the right touch.
Anyway, on this night they were harassing a behemoth of a man. The two Jims were not afraid of anyone. They would be in the tag team wing of the Alley Fighters Hall of Fame if one existed.
The massive human they were bugging was larger than both Jims with hair growing out of nostrils to form an impromptu mustache. He could make Paul Bunyan flinch. Blind to the monster’s physique, the Jims kept nibbling at him until they were taking it outside, a nightly adventure for the Jims.
The fight was stunningly short. The Monstrosity leveled Jim the Lesser with one mighty blow which made me shiver and recoil in the shadows. Bud was watching through his fingers as usual. Then, the huge dude pulled out a knife and cut a red line below Jim the Even Lesser’s chin and he plopped with a thud which would have registered on the Richter scale if Jim the Lesser’s motionless body hadn’t softened the landing.
Believe it or not, here’s where it got truly eerie.
A gaunt form slithered past and laid his hand on Jim the Even Lesser’s throat. Three seconds tops and then the guy shuffles down the alley, cutting a path through broken glass and cigarette butts, fading into the darkness.
Just like that. He seemed familiar.
Jim the Even Lesser got up like a zombie with a smile.
The scratch on his neck was barely visible. The other Jim was moaning now. He got up with help from his foggy companion and they trudged away in the opposite direction of their savior.
We stopped telling the story months later, weary of the eyes rolling up on the disinterested faces of the reluctant audience. But it resurfaced to carve out a niche, a permanent fragment in the brain, when the news buzzed through the plant one cloudy morning in the spring.
J.C. had been murdered. His bloody body was found near the veteran trash behind the Old Roman fencing company. He had sustained injuries to his head, hands, feet and torso. What was left of his forehead was entangled with barbed wire.
The report numbed me.
J.C. was 33.
JC
By Drew McQuade
They called him J.C. for obvious reasons.
Long stringy hair over a gaunt face. Sandals in the summer. A toga might attract attention, so it was wrinkled shirts with long sleeves and long tails over solid-colored T-shirts. A quiet, near-mute serenity. Expressionless. Open-mouth, squinty-eyed, silent zombie.
He walked on cement like he was sinking in and out of foam rubber.
How else would he float through life? He spent the better part of most days with his face two feet from a paint trough inspecting bomb shells as they trudged along a conveyor.
Inhaling paint fumes up his nostrils to his brain cells.
The abuse toward him was constant, yet it rolled down the steep, skinny excuse he had for a back. He never reacted to the taunts. Did he hear them? Nobody knew.
I caught a glimpse of his eyes once on a rare occasion they weren’t staring at his own toes. There was a kindness, not a dark abyss as most suspected.
They were green and sparkling. Maybe it was the drugs. Or the fumes.
He would absolutely stump those slick, cocky carnival age-guessers. He could visit them and rack up the giant stuffed Pandas. Was he in his 30s or 50s? J.C. was barely alive in whatever decade he was trudging through.
He would mumble a song incessantly. Had to be made up. A blues song, of course. Caught some of the words but they were faint moans:
“I used to be ruggedly handsome but now I’m just ruggedly…”
The words leaned more toward country western but J.C.’s execution was more Muddy Waters on crack:
“I used to go nakedly swimming but now I just go nakedly…”
On and on and on he sang. Day after day after day. It stopped only at lunchtime when he disappeared.
I ate lunch at lunchtime. Silly me. The convicts on work release boxed during the break. Bare-fisted, bloody brawls on a cement canvas. No ref. Heavy betting. Scary men with fresh red on their tattoos. Three rounds or less. The bosses weren’t always stupid. They looked the other way. The fights cut the tension. Less bombshells made it onto the skids after lunch, but the ambience shifted to mellow.
The bouts were draining. I hung on the fringes and watched with my friend, Bud, who kept putting his hands over his eyes. He could still see through the split fingers. You had to watch. Had to.
With the blood on the ground and lunch coming back up toward your mouth, it was back to lifting bombshells onto skids before easing the prongs of the flat hand truck under the medal platform and pulling the load toward the back of the plant where the trucks sat idling.
Never once thought about how some of these bombshells would eventually kill Vietnamese people in a couple weeks. Never once. Just a summer job in suburban Philly for knucklehead high school kids more interested in hippie girls than revolutionary causes.
The best part of the job was pay day when we snuck into the dive across the street after work and pretended we were 21 while the bartender pretended he was blind to the so-called adults with peach fuzz faces and adolescence demeanors.
Mostly we eavesdropped while sipping on watered-down drinks. The conversations were more fantasy than fiction with the recurring themes of sex, alcohol and sports. In that order.
We mostly laughed like goofs till our guts hurt and yearned to witness just one of these stories in person. You know, out of the way observers behind a tree or in a dark corner where we could enjoy in nervous silence without commitment.
One night we actually stumbled upon an eerie set of circumstances which no one ever believes. So Bud and I rarely bring it up. Makes us both shiver some so maybe it’s for the best.
We rolled out of the dive toward the dingier dive known as Jack’s. The owner and bartender was named Bob. If you asked him why the bar was called Jack’s, he spit out the same refrain with disdain. “I don’t know Jack.”
The heavy rain outside melded through the cracks on the window sills and slid down the walls near the dark corridor. Fresh legs nearly wipe out on the first trek to the bathroom, using the term loosely. You pissed on the wall and checked for roaches on the ledge of yellow and brown water below. They can’t jump but they can crawl upstream like insect salmon.
At the bar, fiberglass surface on rotting wood base, the two Jims were monopolizing the conversation if you consider grunts and guffaws conversation.
They had the verbiage and makeup of Neanderthals. The worst kind of cavemen. They never aspired to stand upright and favored bringing back the wielding of fat clubs and hair-pulling as the perfect date. They had plenty of nicknames but my favorite was Jim the Lesser and Jim the Even More Lesser. It had just the right touch.
Anyway, on this night they were harassing a behemoth of a man. The two Jims were not afraid of anyone. They would be in the tag team wing of the Alley Fighters Hall of Fame if one existed.
The massive human they were bugging was larger than both Jims with hair growing out of nostrils to form an impromptu mustache. He could make Paul Bunyan flinch. Blind to the monster’s physique, the Jims kept nibbling at him until they were taking it outside, a nightly adventure for the Jims.
The fight was stunningly short. The Monstrosity leveled Jim the Lesser with one mighty blow which made me shiver and recoil in the shadows. Bud was watching through his fingers as usual. Then, the huge dude pulled out a knife and cut a red line below Jim the Even Lesser’s chin and he plopped with a thud which would have registered on the Richter scale if Jim the Lesser’s motionless body hadn’t softened the landing.
Believe it or not, here’s where it got truly eerie.
A gaunt form slithered past and laid his hand on Jim the Even Lesser’s throat. Three seconds tops and then the guy shuffles down the alley, cutting a path through broken glass and cigarette butts, fading into the darkness.
Just like that. He seemed familiar.
Jim the Even Lesser got up like a zombie with a smile.
The scratch on his neck was barely visible. The other Jim was moaning now. He got up with help from his foggy companion and they trudged away in the opposite direction of their savior.
We stopped telling the story months later, weary of the eyes rolling up on the disinterested faces of the reluctant audience. But it resurfaced to carve out a niche, a permanent fragment in the brain, when the news buzzed through the plant one cloudy morning in the spring.
J.C. had been murdered. His bloody body was found near the veteran trash behind the Old Roman fencing company. He had sustained injuries to his head, hands, feet and torso. What was left of his forehead was entangled with barbed wire.
The report numbed me.
J.C. was 33.
They called him J.C. for obvious reasons.
Long stringy hair over a gaunt face. Sandals in the summer. A toga might attract attention, so it was wrinkled shirts with long sleeves and long tails over solid-colored T-shirts. A quiet, near-mute serenity. Expressionless. Open-mouth, squinty-eyed, silent zombie.
He walked on cement like he was sinking in and out of foam rubber.
How else would he float through life? He spent the better part of most days with his face two feet from a paint trough inspecting bomb shells as they trudged along a conveyor.
Inhaling paint fumes up his nostrils to his brain cells.
The abuse toward him was constant, yet it rolled down the steep, skinny excuse he had for a back. He never reacted to the taunts. Did he hear them? Nobody knew.
I caught a glimpse of his eyes once on a rare occasion they weren’t staring at his own toes. There was a kindness, not a dark abyss as most suspected.
They were green and sparkling. Maybe it was the drugs. Or the fumes.
He would absolutely stump those slick, cocky carnival age-guessers. He could visit them and rack up the giant stuffed Pandas. Was he in his 30s or 50s? J.C. was barely alive in whatever decade he was trudging through.
He would mumble a song incessantly. Had to be made up. A blues song, of course. Caught some of the words but they were faint moans:
“I used to be ruggedly handsome but now I’m just ruggedly…”
The words leaned more toward country western but J.C.’s execution was more Muddy Waters on crack:
“I used to go nakedly swimming but now I just go nakedly…”
On and on and on he sang. Day after day after day. It stopped only at lunchtime when he disappeared.
I ate lunch at lunchtime. Silly me. The convicts on work release boxed during the break. Bare-fisted, bloody brawls on a cement canvas. No ref. Heavy betting. Scary men with fresh red on their tattoos. Three rounds or less. The bosses weren’t always stupid. They looked the other way. The fights cut the tension. Less bombshells made it onto the skids after lunch, but the ambience shifted to mellow.
The bouts were draining. I hung on the fringes and watched with my friend, Bud, who kept putting his hands over his eyes. He could still see through the split fingers. You had to watch. Had to.
With the blood on the ground and lunch coming back up toward your mouth, it was back to lifting bombshells onto skids before easing the prongs of the flat hand truck under the medal platform and pulling the load toward the back of the plant where the trucks sat idling.
Never once thought about how some of these bombshells would eventually kill Vietnamese people in a couple weeks. Never once. Just a summer job in suburban Philly for knucklehead high school kids more interested in hippie girls than revolutionary causes.
The best part of the job was pay day when we snuck into the dive across the street after work and pretended we were 21 while the bartender pretended he was blind to the so-called adults with peach fuzz faces and adolescence demeanors.
Mostly we eavesdropped while sipping on watered-down drinks. The conversations were more fantasy than fiction with the recurring themes of sex, alcohol and sports. In that order.
We mostly laughed like goofs till our guts hurt and yearned to witness just one of these stories in person. You know, out of the way observers behind a tree or in a dark corner where we could enjoy in nervous silence without commitment.
One night we actually stumbled upon an eerie set of circumstances which no one ever believes. So Bud and I rarely bring it up. Makes us both shiver some so maybe it’s for the best.
We rolled out of the dive toward the dingier dive known as Jack’s. The owner and bartender was named Bob. If you asked him why the bar was called Jack’s, he spit out the same refrain with disdain. “I don’t know Jack.”
The heavy rain outside melded through the cracks on the window sills and slid down the walls near the dark corridor. Fresh legs nearly wipe out on the first trek to the bathroom, using the term loosely. You pissed on the wall and checked for roaches on the ledge of yellow and brown water below. They can’t jump but they can crawl upstream like insect salmon.
At the bar, fiberglass surface on rotting wood base, the two Jims were monopolizing the conversation if you consider grunts and guffaws conversation.
They had the verbiage and makeup of Neanderthals. The worst kind of cavemen. They never aspired to stand upright and favored bringing back the wielding of fat clubs and hair-pulling as the perfect date. They had plenty of nicknames but my favorite was Jim the Lesser and Jim the Even More Lesser. It had just the right touch.
Anyway, on this night they were harassing a behemoth of a man. The two Jims were not afraid of anyone. They would be in the tag team wing of the Alley Fighters Hall of Fame if one existed.
The massive human they were bugging was larger than both Jims with hair growing out of nostrils to form an impromptu mustache. He could make Paul Bunyan flinch. Blind to the monster’s physique, the Jims kept nibbling at him until they were taking it outside, a nightly adventure for the Jims.
The fight was stunningly short. The Monstrosity leveled Jim the Lesser with one mighty blow which made me shiver and recoil in the shadows. Bud was watching through his fingers as usual. Then, the huge dude pulled out a knife and cut a red line below Jim the Even Lesser’s chin and he plopped with a thud which would have registered on the Richter scale if Jim the Lesser’s motionless body hadn’t softened the landing.
Believe it or not, here’s where it got truly eerie.
A gaunt form slithered past and laid his hand on Jim the Even Lesser’s throat. Three seconds tops and then the guy shuffles down the alley, cutting a path through broken glass and cigarette butts, fading into the darkness.
Just like that. He seemed familiar.
Jim the Even Lesser got up like a zombie with a smile.
The scratch on his neck was barely visible. The other Jim was moaning now. He got up with help from his foggy companion and they trudged away in the opposite direction of their savior.
We stopped telling the story months later, weary of the eyes rolling up on the disinterested faces of the reluctant audience. But it resurfaced to carve out a niche, a permanent fragment in the brain, when the news buzzed through the plant one cloudy morning in the spring.
J.C. had been murdered. His bloody body was found near the veteran trash behind the Old Roman fencing company. He had sustained injuries to his head, hands, feet and torso. What was left of his forehead was entangled with barbed wire.
The report numbed me.
J.C. was 33.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Friday, April 22, 2011
what's trump?
Gary Busey would make a better president than Donald Trump. So would Meatloaf and any other food product.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
On Box Boy, On Blitzer
Media people keep calling that kid Balloon Boy. He never got in the balloon. He's Box Boy. That's what he was allegedly in when he allegedly hid (wink, wink) in the attic. To me, the best thing about what is truly an American family in reality-TV glutted USA these days was what the kid said just as Wolf Blitzer was getting ready to interview those dolts. They showed the outtake on CNN last night. The kid says: "Who the hell is Wolf?" I'm not makng this up. Who the hell indeed? He's the guy huffing and puffing to blow the door down to interview a six-year-old prankster.
Friday, July 21, 2006
to zombie or not to zombie
At first I thought I was next after my older sister died.
Then I realized I had just shifted into another zombie-like phase of my life.
Moments when I was alone and feeling daggers of mortality it hit me.
I wasn’t next.
At least not yet but I was on the clock and the ticking grew louder and louder even though my hearing has been regressing and regressing as I grow older and wiser.
And I’m not quite sure if I want to be wiser because when I’m just my own dumb self there’s a idiocy of glee that makes no sense, ignoring the cold hard facts that I’m destined for the cold hard ground for eternity
Eventually
But not now
And that in itself might be a death sentence.
Friday, June 23, 2006
echoes of war
The closest I ever got to the front line was in the summer of 1969, working in a dusty factory in suburban
Except for the backbreaking work, the place was fun. With the radio on full blast, employees would pop into impromptu dances. One slim guy with a ratty beard and long, blond stringy hair, known as J.C. for obvious reasons, would float around the building as if he walked on foam rubber. Everyone else walked on cement, but they didn’t have to spend the bulk of their day sitting with their noses over a paint trough.
At lunch break, inmates on work release from Holmesburg prison would box bare-knuckled, raising welts on cheeks, loosening teeth, donating blood to the filthy ground that served as the canvas of the makeshift ring. Silly me, I ate lunch on my lunch breaks, caught my breath and tried to rub the soreness out of my arms.
A year later, I was among the counterculture protesting the war on the comfortable, scenic
I never served my country, but I always respected the courageous people who did. A college 2-S deferment and a high draft number in the lottery kept me out of
Even today I can conjure up the smiling face of a talented basketball teammate who also died there. There was a plaque in the old
I was against the war but I knew my cozy philosophy didn’t mean squat to those who were up to their chins in the muck of the jungle. I despised the military machine and decision-makers that put us there, but never those brave souls or ill-fated innocents on the front line.
To me, they were my former teammates wearing fatigues, instead of athletic uniforms. I remember them laughing while shagging flies or shooting hoops. They were sucked into the hell overseas, swayed by circumstance to do something they would have avoided if they had energy for ambition, if they had the desire to overcome the resignation. In hindsight conveniently clear, they were foolish. At the time, they were unbelievably brave for youngsters.
I admire anyone who has the guts to risk their lives for a cause. I was 18 when I spent the summer putting bombshells on skids. When my dad was 17, he lied about his age to join the Marine Corps. He grew up swiftly on
He never mentioned the environment that led to his medal, but plenty of times he would provide cheerful, inspirational, war background music. “From the Halls of Montezoo-oo-ma to the shores of
He once let his guard down and talked about landing on an island with a small group. Within minutes, he was one of the few not ripped apart by bullets whizzing from thick vegetation. It was an ever so brief comment but the image of horror was palpable on his face. He immediately tucked it in the back of his mind.
My uncle, two cousins and two second cousins were also Marines or as Marines would say, they still are because there is no such thing as an ex-Marine.
My dad and uncle are both gone, having survived war but not the ravages of leukemia and asbestosis, respectively. I never thought much about my dad as a soldier when he was alive but I see him in the uniform a lot these days with the war drums beating daily in this country and in
I never met my grandfather, Joseph Little, who was being scouted by the Philadelphia Athletics as a catcher before getting caught up in the turmoil and joining the National Guard at the age of 22. He died in 1939 at the age of 47. My mother was 12.
He served his country as an infantryman in WWI. He was regular Army with the 109th Machine Gun Battalion on a field in
He left behind intense but limited memories for his daughters Emily and Alice. Alice, my mom, is gone and Emily is in her early 80s. Their offspring know Joe Little through faint recollections and faded photos.
One of my most prized possessions is a copy of correspondence, probably from a military publication, heralding the return of Corporal Joe Little to
It reads:
“I had been over the top five times when I was transferred from my company to a machine gun squad, and went over the top for the sixth time with this bunch on Oct. 5th,” explained Joe, who was a hand-grenade instructor with Company F. “I was hit in the head but did not lose consciousness. I did not have my first aid kit so I crawled fifty yards to where field doctors were fixing other wounded men.
“I smoked a cigarette when waiting and then, feeling tired, I went to sleep. When I woke up several days later, I was in a comfortable bed with a nurse beside me. The first question the doctor asked me was if I were Irish. ‘I sure am that and don’t you forget it and I have the Irish luck.’”
According to the report, he also had a triangular-shaped scar on his left forehead and two red scars – one running into his hair and the other toward his left eye. Perhaps the best thing he had was an extremely competent German surgeon.
“It’s great to be back in God’s country and God’s own city,” said Joe, who was a machinist and semipro baseball player before the war. “I went to
“Sunday was our unlucky day. We were always heavily shelled on the Sabbath.”
Unlucky on a Sunday when a bullet ripped through his head, but the Irish luck to survive it.
About 15 years ago, a co-worker of mine was cleaning out his desk and in one brief moment of insensitivity, he tossed a small American flag in the trash can. I immediately retrieved it and stuck it in the crack between my desk and his. A few years back we moved to new offices seven flights down to the dungeon of the building. The flag has a new nook on my new desk.
As usual there wasn’t much thought in my behavior. Only instinct
But I decided to keep the flag with me and in my heart. As long as I live it will wave for Joe Little, a stranger who grows closer as I age.
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