I am running a virtual 5k sometime this week.
Doing it as a fundraiser for Mass General's Cancer Center and running in honor of former DBR poster Tilly Galore. I've nearly met my fundraising goal. Yes, I'm posting the link here, just in case anyone wants to contribute.
https://because.massgeneral.org/fundraiser/2833778
So when you run a virtual 5K, can you do it on a treadmill, going downhill the whole way?
-jk
I'm going to drive to one of the 302 towns I haven't run in yet so I can cross another one off the list.
She doesn't really post here much anymore (if at all), but she was an early/often LTE contributor. Also, a friend of mine IRL. She lived in Durham and worked a Duke Med Center for a long time but no longer lives in the Durham area. I forget where she moved first (husband is also a former DBR poster) but they are now in the Baltimore area. We mostly keep in touch through FB now. We used to get together for lunch every time I was home to Durham on a family visit. She's a knitter too.
Thanks for sharing. Have a great run!
Btw - my family LOVED our year in Boston. We rented a place in Belmont and I can confidently assert that I personally contributed to breaking the curse.
When my husband finally talked me into having a 4th kid, I agreed on the condition that the baby be born in October. My mother and I both have October birthdays. I reasoned that we would either get girl karma or a Red Sox World Series good luck charm. My 4th son was born October 22, 2004. My doctor and I had agreed that if the late ultrasound predicted the baby would weigh more than 10 lbs, we would do the C-section. The predicted weight? 10 lbs exactly. Doc said, "Your call." I said, "If the Red Sox beat the Yankees, we're on, cause this kid needs to be out in time for the World Series victory!"
Birthweight? 10 lbs. (Truth, the scale kept flickering between 9 lb 15 oz and 10 lbs, the nurse laughed and said, "We'll give him the full 10 lbs.", he probably was about a half ounce under.)
This is after I rubbed my 9 months pregnant belly against the TV during Game 3 saying "C'mon, Good Luck Baby, work your magic!" We made sparing use of the "Good Luck Butt Rub" for many years, including Duke - Butler in 2010. It was only used for important championship caliber games until it was defeated for a second time. (First defeat was the second Patriots/Giants Super Bowl.) The ending defeat was Bruins - Blackhawks Stanley Cup Final. Hearts were broken and the butt rub was retired. Plus Arrow was getting old enough that he didn't want to rub his butt on the tv anymore.
Great story!
And I will come back and present my facts...i.e. justification that I am a significant lever in the alignment of forces that combined to reverse the curse.
Can't do it now - am entertaining poolside and on my 4th malty. But soon.
Thanks for sharing!
Last edited by BlueTeuf; 09-06-2020 at 02:24 PM. Reason: Bad swiping
Off for a hike in a nearby national park. Mid-60’s here right now. Awesome!
I thought I had gotten away from surfactants...
My story revolves around Game 4 of the League Championship series in 2004. And is told from the perspective of a Yankee fan who had never stepped foot into Fenway Park.
As a military officer, I was granted a one-year fellowship at the Kennedy School and dutifully moved our family of 6 into the upper unit of an up/down duplex in the Boston suburbs. Our downstairs neighbors were a young couple and "of the city" in every sense. As BU grads they were devout hockey fans - but their attachment to the Red Sox was on another level altogether. Think Fever Pitch - and I mean the movie, not the book.
Youth and our family's hopscotch domiciles had forestalled the development of any serious rooting interests in our kids (other than Dear ol' Duke). And our neighbors quite innocently started shaping them into Red Sox fans through their passion and energy. Truthfully, I had no objection. I enjoy and respect invested fandom as long as it isn't mean-spirited and confrontational. So, that season was full of baseball chatter with my kids and neighbors arrayed against me - and my wife on the sidelines.
The LCS was going poorly for the Red Sox - and that may be an understatement. The Yankees had scored 32(!) runs in striding out to a 3-0 series lead. And no team in history had ever come back from 0-3 to win an LCS.
That afternoon Mike (my neighbor) and I were playing some public court tennis. I started needling my friend about the desperation that had seeped into Bostonian discourse. I intoned it might be time for me to visit hallowed Yawkey Way, gracing Fenway Park with my presence. As I gently put it, “Surely Red Sox fans would be dumping tickets in this lost cause.”
To Mike's credit, he did the opposite of chasing my troll. Instead, he became enthused at the idea of catching the game live, dialed up his wife and locked me in to my own unserious proposal.
And off we went. We did score tickets at about 80% of face, settled into seats well back of the right field wall and commenced to enjoy a terrific, taut game. Although a close-fought affair, by the bottom of the ninth inning there was a tilt toward the Yankees with Mariano Rivera striding toward the mound needing three more outs to secure a one-run victory. And if the greatest closer in the history of the game could avoid a blown save, the Yankees would be through to the Word Series.
The Red Sox had other ideas, scratching out a tying run. Extra innings. In the 12th inning Big Papi plunks a 2-run walk-off about 15 rows in front of me and the stadium explodes. EXPLODES. It was something else. Delirious, raucous, sustained ...and uplifting. Mike was in full emote, pogo-ing up and down, waving his phone in semi-circles, apparently "live-streaming" the moment to his brother in Florida - on his tiny, 2004-era Motorola flip phone, mind you. His wife is sobbing, crying, wailing – hugging indiscriminately; even me, the enemy.
I’m like, “geez folks, it’s one game”. The Yanks are up 3-1 and any path includes a trip back through the Bronx. But of course, it wasn’t just one game. It was the start of something. The Sox would win the next three and sweep the Cards. They never lost again.
How could this happen? Well in my usual, insightful, self-aggrandizing manner I decided the key difference was me and my somewhat casual decision to grace Fenway with my presence. And unwittingly reverse the curse.
You’re welcome. Respect.