My dad grew up in the 1930’s in Lynn, MA where he was a swimmer and long-distance runner for the Lynn Y.  He used to tell us about running in races with Clarence DeMar and Johnny Kelly and way back, we had a few big trophies kicking around the house.  Dad grew up poor and with no job prospects due to the Depression,  he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps after high school.  He and other Boston-area kids were shipped to Weston, Vermont.  There he met a local girl, later to be my mother, Lillian Pearson of South Londonderry.

In Vermont,  good meals and hard work developed him into a better young athlete.  Knowing Dad (now deceased), he probably loved the swimming and running events between CCC camps as a way to get out of pickaxe work.  They were building, by hand, the road from Weston up over the mountain to Ludlow -- present-day Route 100.

 

All that remains from Dad’s running are several old medals, a few clippings from that era, and a canvas race bib from the Proctor to Rutland road race -- which he probably ran in 1936. (That race originated from a challenge between Clarence DeMar, a seven-time Boston Marathon winner, and Rutland’s Frank Crowley - in 1928 or 1929.  They challenged one another to race from Proctor to Rutland -- about seven miles.  Crowley, a NCAA All-American distance runner at Manhattan College and on the United States 1932 Olympic team, won. The Crowley Brother's Memorial 10K, in its 33rd year, will be held on June 14th.  Register by June 4th.)

But the most valuable legacy is the love of running that Dad left us that I’ve often thought of over the years.  I didn’t start running until I was in my late thirties, but even decades later, I can see Dad standing along the race course in Brattleboro, bent and aged, waving a small flag and proud of his middle-of-the-pack son.

Our adult children run and race some -- and I’ve had the privilege of being in races with both of our sons and our daughter.  Our grandkids have some Mansfield lankiness and we’ll see down the road if they turn into runners.

After World War II and five kids, Dad worked too long and hard to do any more running.  (He did amaze us with his swimming ability -- something which none of us ever came close to emulating.)  His early success at running, which he never boasted about, certainly has been an influence in my love of the sport -- especially here on the back roads and trails of my home state.  When I strap on a $125 pair of Asics and head out for a slow jog with the dog, it’s neat to think of that hungry skinny city kid, with no running gear, taking on his CCC peers on the back roads of Vermont.  I just wish I had inherited more of his fast twitch genes -- perhaps the grandkids have.