V 13 N. 105 A Few Hits and Misses This Morning

 Vancouver Island   November 4, 2024

Fall is here, the salmon are running,  swimming, actually, and they have just about all run/swum their races, spawned and died. But the bear, and seals, sea lions, and sea gulls are more than happy they got to the finish line.   It's too cold and rainy  to go out today and test the waters, so I'll sit in front of the hot stove and jaw a bit.  

Salmon spawning on the Puntlege River Nov. 2  link  (Here's a 35 second video I took of two salmon in the spawning grounds three days ago.)

                                At the same site two days later.  Not much to look forward to after procreation (if                                            you're a salmon).

                                                                            A Trip Home

For three weeks in late September and early October I returned to the old sod of Southwest Ohio and traced the trails and sites of a sometimes misspent youth.  Passed by places I'd long forgotten, failed to find ones I still remembered.  My granddaughter Izzy loaned me her car to get around.  I felt like Mr. Magoo driving in Midwest traffic.  Aren't you supposed to slow down when the light turns yellow?  Three cars pass me as I stop at a red light.  The main thing I brought back was a case of Covid which I gave to my wife.  We're both over it now.  And we were vaxxed to the eyeballs.  Maybe it would have been worse had we not had the shots.

Some Highlights

1. A stop where I ran my first race.   How many of you can remember when you first wore a uniform for a school or club and set off at the sound of a gunshot to see what this sport was all about?  My son Jacques and I made a day trip over to southern Indiana, near St. Peters where the first Broses of my line settled in 1835, but on the way we passed through the suburb south of Dayton called West Carrollton.  Travelling along an old highway to avoid interstates, I noticed a nearly abandoned stadium by the old West Carrollton high school.  It was there in 1958 that I was baptised into the the sport.  The grandstand was still there, but the track and athletic field were long gone.  It looked like the concrete stand was still being used for storage.  We got out and took the picture below.  An old football blocking sled was left just outside the fence.  

                                                  Site of the Old West Carrollton, OH track

 I can barely remember that day or the race, but I was able through newspapers.com to find a box score from the event, a triangular meet between West Carrollton HS, Patterson HS, and my alma mater Belmont HS.   We won the meet.  I got fourth in the mile as a freshman running varsity.  The winner was 4:57.  I think I ran about 5:10.  Equipment was sparse.  Two other runners and I shared one pair of Riddell spikes.  One of the guys was a broad jumper, and I remember some sand still in the shoes when I was running.  Shelby Rogers our pole vaulter also doubled in the mile and got second place.  He was  a senior but was kind enough to take me under his wing and teach me the ropes of being a miler that first year.  At the end of the season, Shelby and I drove up to Columbus to watch the state high school meet and saw Dave Mills from Lakewood High School in Cleveland set the national high school record of 46.6 in the 440.  The meet was held in 'the Shoe' the Ohio State football stadium.  That 440 was run around only one turn having started in the chute outside the stadium.   In eight years I would improve a little over a minute in the mile.  It would pay for my college 'education' and set me on a rather crooked path around the world, ending up here in British Columbia more than fifty years later.

If you scrunch your eyes a bit, you can see in the box score below that I was fourth in that first mile race.

2. The old track at Belmont High School.   

                                                                   Runways and HJ area

    I visited the old track at the site of the Belmont HS I attended.  It could easily be called an archeological site.  With a metal detector I'm sure you could find some old blank pistol cartridges, a cross bar and maybe even a switch blade knife or a zip gun.  The original school built in 1955 was torn down about 15 years ago and replaced with a more modern but less substantial cracker box funded by the fines paid by the cigarette companies.  The track wasn't much better than what you see in these pictures, but they did run a few meets there, usually JV or freshman meets.  

Here's a picture of me training on that track with my coach, Ed Jones.   Ed had been a pole vaulter at Miami of Ohio.  He was in his first year of coaching when I started at Belmont.  He was a no nonsense guy, serious, tough and fair.  We've remained friends for over 60 years.  He's 94 now and still living with his wife Connie in their home.  His son Brian was a pole vaulter at the Naval Academy.  The Belmont community was strictly blue collar.  Most Dad's worked at one of the many factories in Dayton like General Motors and NCR and Mom's stayed home and raised the kids.  Those jobs like the original school are all gone now.  

As mentioned in an earlier posting, Bill  and I made a visit to Bob Schul at his senior care center in Middletown, Ohio.  In that post I encouraged readers to send Bob a card for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  That address is:   

                                                        Bob Schul

                                                        Bickford of Middletown

                                                        4375 Union Road

                                                         Middletown, OH 45005

                                                          USA