Unfortunately, I missed the peace demonstration yesterday. I’d already committed to the Clam Beach Run, and the demo was over by the time I was finished. Unfortunately, I’m certain I’ll have plenty more opportunities.

My kids had classes at the Humboldt Music Academy at HSU earlier in the morning. Because of the timing I couldn’t get to Trinidad until after 11:00, which should have been fine considering that the 5 miler doesn’t start until noon. There were about 20 people in line to pick up our numbers, chip, and t-shirt. One of the volunteers was a little cranky, telling us that registration ended at 10:00 as announced. But what the website says anyway is that late registration and pick-up take place in the morning, and later that registration ends promptly at ten so that the longer races can start at 11:00 (the runners are bussed from Trinidad to the starting points). Somebody responded that the paper did not say that pick-up ended at 10:00, and the woman curtly replied “it’s the same thing!” Well, it isn’t the same thing, and quite frankly there’s no reason the noon racers should have to wait around for two hours after picking up their stuff, which really just involves picking up an envelope of items and a t-shirt. They could even just leave them out for the runners to self-serve without troubling the volunteers.

I headed towards the starting point and walked by the Beachcomber, recommended for breakfast by Jennifer Savage on Richard Mark’s breakfast post on his blog. The food and coffee smelled good. It’s on my list.

My training has mostly consisted of stationary bike use. I did get some running in over the past few months, but not enough. I had almost no practice runs on hills. As the result, my calves were burning and my feet were numb after the first few hills. I had to walk the last one. Getting my feet into the little river provided some relief and the numbness gradually wore off on the beach portion of the run. But usually I can make up for lost time on the beach, that leg of the run passing very quickly. Yesterday, every time I looked back Moonstone Beach looked just as big. When I could finally see the arch, it actually seemed to move away. Most of the distress was in my feet, but I didn’t think the run was ever going to end.

Towards the end of the race you can tell who’s run it before. A few always try to make a straight line for the arch and discover that the sand away from the water gets pretty soft. You see them head west after a few moments. The key is to hug the water until the last moment.

My wife met me at the finish line and drove me back to friends’ home in Eureka. By the time I got out of the car, I had to hobble into the house where a big piping hot bowl of Bonnie’s homemade white bean and smoked ham soup was waiting for me, along with fresh home baked whole wheat rolls right out of the oven. Really hit the spot.

Incidently, Bonnie has given up her show on KMUD and now Going for Baroque can be heard on KHSU on Wednesday mornings at 10:00.

….

While my younger child attends her folk music class, I usually walk around campus with Asher. He likes to ride the glass elevator, and wander the halls. I came across a leaflet entitled Students of Radical Thought advertising a “weekly discussion group of revolutionary, subversive, and controversial literature and philosophy.” It brought back college memories, and I reminisced of the time that I might have been excited to attend. The leaflet contain photographs of 5 radical thinkers (all of them male by the way), presumably of whom the writings will be discussed. Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, and Malcolm X made the list. There is another African American’s photo which I believe is W.E.B. Dubois. The largest photo in the center is of, I believe, Anonio Gramsci, which suggests two things.

1. To their credit, they probably aren’t a front for a democratic centralist fringe group. Gramsci is usually above their heads. Could be Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, but I don’t think they’re enthralled with Chomsky nor Dubois.

2. The group facilitators probably walk a line between classical Marxism and post-modernism. Gramsci, an Italian radical jailed under Mussolini, is most famous for abandoning the “economic determinism” of classical Marxism with his “cultural hegemony” concept which has inspired “new lefties” for several decades now. Again, this suggests that the group won’t be a Bible-study format propaganda effort by Progressive Labor.

Of course, the central photo may be Trotsky. It would have to be a very young shot though. It actually kind of looks like Max Eastman, but I doubt this group has that much depth. Eastman left the ranks of Marxism in later life, invalidating in many sectarian eyes anything he wrote earlier. I’m pretty sure it’s Gramsci.

Anyway, the discussions will take place in the library lobby on Mondays at 5:00 p.m. Revolutionaries don’t need dinner.

Addendum: I forgot to mention. Usually when I cross the river I’m in waist high, sometimes higher. Yesterday the water level was barely above my knees at the deepest point. Not a good sign for this year’s water supply.

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