Train-ing Run

Running during a time of coronavirus has become an interesting challenge.

On the one hand, there's an abundance of facts and findings that continuing to exercise, maintaining your health, and breaking the monotony of home-bound activities is critical to your well-being.

And then there's that social distancing thing, maintaining your six feet of space between one another, which is critical to all of us beating back this pandemic.

Luckily, the great outdoors lends itself quite nicely to fill both those requirements.

This morning, the E Streeters proper took to the lesser-populated trails and roadways of Westford to log some decent mileage, take in the sights of the always-pleasurable East Boston Camp trails, and at the same time, do our part to stay healthy and keep one another healthy while doing so.

Today's run provided quite a bit of training.  Both physically, and literally.

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting

Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it

They say lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions

They talk about a life of brotherly love

Show me someone who knows how to live it

There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

- Bob Dylan, Slow Train

Now I swing a sledge hammer on a railroad gang
Knocking down them cross ties, working in the rain
Now don't it feel like you're a rider on a downbound train

- Bruce Springsteen, Downbound Train

It's all well and good until a train comes along and makes you detour your running course

Well, the only thing that makes me laugh again
Is a southbound whistle on a southbound train
Every place I want to go
I never can go, because you know
I got the freight train blues
Oh Lord mama, I got them in the bottom of my rambling shoes

- Bob Dylan, Freight Train Blues

Out of my brain on the train
Out of my brain on the train, on the train, out of my brain
Woo
Out of my brain on the train
Here it comes
Woo
Out of my brain on the train, on the train
Out of my brain on the train
Why should I care?
Why should I care

The Who, 5:15

Father son, running down the tracks

This train carries saints and sinners

This train carries losers and winners

This train carries whores and gamblers

This train carries lost souls

I said, this train carries broken-hearted

This train thieves and sweet souls departed

This train carries fools and kings

This train, all aboard

I said, this train dreams will not be thwarted

This train faith will be rewarded

This train hear the steel wheels singin'

This train bells of freedom ringin'

- Bruce Springsteen, Land of Hope and Dreams

Andrew found himself waist deep in the Big Muddy at one point of this adventure

Six more weeks of winter on the way for Westford

All about them as they lay hung the darkness, hollow and immense, and they were oppressed by the loneliness and vastness of the dolven halls and endlessly branching stairs and passages. The wildest imaginings that dark rumour had ever suggested to the hobbits fell short of the actual dread and wonder of Moria."

 J. R. R. Tolkien, the Fellowship of the Ring

Andrew is on the lookout for orcs.

With the heavy rains of the past few days, it made for some interesting stream and brook crossings during our wanderings.

Luckily, John stood ready to capture said crossings on film, just in case someone happened to fall in.

Carlos and Tommy took the lead to make sure the bridge would hold

20 years of running the rivah prepped Scott for any wet conditions

Barry thought it would be good to use a staff for balance.  Unfortunately, his rod came up short.

You shall not pass!

- Gandalf the Grey

Andrew?  He was all in, sprinting across 

By now, most everyone has seen the famous picture of Bigfoot, captured on film decades ago.

This day, we were able to catch him crossing a stream in Westford.

That's him, way off in the distance in the neon yellow running jacket.

Hoping this blog post finds you and all of your loved ones well during these tumultuous times.

Rest assured, my fellow E Streeters and I maintained our social distancing throughout the run.

We were also hyper cognizant to keep safe distance from the dog walkers we came across during our run.

It was heartening to see so many folks still getting out there for some exercise during these trying times.

Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive, everyone.

This train is bound for glory, this train.

This train is bound for glory, this train.

This train is bound for glory,

Don't carry nothing but the righteous and the holy.

This train is bound for glory, this train.

- Woody Guthrie, This Train is Bound for Glory

The Last Souper?

From Small Things, Mama, Big Things One Day Come

- Bruce Springsteen, 1979

It began, as many things do, from humble beginnings.

Eight friends gathered on New Year's Day, 2011, to start the new year off, as many are wont to do, with a brisk run, to help effectively kickoff their New Year's fitness resolutions.

The gathering place, was the Westford home of John Piekos and Karen Cambray, tucked away atop one of the iciest hills found anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

As luck would have it, the gathering was captured on film (imagine that!), and chronicled here on this blog, the prose of which can be found here:

http://wickedgoodcomics.blogspot.com/2011/01/happy-soup-year.html

And here's the Motley Crue who logged those first soup miles:

A decade later, and the soup, mileage, and friendship are still going strong.

All but one of the Soup Runs have been cataloged in the archives of this blog.  Inexplicably, 2018 was somehow bypassed in Cook's Chronicles.

Some of the faces have changed, and this year, the soups changed, but the friendships remain.

So without further ado, we bring you Soup Run 2020!

Joined this year not by Baby New Year, but Baby Yoda!

Barry, he be pimping.  Sean, he be trying to just figure out how he got stuck next to the guy wearing the pink hat on a road run.

As readers of this blog are well aware, the driveway at Dunstable Road rivals the greatest ice crags of the arctic.  It's swallowed many a car with its icy grips and pinions.

This day, it wouldn't grab an errant E Streeter running, other than John himself, who chose to boldly run down the skating rink while the rest of the team opted for the more cautious pathway. 

First Town Line Victory of the New Year is always a big deal, not to mention the first of a new decade.  Sean wasted no time muscling aside those who stood in his way to claim First Victory.

Karen staged a mutiny and convinced everyone to extend the course this year, so we ventured, once more, into the Land of the Lost.  Don't ask.  There's no dinosaurs, just pigs.

They say you need to stop and smell the roses, just to appreciate the world around you.

That holds doubly true for the wonders of nature and the snowscapes off the backroads of Westford.

As any experienced runner knows, where there's one town line, there has to be another to get you back to your destination.  The key is knowing where they hide.  Who took the second one?  It'd be hard to say, if there wasn't film evidence to support the results.

Back at the Piekos Homestead, it was time for the breaking of bread and the slurping of soup.  This year, these Friends were joined by Jennifer Aniston.  Again, don't ask.

10 years burning down the road, nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go

- Bruce Springsteen, 1984

Over the course of the last decade, the mileage, bad jokes and camaraderie have remained constant.  We've had a diverse array of friends join us off and on throughout the decade.

Five of us, including the Founders of the Feast, John and Karen, have been there for all 10 of the Soup Runs.

We never quite know exactly what the future holds for any of us.  They say nothing is certain.

What is certain, though, is that friendship can last forever.  You just have to feed them. Not just soup, either.

We've lost some friends along the way, taken from us too soon, like many of our family members.

But as long as we're physically able, we'll still be gathering for these types of runs.  It's not the mileage, the terrain, the physical achievements - it's the opportunity to still bring a group of ragtag wanderers together for a brief period of time to bond over a common interest.  In this case, soup.  Or running.  One of the two.

Most of us have known one another for over FOUR DECADES.  And we can still stand being around one another.

The locations may change, the participation may ebb and flow, but the relationships endure.

Here's to another decade of stories, friends, family, good health, and good soup.

Happy New Year to all!

When I was a little kid

I never liked to eat

Mom would put things on my plate

And I'd dump 'em on her feet

But then one day she made this soup

I ate it all in bed

I asked her what she put in it

And this is what she said:

"Oh, chicken lips and lizard hips

And alligator eyes

Monkey legs and buzzard eggs

And salamander thighs

Rabbit ears and camel rears

And tasty toenail pies

Stir 'em all together

And it's mama's soup surprise

- Bruce Springsteen, Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips, 1991

Ecstatic on Watatic

This one's been sitting in the queue for a bit, mostly because of computer issues loading pics through the blogging software.  But all is well now, and I wanted to share a family trip up Mount Watatic in Ashby/Ashburnham this fall, mostly as a way to brag about my awesome family, but also to show off a hidden treasure in our neck of the woods for the interested hikers.

The gateway to the main trail is a monolithic, multi-ton split rock, which, quite frankly, has that Lord of the Rings Battle at Amon Hen feel to it.  Sadly, no Uruk-Hai in sight this day, just my Fellowship.

Mount Watatic boasts an elevation of 1,832 feet, and is part of a group of summits known as the Wapack Range, which starts in Worcester County, and extends into southern New Hampshire.

Other sister mounts in this range include Mount Wachusett, which we E Streeters have run up numerous times, and Pack Monadnock, which Barry, Scott and I sorta ran up once and declared we would never do so again.  And thus far, we've held true to that pledge. (It was hellacious.)

Everything was going great on this family hike, lots of laughs, great exercise, tremendous bonding time.  And then came the behemoth in the next picture - the Midgard Serpent, the Anaconda of Ashby, Nagini from House Slytherin, Snake Plissken himself.

Not sure I've ever seen Heather and Jack move so quickly up a hill.

Here, Andrew and Katie stand watch to make sure the python doesn't make its way uphill in pursuit of the ladies.

Finally, we reached the summit

For decades, the 280+ acre mountain was used as a ski area, but that recreation ended somewhere around 1989.

Now it's just a terrific one day hike.  Moderately challenging, but very family friendly - dog friendly too!  Wasn't able to determine the meaning of the name Watatic, but I'm assuming it's of Native American origins.  Anyone?

As always, I needed to seek out the reference marker.

Walk softly, and carry a big stick.

My world

Front and back and front again, courtesy of Katie Durkin, Audubon photographer

The young lovers, ready to scale whatever mountains they encounter, together

And this last pic on our way down, I had to take/share, just because I was feeling knotty.

That's a wrap on Watatic!  Highly recommended for a single-day climb.  Just make sure to stop up top and take in the views and appreciate this wonder in our extended backyard.

Like A Rolling Stone

We could have named this blog post after any one of hundreds of Bob Dylan's greatest songs - Ballad of a Thin Man, I Shall Be Released, My Back Pages, and on and on and on.

But for a myriad of reasons,we figure Dylan's most iconic anthem - pegged by many rock aficionados as the greatest song of all time - is the one that would aptly help pay tribute to my brother, Jim Cook, who packed away his planning books and called it a day, retiring from the Lowell Plan after working in city planning for more than 40 years.  Besides the Dylan nod, the title also pays homage to one of his other favorite bands, that featuring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and company.

But Things Have Changed, and Jimmy walked out the doors of the Lowell Plan on Friday afternoon, leaving it in the more than capable hands of incoming director Allison Lamey, along with Germaine Vigeant and Melissa Suprenant and the numerous board members of the Lowell Plan and the Lowell Development and Financial Corporation.

He was all thumbs up as he got ready to step away from his desk for the last time.  (He left rotating pics of his grandchildren as a screen saver on his computer.)

Prior to picking up the reins at the Lowell Plan, Jimmy worked for more than a decade for the city of Lowell, serving as Assistant City Manager under former managers Joe Tully and Jim Campbell.

Through a Simple Twist of Fate, he joined the Lowell Plan in 1990 and has been involved in some manner, in dozens of city projects since, including the construction of the Tsongas Arena, Lelacheur Park, and many more All Along the Watchtower.

Having known Jimmy since pretty much the day I was born - he's SIGNIFICANTLY older than me - I grew up with the non-Lowell Plan version.

For me, I recall the brother who would have his mega-sized headphones on, air guitar playing on his tennis racket, and singing into the glow-in-the-dark traffic light at the end of the pull fob that turned his overhead light on.

The problem with that story, though, was that while Jimmy was singing along to the Dylan or Bruce Springsteen song he could hear at deafening levels in his earphones, the only thing the rest of us could hear was Jimmy's voice -sans music or tone.

Trust me on this.  Jimmy's singing would make Bob Dylan sound like Michael Buble.  It was piercing.

My mother used to stand in the bedroom below Jimmy's, trying to get him to come downstairs for dinner.  She would take the pole end of a broomstick and bang it against the ceiling to capture his attention.  Her ceiling was pockmarked with dozens of indentations from the other-business end of the broomstick, battle scars of Jimmy's frustrated music career.

Eventually, my father would install an electronic buzzer that was used to great glee by all who needed to summon Jimmy away from his music.  It was droning and effective and could be heard past the ear-bleeding levels of Bruce's latest release.

Growing up, Jimmy was notorious for skipping our Sunday meals - not because of the company, but because of the food.  He usually shied away from the turkey or roast beef dinners with all the fixings, choosing instead a steak bomb from Johnny's on Chelmsford Street, a veal cutlet from Santoro's on Gorham Street, or his standby favorite, hot dogs from Elliott's.

And yes the urban legend is true.  He had Elliott's hot dogs delivered as his meal to his 1988 wedding to Candy. 

It was Jimmy who took me to my first concert - David Bowie.  And my second - Queen.  And my third - the Who (the less said about that security breach, the better).  And fifth and sixth - Bruce Springsteen.  And probably dozens more after that.

My parents are both deceased, so I think it's safe now for me to say Jimmy helped sneak me into my first nightclubs while underage.  Not for the drinking, mind you, but for the music.

Music has provided the soundtrack behind the scenes for pretty much Jimmy's entire life.

I expect his time spent listening to concert downloads and outtakes will dramatically increase now that he's going to have more time on his hands.

You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last

But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast

Yonder stands your orphan with his gun

Crying like a fire in the sun

Look out the saints are comin’ through

And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

It's Not Dark Yet, but he's heading home, and looking forward to being able to spend time with his family, especially his six grandchildren.

Wish him well, won't you?

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves

The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today until tomorrow

Give Pierce a Chance

Time for Andrew and I to conquer one of our October mountains, a tradition we've tried to maintain off and on for many a year.

Me, I grew up with the White Mountains as part of the backstory to my summers and falls, thanks mostly to my older brother Gerry, who took me camping up there many a weekend.  Gerry and I didn't usually hike up mountains, so much as explore the trails of the White Mountains, especially throughout the Kancamagus Highway.

I've tried over the course of a few years to get Andrew (and anyone else from the family who wants to join us), to get a decent hike in every year.

Little did I know what Andrew and I would be getting ourselves into this time.

With the urging of climber-in-chief Donna Corbin, we decided to check out Mount Pierce this year.  It's supposedly named after President Franklin Pierce, the only U.S. President born in New Hampshire.

A member of the Presidential Range in Carroll, New Hampshire, Mount Pierce - known Once-Upon-A-Time as Mount Pleasant - checks in at 4,310 feet, making this Andrew and my official first 4,000 footer.  We took the Crawford Path option to work our way up.

Within the first half mile, we came across the footbridge over Gibbs Brook and its accompanying cascades.  This would not be the first water we'd see on the trail this day.  Not by a long shot.

About 2.7 miles later, we achieved the summit of Pierce.

This was not a mountain to climb or descend without the aid of some type of stick.

Behind Andrew, in the foot of the valley, is the gorgeous Mount Washington Hotel.

Despite appearances, I didn't need my stick to stay upright.  It was just a good opportunity to soak in the glorious sights.  And yes, I know I'm wearing jeans, a true climber's no-no, but there was no rain or snow in the forecast this day, so I knew I didn't have to worry about wetwear dampening my experience.

Summit-side, one of the many cairns that dot the mountaintop.

Throughout the Appalachian Trail are hundreds of these type cairns, or stacked rocks that mark many of the paths.  For actual hikers, the cairns are usual used as a navigational tool, delineating a specific trail.

Off in the distance, you can see Mount Washington way behind Andrew.  No snow on the caps this day, though there had been some there four days prior, we learned, thereby explaining the constant mud paths and trickling water trails throughout both the ascent and descent.

In the immediate background is the peak of Mount Eisenhower, about 1.6 miles away.  Had we gotten a much earlier start on the day, we could have done both summits, but alas, daylight hours were not in our favor.

Because any time I summit a mountain, I like to find the proof that I've reached the top.  Here, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey is the elevation marker.

The father-son mountaintop combo shot -2019

The winds atop Pierce were Fierce, and absolutely required the donning of our coats.

The views atop Pierce are panoramic, and on a fall day such as this, allow you to absorb exquisite foliage palettes, and reaffirm why it's so rewarding to live in New England, which offers so many varying landscapes and adventures.

After posing for our fair share of iconic mountain men shots, it was time to head down, and this time, we opted for a different trail, one that eventually winds down to the Mizpah Spring Hut. (More to come on that)

Makeshift bridges and staircases help you navigate the extremely technical rockface portions of the trail, particularly those of steeper slope.

We made it to Mizpah (Hebrew for watchtower), where I found an information plaque with a local flavor.  One of the benefactors of the hut was a resident of Holden, neighbor to my wife's hometown of Paxton.

More than a hut, All Along the Mizpah was a great place to just relax for a few moments.   We did NOT partake in the freshly-made brownies, though they were definitely tempting.

So in trying to keep this blog educational as well as entertaining and chronicling, turns out Crawford Path is the oldest continually used hiking trail, established in 1819 by Abel and Ethan Crawford, the pioneers of the White Mountain tourist industry.

Overall, the six mile trek was quite humbling for both father and son.  It was definitely a workout for our quads, and being the runners we are, we found the differing usage of the leg muscles in this capacity quite taxing at times.

That does NOT, however, mean we weren't all-in for one of the more challenging workouts with a rewarding payoff waiting up top.  Au contraire.

Mount Pierce was definitely worth taking a chance on.