A Writer's Journey Part XV

Title: A Writer’s Journey

Part XV

What I call JT “Generation One” cross country went on trips together with me, in season and out of season.  We ran 5Ks in bitter cold and blazing heat.  We ran in summer running along railroad tracks in the heart of a city, to forgotten roads out in the hills.  We ran 5Ks nearby and some far away, journeying into PA or up to the Rochester area in NY.  Probably our most interesting trip was to a summer track event at McQuaid.

To put this trip to McQuaid’s summer track event into perspective, I’d like to compare it to my daughter Autumn’s summer track Pennfield meets.  Her experience was much different from our McQuaid experience.  Pennfield Summer track meets had modern bathrooms that have been cleaned recently, an open concession stand, and grounds swarming with parents and coaches, as well as athletes.  Two pole vault pits were running simultaniously and field events occured all around the track.  Out on the track an official starts events and parents sit in the large bleachers watching their children compete.  This enlightened experience was very different from the one we had at McQuaid in the early days Generation One.  Instead of a state of the art bathroom for boys and girls under the facility, there was one portajohn... that had been clearly over used.  I looked across the street and saw a convenience store.  “I’ll just go to bathroom, there,” I thought, happily.  (Perhaps the convenience store doubled as their concession stand too.  At least the selection was excellent:)  I told the kids I’d be right back!

I crossed a very busy road and walked into the store.  I was told tersely, “We don’t have bathrooms, here!”  A convenience store didn’t have a bathroom?  I had never heard of such a thing.  Crossing back and feeling I had little other choice, I used the porta potty.  

The first event began soon after.  I had not understood what the actual event entailed from the program I had printed off, and now we all saw the truth of it.  It was a literal ten mile relay using only two athletes.  We watched in wonder as the two man or women teams alternated laps, some at incredible speed!  It was like watching super heroes competing!  We stood there in awe! BUT watching a ten mile relay soon got boring and since we didn’t know any of the runners, we went back to the van.  (I had borrowed my in-laws vehicle and it was a very nice van.)  The van could form a table in the middle and soon we were playing cards, watching the superhuman race outside of the van.  What did we play?  I’m not sure... rummy, maybe?  I don’t remember any fans, parents, or anything that resembled a giant track meet.  All I remember is runners waiting around for their event.  We would glance out the window, marveling at the continuing epic event still going.  The few legendary runners that were slugging it out on the track in the early evening, performing their Herculean efforts without real fans or award!  I can’t complain though, because I don’t think we were charged anything.  Then again, Autumn only paid six dollars a meet at Pennfield, which hardly breaks the bank!  Still, this outrageous display of talent in that first event (or supreme stupidity) was foreshadowing of what was to come.

The meet was pure running events.  There were no pole vault pits, throwing pits, or jumping pits going.  On the track, there were no hurdles set up.  Brandon Marlatt ran the 800 in the "slow" group (anyone who didn't run lower than 2:20?!  Actually it might have been 2:15!!).  Chris and Doug jumped into a relay and got killed but had fun!  Then came a 5K... on the track!  Many people must have participated and the track was very cluttered with runners.  Think of Washington DC at rush hour!!  It was weird having Brandon Marlatt blast by me, because unlike normal we were both on circle instead of a long road.  I thought, “The next time he laps me, I’ll really pick it up!”  He blasted by me again and I guess I picked up the pace but I don’t think many weak runners came to this meet.  How do I know that?  Because I was the last to finish! (or close enough to last.)  By the very end I was running with one other runner... a senior citizen.  We kicked in the last hundred and... well... I lost badly.  The guy looked seriously old and I was in my early thirties!!  Chris Hadley thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.  I redeemed my pride a year later when I beat a senior citizen at the “February Freeze!”  Take that Chris Hadley!  They actually took a picture of it.  You can see me putting everything I have into that last thirty meters and the eighty-year old coming in behind me smirking!  My wife loved that picture!!  Mysteriously, it got “lost” in the sands of time:)

On the way home from the McQuaid summer Olympic series, the quiet Courtney Cornell started laughing.  I don’t mean a little giggle, I mean side splitting, gut busting laughing.  Soon Brandon Marlatt, Doug Stutzman, and Chris Hadley were laughing like lunatics!!  They all laughed for AT LEAST an hour STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!  My sister Faith was visiting that summer and she looked over at me from shotgun with the expression of “What is going on?”  Faith had come that day to meet the team and hang out with us:)  I shrugged back.  If it was Angel and Mykallin, that would have been normal, but Brandon, Doug, and COURT????  (Chris, it was also much more believable:)

Like our less than stellar track experience that day, being your own publishing company is not as fun as it might seem.  You are competing against companies with a whole directory of employees against your small number of volunteer allies and a pile of hats for everything you have to be!!  I have spent hours battling with covers making them fit into Create Spaces format (now Kindle’s format as Create Space has folded... at least in publishing books).  You are the whole PR department and that can be very exasperating.  One time I ran a Facebook ad aimed at a certain NY demographic or so I thought.  What I ended up was very out of target range and showed my limited understanding of the target I was shooting at!  Another time I aimed “Attack on Girls Track” at Christians and it was ignored.  I did better when I aimed it randomly at a large population area.  I have to look over promotional companies and advertising costs.  Usually what’s available to an unknown author like me is depressing!  Still, it is necessary, and so I continue my journey, with the goal of winning new readers:)  Funny story!  I just read an article on self-publishing promotion (through paying a company).  It claimed it was totally worthless!!  Yipe!  DC Comics hasn't gotten back to me with the cost to advertise in one of their Batman comics:)  I'm not going to hold my breath!!

*** Author Adrian Essigmann has eighteen books in print on Amazon.com, soon to be nineteen!  All of them are $.99 cents on Kindle, with the exception of “An Assumed Risk” which will be (Lord willing) an e-book before summer.  All of his books are available in soft cover too!  Type Amazon Adrian Essigmann and his author’s page should come up ***

Book of the Week – Wolf Hunting!! ($.99 on Kindle!)

“Ariel Wilson, ‘Jack’ to her friends, has a mother determined to make her a superstar. During the school year, she is in lessons, classes, and sports, but she never wins...at least at anything her mom cares about. During the summer, Ariel becomes “Little Wolf”, living with her father just as Native Americans did centuries ago. Then Ariel gets kidnapped by a group of men who want to blackmail her mother. These men are professional kidnappers who have abducted dangerous men before, so they’re not worried about some rich teenage girl. They should be, though, because they haven’t kidnapped a girl... they’ve got a wolf!”