Two Years Later ...

Revelry, Bravery, and the Cowardly by DC - April 16, 2013 6:20am

Except for a period of years when my work involved the Marathon, whenever I talked to people from outside of the Boston area, I invariably had to educate them as to why I was partying in public on an April Monday. Patriot’s Day was a holiday commemorating the legendary, but was little known outside of Massachusetts and, as a former part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in Maine. For the most reprehensible of reasons, all the world now knows.

For all but a few years of my life, I’ve lived within a mile or so of the marathon route, always near the check points that are 8 to 10 miles from Hopkinton, in Natick and Framingham. An aunt lived on the route for about 15 years. A friend had a Natick home on the route. There, in that driveway, by 10 o’clock on a Monday morning in April, we would gather before the roads closed and fire up the BBQ. We’d hook up an extension cord and find a rock radio station that was playing a marathon of songs about running. We’d simultaneously switch on the TV to watch the 11am Red Sox game and to monitor the runner’s traditional noon start. But we didn’t need the TV to know when the athletes were nearing us. Serving as notice would be the approaching helicopters.

Near noon, the wheelchair athletes were zipping past and we marveled at how on this day they could reach Boston faster than we could typically get there in our cars. By 1pm, the elite runners had passed and we’d start to pass out beers and burgers to the enthusiastic among the throng that was beginning to clog the street. Quickly, and for as far as the eye could see, the street filled with a mass of humanity, a brilliantly-colored river that bobbed and babbled with more energy than the Charles.

We, the sidewalk revelers, would clap and shout out in excited recognition when friends, family, and the familiar were spotted for the few seconds that it took for the crowded current to flow onward. We would clap and shout out personal encouragement to strangers who had their names or causes on their signs or shirts or skin. We’d laughingly point out to each other and share the joy with those runners who had rigged a decorated Christmas tree up their back or were dressed like Groucho Marx, Spiderman, Snow White, or a pair of Minnesota Twins.

Away from the street to flip a burger, we flipped TV channels to simultaneously catch the end of the Sox game as the elite were completing their day’s journey. Bill Rogers. Joan Benoit. Ibrahim Hussein. Jean Driscoll. Uta Pippig. Ernst van Dyk. Historic names in historic region on a historic day.

As the torrent trickled (“Did anyone see Johnny Kelley or the Hoyts?”) those trailing were often visibly gassed and overheated on even the chilliest of April days. For them, we’d call out our most earnest encouragement, as if our words could possibly lift them but a little farther on, perhaps through downtown Natick and even on to where the welcoming women of Wellesley College would be waving “Kiss Me” signs. But they couldn’t possibly reach Boston. Could they??

The final scene is always that of the street sweeper. Long before nightfall, they leave the course in such a pristine state - with nary a trace of orange peel or water cup - that it is as if it never happened but was all a joyous mirage.

For spectators, it was a rare carefree day. Taxes were mailed or benevolently extended for an extra day. The streets were fully alive, if ever so briefly. Spring had finally come. We marveled as so many athletes publicly undertook their ultimate challenge, often running in support of those who were even more bravely taking on private and personal challenges each and every day.

Long before another 52 weeks pass, we will undoubtedly have resolved to again take to the streets, to again revel and marvel. With tempered spirits. With heavier hearts. But revel and marvel we will.

Today, as too many brave men and women are facing their toughest battle - survival - others are braving unknown dangers to sweep the streets as the first act in hunting down and bringing to justice whoever it was that perpetrated upon us this act of cowardice. May the wind be at their backs.