Daily Speculations
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The Marathon Runner
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(address is not clickable)11/09/2005
Remembering Oklahoma City
Early on a Sunday morning you can often find me in an open-air chapel at the heart of downtown Oklahoma City.
On a typical Sunday in early fall, I lace up my running shoes on the hewn oak pews and do a physical inventory while I stretch at the altar, giving thanks for the glorious chance to run 20 miles (32k) through the largely empty street of a thriving modern metropolis on the city's marathon course.
The chapel is built on the corner of the Methodist lot -- with money from Catholics, Jews and Muslims -- overlooking the memorial to the Oklahoma City bombing.
The swirling red mica dust glitters from the rising sun as the dark wall opens to the numbers "9:01" It's a time burned in every American worker's brain, whether blue collar or white collar.
I think about the spectacularly stupid act as I run through town. It occurs to me that a non-productive terrorist conflagration is meant to spread in a chain reaction of workers killing more workers till the social structure collapses. Yet, the only hope of such a chain reaction rests on a political elitist monopolizing the hate and fear of the workers.
A large and spectacular explosion, but senseless and pale beside the daily conflagrations and explosions caused by the worker a few streets down at the Kerr-McGee headquarters. Explosions that daily propel hundreds of thousands of productive workers home to their loved ones.
The banks and the state's financial center surrounds the site from the north, west and east, looking up at the tall building and down the fast hill.
In the first mile of the marathon course, I also pass the true gladiator arenas of the city: the Ford Center for Basketball, the "Brickyard" for baseball and rodeos, and a huge shopping complex for outdoors sportsmen. Quaint bars owned by country music celebrities are found here, and a river walk. Plenty of opportunity to prove your manliness, or become a legend, hero or immortal.
The course winds through the rich man's and the poor man's neighborhoods, each yard neat and trim; around park after park, community after community. It's clear that the pride of the city is what got residents through that dark time. It seems only natural to skip the solitude of the lake and stay near the people.
The 20-mile run ends two hours later, where I pass the "9:03" wall, and quietly walk up to the "Survivor Tree." This 90-year old tree, an American Elm, was badly scorched by the blast. It seedlings were given to the surviving family and friends of the bombing victims. I struggle to bend and pick up a silvery yellow leaf from the ground. Ah, the eternal beauty created by the fleeting individual lives on.
Russell Sears is a star runner and actuary.