When I was in high school, I wrote a paper on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I was enamored with the book and though I can’t recall what the gist of my essay was (I suspect it was pretentious yet superficial), I do remember being scolded by my teacher for calling it a “fantastic novel.” She told me via red pen in the margins of my laser printed prose, quite rightly, that “P and P” was the antithesis of a fantasy tale. I had been, as I’m wont to do, colloquializing my English, bastardizing the Webster’s definition of “fantastic” and using it as one would on the playground or in the mean (suburban) streets of my adopted hometown, Malvern, PA.
Years (and years… and, sigh, many more years) later, despite still in my heart loving that Austen story of manners and wit, I cannot for the life of me give you a scene-by-scene breakdown or even list more than a few deep the cast of characters. Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy… um, there’s a Parson I think…. Point is while the memory of that book’s story elicits fond memories, it is most indelibly earmarked in my memory palace as being an exceedingly “fantastic as in great” NON-fantastic novel.
Memory is a funny thing and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, more than usual actually. I’m packing up for a whirlwind trip back and forth to parts near and far, a hither and yon voyage to run a bit, see some sights, and try and make a few new memories along the way. There’ll be more to this in a later post but in the meantime I wanted to provide a brief update on something from long, long ago… though not so long ago as high school.
There was a before-run-kevin-run-dot-com time when my brother and I ran the Austin Marathon. I previously flashed back to that race in March 2016. It was February 19, 2012 (BRKRDC), the day we met a guy named Brock, a man who might’ve been a shared fever dream as Steve and I suffered through bouts of food poisoning.
But he was then, as now, a legend for Steve and me whenever we talked about running… or really life in general. He was a man, sure, but he was something more than a man. He was BROCK. In all caps.
Recently my brother and I got to talking about Brock once again. We decided to do a bit of internet sleuthing to see if we could track down the guy. Were we crazy that day? Did he even exist? And if we did find him now, if we proved his existence, would that alter our memories or change the way we viewed the world? What if he wasn’t as we had built him up in our minds, this Mercury or Ares on a pedestal, this Olympian yardstick against which all runners… and indeed all humans… are measured and found wanting? What if Brock was less “ho-rah” and more “ho-hum?”
Would knowing the truth about Brock make the world less, well, fantastic?
After a few dead ends and a few false starts, I’m pleased to say that sometimes even the crazy one’s get solved.
Where ever you are today, BROCK, thank you for being a shining inspiration then, now and always.
Long after the the agony of Austin receeded, you are what we remember most from that day.
A tip of the hat and a wish for wellness, good sir.
And thank you for inspiring me to get up out of bed today, lace up my shoes, and get some miles in.
Because that’s what Brock would do.
