Running Through Your Past
It was going to be perfect race day conditions for running the Hidden Gem Half Marathon in Flossmoor, Illinois. Temps in the low sixties. A light breeze and light clouds. I’d met up with my guys, members of the Outer Lanes Athletic Club (OLAC), a group of mid-century modern dads based out of Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood. We got our race bibs and swag bag, and marveled at how great the swag was. One can never have enough coozies, race shirts, or those stickers indicating how far you ran—13.1—to slap on your car so everyone in traffic can hate you.
Start time was 7:30 a.m. At 6:45 a.m., it was only forty-eight degrees. I was struggling with how I wouldn’t freeze. Our warm-up run helped, but I’m a weakling when it comes to the cold. I didn’t bring my long performance running shirt because I knew it’d be too hot for that. So, I put my OLAC singlet on over another free race shirt and, admittedly, looked like a fool. But I was warm enough. As the runners gathered at the start and my adrenaline kicked in, I quickly pulled the long sleeve shirt off, tied it around my waist ready to toss it to my dad, step-mom, and two young sons who I knew would be standing not far from the starting line. Earbuds in, playlist playing, goal set—finish it in two hours—and we were off.
Two hundred meters down Flossmoor Road, I saw my family. I moved to the left side of the street, untied the shirt from my waist and chucked it at them as they screamed my name. I would have to apologize to my two-year-old for the shirt hitting him right in the face.
From there, I was in it. Just run. Keep a steady pace. Reserve energy for the hills and that last mile, and especially the last hundred yards or so to finish strong. Pretty quickly, I realized that I was going to run this thing faster than I’d thought. And why not? When something feels right, run with it. The energy of being in the big pack was fuel. My competitive nature kept telling me, “Stay with this guy,” “Move up to that woman,” “Pass these two guys.” We hit the 1 Mile mark and I told one of my OLAC pals, “Twelve more to go.” I advanced to an old co-worker and friend who, when on work trips, we’d run together.
“Hi, there!” I said.
“Oh, hi! Don’t let me hold you up. I’m really focusing here.”
“Go get ’em. Beer at the finish?”
“Definitely!”
And off I went.
As I galloped along, I found myself smiling. Not like when I run on my own. Then, I’m deep in thought or just lost in my own brain thinking about nothing specific, just trudging along, pushing myself, enjoying myself, but not smiling. Strangers along the route cheering for other strangers. Clever signs like, “Tap Here for a Speed Boost” with a target drawn on a piece of cardboard. I hit every one I could get to. One sign that gave me a legit LOL moment: “Run Like JD Vance is Chasing You!”
I wound through parts of Flossmoor I didn’t even know existed, despite growing up there. Oh! That’s where Flossmoor Hills Elementary is. I just never had any reason to journey to that part of town. In the familiar parts, I found myself thinking about my childhood. Acknowledging all the landmarks with memories. That’s where I ditched school that one time and smoked cigarettes when I should have been in math class. This is where my high school friends and I would meet before school to smoke cigarettes. There’s where there used to be a church where I once tried to woo a girl by playing her punk songs as we sat in her car—it didn’t work—and would sometimes smoke cigarettes. I wasn’t a teenage smoker, but, apparently, when I did smoke, I did it all over town.
I ran the same route I walked when I canvased with my dad for George H.W. Bush in ’92. I replayed the conversation I had with a gentleman who was outside smoking his pipe when I came to his house and handed him the literature. “I’m a Democrat,” he politely told me. At the time, I had no idea what that meant or why he felt the need to refuse my Republican spam. And there was the house where my fifth grade best friend lived. Right next to my best girl-friend throughout elementary school. And there was the house where that weird kid lived. The one who tried to get me to touch his junk in second grade; the one who told me all of the clocks in his house were wrong, which meant I was two hours late going home. I wondered where that creepy sonofabitch was now. Then I saw my family again. They cheered for me. I cheered back at them. And I had a moment of panic thinking about how many creeps would try to molest and lie to my children. That made me run faster.
Ah, there’s the former home of Jeff Sporn, one of my best friends from first grade through senior year. The house where I spent 90 percent of my sleepovers. The house I snuck out of to roam Flossmoor in the midnight hours stealing hood ornaments and T.P.ing the houses of kids we didn’t like. The house I snuck out of to slink across town to have my first kiss at the girl version of Sporn’s sleepover palace. The house that became the party house in high school. Those memories played like movies for three miles. And there’s the house of that bully, the one whose name I won’t even bother to type out because I have such disdain for the guy. I thought a few negative thoughts about him, but pushed through them when I reminded myself that he can’t hurt me anymore. That made me run faster still.
Here’s that neighborhood I used to walk through with my mom when it was being developed. The neighborhood that had a big construction hill I played on with friends. And where I tumbled down into a muddy puddle, much to my mother’s rage. Once developed, a good high school friend would live in one of those houses. And at his house is where he and I had our first cigarettes. We managed to smoke a whole pack of unfiltered Camels, making ourselves stinky and sick in the process.
I shouted, “Holy shit!” when I ran past my grade school because the village had completely dug up the entire field behind the school to become a drainage pond. When Dad told me about it the night before, he did not tell me it was all of it. I spent a mile remembering playing King of the Hill and football and freeze tag. Making small huts out of the grass clippings when they’d cut the grass. Doing our best to maintain those huts through the winter so they’d freeze and we’d have them through spring. Making snow forts on that field. I remembered staring out at that field at all the other kids playing while I stood against the wall as punishment for… smoking cigarettes? No, not at that age. Probably just being a class clown. Maybe it was for the time I put a whoopie cushion on my fourth grade teacher’s chair. Who’s to say. I was in trouble a lot as a kid. I remembered being teased for being so skinny on that field. Then running home after school to wail to my mom as she rocked and consoled me on my bed. I remembered Kim Bartholomew dumping me in fifth grade on that field. Mostly good memories, though. But now, the entire field was the pits. Holy shit.
I felt a sense of pride as the route wound through the high school. I had a solid cross-country career there. And that time Bill Clinton spoke to us outside in front of the pond where canoeing classes were held. There was a Homewood-Flossmoor High School Vikings Alumni booth set up. I felt obligated to grab a cup of Gatorade from the kids handing them out. It was the red flavor, which I hate, but red is also a school color, so it tasted like—nah, it tasted like crap. Red Gatorade is the worst. Then I ran through the H-F band, split up on either side of the path. They were playing Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which made me laugh. Because it’s a song promoting date rape, which is not really appropriate for teenagers to be playing. But, hey, who cares about lyrics.
I had another good chuckle to myself when I ran past the only house on the 13.1 mile route with a Trump flag. I had just finished sucking back a pack of GU energy gels and really, really enjoyed tossing my trash onto their yard. Their neighbors were far friendlier. Yards fully outfitted to represent the Wizard of Oz and Beetlejuice, complete with cheering Flossmoorians (Flossmorites?) in costumes.
✶
Flossmoor is my hometown. I lived in the same house on Berry Lane from age three to eighteen. I grew up next door to my paternal grandparents and just a couple miles from my maternal grandparents. I walked to all three schools. I had friends on and around the block. We played in the streets and the big backyards, and I hosted intense games of horse and four square on my driveway. The town’s fancy restaurant, Fresh Starts, was where I worked throughout high school and was the most formative experience of my life. It took me to Las Vegas to major in Restaurant Management, which I bowed out of after two semesters because I didn’t want to spend my career being wrong and still kissing people’s asses. It helped me find my funny, and I was told by a young couple who were regulars there that I should go to Second City, which I did. It taught me how to engage with drunkards and adults, and showed me what a good work ethic could get you—pride and tips. It showed me that cocaine use was still very much a thing for grownups in Flossmoor during the mid-’90s.
But I always felt Flossmoor was kind of a snobby town. There’s a law, or an ordinance, stating that you can’t park a pick-up truck on your driveway overnight. Pretty anti-blue collar. Why such shame?
I never moved back home. I graduated college and stayed in Las Vegas because I had a job and that’s where my life was. Visiting always felt a little uncomfortable because by that point, my parents had split up and the house I grew up in no longer felt like the home I’d lived in. There are plenty of kids I grew up with in Flossmoor who did go back home. And they live there now with their spouses and kids. And they’re happy. Or so it seems. Probably happier more often that I am. And I don’t know if living in Flossmoor, raising my kids there, would make me happier. Probably not, which is why I didn’t move back. But the schools are great and the homes are gorgeous. But to me, in my snobby way, I just saw going back there as doing just that, going back, not forward. That, of course, is not the reality. Because I still have a house and kids, so what’s the difference? Here’s one: Flossmoor has fewer rats and potholes than Chicago.
There’s a part of my brain that always held Flossmoor in contempt because of its snobbery. And, yet, here I am, admitting to being a snob. Flossmoor must be in my blood. As I ran the Hidden Gem last weekend, I was empowered by the memories, and by the pride that so many others had so much fun at this race. My OLAC buddies love it, and I think that’s kinda cool.
The biggest takeaway I had from running this half-marathon was that I don’t hate Flossmoor. The contempt is gone. This race is put together entirely by Flossmoor’s own. They stepped up and invited the masses to litter GU trash and Gatorade cups on their lawns and streets. They dragged their butts out of bed on a Saturday morning to root for sweaty strangers they may never see again. Until next year, that is.
A lot has changed since I left. Fresh Starts is now The Bistro on Sterling, and while the menu still features my favorite dish, it’s in name only. I ordered it to go after the race. Sadly, the craftsmanship was subpar and the taste was offensively different. But Flossmoor has also changed for the better. There’s an awesome record store right next to the Bistro called Conservatory Vintage & Vinyl. I’ll be visiting it with each trip I make to see my dad and step-mom in that house where I grew up.
It’s not such a bad place. It’s ripe with great memories and trials associated with growing up. The snobbery is not chronic, it’s just this kid’s perception. And perception changes with age. And, apparently, it changes with each mile. It’s a great place to live, to raise a family. And it’s a great place to run a race.
Distance running is considered an endurance sport because you have to endure it. Throughout the Gem, all I endured was a good time.
