Fond Memory

 Dear Barry, 

  I was just thinking the other day about the time you went winter hiking with me. A normally 8 mile hike turned into 16 as we had to hike 4 miles just to get to the trail head because the access road was closed due to snow. 

My favorite memory of that trip was when you showed up at my apartment with jeans, a canvas jacket, cotton mittens and Sorrel snow boots. Luckily, I was able to get you some gear that I had( a little big for me and a little small for you but still fit(ish)). Totally unprepared for 16 miles of often post-holing through thigh deep snow and kicking steps into steep icy inclines in zero degree temps. 

Despite your total lack of preparation equipment and physically(you also mentioned that you hadn't hiked for over two years and was only doing martial arts for exercise) you managed, not only to keep up but also, to keep a positive perspective. Even when we ran out of water(or in reality our Nalgene bottle froze closed), totally bonked on the descent and fell through the ice as we crossed a river. 

If I were by myself, I would have been miserable for probably 12 of those 16 miles, but with you, it was just a fun day out in the Whites. I look forward to next time we can hike together. 

Speaking of being ill-prepared, I have a trail race in Saarbrucken in 2 weeks which is 58 kilometres long. I haven't run 58 kilometres over the course of a week in quite some time so to attempt to do that in 6 or 7 hours is going to be quite interesting. But I will pretend like you're running beside me and hopefully it'll be fun.

Until next time,

Danny

Live on Forever

Well hello there!

It has been a long time and a lot has happened in the interim. And while there has been a lot of good things that has happened in that time(hey Europe and upcoming baby!) there have been some seriously messed up things too. All I can say about that is be kind to others, recognize your own cognitive biases and privilege, and wear a GD face mask.

Moving along. I recently read an article about how Virginia Woolf kept her deceased brother alive by writing letters as if he was. To the point that one of her friends was fooled for years. I don't expect to be writing To the Lighthouse any time soon but I thought even this lowly blog could take that premise to keep a dear friend of mine alive and run with it.

As many of you know my long-time friend Barry passed away back in January, most likely due to undiagnosed COVID-19. I have been feeling so sad how I couldn't find a way to eulogize or memorialize him in any meaningful way-not even being able to attend his memorial service. So rather than eulogize him, I'm going to keep him alive by writing every blog post from now on to him as if it was a letter I will be sending. Living in Germany makes this trick of the mind easier as I wouldn't be seeing him anyway. 

For those of you not wanting to take part in this trickery, I recommend you help memorialize him instead by donating to a Go Fund Me account set up to get him a memorial bench. The current GFM account is set up for a bench on the West Coast, but it'd be awesome if we could raise enough money to get him multiple benches throughout the country in all the places his presence impacted. I can envision an annual Barry pilgrimage occurring. 

Okay that's it for now. 

Remember to be kind.

Until next time,

Danny