Some personal material - Running, League of Women Voters, raft trips, trips to Italy, Fox Trot, Shady Hill School, etc.

Running - I didn't run a race until 1987 or so, and I was pretty good at it before 1995, when I began to have a problem with my left knee. The doctor who scoped my knee in '95 more or less advised me to take up swimming (boring) or biking. He didn't understand runners, so I nursed my knee for a while and continued to run, though more slowly than before. I've done about 8 marathons since 1995, and a bunch of shorter ones. Altogether, some 24 marathons (NYC 11 times, Boston 9 times - 3 times qualified, 6 times as a bandit - Albany once, and Echo Hill 3 times. At Echo Hill, I was a 3-time winner. That takes a bit of explanation, though. Echo Hill consists of 330 laps around a loop that is about 1/12 of a mile around. It's a carefully measured 26.2 miles, and it's not easy - 330 hills, and it was always run on a hot July afternoon. My best marathon was NYC in 1992, when I was a mere 61, and did 3:36. I've also run Mount Washington 3 times, in 1990, 1997, and 2004. I still (as of 2005) hold the age-group record for our local Mount Toby trail race, another not-so-easy race (14 miles). I'm also the secretary for the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club (SMAC). I write the minutes (except when I'm out of town). The minutes are fun to write (no one takes them too seriously), and some web surfers browse the SMAC website just to read the minutes.

Amherst League of Women Voters - I've been a member since the '70s (when they first began to allow male members), and since 2002 I have been on the Executive Board of the Amherst League (first-ever male member), where my major role is to organize the annual finance drive (and offer what I hope are helpful questions and advice to others. Of course, I also work on our big money-raising event, the May book sale, which not only makes money for the League but also has become an important community event. AmherstLWV

Raft trips - I had a number of things on my list to do when I retired (e.g., sort out the books in the garage, take a raft trip down the Grand Canyon). The books are still unsorted, and the only thing on my list that I have found time to do is the Grand Canyon. So in 2002, I did a 17-day trip on oar-powered rafts down the Canyon, and then in 2003 another 17-day trip down the Salmon River in Idaho. Both trips were run by "OARS, Inc", an outfit that I highly recommend. I'll put a few photos here sometime.

Italy - Neither my wife nor I have been big travelers, but in 2003 we took a trip to Verona, Venice, and Florence. That was great, and in 2004 we went on our own, renting half of a very old farmhouse a few miles east of Siena for two weeks. In 2005, we went again, this time a two-week rental of an apartment in the heart of the historic center of Rome. I'll put a few pictures here eventually. I've also been taking, and am continuing to take, Italian lessons. Betty is so busy with her docenting work at the Mount Holyoke College art museum and the Springfield art museum that she hasn't really had time to do much on the Italian language. (My Italiano is pretty rudimentary, but enough better than that of the usual American tourist that we get along pretty well - and I think that the Italians, by and large, appreciate the effort.)

Foxtrot - Bill Amend, creator of the widely syndicated comic strip Foxtrot, was an Amherst College physics major (class of 1984). I am apparently the inspiration for the no-nonsense science teacher who makes an occasional appearance there. (I had a serious beard when Bill was a student here, and his comic-strip teacher seems to be the way he remembers me. I'll try to find a photo of me from that era to post here. And maybe I'll scan a strip or two in which "I" appear.)  Here are some samples of my appearnces in Fox Trot: RHR in Fox Trot

Shady Hill School - Best school I ever went to. My 9th grade graduation photo.

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