Late the other night, after reading through several old issues of Runner's World by the light of my running watch, so as not to disturb anyone, I fell into a deep sleep. Soon I was in the midst of a wondrous dream.
I dreamed I was out running, on a typically windless day in Santa Fe, when I came to a cross street on the Arroyo de Los Chamisos trail. Three cars stopped to let me across.
A little later, while running on Rodeo Road, I met two female running friends of mine. they told me that they hadn't gotten a single catcall in the last month.
When my run was over, I stopped by a local store to buy a paper. I found that Nike had apologized to its Asian workers for the low wages it was paying and was giving them all a lifetime pension, effective immediately. At the same time, the company was moving its manufacturing operations to Pojoaque and was promising to pay workers enough money so that one wage-earner could support a household.
"We got carried away by profits," a company official said, shamefacedly. "I just can't understand it."
Once home, I switched on the TV to watch the Olympics.
To my pleased amazement, an announcer was reminding viewers that while no Americans had yet won a medal, who cared? While the Falkland Islands were ahead in the medal count, barely in front of Switzerland, U.S. athletes had given their best -- and wasn't that what counted?
As I gazed on, it dawned on me that the TV folks had failed to produce a single sentimental feature story about a U.S. athlete.
There were no marathoners who had surmounted the mental and physical trauma of a broken toe in childhood. There wasn't a single account of a high-jumper who, through strict self-discipline, had regained belief in himself despite the childhood taunts of "You're weird!" every time the fledgling athlete headed for the track.
I dreamed on. I dreamed that the Striders had discovered a cache of money in an old pair of Sauconys and would be able to finally afford a race clock.
Everything comes to an end, however, and before I knew it I was again awake. My dream, I realized with a sinking heart, was just too good to be true.
But wait a minute, I thought. Sure, there was a wind outside, and yes, I would have to watch the cars, as well as some of the people in them.
It is also true that the Olympics were still treated like a war we had to win. (The winter Olympics were still being shown on CBS, I found. All the really neat sports were over, and they were down to snowball-throwing.)
And that old pair of Sauconys, of course, didn't contain anything but a bad smell.
But on the other hand, I was still running in what are diplomatically (and erroneously) called "the mature years." And while in various ways those years had taken their toll, and I couldn't always remember acquaintances' names, I still was able to answer to my own.
That was something, wasn't it?
Things could be a lot worse, I realized. I put on my running gear and was out the door before you could say CBS.