Steve
"The
We
Man
And
Prefontaine
time you won your town the race
chaired you through the market place;
and boy stood cheering by,
home we brought you shoulder high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home.
And set you at your threshold down.
Townsman of a stiller town. . ,
A.E. Housman
I've always been a runner. Twenty-five years ago I
ran the berm lines, the base camp perimeters at Cu Chi
and Dau Tieng, Vietnam. My parents sent magazines and
.news clippings squeezed inside boxes o f chocolate chip
cookies to bolster my spirits and strengthen the home
lin k.
The sports world, particularly the O lym pic
Committee and the track and field faithful, were buzzing
about Steve Prefontaine, a slight, Dennis the Menace
looking kid from Coos Bay, Oregon. A Sports Illustrated
magazine I received from the l_J.S. in 1970 had his
picture on the cover, competing for the U niversity of
Oregon in Eugene.
After my discharge from the Army, I returned home
to attend graduate school in Eugene. By the early 70 s
Eugene justly considered itself the Capital o f Track and
Field.
Scores o f the country's finest men's long and
middle-distance runners coursed through the city's
rolling foothills, Spencer's Butte, and Hendricks Park.
Wade Bell, Archie San Romani, Dyrol Burleson, Jim
Grelle, Bill Dellinger, and Roscoe Divine set the early
pace through the 50's and 60's. Lee Evans, Dave Wottle,
Kenny Moore, M arty Liquori, Eamon Coghlan, M ike
Manley, Ralph Mann, Reynaldo Brown, O.J. Simpson,
Emile Puttemans, Jim Ryun and others took the baton
through the 70's.
In. the 70's, no venue provided greater
emotional electricity than did the ancient field house at
Hayward Field. No athlete cast a brighter shadow over
Hayward than did Steve Prefontaine.
Small in stature
and of humble coastal origins, his heart and spirit drove
him flashing down the gun lap, a green, yellow, and
blond blur, and forever into my memory.
He was my friend. His victories became, in some small
way, redemption for my failures, positive proof that
right-spirited action could obtain grace.
I had lost faith
in my country, the horrors o f its war, the callousness of
my fellow men.
I came home emotionally transfigured,
the pinnings and stability o f my beliefs shaken.
In the conversations we had those long spring days
on the quadrangle, I told him that running purged
bitterness and disappointment fo r me.
Two weeks
before the 1972 O lym pic Trials in Eugene, he said the
years o f constant training, the 100 to 150 mile weeks, had
scoured him out inside.
He promised him self a measure
of leisure time, some social life, the lightness and
frivolousness he had chosen to postpone.
. Now, 25 years later, I understand certain commercial
interests intend to capitalize on his b rie f career and
"image," fittin g his life story to television and the
movies as sales vehicles.
When I mentioned this
recently to several young people, born some years after
his death, they said to me "Oh, yeah, he was that kind of
arrogant runner guy, wasn't he?"
Recognizing the
movie and television industries' propensity toward
distortion for commercial purpose, I would like to
preface their productions w ith some observations on
the "Pre" I encountered in the early 1970's. Shy and
slightly awkward in social gatherings, I remember our
first meeting.
Quite short and lean, Steve evinced a
Peter Pan perpetual boyishness.
I liked his good-
natured smirk, and its promise o f light devilment.
In
competition, his mental toughness and ferocity
regularly carried the day.
"When I hit that last lap," he would say, not bragging,
but confidently, "I'll have already burned them out."
His fourth place finish in the '72 Olympics 5000
meters race behind the Finn, Lasse Virens, knocked him
back badly. Steve always left the starting line the
winner.
The jo in t Finnish/American Meet he organized
in Eugene, staged the night he died, was an attempt to
regain ground lost in the Olympics.
As the American Record Holder in numerous middle
distance events, and one o f the finest consistent 5000
meter competitors o f all time, his contributions to the
history of track and field were considerable.
His other
contributions, equally important, need mention.
Steve
testified before the Oregon State Legislature in favor of
stringent rules governing pollution and air quality.
He
regularly worked w ith inmates inside the state prison
system with Dr. Kenneth Polk.
He railed against
ludicrous rules foisted o ff on athletes by the A.A.U. and
the American Track Federation and refused to
compromise.
In a time o f racial unease amongst athletes
and college students, his associations were color blind
and hum an itarian.
In his brief, meteoric career, he exemplified those
qualities we, in our best o f selves, emulate in heroes. In
pure pursuit of excellence, he strove to achieve his best,
unsullied by concern fo r material reward or
enhancement.
I suspect
his current chroniclers may
fall short of that ideal. He was Eugene's hero and
rallying force.
May those o f us who survive him fare as
well in our lives and places.
Calvin T rillin has joined the debate on
raccoons and garbage cans.
From the Upper
Right Edge o f northern New York he
suggests com bination locks for garbage
cans.
He points out that though very clever,
raccoons just don't have a head for figures.
4 W tk LEFT that ¡JULY l« 5
Ï
B r id g e t S n o w ,
1 8 9 9 -1 9 9 5
Woody Allen said, "I'm not afraid of dying, I
just don't want to be there when it
happens". My cowardly and tentative
nature can well relate, for death to me is a
multitude of mysterious scenarios ranging
from sweeping grandeur to timeless abyss.
When regarded as a positive transition,
death offers great hope, and so Bridget
Snow had been speaking of death in the
month's before her own. Having always
known her to be full of wit and cheer, we at
first derived no meaning from her
discussions of leaving us. After all, she had
been making her own decisions for many
decades. Jovial, yet certain, she would
refer to her death as the process by which
she would succumb, or "succuum", as she
pronounced it. The reference was always
followed by her distinctive chuckle.
When Bridget died, the sadness, guilt, and
remorse that is often associated with the
death of someone close was absent. She
had prepared us too well. Bridget did not
simply die, she decided to die, and did so in
a manner that was consistent with all of the
reasons that we loved her. Humorous and
witty to the last, she greeted death as she
would guests at one of her Sunday
brunches.
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In 96 years of perpetual motion, she had
become many people's favorite person,
including mine. Several weeks before she
died, she gave me one cup of her 100 year
old sourdough pancake starter. "Its one of
the few things in this house thats older than
me", she told me. Each time I open my
refrigerator and catch a glance at this tiny
jar of flour, water and yeast, I find myself
smiling, irrepressibly drifting back to the
multitude of stories and experiences that
she has bequeathed me.
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Cannon Beach
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Closed Mon. i t Tues.
In recent years, my brother Kim had
become one of Bridget's closest friends.
He writes of his experience with her;
"Feet sifting through grains of sand,
backs to the moody Pacific ocean,
our eyes meet the mangy peaks east
of Arch Cape, that still manage to
emit a shimmering hint of ancient
beauty. 'It was once a great forest!',
Bridget said quite sternly. She
blossomed with love and knowledge,
and unlike a good many humans,
had a dance of her own. Dawn has
brought us rain, Bridget. It will not
be long before the Grandfather will
rise amongst the once great forest
and lace his energy amongst
prism drops of the Mother's tears.
Tears of joy spreading rainbow
smiles in honor of the life we
share."
Farewell, Bridget.
R on Logan
R u b b er d u c k s, to o ?
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