Reflections of a Southern Yankee

of a Southern Yankee

A Case of the Runs

BY DAMIAN DESMOND

One of my top 10 movies is Forrest Gump. While it is difficult to choose a favorite scene, I love the part of the movie when Forrest decides, out of the blue, to just start running. He spends the next three years, two months, 14 days, and 16 hours of his life running back and forth across the United States. While the beautiful backdrops and the soundtrack create inspirational moments in the film, I’m more drawn to WHY Forrest was running. Having just lost his dear mother and missing the love of his life, Jenny, Forrest did something more people should be doing—he worked on himself, and he did it through running. Running has played a very vital role in my life. As a child, running races in the schoolyard, I never really gave the act much thought. I just took it for granted that I could run. But looking back now on 47 years on this earth, I can see many pictures in the slideshow of my life where running not only helped me physically, but saved me mentally and emotionally, as well. In my 8th-grade year, I decided to start running cross country in Clarke County, Virginia. I remember taking the bus in the afternoon from the middle school to the high school for practices. At the age of 13, I wasn’t really concerned with winning races or bettering my 5K times. For me, it was more about the social aspects. I was getting to hang out with high schoolers, and specifically, high school girls. Not just any high school girls, either. These were good-looking girls who were also in phenomenal shape. I ran cross country through my junior year of high school, and while I didn’t acquire any major awards, I did accumulate many wonderful memories from the experience.

Before my senior year of high school, my family moved to the farm in Augusta County, Virginia. I did not run that year at Riverheads High School. Instead, I enlisted in the Army National Guard in November, and was accepted to Virginia Military Institute several months later. Running again became important. I would be expected to pass a fitness test for both the army and VMI. A short time after graduating from high school, I was heading to Fort Benning, GA, for two months in the summer. Early morning PT and formation runs in the soupy southern Georgia climate helped to prepare me for what lay ahead—the rat line of VMI. My running habits in the army and at VMI were more about meeting requirements and passing tests. I still had not developed a love for running. You could say it was more of a love/hate relationship. After graduating from VMI and fulfilling my six years of service to the US army, I took a break from running. That period of my life is a time I wish I could get back to. I would have made running a priority in those years, but hindsight is 20/20.

In 1999, while teaching at a middle school in Virginia, I met someone who was training for a marathon. I decided to join her and the next thing I knew, running was becoming a huge part of my life again. We followed a rigorous training schedule that involved increasing run distances over a three-month period in preparation for the race. In March of 2000, we ran the Shamrock marathon in Virginia Beach. Neither of us was out to break records. Simply running the entire 26.2 miles without stopping was the goal. I never did run another marathon after that. In fact, I never ran anything over 26 miles at one time again. Instead, I began focusing on shorter races—10K’s, five milers, and 5K’s.

Interestingly enough, I became much more competitive as an adult than I ever was as a high schooler running cross country. I started winning races and have a decent number of trophies and medals to show for it. My love affair with running was growing deeper.

Over the next ten years or so, I coached the boys cross country team at the same high school I graduated from and then at a high school in Forsyth County, North Carolina. The schools had very small programs, but the programs grew, and while we never brought home any state championships, my interactions with those young adolescents meant far more to me than some trophy stuffed into the high school’s trophy case. My hope is that, if anything, I helped to instill a lifelong love of running in my former athletes.

For the past 14 years or so, I have been getting up at 4:30 AM so I could get a run in before work. People look at me like I’m crazy, until I explain to them that I don’t just roll out of bed and start running. My morning ritual consists of sitting down with my coffee, thinking about the day ahead, sometimes listening to music, and generally focusing on me. Plus, I was a teacher for many of those years, so running helped mentally prepare me for the day ahead in a profession that came with its own set of challenges and stresses. Running was no longer something I did with little thought. Running had become something I couldn’t live without. Missing a day of running, for whatever reason, left me feeling like I wasn’t “in the zone.”

Four years ago, I left teaching and went through one of the most difficult periods in my life. My 15-year marriage crumbled and I watched my family dissolve. Through it all, I continued my early morning runs. I acquired a job traveling with the PGA Tour for six months of the year. Even being on the road for extended periods didn’t keep me from getting my runs in before the long days of work. Besides, the job afforded me the opportunities to live out my own Forrest Gump- type scenes. In January, I was running in Scottsdale, Arizona, as the sun rose above the desert mountains. In February, I was running on the beaches of Jacksonville, Florida, as the eastern sky slowly brightened over the Atlantic Ocean. Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Moline, Minneapolis, Hartford, and many other places became the backdrops for my morning runs. And, like Forrest, I was working on myself after having gone through extreme heartbreak and the lowest point I had ever reached in my life. I could easily say that running kept me alive.

The year 2020 saw my job with the PGA Tour come to an end due to the COVID-19 “situation.” Throughout the period of lockdowns, masks, and general hysteria, I continued my early morning routine of meditation and running. While others were complaining about gaining weight during the COVID-19 period, I was logging 30 miles a week in runs.

In my 47 years, I’ve gone from running just to be around others, to running for my life. I’ve seen the benefits physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. There are literally thousands of scenes in my mind of early morning runs from the deserts of the Southwest, to the back country roads around my parents’ farm, to the sandy beaches of Florida. After all these years, I guess you could say I still have a serious case of the runs.

Getting Off the Grid

BY LISA S. T. DOSS

Freedom without the support of sellers and companies that tie you to a monthly expense is liberating! While the image of rolling hills and acres of land concealing the best feature, the farmhouse, may seem unattainable, the definition begins with a first step! An effort to make a lifestyle change! Each transition away from dependency will decrease your expenses and help you strive towards a comfortable life of self-sufficiency! Assessing Your Land As you walk around your property, remember its size, whether minimal or abundant, has equal potential. Start by marking areas that receive sixplus hours of direct sunlight. You’ll need a viable place to start growing fruits, berries, herbs, and vegetables! If you do not have a natural water source, such as a brook or creek, consider a means to collect rainwater.

TIP: Online marketplaces offer everything you need to get started. You may find plastic barrels or caged 330-gallon tanks in varying sizes at a great price!

Generate a List Record a list of favorite foods, including herbs, fruits, and berries! How can you make pasta or have on-hand a supply of peppermint tea? It’s time to think outside the box and experiment with plants. If everyone loves apples, consider planting two varieties of dwarf apple trees!

TIP: Take time to read the tag to ensure your tree selection requires a pollinator. Cherry trees and raspberries do not thrive in zone seven; it’s better to choose pears, plums, or blackberries!

Grow with Purpose Every aspect of self-sufficiency leads to a goal! Growing sugar-snap peas could add 15-quart size bags to the freezer; and potatoes, if well-stored, support side dishes, stews, and soups. Start planning; then, planting in bulk. Create mounds in your garden to companion-plant onions and carrots, corn and vined fruits, such as watermelon or pumpkins. Herbs have multiple functions, from flavoring foods to medicinal health. You’ll be amazed at why you enjoy peppermint or sage! Animals for Protein or Meat Zoning laws will determine whether you can raise a flock of bug-consuming, happy chickens or ducks for eggs and meat. Raising small farm animals has numerous benefits, including lessening the pesky insect populations, free weed-eating, boosting compost levels, and receiving highly enriched eggs.

TIP: Children may enjoy the process of incubating chicken or duck eggs to raise for profit! Heating and Cooking For modern-day people, heating and cooking appear to be two separate items; yet, fires are a heat source for warmth and meals. An economical solution is to add a wood stove, termed “wood cook stove,” to your home to reduce electricity expenses. The popularity of homeowners installing outdoor brick ovens only adds to an alternative off-grid cooking resource!

TIP: Need an alternative heat conductor? Try making charcoal briquettes or wood pellets!

It’s always wise to learn old-fashioned methods that one day could become quite helpful.

Hand Crank Tools In the modernized world, we rely heavily on pressing buttons or lifting levers to complete every imaginable chore. Think of all the small and large appliances that do not require electricity! The step towards electrical freedom requires reducing your power usage. Have you ever tasted coffee made from a French press or percolator? Delicious! Would you start using a clothesline, a hand-crank mixer, or a can opener? You have plenty of manual tools to choose from, including ones requiring hand and foot power!

Getting off the grid is a long-term concept that continuously evolves—the dream may be five to ten acres and a house in a low-taxed and lowpopulated county, or a small city garden plot for cooking uses. Keep planning and implementing changes to promote self-sufficient living; perhaps that includes planting berry bushes, fruit trees, or planning on implementing solar power tubes or panels. Each of us can consciously make an impact to be partially or entirely off the grid!

TIP: Build a compost pile from three pallets and chicken wire, and watch your trash reduce by two-thirds!

Add grass clippings and fall leaves, a gift from Mother Nature!

TIP: Reach out to your local

Cooperative Extension Office to learn more about their free classes, from gardening and pruning to beekeeping and farming.

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