Fire on the mountain

The song – especially the countless live iterations – has a mellow, reggae-ish lilt to it. “Fire on the Mountain” by the Grateful Dead is one of my favorites in a long list of favorite Dead songs. As I was driving to meet my running buddies for a hilly Sunday jog out at Netherwood, a great live version of this song (circa 1982, Davis, California) was playing on Sirius XM, Channel 23. It got me swaying my head and thinking, as Jerry Garcia stumbled through the opening lyrics: “Long-distance runner, whatchu standin’ there for? Get up, get out, get out of the door.”

The vision of a long-distance runner, stilled, standing there, waiting to run but stifled by forces in and out of their control – these are the thoughts that swirl in my head these days. I have no idea of the “meaning” of “Fire on the Mountain” – my guess is it has nothing to do with running. But again, it made me think and wonder, which I do a lot of these days. Stilled runners. “Fire” on the “mountain” of our program (it’s a stretch, maybe, I know, but this is how my brain works). Without delving into too many details – these will surely come to light in the coming days – we’ve got some Covid issues within our team. That previous post? About the race between the vaccine and the virus? The virus is winning. If it were a cross country dual meet, Virus vs. Vaccine, the score would be 15-40, virus sweeps 1-5 spots, vaccine shaking its head wondering what the hell just happened. Not good.

“Long-distance runner, whatchu you holdin’ out for? Caught in slow motion in a dash for the door.”