You don’t have a track?

Like most jobs, there are many little, seemingly insignificant, tasks to attend to as preseason XC, and the 2022-2023 academic year, starts in a few weeks. This afternoon, I stopped by the Vanderbilt National Historic Site in Hyde Park (fun fact = where Heidi and I got engaged way back in May of 1994) to submit a NPS permit application so we can use the FDR Farm Lane Trail, the FDR Library grounds … and, yes, on occasion, the grounds of the Vanderbilt Mansion. When I dropped off the permit application, a very friendly park ranger accepted it and said, “oh, you must be looking for Mike A,” to which I replied, “yes, he emailed me this application.” “Oh,” he said, “I’ll make sure he gets this but he’s at a meeting at headquarters today.” Wow! Headquarters! Must be pretty important, I said. Sensing the nerdiness of this tube-socks-wearing idiot coach in front of him, he changed the subject. “So, your runners come here for practice?” I explained that we do and that we also use FDR and Farm Lane from late August through mid-November. He started at the park in December so he had never seen them. Then, he said: “That must be a nice change of pace for them, coming here instead of running circles around your track.” The “your” in his sentence seemed to have extra emphasis, but that’s probably because I assigned extra emphasis to it. There is no your track! When I told them that we, in fact, do not have a track, he launched in this incredulous commentary. “No track? And a track team? That just doesn’t make SENSE! Why would you not have a track!?” At this point, I excused myself to use the portopotty outside, shaking my head internally and thinking – dang, him too? -- and said, “see you in a few weeks!”