Pandemic Papers: An interview with Patrick Brodfuehrer (Class of 2003)

Last year at this time, we were cranking out Pandemic Papers interviews with regularity and a sense of purpose. While that practice – as well as, hopefully, the pandemic -- has kind of trickled to a halt here in the middle of 2021, we are thrilled to present today’s opus with Marist Running Alum Patrick Brodfuehrer (Class of 2003). Brodo admittedly took a long time to respond to my queries. A really long time! But again, who’s counting, and who cares how long it took? I’m glad he took the time and I’m even more grateful for his continued following of this fancy blog and our program. His eloquent and emotional final response at the bottom of this long interview (Note to Brodo: I don’t think Greg would be disappointed in you at ALL) really made me take pause and realize the impact of each and every individual who has run through our program through the years. Especially after this past year-plus of bad outcomes and hurt feelings and frayed nerves and roster adjustments, we are best to remember that this is a uniquely special place in our small corner of the universe.

Brodo’s college career featured many diverse interests, which we noticed even before he got to campus – he recalls here that we talked as much about music as running during the recruiting process. He also admits to underwhelming performances during his four-year career. While that may be accurate, outcomes are not the only measure with which to judge, and Brodo added a lot to this team during his time here. My memories of his tenure are exclusively positive. His story about the night before his graduation day is so bizarre as to be barely believable. I don’t recall it, but then again I would have to sift through the fuzzy recesses of several decades to remember such shenanigans. Rather than continuing to try to recap his interview, let’s get right at it, while thanking Brodo for taking the time to do it and to continue to be a part of our Marist Running universe after all these years.

Take us back. Way back. How, when, where and why did you start running? 

I loved playing all kinds of sports growing up but the more organized they became and the more serious kids (and their parents) began to take them, the less fun they started to be. I still love throwing around a football/baseball/frisbee, playing basketball, and golfing, but by the time I reached middle school those things were way more fun to play with friends than on teams in leagues where silly stuff like rules were enforced.

My father was a runner most of his life. He ran track at Syracuse University and coached high school when he was a teacher for a few years after graduation, so he suggested I give XC a try in 7^th grade. Other friends were interested too and the middle/high school program was a successful one. It was a departure from my professional athlete dreams, but it stuck.

Give us your high school stats -- where did you go, when did you graduate, what were your best events, times, fondest memories, highlights (side note: it was a long time ago and I vaguely remember the details, definitely somewhere in Syracuse, Corcoran?)

Correct – I ran at Corcoran, a public city school in Syracuse (Section III). The coach, John Hohm, was/is an institution and led his XC teams to a bunch of state titles by the time I arrived in 1995. The program was still good but got bumped from Class B to Class A after my freshman year. This coincided exactly when Fayetteville-Manlius started to morph into a national-caliber XC behemoth. Even when we were state ranked a time or two, we were frequently a distant second to them in our little division (very much Iona vs Marist vibes).

But I enjoyed doing it with a great group of friends, I wasn’t terrible, and l looked forward to teaming up with the football guys for track (including an eventual first-round NFL draft pick – he stole my dream!)

As for actual times my brain is a bit fuzzy going back that far but I think my 1600 PR was 4:32 and I qualified for states indoor senior year in the 1000 – I think I ran 2:35.

Editor’s note: This high school race picture, with Brodo front and center, is truly classic. Alert readers may note the skinny kid in the Henninger singlet as Future Fox (and former school record holder) Kirk Dornton!

How, when and why did you choose Marist? What was the recruiting process like? I honestly don't recall, other than I always/often targeted Section 3 recruits ...

I don’t exactly recall the recruiting details either…but I may have connected with Coach Chuck first. He’s a Central Square High School alum and they were rivals of Corcoran back then. You also had a couple Section III guys running well at Marist: Marist Running Legend^® and Pandemic Paper® contributor Mike Melfi (from another Syracuse public city school – Henninger) and Marist Running Legend^® Greg Salamone (Liverpool, where my father coached for a few years in the late 70s pre-my existence on earth). Another Henninger kid (Jamal Padgett) and Liverpool kid (Greg’s brother Chris) from my class were considering Marist and I knew those guys just a little bit from racing them. (Mr. Salamone had also done some physical therapy on my back.)

I was accepted to every school I applied to, from larger DI schools like Syracuse, UMass, and Rutgers, to smaller ones like Hamilton College and SUNY Geneseo. The range of interest from those schools in me running for them was none-at-all to tepid enthusiasm. I considered Syracuse (note to younger Foxes: SU was not always the regionally dominant/nationally prominent XC program of the last dozen years or so) but I had already been on the campus a lot – in the Dome for football games and basketball games and elementary school fun runs and racing indoor States, practicing and racing indoors at Manley Field House, attending band camps and performances, and other random stuff. I probably spent more time there growing up than some actual 4-year SU students, so I was looking to experience someplace else. I had some good friends going to Geneseo and probably would have ended up there except:

--I talked with you more about Santana and the Allman Brothers Band than about running, which struck me as kind of an odd way to recruit but also kind of great  

·       --I had a sister attending New Paltz and a good friend’s siblings there and at Vassar so I already knew and loved the area

·       --Rik Smits visited my home and encouraged me to give Marist a shot

·       --It was a short train ride to New York City and far enough but not too far from home

·       --Something about the challenge of seeing if I could hack it running DI was stubbornly lodged in an extremely underdeveloped part of my brain  

(only one of these reasons is false)

And financially the kind folks at Marist were able to make it work. My father liked that part. So, I was super excited and terrified for preseason XC in 1999 where you were barely present due to the birth of your first child or something. Whatever. (Hi Joey!)

What was your major at Marist and what are some of your fondest memories from your academics -- favorite courses, professors (I know you were a big Strudler guy!), etc.

My major was Communications with a concentration in Creative Advertising. I’m pretty sure we had to have a minor too but I don’t remember what mine was. My favorite courses by far had nothing to do with my major (YaY liberal arts). They were the Military History classes taught by Col. Johnson. The combo of history and the Hudson Valley remain interests of mine and Col. Johnson was (and I’m sure still is) a thoughtful and engaging professor. Not sure what “a big Strudler guy” means but I think you are alluding to the next question. I was never in his class because… 

Wait! Didn't you play in a BAND with Strudler? Are you still in touch with him? Do you listen to his podcast?

Yes, I was the drummer in a band with Dr. Keith Strudler. First it was a band called Car Parts with another professor, Max (whose last name I don’t remember – sorry Max). One memorable gig I played in a gorilla suit that Max had previously worn as a younger man. Max and I didn’t exactly have similar body types. It was very, very hot in there and I wore only my high school freshman racing shorts underneath. Looking back on it now – gross. Max eventually departed and Keith’s friend from college joined us. They were in a band at Cornell called The Butlers…so this new iteration was called xbutler. Clever.

All this to say I was more of a friend socially and professionally (really poorly paid gigs!) that he depended on to make his band not suck than a student so it would have been a bit awkward if I had him as a professor.

I still keep in touch with Keith, mostly by attending the Cornell vs. Columbia men’s basketball game every year at Columbia (I live just a few blocks away). And some snarky texts here and there. But no, I do not listen to his podcast though my mother is a big fan of his short sports commentaries on regional public radio.

And now for context: In 1999, Dr. Keith Strudler was a new professor at Marist specializing in sports communication. He was a good collegiate runner and continued to kill it on the local Hudson Valley racing scene. He was also the faculty rep for the XC/track programs, whatever the hell that means. Mostly he just had too much time on his hands to exercise and occasionally that meant running with us and attending meets.  

The HuMarists were a big part of your world at Marist. Tell us about that time and how you developed into the funny guy that you were (and still are?)?

Well funny is plenty subjective but yes, your memory serves you well. I was a freshman, doing and saying a lot of dumb and annoying things, and a junior on the team, Joe Scelia (bless his heart) encouraged me to try out for the HuMarists (the college improv and sketch comedy club). I’m pretty sure it was only because he was trying out and wanted to bring someone along with him. I was a fairly naïve and obliging kid, Joe was a cool guy, and I was raised on old Saturday Night Live shows so I agreed to join him. I remember having different facial hair every week of auditions and some of the cast may not have realized I was the same guy coming back each time. Anyway, I ended up being selected and remained a member until graduation, even being co-director my senior year.

Let's talk about your running. My memory of you is running semi-fast 800s and 1000s on indoor tracks, tall and lean, with a fully formed beard that defied your age. What are some of your fondest memories and highlights of your four years as a Running Red Fox? Have FUN with this answer and remind me of stories that I have long since (and probably rightfully) forgotten!

I guess it’s a running blog so I must indulge you but let’s just say my college races were so forgettable even the internet has lost the majority of them (and really, thank goodness). “Semi-fast” is very kind of you to say. I remember my first 8k XC race freshman year at Lehigh. I wasn’t racing – I was surviving, just trying to finish. That pretty much set the stage for my XC career. Highlights were (again, fuzzy) the inaugural XC MAAC Championship at Disney in 2000. I think I ran 27:30-ish. That was far and away the best I’d raced to that point. And I remember my last XC race senior year at VCP – IC4As in 2002. It was the only time I ran sub-28:00 on that course. I also think that was the only time I was top 10 on the team (a bunch of guys must have shut it down for the season already). Much more so I remember teams I really admired for how impressive they were, dedicated guys without flashy high school resumes that became really good collegiate runners because they worked so damn hard. I thought I did too but it just never seemed to translate consistently for me. The more miles I did, the more wore out I got. The 10k NCAA XC regional races still haunt my nightmares.

Though I liked XC more, I thought I had more potential on the track but that never really panned out either. I could hang with the top mid-distance guys in workouts but the results I hoped for didn’t follow. I broke 2:00 a handful of times in the 800 but never in breakout fashion. This was all “accomplished” injury-free for the most part, with just a bronchitis bout sophomore year and mono senior year as hiccups on the path to mediocrity.

All that official-like running bravado aside, my four years as a Running Red Fox were a blast. Some memories:

--The range of personalities on those teams were astounding – just a profoundly strange brew of characters. That goes for the women’s team as well. All credit to you and Coach Phil for that, unabashed oddballs (I mean this in the most endearing way) that seemed to recruit likewise. Such a ceaselessly fascinating, funny group. I’ve always thought runners and swimmers, with that many years of grinding out solitary miles of training while your mind spins, can make you a bit loopy.

·       --On my recruiting trip, I did an overnight with previously mentioned recruit, Chris Salamone. Cool guy. Our hosts were his older brother Greg and his roommate Chris Smith. Both princes, great guys in their own unique way. Both not the most social of butterflies. I remember there were video games. And I remember thinking “WTF? This is college?” We did end up mingling later on with some other guys on the team. That was a whole different WTF.

·       --Being assigned to room freshman year pre-season XC with a curious new teammate. I had a lot of hair. On my face. On my head (long gone). On my body. Competitors in high school called me “Jesus.” This guy had a shaved head. He was straightedge. Went everywhere on a child’s BMX bike. Liked loud punk music and spoke very softly, and that was barely ever. This was the beginning of my college experience. Immediately I was wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. It took some time, but I’d like to think I became good friends with this kid – a great kid who grew into a man that worked a very dangerous, terrifying job building atop the highest skyscrapers in the world, including a very famous one that made him infamous when he illegally BASE jumped off of it one night. Bit of an adrenaline junkie you could say. Legally, I can divulge no more. (Editor’s note: Legally, I will divulge a bit more. The referenced young man here has a name that rhymes with “Brim Jady” … if you can figure out my clever coding there, go ahead and Google his actual name and base jumping and see what you find …”)

·       --Long Sunday morning runs freshman year XC with senior Steve Palmer. He took his time. He liked to laugh, ask questions, tell stories. This was all my speed. We were so slow. It drove some other guys on the team mad. But it was a recovery day. We were recovering. And we got in the miles. Looking back, it was probably more painful to drag along at that pace but for a new kid to bond with a senior in that way was both weird and wonderful.

·       --A group of us on the team did this thing where we would run mile after mile after mile just saying the names of mostly 1980s and early 90s professional baseball players (mainly), football players (lots but not as much as baseball), basketball players (less so but only because there were less of them), and guys in the PGA. Even broadcasters. This was endlessly funny. It still is. Right now. Why? I have no idea. We were kids raised on trading cards that watched a lot of sports and our brains were saturated with this crap. It got kicked up a notch for football and basketball when after a name was said the challenge went out – “from?” and of course we almost always knew where they went to college. So stupid. Now we have phones and we don’t have to remember anything ever because we can look it up in a matter of seconds and life is lesser for it. Trust me.

·       --Every training route and site had a name. Mostly they were boring. We changed them to be personal and obscene. I’m sure (hope) every team every year does this. Also, very funny.

·       --One year a few teammates made t-shirts that said “Marist XC” but with a portrait of Karl Marx and some fancy design arrangement of the text (dear reader, you figure it out). The back said “Running Red Army.” This too was very funny, though some Marist athletic administrators did not think so. I assumed it was because they were not sanctioned Nike Dri-FIT and failed to adequately wick away moisture.

·       --When they opened the theme park thing for us that night at Disney after the MAAC XC Championship awards banquet, a group of us went on the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster® Starring Aerosmith what seemed like hundreds of times, over and over. Not because it was a great ride, but because there was a pre-recorded-virtual-ish-life-size video segment with Aerosmith at the beginning of the ride that made it seem like they were interacting with you live (this was heady stuff for 2000). We had all their lines nailed and worked out all our responses so it really did seem like we were having a legit back-and-forth conversation with Aerosmith. This was also very stupid. And very, very funny.

·       --Not sure this is still a thing (God, I kind of hope not) but I moved off campus my junior year to a house on Delafield Street. All the houses off campus had a name, like The Soccer House, or The Football House, or other witty names like that. It helped identify, for example, where you were going to party that evening. There were three other friends in this house with me, none that played sports, but we did want impressionable students to come to our house and party with us. We needed a name. So, we christened the house the Boyzone. Cool, right? I’m not sure this convinced anyone to actually want to come party there, but it stuck. Maybe they liked our slogans (“Located between desire and madness”/”The boys of Boyzone are the champagne of boys”). Senior year, my dear friend and Marist Running Legend^® Chris “Chomps” McCloskey moved into the Boyzone with me. After we graduated, I recall learning that XC/track guys lived in the Boyzone for some years. How many years I do not know, but I hope some students/locals/visiting dignitaries look back on times there with fondness.

·       --For whatever reason, the millions of van miles we logged seemed to me most always accompanied by a local radio station that played something called “modern rock.” It was contemporary, sure, but not modern. Nor did it rock. It was nuclear fuel for an audio garbage inferno. This music has not held up. For all the ear/mind-opening directions music was going most everywhere else at the time, somehow this is what the default torture setting in our vans was. This music is singed into my subconscious and definitely made me a worse person. I’d rather have a thousand more Police vs Tears for Fears debates with Marist Running Legend^® and Pandemic Paper® contributor and fellow Syracuse public city school alum (Henninger) Kirk Dornton than hear one second of modern rock retch.

Tell us about your career path since college. And what are you doing now and where, for whom, etc.?

After graduating I got a job at MTV/VH1 as a production assistant on horrendous television shows (there was and still may be a network of HuMarist alums there). Living in NYC was, and still is, awesome. And while working in production for bad TV was ok at first, I lost interest and started to wonder if I could make the same amount of shitty money doing something I loved, like: going to the racetrack, placing a few bets, and drinking a beer (or two or three). After a few years I left and took my meager savings to spend the summer of 2005 at the Saratoga Racetrack doing exactly that as my day job. At night I wrote about it and researched the next day’s races. And probably drank a few more beers.

It was a lot of fun. And I ended up breaking even. Unfortunately, that also means I failed. Realistically I never had a chance with the minimal bankroll I was working with, but I had to do it to learn that. I also had a tiny mountain of awful writing about the experience that I was trying to make sense of and dupe a literary agent into seeing some promise in. Surprise – none ever fell for it. To you, Pete, and all the Pandemic Paper® contributors and published authors out there, you have my endless admiration. Writing is really fucking hard.

I went back to NYC and started trying to get a job as a copywriter at an ad agency. It took a lot of hustle and work on my own building a portfolio but eventually I landed a gig in early 2006. Fifteen years later I’m a creative director at one of the big bad old Madmen agencies in midtown Manhattan. It’s a stressful and time-consuming job where you’re only as good as your next idea, but sometimes you create something like communication art that actually makes a difference and it’s great working with a lot of super talented and creative people.

Tell us about your family life -- wife, kid(s), where you live, etc.

I have been married for 10 years. I started hanging out with this wonder woman my senior year at Marist so we’ve been together damn near half my life now. We have an almost 2-year old son and live in the beautiful Morningside Heights neighborhood in Manhattan. Riverside Park and the Hudson River are a block from my door. Riverbank State Park (and its track), Morningside Park, and Central Park are all a short jog away.

Are you still running and/or staying in shape?

I do still run. As for staying in shape…well I’ll stick to your plea to look at mileage by month instead of week – I’d guess I run between 50-100 miles a month. If that seems like a wide range, it’s because I do not track my mileage. Nor do I time myself. I don’t need an app or a watch to constantly reinforce that I’m older and slower. When I’m really doing well, I run every other day, but just as often I only get out once or twice a week. Juggling my time between family and professional commitments has never been a strength of mine so running isn’t exactly a priority.

I still run mainly out of vanity. One of the great joys of my life is consuming food and drink with loved ones. Sharing a meal or meeting up at a bar to watch a game – these are sacred events to me. I have always been able to consume vast amounts of culinary and liquid delights at one sitting. This talent has not diminished with age (and before you judge me a monster know that this is not my daily diet). But my body is taking a slightly different shape as I get older. I’m still a tall skinny guy, seemingly still blessed with a good metabolism, but now there are these funny little soft spots, noticeable only to me (and I guess my wife?), where there used to be flat, toned parts. I know flat and toned isn’t coming back but I’m determined not to let funny little soft spots become fat messy ones. So, I run to combat it best I can. And really, I need the activity to expend energy, physically and mentally. Otherwise I will explode.

When I do run, and because running is not the most stimulating sport in the world, I make sure to kick my ass a bit. Every three or four times I get out is usually a workout of some kind, be it hills or intervals on a track or some tempo weirdness I make up as I go. It’s all effort-based. If I’m feeling good, I keep pushing. If it really sucks, I stop. And that’s fine. I don’t need to prove to myself or anyone else that I’m good at exercising. That’s why I never pursued longer distances either. I’m keenly aware of my limitations and know I don’t have the mental capacity (or actual time) to adequately train for something like a marathon. Thankfully I’ve never really been injured and maybe my moderate approach to running post-college is part of it (luck/genes has probably played a big role too) but I want my body to be able to move as well as I want it to move for a long, long time. So far, so good.

And I do still compete. Just not very often. But it’s good motivation to run with a race goal in mind and for me the past many years it has been the 5^th Ave. Mile. I have done and will continue to do some Turkey Trots and random 5ks and the competitive brain always kicks in (until about two miles into the race it starts screaming “STOP – why are you doing this to me?”) but the 5^th Ave. Mile is the one I really do look forward to. It’s a fun course and setting and over before the anguish gets too great. Last time I ran it was 2019. I ran 4:51. Which I rationalize isn’t too bad for an older gentleman pushing 40. Once I can no longer break 5:00 I might give it up but for now it satisfies my illusion for speed and youth. Because that’s what I miss most. I never missed the long miles of training but dearly missed the perception/feeling of “fast.” It’s also usually run the morning of the first Sunday of NFL games, and I’ve been able to goad former teammates and friends like Chomps, Marist Running Legend® Geoff Decker, and Marist Running Legend® and Pandemic Paper® contributor Chris Camp to join me (handsome Marist Running Legend® and Pandemic Paper® contributor Sean Prinz even showed up in a recent edition to smoke us all). We race, complain, then watch games (Go Bills!) and do a fair amount of that food and drink consumption thing I hold so dear.    

How has the pandemic impacted your personal and professional life and where do you see things going in the short- and long-term?

Personally, the pandemic has allowed me to see much more of my son. That’s been awesome. He was only 8 months old when I started working from home. Professionally, working from home means my son is also always …right … there. Which can be a challenge because babies scream and poop and stuff a lot and I’ll choose playing with him over playing being a professional worker person every time. My wife owns her own business so she already worked from home, and we couldn’t exactly have a stranger come watch him or enter him into a daycare during a pandemic. So like many others we had to juggle childcare and job stuff 24 hours a day because hectic days and nights with our son translate to lots of late nights and early mornings scrambling to catch up on work.

And like others, we knew plenty of people who had COVID and a few who died from it. Despite the horrors of it all, I’m incredibly fortunate. I get to spend lots of time with a family I love, in a home I love, in a community I love, in a city I love and have been employed the whole time. I still cannot fathom the difficulties of those with young children in school. These people deserve a million COVID-free hugs.

 

As for where things are going, I suppose mostly to hell? Or maybe not. As Robert Zimmerman once said, “the times they are a-changin.” And really, they always are. Just sometimes we pay more attention. And there will always be people who do terrible things to make others miserable. And there will always be people who do wonderful things to make others feel loved and respected and human. I really really hope these times help shape future generations to be way more of the latter.

Even though they are an entire generation removed from you, what message can you send to last year's and this year's seniors on all they have lost and missed out on due to the pandemic?

I guess don’t dwell on it too much? Easy for me to say, I know, but there is so much in our lives out of our control. This is a big one. Everyone has a right to be upset about it and should absolutely express those feelings. But it’s also been an opportunity to see things and do things in a completely different way. In ways you can control. Does missing friends and practices and races and graduation suck? It really does. But since I’ve been encouraged to tell stories, here’s another:

The day before my graduation we had a party with family and friends at the Boyzone. The backyard was kind of like a concrete Thunderdome we covered in an AstroTurf®-like substance and put up a badminton net. During one of our epic badminton battles that late afternoon, roommate Chomps launched one of his heated temper missiles into a neighbor’s yard. As I had done many times before, I squeezed through an old wooden fence to go get it. Only this time a board snapped back and an old rusty nail punctured my upper right chest/shoulder area.

Going to the hospital and getting a tetanus shot would have been the wise thing to do. But I had to get to a gig that evening with xbutler at a local shithole that was then called the Rhinecliff Hotel. With the uncertain wait times in emergency rooms, this was not an option. At least not yet. So, I went to the gig and ended up going to the hospital after that. Probably about midnight by the time I arrived. Many hours later I got a shot, was patched up a bit, and went home to sleep for maybe an hour or two before we had to be on campus for the graduation thing. I was pretty tired. Once we sat down for the ceremony I feel asleep and missed the entire commencement address from Client 9 then New York State Attorney General and future disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (I’m sure his message was profound though probably not heavy on Catholic values unless forgiveness was a major theme). I was wholly prepared to be underwhelmed. But not quite like that.

My point of using graduation is an example of something somebody planned for you and told you what to do and where to be and when (and yes, I realize there is more to being a senior than graduation and no, I’m not trying to belittle a graduation ceremony). The pandemic provided an opportunity take a look at events and competitions and institutions and behaviors and relationships and EVERYTHING differently. Be creative. Be fun. Ask yourself how you would like to do things. Then figure out how to do it that way, preferably with people you love.

If you could talk to the 18-year-old version of Brodo, what advice would you give to him as he was about to embark on his college career?

I would tell him to not let others define success for you. I ran four years of XC/track at Marist. I wasn’t very good and could never quite figure out why. So that’s kind of a bummer and I felt pretty crummy about it at the time. But I also ran four years of XC/Track at Marist. And was in the HuMarists. And played in bands. And went to class and did homework and stuff and met a lot of people along the way. It took a lot of effort. And though I didn’t set any records or live up to what I thought were the expectations some others had for me, I look back now and wonder how I did all those things. I’d call it a fairly successful four years. But I didn’t exactly feel that way when I was in it.

I'm honored that you still read the blog and follow the program. What keeps you connected to Marist and our team?

I do still read the blog. You write and I love to read. Directly and indirectly, you are the person responsible for so many of our memories. Good ones. Bad ones. Running ones. College ones. Life ones. If you did not bring us into your Marist running family, all of our lives would have been different – experiences and friends and some of our own families we have made since that time. I don’t want that connection to just be a memory so that’s why I read the blog, and not so much for the race results, but more so to see who these new people are and what their experiences are.

I confess my connection to the program changed in 2014. That was the year Greg died. Greg was a friend. Not a close friend but the kind of friend you have because you got to know him as a teammate and have years of enjoying being in his company and looking forward to seeing him. I would run into Greg every now and then in NYC, especially at VCP or the Armory or some other race I attended with other alums. He had a sharp intellect and sense of humor. He was kind and generous. He traveled to offbeat and faraway places and that alone was always fun hearing about. But he was also easy to just shoot the shit with. Talk nonsense that veered into the absurd. One day he was a 35-year-old son and brother and teammate and friend and adventurer. And then he was gone.

Shortly after he passed, I remember attending a service for him in the Bronx, not far from VCP. It may have been the last time I saw you. It was certainly the last time I saw his brother Chris and the Salamone family. And it was the last time I saw some of my teammates. It was devastating. You were shattered. Obviously. I recall you saying we were all like your children. His passing and those words unhinged me in a way. I didn’t mean it to, and I certainly didn’t realize it at the time, but it changed my relationship with the program.

I still think of Greg from time to time, especially when I am running. And I think about my time at Marist and the people I met and the experiences I had, never more so than for this Pandemic Paper® entry. And I guess reading the blog is my connection comfort zone, keeping things at a safe distance. I’m sure that would disappoint Greg. I will strive to “be better.” I suppose this is a decent first step.