Day 7 Around the Police Station

Day 7 February 28, 2008

     Our house thermometer reads 10F  making today the coldest run yet of the year.  A stiff wind adds even more wintry ambiance.

     I run northeast down State Road and cross West Chester Pike.  A toll house stood at this corner according to a map from 1892.  On the same map less than a dozen buildings stand in the area between this intersection and the next eastward toll booth, now the 69th Street Terminal.  I will pass hundreds on this morning’s run. The first hundred are in the neighborhood squeezed between the Pike and the Route 100 regional rail line, known to us longtime residents as the P&W tracks.  In my more than four decades of residency I’ve never ventured through these half dozen streets.  A karate studio and a small playground are tucked back among this cluster of rowhomes.

     Looping around Victory Lane, I wonder which victory this commemorates.  WWII?  WWI?  I head west out the Pike and pass Upper Darby’s Police Headquarters.  This building looks like a school, which it once was.  The Keystone Public School shows on the late 19th century maps but this building is the “New” Keystone School, built in 1909.  I’m tempted to make an aside about how my old grade school teachers were tougher than today’s cops, but it will only get me in trouble, both in this world and the next one.

     Lots of short blocks weave southward of the Pike.  There is a one block loop of stately old homes on Merwood that forms an island of tranquility a stone’s throw from busy Route 3.  A large infestation of bamboo forms a towering wall at a corner on Winfield.  Despite the freezing temperature this invasive grass glows bright green and is watched alarmingly by the surrounding brown lawns.  

     I zigzag up Samson and Spruce Streets.  Are these the terminal blocks of the city streets that connect across Cobbs Creek going all the way across Philly to the Delaware River?  I loop back and forth across blocks of Beverly Hills until I reach home.  When I plot my route and calculate my pace, it is my fastest yet.  I have unknowingly been speeding, just to stay warm.

     

Distance:   6.40 miles Time:   58 min 49 sec                Pace:   9:11 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1659958

Day 6 One Down, Fourteen To Go

Day 6 February 27, 2008

     When I sum my total mileage for the first five legs of my thru-run of Upper Darby, I see that I have already completed the equivalent of a marathon (26.2 miles).  Since the running was spread over a couple of weeks, I have suffered none of the debilitating aftereffects, but it serves as another measure of what it will take to complete this endeavor.  Since I’m coloring a map after each run with a highlighter, I make a quick visual calculation.  The estimate of my final total makes me grimace: fifteen marathons.  This isn’t the first time that I have set out with a simple, romantic  plan that grows quickly into an arduous task.  This journey may not be of Herculean or Promethean proportions but I predict that there will be slogging later.

     Running down the three blocks of South Madison Avenue that I had missed (see Day 5), I’m noticing trees this morning.  A few old evergreens in front lawns make me imagine that they were once live Christmas trees, planted in the new year and staying long after the celebrants have moved on, or passed on.  A huge old sycamore with a central trunk more than a yard thick splits into four sub-trunks, each of which would be a formidable tree.  A soaring tulip tree that I see while approaching West Chester Pike is bristling with vines high above the three story houses.  This fountain of vines still carries deep green leaves while the tree’s branches poking out of the tangle are bare.  Crossing the Pike I run between two eight foot stumps of shorn pine trees.  Why were they left there limbless in the median, their wounds still oozing sap?

     A wide loop to run three missed, short blocks takes me again past Observatory Field, then west on the Pike and down South Kirklyn Avenue.  I come out at Lansdowne Avenue and run the Harwood and Brighton one block, loop neighborhood.  I cross in front of Har Jehuda Cemetery and run another small, three block neighborhood that is sandwiched between Lansdowne and Naylor’s Run.  I cross over again to run the Saints’ Loop (Anthony and Joseph) around the old Lukens Mansion.  This 19th century building was once a large estate, then an inn, then a restaurant which failed, and now houses a computer services company.  The business’s huge sign mars the stately old facade while the surrounding parking lot and townhouses encroach on its remaining dignity.

     In my final mile as I run down Beverly Boulevard, I hear behind me the ominous sound of rapidly approaching, jangling dog tags.  In my twenty years of running this is always an adrenaline pumping moment.  Apprehensively I swivel to meet my canine opponent, but the road is empty.  I look down at what seems to be a moving oil stain on the pavement.  It is a “squog,” a dog the size of a squirrel.  He is smaller than my shoe.  These are the only dogs I could ever outrun and I show him that I still can.

Distance:   4.84 miles Time:   47 min 57 sec Pace:   9:54 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1657564

Day 5 Highland Park and Sellers Library

Day 5 February 20, 2008

     It’s quite a bit colder than my last outing.  There are a few snowflakes falling but no accumulation is expected.  Flurries are more fun to run in than a similar amount of light rain.  After a half hour you haven’t been soaked from the outside in, as can happen even in slight drizzle.  A few flakes dust the lawns and streets without causing any inconvenience.  They take away the depressing grayness of winter during their short stay on this earth.

     I’m running the Southwestern half of Highland Park today, the area bounded by Arlington Road, Ardmore Avenue, West Chester Pike and State Road.  Thirteen years ago when we were looking to buy a house after renting on Westdale for five years, my wife and I forced our real estate agent to show us about three dozen homes. On just about every block that I pass today I see a house that I’ve been through top to bottom.  I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different if we had moved there instead of our current home.  My sons’ schools wouldn’t have changed and the general neighborhood is the same, but neighbors can have a big influence either way on your quality of life.  Nasty neighbors with a mean dog barking all night may have expatriated us from Upper Darby to the Exton exurbs.  Luckily we’ve been blessed where we moved.  I hope that my neighbors feel the same way.

     On this run I pass my library, Sellers Library.  The old portion, which contains the children’s books, has a historical marker which reads:  

“Abraham L. Pennock   This prominent abolitionist and patron of the arts resided here at Hoodland until his death in 1868. The home had been built in 1823 by his father-in-law, John Sellers II. A leader in the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Abraham Pennock also was an advocate of woman suffrage, and active in the temperance movement. Notable visitors to his home included John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell.”  

     So our old Abe liked poetry and women, but not booze or slavery.  The more recently added brick wing is a boxy architectural clashing, which proves that the temperance movement failed.  School kids visiting are told that this was a stop on the underground railroad.  Delaware County historical societies claim more underground railroad stations than there are current SEPTA ones.

     When I get back and plot my route, I see that I have missed the three block long section of South Madison Avenue.  So much for careful planning.

Distance:   5.59 miles Time:   53 min 46 sec Pace:   9:37 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1640890

Day 4 Kirklyn Redux

Day 4 February 19, 2008

     Since the Kirklyn area has proven to be larger than I first thought, I decide to return there so that I can finish up what I think of as the furthest northeast corner of the township.  I have mentally divided Upper Darby into quadrants with Landsdowne Avenue and Garrett Road serving as the bisectors.  The four divisions are nowhere equal in area or total street lineage.  The Beverly Hills and Drexel Hill areas both straddle Garrett Road so the division doesn’t make “cultural” sense either.  It is simply convenient from a runner’s point of view.  The Kirklyn-Highland Park area occupies most of the northeast quadrant in this scheme and I’m planing to cover the neighborhoods first which are closest to my home in the Beverly Hills section.

     Zigzagging through my neighborhood I head up Merion Road and then Arlington Road.  On the way I want to cover a couple of short blocks on Montrose Avenue and Suburban Lanes that I missed on earlier runs.   I then cross West Chester Pike and double back again on my earlier route through Kirklyn.  I twice pass the entrance to “The Hidden Playground” at the intersection of Wadas Avenue and Meadowbrook Road.  Barclay, Bayberry, Parker and Linden require more double tracking.  I then leave Kirklyn and heading home cover more blocks in Highland Park between Lennox and West Chester Pike as I come down the hill toward State Road.

     Originally I thought that I could find routes that would be 95% efficient, that is that only 5% of my running would be on streets that I’d already thru-run.  On the very first run I dropped that estimate to 85%.  Now I’m thinking that it might be as low as 60%.  This journey, a series of smaller journeys, will entail quite a bit of backtracking.  Many journeys do.  One can think of their life as a series of backtracks. You start out on the baby trail and revisit later as a parent and then again, if blessed, as a grandparent.  You start one school as a neophyte, then master its labyrinths only to leave and repeat the same path at another school.  You make the same mistakes over and over again.  Fight the same fights with your spouse over and over.  And when you get older, you repeat the same lame stories and bad jokes.   Symphony musicians continue to practice scales their whole career.  We spend our lives trying to get it right - this time.  Maybe life isn’t an advance forward, maybe it is hidden in the repetition.  After all, the Hindus say that we’ll be doing this again in our next life.

Distance:   5.95 miles Time:   57 min 29 sec Pace:   9:40 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1638462

Day 3 Kirklyn

Day 3 February 14, 2008

     It’s quite a bit colder than my last outing.  The temperature is back to the more seasonal low 20s F.  People waiting for the bus on State Road are wrapped in scarves and bouncing to keep warm.  There is a brisk wind blowing and my chilly cheeks are burning from the wind.  One nice thing about running is, that no matter how cold you are starting out, you’re sure to be warm in fifteen minutes.  Of course this only holds if you are properly dressed and if you are not running in International Falls, Minnesota.  I’m wearing long running pants, a jacket over my long sleeve top, gloves and a hat.  I’d be cold if standing still; but, as long as I keep moving, I’ll be generating plenty of heat.

     Today’s route is to Upper Darby’s corner bounded by PECO’s golf course and Haverford Township.  West Chester Pike forms a third side to the triangular area known as Kirklyn.  Running the perimeter first, I pass Havertown’s 19083 Post Office.  My section of Upper Darby is 19082.  Neither 19081 nor 19085 is adjacent to these areas.  This reinforces my suspicion that zipcode allocation was determined by a map, darts and a drinking game.  Since 19084 doesn’t exist at all, it must have been the dart that was lost.

     While I had hoped to cover this entire neighborhood today, as soon as I enter this warren, I know that I can’t complete it in one run.  Because the section is triangular, its streets intersect irregularly.  I have to backtrack several times.  I pass the same long expanse of white picket fence from two directions.  Then an unforgettable double set of blue garage doors surprise me around a curve,  which I could have sworn I had already passed.  There is a house on Cloverdale Avenue that I pass twice which looks like it is from Los Angeles in the 1920’s.  Back in these streets I know there exists what my sons called “The Hidden Playground” but I don’t come across it on today’s trip.

     Along West Chester Pike there is a large apartment and commercial property with its own weave of parking lots and driveways.  I conveniently decide that such byways will not be included in my thru-run.  Likewise cemetery drives, footpaths and alleys will not be counted though some see more daily traffic than the regular roads.  If they don’t have a PennDOT and USPS approved street designation, I’m not going to consider them either.  I don’t need even more tally fodder.

Distance:   5.51 miles Time:   52 min 15 sec Pace:   9:29 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1624587

Day 2 My Old Neighborhood

Day 2 February 6, 2008

  It’s the first week of February and the temperature is over 60F.  It’s overcast and there’s an occasional raindrop but a balmy breeze has me feeling that I could run forever.  I’m running in only shorts and a T-shirt for the first time this year.  It seems like Spring is in the air.  A record high will be set today but I know that this is just a meteorological teasing.  There’s plenty of winter left.  After all the groundhog out in Western Pennsylvania saw his shadow this past Saturday.

  I head  “up” (westward on) West Chester Pike, also known in numerology circles as PA Route 3.  This is a wide boulevard with four divided lanes, two running east and two west.  When I was a boy, electric trolleys ran down the center all the way to West Chester, I think.  Buses have replaced the trolleys and now there are dogwoods, pines and other struggling flora at the center of the busy thoroughfare where once were wood ties, stone ballast and steel rails.  

  I run to where The Pike leaves Upper Darby at its intersection with US Route 1.  This corner has probably the highest average daily traffic in the township.  You can take Route 1 as the slow road to Boston or Miami, but I stay on only a block then loop back and forth through the streets between The Pike and another abandoned rail line.  This trackbed is now used primarily by dog walkers and the neighborhood kids.  It would make a great site for a Rails-to-Trails project.

  After a few loops including the tiny blocks of Ivy and Botanic Courts I come back out to The Pike and turn toward the city.  Rather than simply retrace my steps I return to my old neighborhood by Observatory Field (see Day 1).  I run down Westdale Road where I once lived.  In the old twin’s window a young girl is waving at her father who has just gotten out of a pickup and is coming home from work.  The small front yard is strewn with plastic toys much like it was when we rented it.  My sons once strewed their toys about the same way.  I particularly remember that Halloweens brought hundreds of children to our door in this dense neighborhood.  Stocking enough candy required a special trip to the Acme.

  It was back in my thirties when I first started running regularly and I lived here.  I was a lot faster then, in the last decade of the last century.  (I always wanted use that grandiose phrase.)  I could run a mile under six minutes back then.  I trained for the Boston Marathon many winters by starting my training runs on this street.  I’ve since moved a few blocks.  My sons have grown to men, put away their toys and moved much farther away.  This is the first that I run on this street in more than a decade, but that same delicious smell of Italian cooking that I’ll never forget is still wafting down the road.

Distance:   5.79 miles Time:   55 min 59 sec Pace:   9:40 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1607222

Day 1 Starting Out

Day 1 February 5, 2008

  Normally I run 40 minutes to an hour at about a nine and a half to ten minute pace.  Okay, for you purists, this is more jogging than running.  This severely limits how far I can cover on any one day to four to six linear miles.  Running every block will require some backtracking and overlapping, but I hope to minimize this by planning each route rather than randomly setting out each time.

  My first day’s plan of action calls for me to run to the nearest township border with Philadelphia and then run northwesterly through a neighborhood, Highland Park, that I lived in during the early 90’s.  

  I start out and run down a state road, called imaginatively State Road, to the edge of Cobbs Creek Public Golf Course and then turn right up Parkview Road, which is a much steeper hill than I remember.  Steep hills are said to be good for building the muscles in runners’ legs, but my muscles are screaming that that only holds for young runners.  

  I run past the block that I used to live on and follow the route my sons walked thousands of time to Highland Park Elementary School. 

  I loop around Academy Lane behind the school and run the edge of Observatory Field.  The Leisure Services Department, formerly known by the more sensible description Parks and Recreation Department, maintains this field as an athletic facility, but long ago it had a domed astronomical observatory of the University of Pennsylvania.  The field sits atop the first hill rising out of the riparian plain of the Delaware River that Philadelphia sprawls along.  There are great views of Philly’s skyline from West Chester Pike on this hill.  Flower Astronomical Observatory opened in the spring of 1897 when Upper Darby was still rural and dark compared to Philadelphia.  It was sited on a 100 acre farm and named after a Penn benefactor, Reese Wall Flower.  I am also, though a much minor, Penn benefactor, also shy and also can’t dance.

Distance:   4.09 miles Time:   41 min   Pace:   10:01 min/mile

Weblink:  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1602244

Introduction

     Two years ago in 2006 I quit my job and at the age of 52 tried to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail (AT).  I did not undertake this endeavor casually.  For decades I had dreamed about it and finally decided that I was getting older faster than I was getting wealthy enough to put it off until I was financially secure.  Over the years my wife had listened to my dreaming and she fully supported my endeavor.  I had used several vacations to spend a week camping on the AT in Pennsylvania and had loved every, well most, minute(s).  

  My brother drove me in June 2006 to Mt. Katahdin in Maine and I set out southward on my dream.  About  85 miles later, 70 miles into the “100 Mile Wilderness,” I blew out my right knee coming down a mountain.  While I had worried about having the strength to climb mountains at my age, it was the less strenuous but more jarring downhills that were too much for by ACL reconstructed joint.  I limped out my last 30 miles over three days, which was plenty of time to stew in my failure.  Don’t wait until you’re 52 to fulfill your dreams that you have at 25.

  A few months later while I was still recovering I heard a radio story about a man who was trying to walk every block of  every street in New York City.   Thru-hiking is a term normally associated with walking the AT from end to end.  Sometimes it’s used for other long trails like the Pacific Coast or Continental Divide Trails.  But this guy was thru-hiking New York starting with Manhattan.  He thought that it would take several years. 

  This gave me the idea of thru-hiking my hometown, Upper Darby, PA.  Since I’m a regular runner, I’m actually going to thru-run not thru-hike, but I mean to cover every block of every street.   

  Upper Darby has a lot of streets. On its eastern edge it is directly adjacent to the city of Philadelphia .  With a population of 80,000 it is Philly’s most populous suburb and the sixth largest municipality in Pennsylvania.  It has many more people, houses and therefore streets than the more well known PA cities of Scranton, Bethlehem, Harrisburg and Lancaster. The school district claims 40 languages are spoken in our children’s homes.  The houses 

here range from a 300 year old Swedish log cabin to 60’s ranches, brick row-homes to Victorian mansions.

  A great facet of our township is that virtually every house has a sidewalk, nearly every street is sidewalked on both sides.  I’m not going to run every sidewalk, since it would double my trip, but I will say a prayer for all those who have zoned, built, swept or shoveled these under appreciated community assets.  These are fantastic for pedestrian safety and for building a sense of neighborhood.  I’ll never understand why the new exurb Mc-Mansion tracts fail to build these simple, but critical, necessities.

     Although once an avid marathoner, I’m not even a daily runner anymore with all my injuries.  But I’ll be out two or three days a week to complete this journey through Near-at-Hand-Land.  I have a large street map from our Department of Public Works that I will use to plan my routes and record my progress.  I’ll also post after each entry a weblink to a saved route at www.gmap-pedometer.com.   This site uses Google Maps to measure a route of your choosing.  Unfortunately it will also inform you that your four mile walk was only 2.37 miles.    If you click on, or copy and paste the link into your browser’s address bar, that day’s route should appear overlaid on a street map of Upper Darby.  Come along.  Follow along.  Get inspired.  Run or walk your hometown.  You never know where the road will lead you.