The Ian Dudley Trail, with THAT HILL!

Well, that is what we called it anyways! Yeah, Ian, the oldest son of our School Media Center Coordinator , or you know, our School Librarian, Keith Dudley, who just so happened to live on the same street that had a "Gate Entrance", just down the road from their house, and yeah! He was how I learned about the TRAIL that they have back by the "Tater Hole", or you know, Lake Hickory!

It's a GREAT trail, you know, for any local Middle School track, and cross-country "Running Club", that needed the "off road" trails to keep the runners safe while out there running around after school!

And yeah, it was Ian Dudley that let me know about the place! So yeah, it became known as the, well, "The Ian Dudley Trail" ... Simple enough.

And yes, we checked, it was OK, and yes, legal, so from then on, oh yeah, I ran the trails quite often with TWENTY (plus!) of my favorite runners in the county on any given day of the week!

Oh yeah, we RAN!

Even had several of my "old track members" join us whenever they were around!

And yes, that "Ian Dudley Hill" was something! Ha!

What a HILL!

Lots of FUN!

And yes! We were always looking for different things to make RUNNING FUN! Like, you know, carrying a small tree that we found, you know, somewhere along the trail!

Haven't thought of that one, ahh, like, in a few years!

And, like I said, there was a "TRAIL" right to the lake! Which yeah, on the last day of TRACK practice, oh yeah, we had our BIG "Orange Sherbert and Oreos" PARTY at the "Tater Hole", every year, and yes, of course!

We had to, you know, GO JUMP IN THE WATER!

When we were all done with the Orange Sherbert and Oreos, that is!

Lots of fun!

And did I mention that GFMS had some pretty good Track teams over the years! Back in the day, yeah, the GIRLS won EIGHT (8) Championships, and the BOYS won TWO (2)!

Which yeah, for a BASEBALL COUNTY, and SCHOOL, yeah, not too bad!

I know I had fun.

And seeing that I didn't retire until I was 62 (SIXTY-TWO!) yeah, I'm paying for it now, or, you know, my KNEES paid for it, that is! But yeah, I still WALK every day, so yeah, I'm good.

But yeah, seeing these images of us out there running ... Great memories!

I even remember having our girl's gym teacher's son, who yes, ran track with me "back in the day", out there with us this day (right up front in the photo with the tattoos!)!

Ahh, and I must add, yeah, he just so happens to be another MARINE!

Yeah, good seeing him in there!

Oh to be YOUNG, and foolish!

I almost remember what that was like!

Get out there, and see what you can come up with!

And yes!

I carried my camera out there with me, at least one day out of every year!

Even had a couple of my College Photography class students join us out there, you know, once or twice, back in the day!

Always a GOOD TIME to be out there RUNNING!

Or walking.

Just saying!

Oh yeah, SEVENTY, is very different than FORTY/FIFTY, or even in my early SIXTIES!

Wouldn't trade it for anything!

Well, there is that whole KNEE thing, but yeah, that goes all the way back to 1974, you know, while trying to get downstairs from my Grandfather's attic, in the dark, and yeah, missing "the hole in the floor" that the stairs just happened to be in!

He had just gotten electricity a couple of years before I lived with him (ahh, which was back in 1972!), and the attic had never gotten any lights put in it!

I just wanted to get downstairs, you know, a "little faster" than going down the other stairs!

My bad!

Tore the ligaments in that very same knee that I had "Scoped Out", what? Just a year, or so ago!

Wore one of those long, straight, cast things for a month, or whatever! Crazy times!

Yeah, that was where it all began!

But hey! It got me through the Marine Corps, Judo in Japan, Karate in Korea, and yes, even adult, tackle football, over there in Germany one year, like what? Back in my mid-thirties? Yeah ... 1988.

And yes! Judo in Japan, and at that college in Brockport, once I found out about their "JUDO CLUB"! Yeah, that was the whole reason I changed over to Brockport State about a month before school started, in the first place!

Yeash, more judo, at twenty-five years old! That was fun!

So yeah, WALKING, at seventy (70), works for me!

Good luck with that ...

See ya!