We didn't actually get the piece of candy in the mail here in Athens. But we almost did. So it counts.

Now, the particular sender is a graduate student who is training her for second marathon. Although she is in a very good relationship with a fine fellow now, she knows the pain of relationships broken, and ALSO knows how many women and men choose to run marathons in order to get over said pain. In solidarity with those type of marathon runners, like Claire, she writes this following story about the way in which she gave a piece of candy for the good of the world. Go, Karma!

I was going to mail you a piece of candy for your karma project--but it didn't quite work out. It wasn't the most tasty piece of candy. (I didn't actually try it so I should probably say it didn't look like the most tasty piece of candy.) I say this because it looked quite old (not quite 24 but probably older than 5 or 6). I was on mile 7 of a 12 miler last Sunday when I saw this old man raking the trail ahead of me. You know when you run people can usually hear you coming (loud breathing, feet dragging, leaves crunching--you get the point.)

Well this old man,

he played two
he played knick-knack on my shoe
with a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone
this old man came rolling home

(sorry I needed to break out into a song.)

The old man didn't hear me coming so when I said "hi" as I passed him, he just about had a heart attack. He didn't. But I waited another moment to be sure of it. As I was about to start running again he called me over, took out a bag from his pocket, and said "candy!". He had a small bag of those white and red swirled mints. I graciously took one and spent the next mile to decide what to do with it. I thought of running back home with it and sending it to you. But instead I found a garbage can and left it on top for someone else.

Thanks for bearing with my story (it was the second time in two weeks that an old man has given me something to eat, last week it was a strawberry while I was waiting in my car).

And for bearing my song (story time has taken over, luckily I'll be done in 5 weeks)