Mile Markers on a Halloween run in Erie
If I had to list some of the best wordsmiths in the last century, George Carlin would be near the top. Not that I’m a huge fan, but he did deliver a slew of memorable lines. One of my favorites of his is more on the subtler side, part of his air travel routine and his broader riff on language:
“I’m not getting on the plane. I’m getting in the plane.”
Erie was the final stop of Lotus’s Halloween run, so that’s where I woke up after driving through the black and yellow from Pittsburgh. When I’m on the road chasing this band, I make a habit of culturing up in any of its forms. In The Steel City, a colorful, aroma-drenched hour at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens—but now, in Erie, water.
Starting point was the third parking lot to the right on the peninsula. Erie also happens to be the third Great Lake I’ve had the privilege of dipping my hands into, after Ontario and Michigan, but that number three is just coincidence. Off with the sweatpants and hoodie. Stretched. And off I went, skipping my usual warm-up walk and following the Presque Isle Bike Trail near the water at a nice clip. The greenery, swaying in the afternoon breeze, urged me to move faster, so I obliged.
I slowed upon reaching an open area with the relocated Erie Waterworks Tower. The sight of the L-shaped ferry dock with a fisherman at the end looked like something out of a Winslow Homer painting, low-hanging clouds emphasizing the resemblance. The lake was undisturbed, exhausted from another evening of being Great, and I wondered if the guy had reeled in a single walleye or yellow perch. Or, at the very least, that whatever problems he had were on the distant shore so he could enjoy the sun and his solitude.
Cars motored by as I cruised past sparse foot traffic. Solid decision going with shorts and a long sleeve, though the quarter zipper was already due south. The kind of day for hanging outside and talking. At length. I’d run two-and-a-half miles with no elevation change, then turned around and headed toward my car on the same route. Guess I should’ve planned a circuit to immerse myself more in the ecosystem, but I made amends by hanging out by the water for 30 minutes. Lake Erie isn’t the end of the world like Key West or Montauk, but the feeling is similar. Everything in front of you, yet nothing in front of you.
Prepositions can be pesky. Overused. The wrong one might have the effect of a misplaced comma or no comma at all—meaning drifts, flow interrupted. Clarity, I think we all want that, and Carlin’s linguistic skills get us closer to it. And as I cooled down and watched the water lap against moss-covered rocks, the sloshes and swishes clearing a speck of my life debris:
I wasn’t running by Lake Erie. I was running with Lake Erie.
We didn’t speak a word to each other, but her presence to me and my attentiveness to her were enough. I’m sure she heard my internal dialogue about how I could see the other two Great Lakes and the difference between being alone and being lonely. That’s called support, and I think we all want that as well. Wasn’t expecting to find a partner, let alone a friend, in Erie, but that’s the way these things go. It’s all natural.