I found out this morning that one of my best friends from elementary school, Dave Graves, passed away yesterday. Dave was a year older than me, and sooo very cool on so many levels. In fact, I could spend a day writing about all the things we did together and the wonderful times we had. But let me at least tell you about something that Im relatively-certain he never mentioned - to anyone. Im an 8th grader at Taft Jr. High. Daves in the 9th grade. And the school decided they would have the first ever - Taft day - which was kind of like a fair, with a cotton candy machine, popcorn machine, games for us to play, and some individual athletic events - everything outside behind the school, where our gigantic school field was. One of the individual events was the 100 yard dash. Now, like most of the kids at school that day, none of us had any idea what Taft Day would entail, including a 100 yard dash race. But as soon as I heard that there was going to be a race - I started looking for Dave. Because, in addition to being one of the best-looking buddies of mine (my mom thought he was extremely handsome), Dave was also the fastest runner Id ever met - and I mean blazing fast. This used to kill our good buddy Gary Cox - because Gary was a sensational baseball player (MVP Pony League) but like all the rest of us, he couldnt come close to Daves natural gift for running. Anyway...I go looking for Dave, found him, and said theyre having a school-wide 100 yard dash race - and youre running in it! He wasnt crazy about the idea, but I said - baloney - youre doing it (of course, Gary said he wanted to run in the race too). Fast forward: so about 20 kids line-up, and as I knew would happen - Dave blew all of them away (at least two strides ahead of the next nearest runner at the finish). And to this day, what REALLY blew my mind then and now, was the fact that everyone else who ran in the race, had gone into the boys locker room to put on their gym shoes. Dave? He set a record that stood for 30+ years...running in street shoes. My deepest condolences to the Graves family. Rest in peace Dave. Kit
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:25:02 +0000
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