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Just for the Hill of It
By Jake Wren
Wow! Saturday's 2021 "Just for the
Hill of It!" Syringa Hospice's bike challenge was a grand success! It
caused me to look back to my article printed in Cottonwood's Chronicle,
titled LET PREEDOM RING, dated 5/22/1984. Before
noting particulars from the event held Saturday, June 5 on Old
Whitebird grade, the following excerpts from that '84 article fits
Saturday well!"It's an incredible thing the Bloomsday 10K 'fun run' held in Spokane... 35,000 people braving rain, 30+degree weather ... all just to put themselves through 7.5 miles of pavement pounding torture... From the start, the annual Bloomsday event is incredibly impressive. Imagine 35,000 runners backed by an estimated 50,000 well wishers crushed together in a three-street area! Not only did everyone find their way, but amazingly the event started on time! The first gun sent two dozen or so wheel chaired 'runners' headed down the course.... 15 minutes later, the 2nd pistol sent a second seething river of humanity down the three-street course. Finally, a third gun sent the rest of the crowded mass on their way! 35 minutes later, a loney figure leads the way to the finish line... and from that moment on a literal tidal wave of old and young...with red face and blistered feet cross the finish line over the next 2.5 hours... But even more incredible is the comradeship seen in this event. In a country troubled by drugs and crime and hate... this 'Bloomsday Thing' is like a new clean breath of invigorating mountain air! Finally let us think about the insight Bloomsday gives into the soul of America,,, For beneath it all lies the solid fact that America is not dead and may not go the way of the Romans after all! For what it says is that the average citizen of this land of ours is not the pampered selfish individual so often portrayed by the daily news." "The Hill of It" bike challenge is not Bloomsday! But myself and all others there, contestants and spectators alike, will testify that the same impression was left by the 40 or so bike riders who climbed the 13 mile long up hill course from Hammer Crick to the top of old Highway 95! You owe it to yourself to note the names and times recorded by these impressive local Americans! So watch the local news and papers for information in the next few days and weeks!
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