Nice post about Dara Torres the other day by my colleague and new neighbor Sue Katz on her Consenting Adult blog. I couldn't help but respond:
Still in the process of furnishing my new apartment, I contacted Sue when she posted a comfortable but lightweight and portable chair on FreeCycle. Serendipity. Not only is it a great chair, but it turns out Sue and I are both members of the Boston chapter of the National Writers Union (UAW/AFLCIO), and activist indie writers with plenty else to discuss. Now is that fairly cool, or not?
Great post. Your mention of Title IX athletes becoming a new generation of Master's athletes tickled a self-referential memory and some related whimsy. As a rookie teacher at a Marshfield middle school in 1973, I landed the extra plum of an after-school gig as cross-country coach. They meant "boys' cross-country coach," but nowhere was that spelled out. So I went to the administration and won permission to make the team co-ed, and a dozen girls came out. They couldn't run a mile without losing their lunches the first week, but by November the girls won the New England AAU age-group championships. They are all "masters" now, and it is nice to think that some may still be running, or coaching, or at the very least getting a kick out of watching Dara Torres.