A gray mist shroud­ed a sea of bob­bing heads crawl­ing past the Mile 23 sign. A sinewy ancient man wear­ing plaid Bermu­da shorts, black nylon socks, and orange ten­nis shoes clumped along beside me. His iron-gray hair cinched in a pony­tail, his leather face lined with a thou­sand creas­es, his every breath whistling like a tea ket­tle, he rasped in a singsong, sand­pa­per voice, “Run for the mon­ey, wheeze-wheeze, run for the gold, wheeze-wheeze, run till you’re o–o–o–old, wheeze-wheeze.” He flashed a taunt­ing grin at me, picked up his pace, and dis­ap­peared into the crowd up ahead.

By then, I felt no shame in los­ing a footrace to Zom­bie-Man. What­ev­er sem­blance of ath­let­ic pride I’d car­ried to the start­ing gate of the fif­teenth Los Ange­les Marathon flat-lined at Mile 21 when a sledge­ham­mer of fatigue slammed me in the chest. From there on, I plod­ded for­ward in a crab-like, mus­cle-cramped gait, my legs filled with gelati­nous sludge, my arms stone-heavy pet­ri­fied fos­sils, each breath heaved through a pin­hole in a plas­tic bag draped over my head and tied tight­ly around my neck. A vast herd of run­ners of all ages, shapes, and sizes passed me by – fat lit­tle kids, bone-thin octo­ge­nar­i­ans, a mid­dle-aged squat­ty man with a rotund beer-bel­ly, an old lady push­ing a Dachs­hund in a baby stroller, a cow­boy wear­ing a ten-gal­lon hat and snake-skin boots, twin Elvis imper­son­ators run­ning side by side. I didn’t care. After I hit THE WALL, excru­ci­at­ing pain crowd­ed out all thoughts and feel­ings except for my des­per­ate goal, a long-held dream, now a gasp­ing night­mare, of tee­ter­ing across a marathon’s fin­ish line.

This death march went down on March 5, 2000. I was 52. Thir­ty years ear­li­er, I’d tak­en up run­ning in col­lege to relieve stress and kept it up through­out my work­ing life. I wasn’t fast, but I could run a long way at a slow pace. Some­where along the line, the dream of com­plet­ing a marathon got ahold of me, but my work sched­ule couldn’t accom­mo­date the rig­or­ous train­ing required. Sud­den­ly faced with an abun­dance of free time when I left Safe­way in Jan­u­ary, I signed up for the LA Marathon.

Being a slow run­ner, I set a snail-paced goal of fin­ish­ing in 5 hours, an easy 11¾ minute per mile jog. Expe­ri­enced marathon­ers rec­om­mend at least four months of train­ing, five “short” runs on week­days, begin­ning with 4 miles build­ing up to 10, and one long run on the week­end, start­ing with 10 miles and end­ing with 20-plus. I’d been run­ning a cou­ple miles a day for years so I thought I could be ready in half the time. The eight weeks flew by, but I reached the 10-mile week-day stan­dard and made it up to 18 miles on the weekend.

On March 5 at 7:30 am, 20,000 run­ners gath­ered in the start­ing pen on Figueroa Street in a tor­ren­tial down­pour. I stood at the back of the pack, peer­ing through the mon­soon at May­or Rior­dan, perched on an ele­vat­ed plat­form at the start­ing line. Laugh­ing mani­a­cal­ly, his hel­met of thin­ning white hair sop­ping wet, he shout­ed into a bull horn, “Wel­come to sun­ny Cal­i­for­nia” and fired the start­ing gun.

I was so far back I couldn’t move for a while, and even when the run­ners ahead of me lurched for­ward, I could only slow-walk. About fifty yards past the start­ing point, I final­ly had enough space to break into a trot.

Fol­low­ing Runner’s World magazine’s advice for first-time marathon­ers, I set­tled into a slow pace for the first half-marathon. I thought the rain would make the going more dif­fi­cult, but it turned out to be an advan­tage. The tem­per­a­ture lev­eled off at a com­fort­able 60 degrees; my light­weight par­ka kept me dry; and my Nike’s flicked the water away.

As we ran through down­town, peo­ple clad in rain gear lined the streets. “Keep going! You’re doing great!” Vol­un­teers at the USC Col­i­se­um hand­ed us cups of water and shout­ed encour­age­ment. Far­ther on, some­one bugled a cav­al­ry charge from a sec­ond-floor apart­ment win­dow. At Mile 8, light­ning struck, and thun­der boomed. We all gasped, then cheered, and ran on.

Crest­ing a lit­tle hill at Mile 11, we came upon the red-and-blue flash­ing lights of an ambu­lance. Para­medics sur­round­ed a run­ner down on his back in the street. Sin­gle-mind­ed­ly focused on run­ning the race, none of us stopped. We didn’t even slow down.

The rain light­ened at the halfway mark. In the cool mist, I kicked into over­drive. On a runner’s high, I ran sev­en-minute miles through Han­cock Park, pumped uphill to Hol­ly­wood, and sped back down toward the heart of the city, cruis­ing through Miles 17, 18, and 19.

Then the ter­rain lev­eled off. I start­ed to feel strange. Hol­lowed out. Numb. In the mid-Wilshire Dis­trict, the course took a sharp turn, but my rub­bery legs kept going straight. To force my strides to make a wide arc to the left, I had to lean side­ways at a thir­ty-degree angle like a guy on a motorcycle.

To the naked eye, the grade mov­ing along Wilshire Boule­vard toward down­town looks flat. It is not. There is a one-degree lift. I know this because run­ning 21 miles gives you a whole new def­i­n­i­tion of steep. Run­ning over that slight, almost imper­cep­ti­ble incline felt like scal­ing Mount Ever­est with­out an oxy­gen tank.

All the peo­ple I had passed in my speed-run since the halfway mark, plus thou­sands more, over­took me, includ­ing Zom­bie-Man. I couldn’t keep up with any of them. Each tor­tur­ous step required a supreme act of will. I slowed to a walk, then stopped and leaned over, prop­ping my hands on my knees. I thought I was done.

A woman on the side­lines shout­ed to me. “Don’t give up!” Oth­ers chimed in. “Keep going! You can do it! Dig deep!” A run­ner going past me pat­ted me on the back, “Come on, bud­dy. We’re almost there.”

A short stout lady trot­ted by me. I gazed at black let­ters on the back of her yel­low t–shirt. “IT’S NOT THE DISTANCE. IT’S YOU.” My blur­ry brain strug­gled to assim­i­late the message.

Riv­et­ing my eyes to those words, I leaned for­ward and fell into a painful, stag­ger­ing jog. Through Miles 24, 25, and 26, when the t–shirt’s let­ters grew small­er, I’d reach way down and some­how find the strength to reel them in. They’d fade again, and I’d bring them back. Again and again, they pulled me forward.

The last 385 yards. Down­hill. Thank you, Jesus.

At the inter­sec­tion of Figueroa and Wilshire, a team of men from Lit­tle Tokyo wear­ing white and red head­bands pound­ed big drums, an upbeat boom, boom, boom. A race offi­cial with binoc­u­lars perched on a cat­walk iden­ti­fied run­ners by the num­bers pinned to our jer­seys and called out names. “Ken Oder, San Mari­no,” boomed over the loudspeaker.

I made a left turn, motor­cy­cle style, onto Flower Street. Thir­ty steps to go.

A dig­i­tal timer hung over the fin­ish line. Big red num­bers, 4:59:53 and ticking.

I tried to sprint. I could not.

I stum­bled across the line at 5:00:05.

A race proc­tor draped a foil blan­ket over my shoul­ders. He clipped from my shoelace the microchip they had sent us to record our times at the start­ing line, var­i­ous check­points, and the fin­ish line. Then he guid­ed me to a grassy bank where I col­lapsed. Lying there cramped up, depressed that I’d missed my goal by five sec­onds, and exhaust­ed beyond all imag­i­na­tion, I vowed nev­er to run anoth­er marathon.

A few days lat­er a pack­age from the race offi­cials came in the mail. My com­put­er chip deduct­ed the time it took me to reach the start­ing line. My offi­cial time was 4:56:06. I’d beat­en my goal. No mat­ter that 6,990 run­ners fin­ished ahead of me, I was elated.

In two weeks, the sore­ness eased off. I start­ed run­ning again, a cou­ple miles a day. In June, I upped it to 5, then 8 in August. In Sep­tem­ber I ran 15 miles on a week­end day.

I felt good. Real good.

Maybe I wouldn’t hit the wall with a full train­ing reg­i­men. Maybe I could break 4 hours.

On March 4, 2001, a cool day with a light mist, I ran LA XVI. I hit the wall, but not as hard. My time was 4:25:29, a 30-minute improve­ment. I fig­ured if I could lop 30 min­utes off my time each year, I’d break the world record when I turned 62, so I signed up for LA XVII.

I didn’t break the world record. I couldn’t even break 4 hours, but I kept try­ing. After all, it’s not the dis­tance. It’s you.

Last week I was rum­mag­ing around in a clos­et where we keep toys for our grand­kids’ vis­its when I found a brown ted­dy bear at the bot­tom of a card­board box. I was sur­prised to find him there. He and I go back a long way, but I hadn’t seen him in years. I car­ried him to the bed, sat down, and looked him over. Mem­o­ries flood­ed over me.

Decem­ber 25, 1951. Dad woke me from a deep sleep. “San­ta Claus came last night,” he said. He helped me out of bed and led me into the liv­ing room.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. On a sheet of ply­wood propped up on wood­en crates, a sil­ver loco­mo­tive pulled a coal car, oil tanker, cat­tle car, and caboose round and round an oval track. Next to the elec­tric train, a shiny red Radio Fly­er scoot­er stood on its kick­stand. In front of our tree sat a push-ped­al Castel­li farm trac­tor. Beside it, a palomi­no hob­by horse with a cow­boy suit draped over the saddle.

I was rac­ing around the room when Mom’s voice broke through my buzz of excite­ment. “Look over here, Kenny.” 

Sit­ting in a chair by a win­dow, Mom held in her lap a black ter­ri­er pup­py with a big red bow around his neck. He wagged his tail and whined. I ran toward him, tripped over a foot­stool, and fell at Mom’s feet. The pup­py sprang from her lap and jumped all over me, lick­ing my face. He was my first dog. I named him Nicky.

There were many oth­er gifts under our tree that morn­ing, includ­ing a brown ted­dy bear.

My par­ents must have sac­ri­ficed great­ly to make that Christ­mas so spe­cial for me. Dad and Mom weren’t dirt-poor back then, but they were far from rich. Our house was a lit­tle box sit­ting on a small lot cut out of a pine for­est. It didn’t have indoor plumb­ing. We hand-pumped our water from a well and braved the cold in win­ter to do our busi­ness in an out­house behind our chick­en coop. Dad made a liv­ing sell­ing a Hud­son or two a month out of our back­yard. Those sales put food on the table and paid the bills, but there couldn’t have been much left over to fund a fan­cy Christ­mas. And yet I got every­thing a rich kid could want that morning.

I was a lit­tle boy back then, too excit­ed to care how my par­ents felt about giv­ing me those gifts, but I know now, from my own feel­ings about my son’s first Christ­mas, how much that morn­ing meant to them. I was their first child, and at that point still their only child, and that was the first Christ­mas I was old enough to under­stand the mag­ic of San­ta Claus. Their reward for their sac­ri­fice was my unbri­dled joy, and to them it was priceless.

That was the hap­pi­est Christ­mas of my child­hood. I was four years old.

When Jack­ie Paper was a lit­tle boy, he played with Puff the mag­ic drag­on in the imag­i­nary won­der­land of Honah Lee. A drag­on lives for­ev­er. Not so with lit­tle boys. Jack­ie grew up and came to Honah Lee to play with Puff no more.

My elec­tric train broke down. We packed it up in a box and shoved it to the back of the clos­et. A bicy­cle replaced the shiny red scoot­er and the trac­tor. I out­grew the hob­by horse and cow­boy suit. And unlike Puff, Nicky didn’t live for­ev­er, except in my heart.

Only the brown ted­dy bear defied the leg­end of Honah Lee. When I out­grew him, I passed him on to my broth­ers. Mom kept him when they left home and years lat­er gave him to my son. When my son set him aside, my daugh­ters picked him up, and when they left home, we stowed him in a clos­et. Cindy and I moved ten times after that, three of them cross-coun­try from coast to coast. Although we took no spe­cial care to hang on to the lit­tle old bear, he some­how sur­vived all of that.

As I sat on the bed star­ing at him, the many hap­py Christ­mases of my youth came back to me, includ­ing my last Christ­mas at home with Mom, Dad, and my broth­ers. I was twen­ty, home on hol­i­day break from UVA. Dad had been the preach­er at Mount Mori­ah Methodist Church in White Hall, Vir­ginia, for six years. Every year the church gave bas­kets of food and box­es of toys to poor fam­i­lies on Christ­mas Eve. I’d nev­er joined the church mem­bers on the trips to deliv­er gifts. I always had a date or a par­ty to attend, some­thing fun to do, but that year Dad insist­ed I go along. 

Sulk­ing, I rode shot­gun in his Ram­bler as we led a car­a­van of church mem­bers’ cars and pick­up trucks over a wind­ing dirt road. We stopped in front of a falling-down, one-room shack sit­ting on the edge of the woods. We got out, grouped up by the side of the road, and sang Silent Night.

The shack’s door opened. John­ny Sipe stood in the door­way. In his ear­ly twen­ties, short and heavy­set, with dark sunken eyes, he did his best to main­tain a tight, twitchy smile as we sang the car­ol. His bone-thin pale girl­ish wife stood behind him, peek­ing timid­ly over his shoul­der. A few vers­es into Silent Night, she retreat­ed inside the shack and sat on the edge of a bed. In the flick­er­ing can­dle­light, I could bare­ly see two lit­tle faces star­ing at us, the bed cov­ers pulled up to their chins. 

No elec­tric­i­ty, I thought. No heat.

When we fin­ished singing, John­ny stepped down off the stoop into the yard. The church mem­bers formed a cir­cle around him and placed the gift bas­kets and box­es of toys at his feet. “Mer­ry Christ­mas,” Dad said. 

John­ny fought back tears. “Y’all are good to help us. We been havin a rough go of it –” His voice broke. He swal­lowed hard. “I’m tryin’ awful hard, preach­er,” he said, “but noth­in’ works.” He low­ered his head and wept soft­ly, his shoul­ders shaking.

Frank Abel stood beside him. Frank was a dairy farmer in his fifties, tough and strong, but one of the kind­est, nicest men I’ve ever known. He put his arm around John­ny. John­ny grabbed Frank, buried his face in Frank’s neck, and sobbed. Frank hugged him for a long time.

I knew then why Dad made me come along that Christ­mas Eve.

Most every­thing Cindy and I tried worked out for us. Some of that was because of effort and tal­ent; some of it was because some­one helped us climb out of a hole; and some of it was because each time we pushed all the chips into the mid­dle of the table and bet against the odds, we won.

My old ted­dy bear’s not in great shape. The fur has worn off around his nose. The cloth cov­er­ing his hands and feet wore away and the stitch­ing hold­ing his back togeth­er came apart. Mom sewed him up, but most of his stuff­ing had already leaked out and his arms and legs went limp. He can’t stand or sit up straight, but he’s still with me, the last remain­ing rel­ic of a per­fect Christ­mas when the lit­tle boy inside me still played in an imag­i­nary wonderland.

Yes­ter­day, as I wrote this, I dust­ed off the lit­tle bear and put him in an hon­ored place on my book­shelf in my office beside two of my favorite things, a toy repli­ca of a Hud­son and a fin­ger­paint­ing that says, “I LOVE PAPAW,” both Christ­mas gifts, one from my daugh­ter, the oth­er from my granddaughter.

There’s noth­ing I can write about the con­trast between Johnny’s Christ­mases and mine that hasn’t been said many times, and I’m not a preach­er, like my dad. I’ll mere­ly state the obvi­ous, what we all know, but too often for­get. Many of us are blessed, and many are not. We, the for­tu­nate, should extend a help­ing hand when­ev­er we can, not just dur­ing the hol­i­days, but all the time.

Post Script: I changed Johnny’s name for this piece. The real John­ny worked as a farm­hand for sev­er­al of the men who deliv­ered gifts to him that Christ­mas Eve, but I don’t think things improved much for him and his fam­i­ly. They still lived in that shack when I moved away from White Hall. I don’t know what became of them after that.