Maria Montessori School

Early this morning on our way to Maria Montessori School we passed a very large glass pyramid build on the side of the Mississippi River in Memphis. We were very impressed with its design.

After we arrived at the school, we met principal Maria Cole. She brought us into one of the school rooms full of little children. Maria then rang a golden bell and one by one the children made their way to the school grounds.

We performed a short act for the children entitled, " A day in the life of a World Harmony Runner". The children responded very nicely.

We passed the torch in silence to each child, allowing them to imagine world harmony.

Finally, we ran with the children in waves and finished with a short run along the river with Mr. Fletcher—the outdoor teacher—and 12 to 15 children. It was a most enthusiastic run of about 2 miles.

Maria

Bulgaria

Stage Fright

Today Damon and I had some unexpected experiences in store for us. We started out from Millington Tennessee which is just north of Memphis. We were separated from the rest of the team for the night as they were settled in Memphis. So it happened that two programs in the area were to be conducted by us, a couple of inexperienced spokesmen for the World Harmony Run.

9:00 a.m. We headed north on Highway 51 with a slight feeling of dread that was not lightened by the gloomy overcast skies that rained down on us. Damon and I are perhaps the least outspoken people on the team, and I was not comfortable with the idea of being a main actor in presenting our World Harmony Team to anybody. We were scheduled to be speaking at a high school in the town of Ripley, which we had no address or directions to. When we reached the town we called our contact Cindy and asked her how to get to the school. She decided to come out and meet us at the gas station where we were calling her from and have us follow her to the school.

When Cindy arrived at Citgo we followed her to the school, and when we arrived she made arrangements to have the kids assembled in the gymnasium. We asked her about how many students we would be presenting to and were shocked to hear “We have 850 kids in our school”. This was the first we’d heard of this and the numbers were absolutely daunting to the mind, but by this time I was already numbed solely from the prospect of presenting period. We had to make do so I did what I could to bring forth all of my confidence and enthusiasm and to accept my fate with a cheerful and grateful attitude. After all, they were only thirteen and fourteen year olds, how bad could it be. We warned Cindy that it would only be the two of us presenting and that we weren’t very well prepared. She replied that if we did a half an hour program we would do just fine. Again I was dumbfounded. What could we possibly do to stretch the program out to that length of time? We had no program at all really and were just planning on winging it or flying blindly.

10:00 a.m. We sat in the school lobby as classroom after classroom filed into the gymnasium and I read over some of our literature from the brochure to fill my mind with the concepts and jargon of the World Harmony Run. I was a slight bit nervous but mostly anticipant of getting in there and doing our job. When the young tikes were through passing by us and making faces or some remark about the Harmony Torch, we rose from our seats to enter into the cauldron of the unknown and to carefully speak our words.

I didn’t get nervous until right after Cindy introduced us, as we were walking to the front of the assembly to receive the microphone. I wasn’t terribly nervous but my pulse quickened noticeably and I recognized the other tense type of feelings that come with nervousness, such as the “butterflies in the stomach effect”. But I had it under control and it didn’t hinder my performance so much.

Damon introduced himself and the main ideals of the team and then I followed with a bit of a geography lesson of our route through America. I spoke also about some of my personal experiences on the run and about the basic philosophy of our approach to achieving world harmony through our activities. The kids were alternately noisy and hush. If there was a pause for more than a second some would begin to chatter, others would laugh, and others yet would outright holler with glee while the noise grew to a loud roar due to their numbers and the acoustics of the auditorium. As a result, I couldn’t even hear myself speaking through the microphone over the cacophony of adolescent larynx. I tried to get the children involved by asking them questions but it turned into a disaster each time because I couldn’t hear their answers and everybody began speaking at once much to my dismay. Nonetheless, some of their questions were understood and answered.

Damon and I passed the microphone back and forth throwing new and fresh ideas and information at the children as if to fend them off and when they became visibly restless Cindy snatched the mike and chided the children warning a certain group that they’d better shut up and listen. It was pure drollery, really it wasn’t so bad and it was a refreshing experience for me to do this type of service, especially because it forced me to expand myself and to create a new aspect of my character. The kids were also behaving perfectly according to their age and situation, it was a delight to be there in the midst of the seventh and eighth grade lives.

The program was coming to a close and we gave them our website address as a last resort. The kids were ready for their lunch and dispersed to make way for the lunchroom where sat already the problem children that, unfortunately, were not allowed to attend our presentation. We took some photos with a group of girls and then with the principal of the school.

Next we ran from their school with the torch and a kid in tow. Cindy had arranged to bring 18 kids out to run with us through their town and they each ran a quarter mile with either Damon or myself. We had a nice run and met many of the aspiring youngsters of the school.

We are very grateful to Cindy for organizing this event and look forward to doing it again next year. Hopefully we’ll be more prepared.

Yours,

Erik

Chicago

A Covington Visit

As we travel from town to town and state to state the landscape is constantly changing. It had changed so much that that I was surprised to find that after the flat and dry Mississippi delta we were running in green rolling hills in Tennessee.

On the southern city limits of Covington, Erik and I met local runners Eileen Miller, Michael Hill, Emily Richardson and Amy Payne. We were most grateful to be escorted by Capt. Glass, Lt. Wilson and Sgt. Willis of the Covington police as we ran within the town. We ran to the Covington Sportplex where we were greeted by Mayor David Gordon and Aldermen Shelvie Rose, Tommy Black, Ed Timberlake and Bill Scruggs. Mayor Scruggs stated most eloquently that in today’s world we seem to be focusing far more on our differences than on our similarities. We are however far more similar than we are different and this should be what we concentrate on.

He beautifully encapsulated the message and spirit of the Harmony Run and wished us all the best for our coming miles. We were presented with a (giant) gift basket—filled with T-shirts, candy, fruit, pens, pencils and granola bars—and a case of water, before we ran with the runners under police escort to the northern city limit. It really is receptions like this that make the Harmony Run a wonderful experience, meeting people and visiting places with such great receptivity.

A really big thank you to Amy Payne for coordinating the event, to all the runners who joined us, to Mayor Gordon and Aldermen and to the Covington police.

Damon

New Zealand

Dyersburg Does It Again

Running north out of Memphis today from our ending point at Graceland last night, the rains came quickly to keep us cool and wet. Salil had the first 10 mile portion of our 30 mile, three man team, as he braved all the rain and city traffic while Michal and I were his handlers. For all the Elvis fans reading this, having started at Graceland and the little village of shops dedicated to Elvis including his private airplane and then running past Sun studios a bit further north where Elvis recorded some of his music, our tour of Memphis was quite nostalgic.

One of a few memorable encounters on my ten mile run was with a reporter, A.J.Wolfe, from the Commercial Appeal Memphis based newspaper. He saw me running down the highway with a torch and decided to take photos and find out what was going on. He himself is a marathon runner who just happily qualified for the Boston Marathon next year. He was overjoyed about discovering us on the road, a bunch of marathoners running for World Harmony. The next morning, we found a photo and a nice caption by A.J. in the ‘Memphis and Region’ section of the newpaper.

After our morning run, our team of three went to Dyersburg to the Intermediate School for a ceremony with about 300 fourth grade children and some of the teachers, the principal Mrs. Lou Newbill, and a counselor Bart Williams who organized some of the children to run with us afterwards. Terra Temple of the State Gazette newspaper was also there to cover such a nice event with the children and staff. After an exciting lap around the gymnasium led by Mr. Bart, as the children refer to him, we headed out for a 1.8 mile run (about 3 Km) on the roads of Dyersburg. Of the eight children who ran with us, a few ran the whole way, which I find amazing for children that young.

Later that day in Dyersburg, we met with Mayor Bill Revell, who at 75 years could be mistaken for someone at least 20 years younger. He has been Mayor of Dyersburg for 24 years and he has been jogging for at least that long. He wanted to jog with us through his town as he has done three times before on other torch relay runs. This is the third time I have had the privilege to run with Bill through Dyersburg and I must say it is an honor I will always remember. Bill, at 75 year young, is the oldest runner, mayor or otherwise, who has run a few miles with us on this or other runs. His wife Sherrie and their daughter Janie Helm, along with ‘Little Bit’,their miniature schnawser ‘puppy dog’, followed along in the car. We had a police escort and were joined by another group of young runners and their chaperone, for the first mile or so. Mayor Revell could have kept going even after we stopped at three miles, but our time was running for such a long and busy day ‘on the road’. We did have a few more minutes to spend with the Mayor and his lovely wife Sherrie for a little tour of the City Hall and Bill’s office. They presented us with keys to the city, making our experiences in Dyersburg even more memorable.

As we head out on the road covering 90 to 100 miles a day, we will always remember the miles we ran through Dyersburg with the children and their wonderful Mayor, Bill Revell. It is heartwarming to know that in a small city such as this there could emanate such amazing energy of harmony and love for the world.

Arpan

New York

Special Thanks

We would like to thank The Country Hearth Inn for providing us with a terrific place to stay. And escape the looming rain, which fortunately only fell in the morning.

We would also like to thank Quiznos for once again providing their excellent subs for our lunch.

And finally, thank you to Lepanto Family Restaurant Buffet for providing us with a wonderful dinner buffet.

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