Down The Street Of Dreams-To Be Young Was Very Heaven-Except When You Were Down In The Dregs Of Society Gasping For Air     

By Rav Davis

This hot off the press from one Johnny Allan a high school friend of the legendary high school cross-country runner (and track star but the former is where he excelled) from the 1960s Boomer Cadger out of august North Quincy High School. Earlier this year Bart Webber a guy who ran against Boomer and got nothing but dust and ridicule, no, scorn, from girl classmates, irate motorists, the sex police and your average elderly citizen brushed by these perverts, had written a series of articles about the exploits of this fabled runner. Mostly about how against all odds, meaning new running shoes and old socks which gave him massive blisters he still finished fifth in the World Junior Cross-Country Championships held at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City. About the grit it took to not give up even though Johnny (who had travelled with him) could see in his darkened eyes that he was hurt beyond compare.        

That was the high-side Boomer, the Boomer who was probably born about a decade too soon to have been washed clean by the running revolution that jumped out at everyone come the early 1970s when girls, high school girls too, were no longer ridiculing or scorning runners but having some salacious dreams about them (to the extent that they were not runners themselves a wave that was to accelerate later). Motorists were more than willing to cross the white lines of the highway to give them room to run-“sharing the road with a runner” even. Except for the most rabid holy roller sex police their running in scanty clothing was a sign of liberation and the old folks would stand and marvel at the strides they no longer could do (except a last-minute rush by a few elders much later). What Johnny had to say, why he wanted me to stop the presses was that there was much more to Boomer’s rage to run (rage the right word here ask Bart about when Boomer cranked the hammer down.)

I do believe that Bart mentioned that Boomer’s father was the last of big-time working man’s bar aficionados, including the obligatory periodic “theft” of his pay- check by him to go on a five-day bender. Also that his mother was some kind of backwater junkie living off morphine (first given when there were complications in the birth of Boomer’s oldest sister) paying the freight doing tricks for her fixer man and his allies. Nice right. One would think that under such conditions that he (and siblings) would be the “beneficiaries” of all kinds of madness but no the parents actually directed their angers at the world against each other. The kids were a sideshow. This statutory neglect is what kicked Boomer’s ass, got him out to running around the world.

Boomer was maybe thirteen years old, without sneakers to his name except those bogus tennis shoes you wore in gym to keep the floors from getting scuffed when one desperate August night (Johnny’s word) Boomer couldn’t stand staying in the house. Headed to the “circle” in front of North Quincy High School and ran who knows how many laps. That so-called circle really a triangle was off the roads and in those days “safe” from those murderous motorists and mocking girls. For the rest of the short summer every night he would run in those sullen tennis shoes until they were ragged. That is how some legends were born.      

Once school started Boomer signed up for the junior varsity cross-country team where. as a benefit of membership, he got a pair of what were considered then state of the art running shoes (laughable today). That first year Boomer kind of hung out and hung out and I remember in reading Bart’s article he made mention of the fact that he had actually badly beaten Boomer in the regional meet. That would be the last time, the very last time no matter what Bart did he always seemed to be blowing off dust from the front runner.

A lot of that we know but that “circle” at North Quincy High had much more meaning for the elastic Boomer than a field of dreams. Starting the summer before sophomore year, the year of his break-out locally and state-wide Boomer and Johnny would meet on the steps of the high school and speak of dreams, of little dreams mostly but big ones too. Johnny talked about college or getting his ass out of the Muds, the lowest of the low section of the town, maybe pursuing the law stuff like that. Boomer of course talked endlessly of the world championships (not the Olympics), talked endlessly about getting out of the fucking junkie whore wino haven that was his home. Talked about meeting some young thing and doing everything very different from his woe begotten parents. Small dreams or big the jury went both ways on both men. Funny Johnny told me all three years they spent their summers sitting on the stoop nobody else ever came by, came to speak of their dreams such as they were.