The Five Hour Breakfast

In short, today was my 4th time out to meet/eat with friend(s) since June 2019. I think I'm averaging almost once every 5 weeks at this point. I nearly set a record of 3 years not going out for coffee or a meal with a friend or businessoccasion... yet, I was drawn out by my former weight coach getting a bunch of us together back in mid-March. This time it was my BFF, Nina Bovio who flew in from Michigan to see me. We had a five hour breakfast at Norm's favorite diner. Yes, started after 10:30 am and left at 3:30pm (my alibi... just in case someone is found murdered... it wasn't me.😁😅)

This October makes it thirty years ago we met in the streets of Detroit... after I'd ran a marathon. I missed the moolaaah/$$$$$$$ by thirty seconds. Little did I know I'd been running with fractures in my back and was beginning to have major issues with my right leg... that was misdiagnosed six times.

We've shared much together through writing letters. Then emails. Hand-written about 9,000 pages or so over the decades. We met nearly bumping into each other, as her friend Joan had recognized me from the year before in Detroit when my limp began increasing at 22.5 miles. Joan on a bike seeing my desperation. I missed qualifying for the 1992 Olympic Trials Marathon by one minute, thirteen seconds ten weeks after I'd fractured my back (not knowing so).

She and Joan in 1992 insisted on taking me out for lunch, then Nina drove me to the airport just four hours after we'd met. We drove and chatted and in the end exchanges hugs and addresses. We wrote practically every week, sometimes 2-3x a week to each other, except for mid-December to early January... She has a huge family.---Jody-Lynn Reicher

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2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm. In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October. Our daughters are doing well, Thank God. Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment. Funny enough when

Sledging the Hammer

"You could have a steam trainIf you'd just lay down your tracks..."---Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' lyrics. This is not the tune that lay in my mind this morning as I reminisced about yesterday's volunteers to help on trail crew. However, as I looked up the proper definition of sledging that song popped up. I say sledging, which is my own take on swinging a hammer that we call a "Double Jack". The Single Jack is six pounds. I know that because our regular crew of five including me and one staff supervisor are handling Harriman State Park Trails, and have to carry about four of those, two shaping hammers, along with a hoist, belay bag with heavy equipment, first aid kit, double Jack, three 18lb rock bars, a lopper, three buckets, three eye to eyes, two burlap straps, two green wrapping straps, two pick Mattox, a roe hoe or two, a bar for either the two ton or one ton hoist, the feathers with pegs for splitting rocks that we drill... s

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.

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