The Machinery is Turning...

Greetings, Gentle Reader.

I'm just back from the gym, trying to square away the back problem and reawaken muscles that have been dormant since August 17. The back is coming together nicely; the muscles, such as they are, are sound sleepers. This will take some doing.

Say what you will about last year's Big Row...it was done on a shoestring. Peg ran logistics (onion rings in Jersey City, and some TLC in The Garden State), Kathy ran Communications (and shared the onion rings)...and I rowed. Oh...and you pledged.

Gentle Reader, last Wednesday night I learned what happens when The Creature Rescue Community mobilizes to make something happen. In an informal gathering intended to plan the day (Jue 16) by the water, ideas flowed as freely as the Merlot and within an hour, "A Happening"...one destined to be viewed from space...materialized. These Creature People, as I shall call them today, are folks of boundless enthusiasm and enormous creativity. Indeed, as I listened to the ideas flow, I pictured a delightful day at the Inner Harbor where my rowing may well be an afterthought. That's OK, I assured them; if I row past the Pavillion and am met by hundreds of people with their backs to me, I'll know that the day is a success and that at least someone is having a great time. Among the events planned....

We'll experience Flyball , otherwise known as "drag racing for dogs." More on this later - I think Kathy will create a link - but the brochure I saw promises dogs careening through a closed course at breakneck speeds in friendly competition, tongues flapping in the breeze, smiles from ear-to-ear...not unlike the 7th and 8th graders I coach in lacrosse.

We'll have a pet psychic - a "pet communicator," I think it is called (again, more details to come)- able, I suspect, to divine your pet's past and contemplative thoughts. Peg and I are anticipating learning more about our recently-adopted Luke's checkered past. As Ricky used to say to Lucy, he's "got some 'splainin' to do."

There will be pet-oriented displays, consessions, victuals and costumes for the creatures, free coffee (for those of you sporting your natty "Row for Rescue" mugs), as well as information on Recycled Love and the good work they do.

All-in-all, the day promises to be a veritable love-fest for (and of) man and beast, taking place at Rash Field and the Hoffman Pavillion, right along the Inner Harbor. It sounds like fun, even though I'll be seeing it only every 45 minutes or so as I row past.

As I listened to the creative, dedicated Creature People bring together a plan for June 16, I quiety contemplated (between my own Merlots and Sally's cheesy-poofy hors-d'ouvre thing-ies) my own role in the day's events. 75 miles in a day is 13 miles further than my "personal best" in my guideboat. THAT day last August was a killer...up half of the Delaware River (mosty crosswind) and through most of the C&D Canal to a blissful collapse on a dock at midnight. Whatever bullishness I feel about 75 miles on 6/16 assumes that the Inner Harbor route will most likely be calmer, Yoo Hoo will be readily at hand, the pups and Creature People (and maybe you?) will be cheering me on, and (hopefully) I can anticipate better lodgings than a dock at the end of the day's trial.

To that end, I'll be on the water for the first time next weekend. As coaches extraordinaire Bob and Bean Tarrant have told me, "The only way to really get ready for a challenge such as this is to row," and row I will. The big worry is the hands. I had 13 days to administer Secret Sauce and illicit balms to my hands during The Big Row; 6/16 is a one-shot outing, and I'd not like to be rowing with my forearms by Hour 8. In the coming weeks if you see a guy walking the streets of Federal Hill massaging a stick, don't be alarmed: it's just me. Gentle Reader, as I re-read that line, its not a pretty picture.

That's it for now. Just know that The Creature People are on the case, it promises to be a delightful day, and I'll be out there on the water, Rowing for Rescue. In the meantime, check out the Recycled Love site (and other supporting entities as they arrive), pet a pup, and pledge, won't you?

Woof! (And a winsome "meow" for you cat lovers.)

Mr. Frei