(2011)

Being Passed by The Little Fellow Who Follows Me

Twenty-two Decembers ago, upon the birth of my son, legendary basketball coach John Wooden sent me a copy of a poem he had been presented in 1936 when his own son was born.

My “Little Fellow” many years ago during a youth cross-country race.

It is titled, “A Little Fellow Follows Me,” and begins:

     A careful man I want to be,

     A little fellow follows me;

     I dare not to go astray,

     For fear he’ll go the self-same way.

I re-read the poem often, and especially each Father’s Day, and think of that littler fellow every day – even as my own not-so-little fellow has grown six-feet-three-inches tall. I especially was reminded of the poem recently when he and I went on a run together.

Like most father’s and sons, we play basketball in the driveway and catch in the park, but The Little Fellow Who Follows Me especially likes to run.

No. Loves to run. Always has. He even wrote a poem in the second grade that said so, titled: “I Am A Boy Who Loves To Run.”

I am not sure where this pedestrian passion comes from. Track and cross country were never my sports. Or my two older brothers’ sports. Or my dad’s.

But they are my son’s. Instead of posters and pictures of Peyton manning and Shaquille O’Neal, his boyhood bedroom wall is plastered with ones of U.S. Olympic distance running legends Steve Prefontaine and Billy Mills and Deena Kastor.

* * *

     I cannot once escape his eyes,

     Whatever he sees me do, he tries;

     Like me he says he’s going to be,

     The little chap who follows me.

Greg representing USC on the track with true “Fight On!” spirit.

My son is much too fast for me these days – he was a four-year walk-on for the University of Southern California Track & Field team and Distance Captain last season as a senior. His event was the 5,000 meters with some 1,500s. Now we only run together occasionally when he is home on a break from running his nonprofit organization Give Running www.giverunning.org and has an “easy” day training for road races. Indeed, even though I am fast enough to have qualified for the Boston Marathon, his “easy” runs are my speed workouts just trying to keep up with him!

But we used to run together a lot. In fact, The Little Chap Who Follows Me actually would run next to me. We talked a lot. Actually, he did. Me, I mostly listened.

He would tell me about his friends, about school, about video games, about what moves he would make if he coached the Lakers.

Our running conversations also included a lot of questions. Usually his. Often they made me laugh out loud. Like, “Was Gramps really a kid once?”

And, “Is Mom growing shorter?”

“What?”

“Dad, I really think she’s shrinking!”

“No, I think you’re just growing taller.”

“Oh yeah, I guess so.”

You can see why I always savored running with The Little Fellow Who Follows Me, even when the pace was slower than I’d like to keep him from actually following me. Admittedly, I knew this wouldn’t last long. Indeed, like his shrinking mother, his dad is growing slower.

More than that, The Little Fellow also simply became a faster fellow who at age 11 ran a 5:37 mile, broke 20 minutes in the 5K and competed in the cross country nationals in his age group.

* * *

     He thinks that I am good and fine,

     Believes in every word of mine;

     The base in me he must not see,

     The little chap who follows me.

I specifically, and fondly, remember one magical day 11 years ago – I know the year because it’s in my running diary, the memory preserved like a pressed rose in a scrapbook. The Little Chap Who Follows Me wanted to go on a 3-mile run. When we reached the turnaround point, I was struggling not to be The Old Man Who Follows Him.

Slowly, but methodically, The Little Chap Who Follows Me took the lead and widened it.

When he finally sensed that I was no longer with him, he turned around and came back for me. I told him to go ahead and I’d meet him at the park, but he would have none of that and ran alongside me at my pace the rest of the way.

I had envisioned this watershed day coming, the day when I couldn’t keep up – but not for a few more years I thought.

I thought wrong. Indeed, it was no fluke.

A couple days later, we went for a run in the hills and again I struggled to keep pace. Midway up “The Long Monster Hill That Makes Your Legs Burn,” as he has nicknamed this stretch of heartbreak road, I breathlessly insisted that The Little Fellow Who Follows Me go on ahead and wait for me at the top.

* * *

     I must remember as I go,

My not-so-little “Little Fellow” and me.

     Through summer’s sun and winter’s snow;

     I am building for the years to be

     That little chap who follows me.

With the summer’s-like sun setting behind the mountains, I finally crested the Monster Hill long after The Little Chap Who Follows Me did.

When I at last came into his view, he waved at me and smiled a big smile that seemed equal parts I-missed-you-Dad and pride. My pride was even greater. It is a mental snapshot I will remember as I go through the rest of my summer suns and winter snows.

Running, of course, is just a metaphor. My 11-year-old son’s flying Nikes as he effortlessly sailed up The Long Monster Hill That Makes Your Legs Burn and left me behind were a reminder of time’s winged flight, that The Little Fellow Who Follows Me wouldn’t be little for long.

Yes, figuratively I had glimpsed the future, and it is as it should be. Sons should grow taller and faster and stronger and more talented than their dads. And handsomer and funnier and wiser, too.

In short, become better.

Become, also, careful men with their own little fellows who follow them.

Until then, The Little Fellow Who Follows Me, now 22, gets to lead me. And I could not be happier.