Mariah, the kids and I just spent some time over on Virginia’s Eastern Shore – it is where Mariah is from – doing the ordinary things one does as a dad on vacation:  pulling splinters (“It is best to wear shoes next time you are on the dock…”), picking up pizza, etc.
In the course of these ordinary things, I noticed something remarkable...ordinary Americans.
As I was driving north up the main highway to pick up a pizza, I happened to notice a bicyclist with a bicycle trailer heading south.  And, behold, when came I south with the pizza, the bicyclist was on the side of the road fiddling with his tire.
 
I stopped to see if I could help and, to make a long story short, I had bumped into a father/son team who were out running.  That is, they were running from Maine to Florida.

Yes, this team of Roger and Hogan Marquis from Old Town, Maine, were running 1,400 miles to help raise money for cancer research.  They were making about 50 miles a day with the father, Roger, running about 28-31 miles and the son covering the balance.  They had 28 days to make the distance.
 
Their story was remarkable.  I offered Hogan and his dad a place to stay in the spare bedroom of where we were staying…it is sort of the least we could do for folks who on foot were covering more distance than I care to drive.
 
They dubbed this their “Wicked Long Run” and, what is most remarkable to me is in addition to each essentially running a marathon every day for a month, they are providing all the logistics themselves.  The person who wasn’t running would ride the bicycle and be support, research logistics, charge phone batteries at fast food places, etc.  
 
Most nights they are camping behind gas stations or in fields.  They plan their route via their smart phones.  Facebook and blog updates (wickedlongrun.blogspot.com) are made remotely.  They buy their Gatorade at stores along the way.
 
While their mission is quite remarkable, Roger and Hogan in many ways are simply ordinary folks.  Roger does quality control at a GE plant that makes turbine rotors in Maine.  Hogan is in his final year of college studying to be a teacher.
 
The next morning, after driving Roger and Hogan to the starting point, I went to get a cup of coffee.  I starting talking to the proprietor of the coffee shop and discovered that she had two master degrees in fisheries management and knew a heck of a lot of practical information about fish populations.  She had served as the mid-Atlantic director of the National Marine Fisheries Department.  After having gotten frustrated with years of the federal government’s proclivity to cherry pick data that paints an overly pessimistic picture, she quit and started a business.
 
This country is filled with everyday people doing amazing and remarkable things.  One day, I believe our politics will start to meet the quality of the people who make up the body politic.
 
But until then, we all need to be a little patient and focus on the ordinary yet remarkable people around us.