Steve Kopfklopper is standing at the crowded finish line as the long procession of colorfully dressed, sweaty runners comes streaming by. He spots his grandson, Jonathan, coming to the finish line dressed in his black leotards, light royal blue sweatshirt with Columbia University embroidered on it, and a black headband/ear muff combination. Sweat is rolling down his smiling face. His blondish, curly hair stands out from under the headgear. It’s about 45 degrees with little wind and the sky is overcast but has visible blue sky breaking through. He walks over and greets his grandson. He offers him several Hostess Twinkies, a relish of his own youth and soon an artifact of the past. Jonathan grabs the Twinkies and quickly devours them. Kopfklopper is thinking the marathon is a great way to get young people to stop or postpone texting.

     “Well done, Jon; doing it in three and a half hours is great! I’m proud of you running the rescheduled marathon. What a great idea to have the New York Maration on Black Friday and have all these people out and then ready to shop.”

     “Thanks, Grandpa.  I really appreciate you coming out, especially knowing that you had to fly out from Puerto Vallarta to be here.”

     “My pleasure; you know, your mom and dad are just about to return from Italy and I thought someone should help you celebrate the event. I’m proud of you doing it.“

     “Cool.”

     “What was the highlight of the run? I know you’ve been training for a long time.”

     “Seeing Mayor Bloomingbird and President Omar jogging; I passed them by and saw them sharing embraces, and throwing candy to the homeless was the first highlight. They promised the homeless and those whose houses were badly hit 2% of the revenues to help them out! But, I have to say, that wouldn’t cover much of the destruction I saw in Staten Island at the start of the race. It was fun knowing that Trump was running behind me; couldn’t see him but sure could hear his mouth running. The last highlight was the great, cheerful support staff with all the hydration stations every mile. Every refueling station and first aid station was named for an international or national city. One weird thing was one of the stations was covered, like no one was there!”

     “I bet that was called the Benghazi station.”

     “You got that right, good guess.”

     “Thanks, Jon, something must have gone awry, but the truth will one day come out. I love your mayor; he’s quite the brain. Figuring all that stuff out about global warming and sharing views with all of us.”

     “I smell a little cynicism, I know you,” Jonathan states with an amused smile.

     “”I used to be able to get that by you but now that you’re a freshman at Columbia, I should have known better. Global warming is surely due to hydrocarbons, but he’s supersizing the impact. A third of global warming is likely due to the hot air that politicians all over the world produce.” Kopfklopper returns Jon’s amused smile.

     “I should have seen that coming.”

     “Maybe, maybe, but even I change some. Also want to thank you for not wearing anything tacky on your school sweatshirt, like “chainsaws are outdoor toys”; you know, the stuff that campuses just don’t’ seem to tolerate anymore, you could be hurting someone’s feelings.”

     “There’s been a big movement to restrict those kinds of expressions. Free speech is not as free as it used to be. So how long are you staying and what are you going to be doing?”

     “Let’s go get a bite at a deli and talk. I’ll be around for at least week. Thinking of setting up a new business venture, Biographer-R-Us. Everyone deserves a good biographer so that the true you comes out; believe me you never want to leave it to the media, as they see reality through variable prisms depending on their current mindsets and agendas.”

     “OK, OK; that sounds good; there’s a great deli just around the next corner.”

    They walk to the neighboring deli with Kopfklopper having an arm around Jonathan’s right shoulder.

    “I’ve got to tell you that I almost set up a booth at the beginning of the race. I was going to sell steroids and growth hormone to help everyone out.”

    “What changed your mind?”

    “The realization that society might just not be ready for that. You wouldn’t have all the hearings in Congress about the stuff and their agendas would be vastly reduced. Having those hearings on athletes makes them feel important and shows they’re minding the store. Meanwhile they and their cronies get to persistently pick everyone’s pockets. I have always wondered what would happen if everyone in sports and life took the stuff. Governments might actually achieve something or have one less excuse and national and international sporting organizations would reduce their budgets; you wouldn’t have as many victories to vacate. I have had nightmares that one day the august United Nations would vacate the Allies win in WW2 based on likely use of steroids in the battlefield. They would award the victory to the Germans and the reparations would be all McDonald restaurants in Europe.”

     “But what about the Japanese then?”

     “They’re not black, Latinos, or Muslims and the Chinese have them on their shit list; they wouldn’t care.”

     They find the deli and soon fill their cravings.       Alan Beck