Cook County News Herald

A return to Grandma’s Marathon




What a small world it is. My college roommate, Neil Franz was in China this past year, helping his wife Jean manage some college students she was teaching from the College of Saint Benedict and St. John’s University in Collegeville.

At any rate, Neil, a retired lawyer, noticed how hard the Chinese kids worked in a school. They attend school six days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Grandparents tend to pick the kids up and tend to raise them, said Neil, because parents work a lot. He figures U.S. students will have a rude awakening sometime in the not too distant future because the kids he was witnessing, they were going to kick butt if our children don’t wake up.

As for the college kids, they behaved. The cost for stepping out of line, even a little in China, can earn a student a very abrupt one-way ticket home. No one wants to go home early even if the air isn’t very breathable.

A bus trip into the hinterlands turned out to be fortuitous, said Neil.

So the bus was bouncing down the road, the wheels going round and round when the driver came to a stop and picked up some more college kids from the States. A college professor sat next to Jean and soon the conversation flowed. Never one to eavesdrop, Neil was eavesdropping nonetheless.

So, said Neil, he heard the words Grandmas’ Marathon. Then the name Scott Keenan—who I also lived with for two years and Neil and I ran track with at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD).

“So that’s when you got up and traded seats with Jean, right?” I said to him.

“Yes, that’s when I got up and traded seats with my wife and sat down with Mike Palmquist.”

Mike Palmquist attended Chisholm High School where he was a track and cross country star. Following high school, Mike went to St. Olaf where he majored in English and ran track and cross country for the Oles. He was close to four minutes in the mile and later ran professionally, finishing fifth in the Twin Cities marathon one year and running the same 2:18:42 time at Grandma’s Marathon which earned him 14th place in 1981. He beat Mike Slack to win the first Minnesota Mile. For reference, Slack could beat pretty much anybody from 800 meters (1:46) to the half marathon (world record holder), so that should give some indication of how good Palmquist was.

“We spent 12 hours together,” said Neil. “I talked him into dropping some weight, and he’s planning to run Grandma’s with me.”

Mike lost 30 pounds and looked like he was getting into fine form when he came into the marathon office on the Friday night before the race. We talked about the old days, college and high school, how much fun it was to run and race. He pointed to his wife and said, “She told me I was going to grad school and I did. Best decision of my life. I earned a Ph.D. and love teaching.”

The Duluth News Tribune heard about Mike’s return after a long absence and did a short “before and after” piece. Somehow they failed to mention Neil, but you know how cruel journalists can be.

Come race day I was helping and Neil and Mike were hoping to finish in four hours. For Neil, this was his 41st Grandma’s, although he dropped out of the first marathon. Only three other people have run more Grandma’s Marathons than Neil. I saw Neil finish, somewhere around 4:07, but didn’t notice Mike come by in a mass of humanity some 30 minutes later.

For Mike, who once again has picked up the racing bug, Grandma’s was a wake-up call about how long the distance becomes the older one gets. When he ran 2:18 at Grandma’s in the early 1980s he was stressed about his time. In fact, he took his 14th place plaque and threw it in the garbage. At the time I tried to remind him that a 2:18 for a new marathon runner was a good run, but it didn’t soothe his feelings one bit. Today, Mike is an author of 13 academic books and loves teaching.

As for Neil, he took some pride in beating Mr. Palmquist. Neil slowed his pace, but Mike told him to go ahead. Neil related these things to me on Sunday, Father’s Day, at our annual breakfast at Perkins in West Duluth. His current plans are to build his wife a “She Shed,” a woman’s version of a man cave. Peter Henrikson drew up plans for the 16’x24’ timber frame, and Neil has been working on it all winter, logging the oak from his property, milling it, measuring it and cutting it to length. He learned timber framing at North House, where he met Peter.

Once, when Neil came back from Crystal, a suburb of the Cities where he grew up, to the trailer we lived in near the Miller Hill Mall, he was agitated. Said he had interviewed for a job that he dearly wanted, but the meeting had gone badly. Neil told the interviewer he wanted to become a lawyer and then was thrown out of that man’s office. Neil had interviewed at the Minneapolis Park Department for a truck driving job. I asked if he wanted the job and Neil replied that I must not have heard him because there was no way he was going to be hired. “Yes, or no, do you want the job?” I asked again.

“Yes, of course, but you aren’t listening.”

I went to the telephone and dialed my uncle Red Ranning, who was in charge of the Minneapolis Park Department. Red hated attorneys. When Red picked up, I told him that my college roommate had interviewed for a job with him. His name was Neil, and he was a great kid. Red said Neil could start on Monday, but I explained we had two weeks of school to finish up. Two weeks later Neil was a Minneapolis Park employee.

I thought of that incident at breakfast, and Neil’s running into Mike in China. It’s a small world. A small world indeed, with some beautiful pearls thrown into the mix.



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