In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - The Shocking End of the Sitzmark II/Cinema Lounge

Is it possible for a location to be cursed? Many times truth is stranger than fiction.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, despite being still relatively low-key and laid back in the 2020s, has had its share of events in history that seem like they were ripped straight from popular television crime shows.

Fifty years ago a shocking crime rocked the Mid-Cape area. Those who were there will never forget. This is the story of the short life, and abrupt end of the Cinema Lounge, also known as Sitzmark II in West Harwich.

An article from Cape Codder newspaper about the fire.

The story of the Sitzmark II starts with owner Robert Fusco.

Fusco was born in Leominster, Massachusetts on April 20, 1942, and became a successful business owner at a young age. This began with his purchase of the Fairmont Cafe in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1967. At its peak, Fusco’s business enterprise included fifteen properties in Central Massachusetts as well as Cape Cod and Florida.

The Sitzmark restaurant and club first came to be in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Being a relatively short drive from Mount Wachusett it seemed appropriate to name the establishment Sitzmark as the word is defined as the impression a skier makes when falling into the snow backward.

As his business empire grew Fusco set his sights on Cape Cod. In late 1971 he found a perfect location for a second Sitzmark location on Route 28 on the Dennis Port/West Harwich line. Fusco leased 2.75 acres of land owned by Lillian Dowd.

A mortgage of $135,000($1 million in 2024) was taken out to develop a new eating and drinking establishment Fusco appropriately named Sitzmark II.

The story of Sitzmark II cannot be told without diving a little deeper into the property upon which it stood. This is where the story truly gets strange.

Located at approximately 10 Route 28 in West Harwich the property saw a string of failed businesses before and after. Curse might be a strong word but the multitude of failures are difficult to ignore.

Lillian Dowd had been running a laundry service on the property beginning in 1949. Known as Cape Self Service Laundry it was a fairly straightforward business venture. She lived in a home next door, across from what is today the Noble House restaurant. Her neighbor on the property was a nightclub known as Cape Towne House. This establishment had been open since the early 1950s and was located inside a renovated barn.

In an eerie bit of foreshadowing a fire in April 1956 destroyed the barn. The owners were undeterred and rebuilt thanks partially to Dowd leasing them another chunk of her property. Throughout the 1960s the Cape Towne House was a success.

The success was fleeting and Cape Towne House ultimately failed after losing its liquor license in 1968. Dowd, sensing an opportunity, opened a dance hall for teenagers in the former nightclub. She christened it The Embers.

The Embers catered to teens at first. However, Dowd purchased her own liquor license so as to appeal to the older crowd as well. The work proved exhausting and Dowd gave up the liquor license in August 1969 choosing to stick with the teenage dances.

In the end, The Embers did not last long. Thus Dowd was willing to sell the land, and her laundry business when Robert Fusco came calling in late 1971.

Sitzmark II began operating in the summer of 1972. It was a club offering live music, dancing, and cocktails. However, it also offered a breakfast and lunch menu in an area called The Third Door.

An advertisement for Sitzmark II from 1972(Barnstable Patriot)

Despite being a restaurant as well, the nightlife got Fusco’s new establishment into trouble. The law stated any noise from the building needed to remain confined to the property. In its first season, Sitzmark II was routinely cited for noise complaints from neighbors as well as overcrowding.

Rock bands, orchestra, dinner theater, and more entertained patrons at Sitzmark II. Eventually, the loud music drew the ire of Harwich selectmen who shut it down in 1973.

Fusco had no choice but to acquiesce to the town. He changed the name of the establishment to Cinema Lounge entering 1974 while also eliminating the loud music from the schedule. However, a new act brought in would permanently change the direction of the business.

For the 1974 summer Fusco hired a drag show called ‘All That Glitters Is Not Girls’ run by Karl Huston. The show was a massive hit drawing in thousands of customers with many more having to be turned away. That success again put Cinema Lounge in the cross-hairs of Harwich selectmen and the nearby West Harwich Baptist Church whose prejudice deemed the shows risque.

The thinly veiled homophobia was hardly disguised by the politicians. The show was classified by them as burlesque/strip which they said was not a part of the entertainment license for Fusco’s club. A local politician was quoted in the Cape Cod Standard-Times referring to the members of the drag show with a homophobic slur.

Even a seemingly positive article about the show in a local newspaper in June 1974 was rife with ignorant verbiage. It stated that ‘The idea of eight men parading around dressed, and often undressed, as women is stomach-turning to most normal heterosexuals.’

The majority of the clientele at the All That Glitters shows were elderly people. Karl Huston stated that these people seemed to enjoy the show with nobody complaining.

The summer of 1974 was a battle between Fusco and Harwich. In August the Cinema Lounge had its liquor license suspended. It then had its entertainment license revoked due to the All That Glitters show being purportedly wrongly classified as a ‘dance band.’ Fusco estimated the club lost in the range of $20,000($126,700 in 2024) in two days when the club was shut down on August 9^th.

Bad press and closings took their toll on the business. Courts had already begun foreclosure proceedings against Cinema Lounge. Fusco was shocked by the level of fervor against his establishment. He stated at the time that Harwich was the only town in which he owned a business that he was subject to such harassment.

Huston and Fusco hired attorneys to sue the Town of Harwich for closing the show down. On August 21^st Harwich selectmen reinstated the liquor license and issued a revised entertainment license to Cinema Lounge. A tentative reopening was slated for August 23^rd. However, Fusco stated that even with the licenses reinstated the club’s time was drawing to a close. He had no idea how prophetic those words were.

Twenty-four hours later the Cinema Lounge was history.

The Cinema Lounge was destroyed.(Bing AI)

At roughly 11pm on August 22, 1974, a pair of nearly simultaneous explosions rocked the Cinema Lounge building. The explosions created a hole in the ground upon which the building crumbled and burned. It was virtually destroyed with the ensuing fire finishing the job. As the club was closed there was luckily nobody inside and nobody nearby was injured.

Calls flooded in from neighbors upon hearing the loud explosions. This was not a common occurrence on Cape Cod in the 1970s. The fire was so intense that there was not much the Harwich Fire Department could do upon arrival. Even as neighboring fire departments arrived it was difficult to get the blaze under control.

Immediately the circumstances surrounding the fire made it appear suspicious. Investigators noted there were no combustible materials stored in the building. The explosions and overall ferocity of the fire made arson the main theory.

Shortly after the fire Fusco and everyone associated with the Cinema Lounge were cleared of any involvement. Arson investigators suspected the fire was set by a professional. Someone entered the premises unbeknownst to the owners and placed the explosives that destroyed the building. It was referred to as ‘revenge arson.’ But who wanted revenge?

Who was behind the 'revenge arson' of the Cinema Lounge?(Bing AI)

Although a suspect was never officially named authorities stated that they knew exactly who it was. He was purported to be an underworld journeyman criminal. This suspect was connected to other horrific crimes like more arson and even murder. However, he would never be brought to justice. Only a short while after being suspected in the Cinema Lounge fire the man was himself murdered.

The question does still remain though. If it was ‘revenge arson’ who wanted revenge on Cinema Lounge and Robert Fusco?

In the aftermath of the destruction of the Cinema Lounge Fusco sold the land and moved on. This included a stint managing the Compass Lounge in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts.

The property remained vacant for years. At one point in 1984 chatter got loud about Burger King buying the property but it was shouted down by locals.

In a final surreal irony in March 1987 Lillian Dowd’s home on the eastern edge of the property was gutted by fire. Dowd had a cooking accident but still, it was yet another fire on that property. Cursed is a strong word but it is at least a series of interesting circumstances.

Where Sitzmark II/Cinema Lounge once stood in West Harwich.

Today the property on the Dennis/Harwich line is nondescript. It is home to the Harwich Antiques Center as well as a strip mall with a Domino’s Pizza. Virtually nothing remains of that short time when Robert Fusco ran the Sitzmark II and then Cinema Lounge.

The story when read sounds like something out of a movie. Multiple fires, battles with the town, and a final explosive fire set by an underworld criminal. No, it was not Hollywood, it was Cape Cod in the 1970s.

Initial Impressions 2.0 #16: What Is Time?, AARP, Edible Podcast, etc.

#16 – What Is Time

1. I have a typical old-school digital alarm clock, but I end up using my phone as my alarm when needed. Strangely, I can set both to the same exact second and yet within a week or so, the plug-in alarm clock will be a minute ahead of my phone. What’s up with that? Is a second somehow faster on certain clocks? I keep fixing it but I wonder how far ahead my clock would get if I just left it unchecked.

2. I’m not saying that spring has been a bust on Cape Cod thus far, but it took me until May 7^th to actually open my windows and let fresh air in. I run hot as it is so I don’t mind if summer isn’t filled with 90+ degree days, but give me some 60s at least in May, c’mon!

Clouds and cool temperatures = spring on Cape Cod

3. I was walking in between stores at a shopping plaza. Ahead of me, way ahead, like 100 feet, a woman was standing at a hair salon holding the door open. I don’t know if she thought I looked like I needed a new hairstyle but she held the door the entire time I was walking. She even said hi to me and kept holding the door open as I passed. Not sure if someone overflowed the toilet and the place needed to be aired out or what.

4. On an early morning drive to work I saw a cute fox cross a quiet road ahead of me. It stopped just beyond the fence and was watching me. So naturally I grabbed my phone to get a photo and/or video. I stopped the car and got out and it was as if the fox was messing with me because it waited until I brought the phone up in front of my face before it ran off behind a house. If I didn’t have to get to work I might have run after the fox since it ran behind an empty vacation house.

5. You ever have a dialogue going inside your head but at some points you reply to yourself out loud? Every now and then I’ll say a few random words out loud in response to my inner thoughts. Luckily I’m usually by myself because if I was in the middle of the grocery store and I blurted out ‘well mainly because it’s cool’ I might get some weird looks.

6. I placed an order on Staples.com. After finishing checkout I got a series of ads for discounts on products and services. The first one that popped up was a membership with AARP. Now I know I’m getting close to qualifying but I am trying to milk every second out of not being AARP age. Still, it’s a cold slap of reality knowing that within a few years, those brochures are going to be piling up in my mailbox, yay.

Me in a few years

7. I briefly had an idea to start a new podcast where for every episode I would take an edible and see where things took me. Unfortunately, I notice after an edible I enjoy mindlessly surfing the net and watching YouTube, so the podcast would be hours of dead air and me asking you about videos you can’t see.

8. I don’t understand people who get angry, like truly angry about sports. Like where it negatively affects their lives and the people around them. Honestly, unless you play the game, or are dumb enough to bet your savings on a game, how much does it affect your life? Are you going to lose your job if the Red Sox play poorly? Is your family going to leave you if the Celtics don’t win? Being a fan and being an obsessed nut job are two very different things.

9. In looking to get more eyes on my podcast I joined another podcast group on Facebook. Within a minute of posting an intro message and a link to my show, I was bombarded with numerous spam messages asking me about paying them to promote my show through them. Silly me, thinking that this group might be people looking to find new podcasts to listen to. Nah it’s tons of spammy bots.

10. It was fittingly ironic that I watched my niece Emma’s (first) college graduation on a YouTube livestream. Fitting because when she graduated high school in 2020 the world was shut down due to Covid. So I watched that event from behind a chain link fence on the outside of the football field. Thankfully she is continuing her education so maybe when the third graduation comes I can be there in person.

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 143: Restaurant Storytime 8, Sweet Pickles Books, Forgotten 90s Musical Artists, 4-Minute Mile(5-8-2024)

 

The beloved Sweet Pickles books. Some forgotten 90s musical acts. The most toxic workplace I've experienced.
Episode 143 of the podcast has a bit of everything.
It begins with the return of a podcast staple, Restaurant Storytime. This 8th installment is a segment 143 episodes in the making. Toxic workplaces are unfortunately all too common. This segment reveals the most toxic place I've been a part of. It might veer off into rant territory at times but it's also packed with laughs. You won't believe your ears at some of the memories this segment evokes.
The mood gets lighter as we go way Back In the Day to a beloved part of many Gen-Xer's childhoods. Sweet Pickles was a series of books featuring animals with unique personalities kids could relate to. It was also a brand that extended into other forms of merchandise. Smart moms know how kids' minds grow!
This week's Top 5 will dive into some forgotten 1990s musical artists who were big during the decade but perhaps have faded with time. Hopefully, this segment will shine a new light back on them.
This Week In History and Time Capsule will be centered around a barrier once thought to be beyond the human body, the sub-4 minute mile.
For more great content become a subscriber on Patreon!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• The Lady of the Dunes.com
• Purchase My New Book Cape Cod Beyond the Beach!
• In My Footsteps: A Cape Cod Travel Guide(2nd Edition)
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• Wear Your Wish.com - Clothing, Accessories, and more
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog

Listen to Episode 142 here 

Initial Impressions 2.0 #15: No Trespassing, Dogs v. Texting, Google Car Is a Rolls-Royce?, etc(5-6-2024)

1. Have you ever noticed that it is typically the houses that look abandoned, have unkempt yards, no grass, and rusted-out cars littering the property, these are the houses that have ‘No Trespassing’ signs. It’s like don’t worry I don’t want to get any diseases by stepping foot on your garbage property. How about taking the money you wasted on several No Trespassing signs and using that for grass seed, or a bucket of house paint?

2. I don’t understand how someone can work for a supermarket chain and hate all of their bosses so much that they constantly transfer to other stores in that chain. I also don’t understand how if they hate management at all of these stores why they don’t go work for another chain altogether, or get into a different industry. Unless you signed a contract with your job you are not forced to work there. It’s almost like they’d rather just be angry and spiteful because it’s easier than looking for a new job.

3. I grabbed a few energy drinks at a local dollar store because they were crazy cheap. I didn’t get a bag so I walked out and back to my car holding a few cans. On my way, an old man, likely mid-70s, joked that I couldn’t drive home if I was drinking those. I laughed and thought about offering one to him but could already hear the ambulance sirens in my mind if the man drank something like that.

4. It would have been my Nana's 100th birthday this week. She has been gone for nearly 15 years but it only took me a few minutes to come up with a dozen things that I immediately associate with her. It shows her importance in my life even as our times together fade further into memories. I do things like this because I want her memory to remain alive and as long as I live all of my grandparents will live on.

5. I was paying for groceries at self-checkout with cash. I had some extra change in the center console of my car so this was an easy way to get rid of it. In the end, I owed 1 more cent. I actually looked around the area for a random penny on the floor, but no luck. I grabbed out a dollar and wouldn’t you know it the dang machine eats it. It was a 10-minute ordeal of finding someone to open the machine to get the dollar out. The person who helped actually put a penny in so I wouldn’t have to try the dollar again. To top it off the lady overseeing the self-checkout area then decided to give me a lecture about how to properly insert money into the machines. I said as nicely as I could that I knew how to pay at self-checkout seeing as how I have done it literally hundreds of times. As I walked out I said to myself ‘this is going in the blog,’ and here it is.

6. I actually saw a cat wandering around in a neighborhood. There was nothing odd about the cat, but I feel like over the past several years, especially on Cape Cod, outdoor cats have become increasingly rare. We have a coyote problem down here. Not sure if outdoor cats are still common in other places. Or maybe they still are everywhere and I just don’t notice them.

7. So in all honestly what is more dangerous? Texting while driving? Or having a dog in your lap? They both seem equally irresponsible yet only one can get you a ticket as far as I know. Are there laws against dogs being in a driver’s lap? You wouldn’t have a child roaming around while you drive, so why let a fidgety dog jump all around you while you’re behind the wheel of a 2,000-pound weapon on wheels?

Cute but dangerous

8. While out driving I saw this beautiful Rolls-Royce. It was slowing down to turn onto the road I was on. I was momentarily shocked and confused as I saw nobody driving it. Then as it turned it all made sense, it was a European model of the vehicle so the driver’s side was opposite to here in the U.S. For a brief moment, I wondered if the Google Maps vehicle was on Cape Cod, and also a Rolls-Royce for some reason.

The next Google Maps car?

9. Every now and then I see people driving in a parking lot and using their turn signals when going up and down rows of vehicles. I think I see this about as much as I see people using their turn signals for actual turning on the road. Maybe not that much but it does seem odd to use blinkers inside a parking lot. I have seen way more examples of people not using their blinkers on the road though but I think that’s more common everywhere these days.

10. I was thrilled when I stepped on a set of bilateral scales at work and the numbers were exactly the same on each. When I first got to my current job 3 years ago I had a misaligned hip that caused the end at the time of my competitive running. I was 15 lbs heavier on my left than my right when I first used the bilateral scales. The work I’ve done to fix my hips has paid off which makes me very happy. However, I was hit with a cold slap of reality when I added the 2 scales up and it was more than I had ever weighed in my life. So yay my hips are good again, and boo it’s diet time. 

Listen to the In My Footsteps Podcast

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The Seven Year Journey: A Short Story About A Long Road

On May 4, 2024, I competed in a road race for the first time in nearly 7 years. Looking at it from a distance it was not a major accomplishment. Hell, I’d run dozens of races before. However, when you get up close and know the full details of the journey to get here it becomes the biggest race I’ve ever run. To understand why we have to go back nearly seven years.

On August 12, 2017, I competed in the Brewster Brew Run in the town of Brewster on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for those unfamiliar with my home area. It was, and still is, a 5.2-mile run sponsored by a local bar called The Woodshed. Ironically I had no plan to run that race, I was talked into it by a friend on eleven days' notice. The run itself was fine. The stats were: 39:47 overall, 7:39 pace per mile, good for 180th out of 1,294 people.

At the starting line of my last race in 2017

If I had known that was going to be the end of my running career for a long time I likely would have slowed a bit to appreciate it. Instead, I was glad it was over and was more interested in filming myself chugging the complementary beer you got for running.

After this race ended the coming months saw my life take several unexpected twists and turns that knocked running far from my mind and far from my body’s ability.

In December 2017 I got word that one of my oldest friends Matt Medeiros had died suddenly. He was someone I had known since I was about seven years old. It was a gut punch. Not only did he leave behind his family I had also known since I was a kid, but even more tragically he left behind a wife and a young daughter. 

The topper for me, when it came to getting the news about Matt, was the fact that I had seen him only a few days prior. We usually would bump into each other in the grocery store like middle-aged men. We’d chat about life and the old days. However, on this day I was tired from work and didn’t feel like talking. So I saw Matt but he didn’t see me. I watched him turn the corner pushing his cart and I made my quick exit. I had no idea that the image of him turning that corner would be the last time I saw him and that the image is burned into my memory.

I sat in the main office at the gym where I was working and shut the door so I could sob at the front desk. It was a hard pain to deal with knowing that I had chosen not to have that last moment with Matt. This is where I began to self-medicate with alcohol. It became a running theme over the next few years.

Over the ensuing months, nagging injuries in my legs slowed my running. At the time I had what I believed to be a left ankle/foot injury caused by intense speed training. I had a desire to finish Top-10 in a 5K(3.1 miles). My best at that time was 19:30, or 6:17 per mile. To finish Top-10 you usually needed to be under 18 minutes in your time. That’s about 5:48 per mile. 

I’ll try to sum up the intricate running minutia for those who are starting to fall asleep reading. The gist was that I needed to increase my speed by about 30 seconds per mile. That’s not too hard if you’re running slower. When you’re already fast getting faster leaves little room for error. Only a few wrong steps in your running gait can equal some pretty rough injuries. This is what happened to me. I went too fast, well, too fast.

The left foot issues slowly eroded my speed and endurance. Sure I still could run races, but slower. Sure I could still run as exercise, but it became more necessary for me to slow down, or stop to let my foot calm down.

That Brew Run race had basically pulled me out of retirement in 2017. My foot issues sadly were too much to keep risking. I was working as a personal trainer and if I couldn’t walk it would spell doom for that job. So with running becoming less of my release and stress reliever, I started turning more to drinking.

Late in 2018, my Grampa began to deteriorate into Alzheimer’s. I had either been naive, or just blind to his condition for months. My mother had been telling me of things that he’d been doing and saying but I didn’t see it so it had to be exaggerations, right? 

With my Grampa in 2010

He was my hero and role model so I think I didn’t want to believe that he was declining so rapidly. After a series of mishaps that made it more and more difficult for him to continue living at home with my Nina, Grampa was taken to a nursing/rehab facility. It was while he was there that the shocking truth became apparent to me.

By this point in time I was working at a retirement home and had become more aware of the signs of Alzheimer’s. Once I saw Grampa get stuck in a sort of loop where he did the same few things repeatedly nonstop I knew that everything my mother had said was true. 

Because he was my hero I felt I owed it to him to be there as much as possible as his days counted down. Unfortunately, it was a trauma that I still haven’t gotten over. Watching Alzheimer’s cut my Grampa down was agonizing. With running not as big of a part of my life I kept on drinking to dull the pain.

When Grampa passed from Alzheimer’s in May 2019 I dove off the deep end with drinking. I made the excuse that I needed to cope with this loss by any means necessary. Whatever collateral damage happened I would deal with it later. Later meant much later. For many months I drank daily. It went from mourning Grampa to a vice I couldn’t break free from.

Then Covid happened. In March 2020 the world shut down. On one hand, I was lucky because working in a retirement home categorized me as an ‘essential worker.’ On the other hand, I was in a toxic work environment and when I wasn’t there the world was on lockdown. This once-in-a-century pandemic was another form of trauma. Much like with the deaths of Matt and my Grampa, I decided to deal with Covid however was needed to survive.

This meant more drinking. This also meant eating whatever I wanted. I needed some sort of good feelings in such a tough time. My life was dominated by McDonald’s, Domino’s, Wendy’s, and other fast food places.

Despite not running as much I was still doing some, and also hitting the gym 5-6 days a week regardless. When the world shut down that all went away. I became far more sedentary. I gained roughly 25 pounds in just a little over four months. It went from ‘oh well I can’t run much but I’m still in great shape otherwise,’ to being out of shape, eating fast food, and drinking to numb trauma that wouldn’t heal.

The weight would fluctuate. I’d lose a little but then gain it back plus a little more. So my lows became less low and my highs got higher. I would have moments of clarity but not long enough to make changes.

Finally, in September 2020 I used all of my strength and willpower to quit alcohol. It was not easy. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but when quitting alcohol I said I’d deal with it by any means necessary. This meant filling the alcohol void with more food. This sadly became a vice without me even noticing. Despite the world starting to open back up I was in far worse shape physically and mentally so picking up the pieces would have to wait.

Unfortunately, when my Grampa died I knew that it was only a matter of time until my Nina followed him. They were married over 70 years so I knew when one went the other would not be far behind. 

I had been working in the retirement home where my Nina had been sent. This meant I could see her and support her every day I worked. I wanted badly to do more as a personal trainer though. I moved on to another retirement home that offered fewer hours so I could start adding in-home training clients to my schedule. Then Covid happened.

Not only was I stuck in a different retirement home, but my training clients were a no-go. This also meant that my Nina was now locked down without the ability to see her family. If I had only waited a little longer to leave that first retirement home I would have at least been on the inside with her. 

Obviously, nobody could foresee the Covid lockdown happening. That being said, the amount of guilt I had, and still have, for essentially abandoning my Nina is something I haven’t been able to get over. I had stopped drinking, and I was now far too out of shape to run anywhere near what I used to. That meant I would eat whatever my heart desired to deal with the guilt, sadness, whatever I was feeling.

In March 2021 my Nina left this earth. We as family did get to see her on the inside a few times before the end. It was not the end of life any of us had envisioned. I didn’t see myself sitting in a lobby of a retirement home basically in a hazmat suit sitting next to my Nina with a pan of plexiglass between us and her also wrapped up like a mummy. I remember apologizing for leaving that retirement home and Nina jokingly saying that I should be sorry because I couldn't bring her bacon and raisin toast anymore like I had been doing. 

In the end, I had to cope with another loss by eating my feelings. I was unhappy but knew I’d be unhappier if I didn’t have the bad foods. My brain began to clear from alcohol and I realized how toxic the second retirement home job was. It was so bad that I ended up quitting in the middle of Covid with no backup plan. I just knew being in that environment was not good for my mental health.

A few months later I was lucky to find a far better job, one suited to my skills as a personal trainer. It was as a trainer at a chiropractic and wellness clinic. Here is where my running injury was finally properly diagnosed. During my first-ever chiropractic adjustment, my boss Dr. Mike was able to show me that it was not my left ankle/foot that was the issue. No, that issue was in fact caused by an injury to my right hip. This was further made clear when I was put on bilateral scales.

Bilateral scales are two scales next to each other. You step one foot onto each. In theory, if you’re in proper alignment the weights on either scale should be identical, or at least virtually so. My numbers were off a good 15 pounds. I was running crooked which only compounded my issues. When you factor in the added weight I was carrying it was no wonder why running had become more uncomfortable than even when I was marathon training.

So I worked on trying to correct the hip imbalance. It wasn’t enough to get back to any real running though. Months passed and it was time for another loss in my life. When I had left my Nina at that first retirement home she wasn’t the only family I had left. 

Brenda might not have been family in the blood sense, but she had been a part of my life since the day I was born, before then. She was at nearly every family event as long as I could remember. I referred to her as my aunt either way. 

She was also a resident at the retirement home. There had been a few cardiac issues that had forced her there at a relatively young age. I loved getting to spend all sorts of time with her during my workdays. She had many friends in the complex, but I was the only family.

Being that she didn’t have any blood family on Cape Cod it was tough when she ended up in the ER. Her health issues came to a head and she was not long for the world. The people closest to Brenda from my family were my Uncle Eric and Aunt Emma. At the time of Brenda’s decline, they couldn’t make it to the Cape from Las Vegas. They were happy that I was able to get in and see her though.

She was unresponsive but I still spoke to her. She was the fourth important person in my life in just over four years to die. I hate to say I was becoming numb to it but it felt that way. Maybe it was a bit of self-preservation. I felt awful that Brenda passed with few, if any, visitors. She deserved better than that but I could only control the fact that I had been there.

Several people from my high school class have remained good friends. Although some have moved far away, and even more have gotten married and/or had children, there is a collection of names that always makes me smile. One such person was Pete Machon. He was a gentle soul, good-looking surfer-type guy, that’s the best way I can describe him. 

Through the years after high school, I saw him less and less but through the magic of social media I could stay connected with him to a degree. I learned of Pete’s death after the fact in the late summer of 2022. Losing people your own age when you’re supposed to have a good half of your life left is a strange sadness. People get the short end of the straw all the time and fall to illness or accidents. Still, you don’t ever expect it. It was a shocking gut punch. I had our lineage of social media interaction and I found myself scrolling through and wishing each conversation had been longer.

The only silver lining of mourning the loss of Pete was that a lot of us from high school got together to celebrate his life. It’s something I wish happened more often and not surrounding death or high school reunions. Part of that is my own doing. The string of deaths in my life, coupled with my alcohol issues, and the circumstances of Covid has changed me deep inside.

I feel at times as if I have forgotten how to interact with people thanks to retreating into a shell to cope with all of the bad of the last several years. I know there have been times when friends want to do things and I find excuses not to. So they go and do things without me. The loss of Pete, another good friend taken suddenly, left me speechless and a bit empty. 

During these times I was still hitting the gym as best I could but it wasn’t the same as a few years prior. Back then I had direction, I had a purpose. I was a runner and a pretty good one, so my workouts were geared toward the next race. With running becoming less and less a part of my life I felt directionless. I felt as if I was just going through the motions. Hitting the gym because it was what I was supposed to be doing.

Despite working in fitness and helping people toward their own goals I was having trouble finding motivation and inspiration for my own. I could always hang my hat on the fact that I had conquered my alcohol dependence though. That got tested though as another massive loss came my way.

There might be few things worse than having things to say and never getting to say them. I was not prepared to get a text from my sister Kate asking me how our Uncle Eric died in January 2023. I had not even known he was sick, let alone that he had passed literally the day before. It was the gut punch to end all gut punches.

I had looked up to my Uncle Eric as a father figure. He was someone who set an example of what it was like to be a good man and a good father. I had told him on a few occasions that I wished he’d been my father, so he knew how I felt. However, to be so wrapped up in my own bubble to not know he was sick, or to not reach out just because, it was too much to bear.

With my Uncle Eric in 2016

Our last conversation centered around his excitement over an upcoming book I was writing. I didn’t finish the book in time to send a copy to him. I did end up giving his copy to my Aunt Emma and cousin Patrick. It was within that same week of his passing that I had my closest brush with a relapse of alcohol.

I sat in the parking lot of a shopping plaza, staring at a liquor store I used to frequent so much that the employees knew when I would switch up my usual order. I thought about Uncle Eric and how he meant so much to me but I never got a final chance to tell him. I debated long and hard about just caving and going in and grabbing something, anything, and just coping with the loss in the way I had done before. Ultimately I thought I’d be disrespecting my uncle by doing that. He would not like to be used as an excuse for me to fall off the wagon. So I started my car and went home. I’d deal with his loss with more bad foods.

My cathartic moment when dealing with Uncle Eric’s death came during his celebration of life. It was there that my guilt over not being in touch more when he was declining came spilling out. I sobbed and apologized to my Aunt Emma and cousin Patrick. The sadness was overwhelming but I had kept that bottled up and didn’t dull it with alcohol so I had to set it free. I am still not over the loss of my uncle to this day.

Six deaths of important people in my life in barely more than five years. They came so quickly that I barely processed one and another followed. I fell hard into bad food and slowed my own exercise programs after Uncle Eric died. I ended up in the worst shape I’d ever been in, weighing the most I ever had in my life. I had gained back all of the weight I’d lost running and then some. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

2024 was a turning point. That’s what I told myself in the days leading up to New Year’s. I felt as though 2017 was the last year of my life when I felt like myself. To restore that feeling I couldn’t keep waiting for the timing to be better, or to have a more perfect situation. I needed to take the first steps and adapt as I moved forward.

The changes began as more symbolic and mental. For instance, I hadn’t woken up early on New Year’s Day to go shoot the sunrise since 2017. My buddy Steve had to convince me a little. Once I was standing at the beach in Chatham watching a somewhat muted sunrise it was all worth it. That would hopefully set the tone for the year. 

The muted New Year's sunrise in Chatham.

While I was feeling refreshed in the early days of the new year I decided to run my first race since 2017. I found a manageable distance(5K), a nearby location(Dennis, MA), and a date far enough away that I could theoretically get into fair enough shape that I wouldn’t embarrass myself(May 4th).

I dove headlong into training. At my job, we have a revolutionary health and performance program known as Superhuman Protocol. It’s not found in many places and none within an hour of where I work. The basics are that three therapies are set up in a certain order so that each enhances the next. It is meant to, among other things, improve your overall fitness level. Here is a link to the website if you want to know more about it: Superhuman Protocol

I was looking for something to push me through the inevitable crash that would come when my memories of my running life before bumped into the reality of what my body could give at this point. One of the therapies in the Superhuman Protocol is EWOT(Exercise with Oxygen Therapy). You do some sort of moderate cardio while breathing in 93% pure oxygen through a specially designed mask. Pure oxygen essentially tricks your brain into believing it is not working as hard. The benefit is that you can go harder than you thought you could with whatever cardio you’re doing. 

There is a downside to this though. If you are prone to going all-in with your cardio, as I did all while running, the oxygen is going to have an adverse effect. Oh don’t get me wrong, the Superhuman worked incredibly well and I highly recommend it to anyone who has access. For me though it worked too well. I was getting up to speed running that I hadn’t done in 5 years. Not exactly ‘moderate’ cardio. That being done on a body that wasn’t the same as 5 years ago led to way more aches and pain than expected. Feet and ankles, knees, hips, they all would hurt later in the day after finishing the Superhuman.

I stopped doing the Superhuman because I couldn't be counted on to stick to the directions. This led to me majorly backing off on my race training, to the point that I was hardly running at all. In my mind, this return race was to be a re-entry. It would be me proving to myself that I could still run a race without the added pressure of time goals.

As race day drew closer I began seeing the event as more than just a return to running. It felt far more symbolic. Since my last race in August 2017 so much had happened, so much had changed in my life. This race was akin to me finding a piece of myself that had been lost for years.

Another change in my life in 2024 was getting more into personal development and self-help books and podcasts. In dealing with the deaths of friends and family, battling alcohol, the insanity of the Covid pandemic, and the overall scope of becoming middle-aged, I had felt upside down in life. These thought-provoking and introspective books and podcasts started helping me deal with all of that. 

I lowered my expectations for the race and started looking at it as the beginning of a new chapter. I also kept thinking of those I’d lost. I decided to carry them all with me during the race. I did this by creating a t-shirt with their names on it with the announcement that I was running for them. Above all else, that was my ‘big why’ for competing in this race.

Another interesting side note when the race was approaching came when I got back on the bilateral scales for the first time in a few years. To the shock of my coworker Heather, and even more so to myself, the two scales had exactly the same numbers. This meant that the work I had done on correcting my original hip injury had paid off. It was a wonderful moment.

It was wonderful however until I added the two scales weights together and realized I was at the heaviest I’d been in my life. It was a cold slap in the face to realize that the main reason I’d had so much pain and soreness in my legs from running wasn’t because of my misaligned hips, no it was from carrying too much weight.

Within moments I had downloaded the My Fitness Pal app on my phone and vowed to get back to my proper running weight. I mean after all, if my hip was not the issue anymore then what is really holding me back from a return to race form?

Race day arrived. May the Fourth be with you. It was sunny but chilly at Mayflower Beach in Dennis. I spent a little extra time sitting in my car. It was almost like I was trying to find that old mindset from my racing days even though I had no specific goals to try for. Once I was ready and had put on the white t-shirt adorned with the names of those I’d lost since my last race I was ready to wander the grounds and soak it all in.

The starting line of the race.

I had made a special playlist for this race. 10 songs that would take 40 minutes to play. Granted I would have the Map My Run app going on my phone but the music would be another indicator of how I was doing.

I positioned myself about ¾ of the way back of the group. One because it would stop me from taking off too fast with the adrenaline rush of the starting whistle. Two because I knew I’d be faster than at least a few in front of me so I’d have the joy of passing them.

A big key to running any sort of race is pacing yourself. For 5K races, I set my running app to call out my times every ¼ mile. This gives me plenty of feedback and allows me to switch my pace to suit what I am looking to do. After the first 1 ½ miles my pace was far exceeding what I’d expected. This didn’t make me change up any goals, it gave me more leeway to pull back a little. I figured I could save my legs a bit and still record a respectable time.

To prove to myself that I was really just trying to finish this race I even stopped to walk a couple of times when my feet and tibialis anterior muscles (the small muscle that runs along your shin) began burning. I hadn’t gone all out in ages so I was gassed but pressed on.

I realized that unless I broke something I was going to finish the 5K in under 30 minutes which would be a huge achievement for me knowing where I was physically. I even had enough left in the tank to sprint to the finish line and over the little pad that tracked our times through a chip in our bibs. My official time was 29:27, or 9:30 per mile. More than 10 minutes slower than my best 5K ever, but much faster than I had thought my body would allow.

I walked down to the beach and sat with my back against the fence. My shins were on fire and I knew I’d be sore the next day (surprise, I was). However, the first thing that popped into my mind was excitement. If I could run such a time after having not run competitively in almost 7 years, being 7 years older, and being 30 lbs above my ideal running weight, imagine what I could do with more training and a more controlled diet.

Maybe I’ll never be as fast as I once was. Maybe I’ll never be able to do distances like I used to. That doesn’t matter. When I look at the time between my last race to the one I just ran. When I look at all of the losses, all of the obstacles, all of the changes I went through, the fact that I have the ability physically and the wherewithal mentally to run races is a huge victory. I’ve already got the next race lined up so it’s officially a new chapter in my life.

If you stuck with this all the way through, thank you. I wrote this the day after the race when everything was still fresh. It went longer than I expected as there was so much that I needed to include to emphasize how big of a deal this moment was. Plus I am a writer so stringing together thousands of words in a stream of consciousness is not all that difficult. 

You might not be a runner. That’s not the overarching point of this story. The main takeaway is dealing with adversity, sometimes soul-crushing loss, and somehow finding your way back to the starting line. My story is not unique, so many people fight battles and win in the end. We all have our own adversity to overcome, nobody gets through life without scars. The key is to keep moving forward at your own pace. The only way you don’t cross the finish line is if you stop doing that.