Carl Touchstone

In 65 years I've had a half-dozen or so "good friends" and maybe four mentors. In only one case were they the same person - that's him in the picture - Carl Touchstone, my friend, my mentor, and a man that I think of every day though he has been gone for almost eight years.

I could tell stories about him for hours and hours, maybe even days, and never repeat myself. I won't bore you with that. However, I will tell you how we met and try to limit my stories to that one event.

In 1979 I was the managing partner of a car dealership in Laurel, Mississippi. I was 35 years old, deskbound, and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I was always the first one to work, my office manager, Johnnie Taylor, was usually the second to arrive. One morning, in June 1979, I looked up and saw her turn off the street in front of the dealership and head back to the employee parking lot. Immediately I readdressed the never ending stack of paperwork on my desk.

A few minutes later I realized Johnnie hadn't come inside. I got up, walked outside, and found her still in her car. She was clutching her chest and could barely talk. In minutes the ambulance arrived and she was whisked away like she had never been there.

Johnnie, who had never had a hint of a heart problem was given a 50-50 chance of recovery. A week later, on a flight to Kansas City where she was scheduled for open-heart surgery she died. I thought about little else during that week. We were about the same age and we both smoked. I figured that if I didn't do something I'd go the same way. So I decided to take up running.

On July 2, 1979, at 9 pm, just eight days after Johnnie's heart attack, I walked out of my house, flipped my last cigarette into the dark and began jogging down the street, thinking to myself, 'I'll run a mile or two until I get used to this and then begin to increase the distance.' It's a good thing I chose the downhill turn from the house or I'd have never made it the 1/4 of a mile I ultimately managed. The struggle served to convince me that I had to stick with it. However, two months later, hurting in every joint, and with no relief in sight, I was seriously thinking of hanging it up; figuring that death from some cigarette related disease couldn't be as bad a death from running.

I was probably within a few days of giving up running when, minutes after arriving at work, the phone rang. I answered and heard, "Is this Bert Carson?"

"Yes it is. Who is this?"

"This is Carl Touchstone. You don't know me. I live here in Laurel. I'm a runner and I've heard you're a runner. Is that right?"

Suddenly I forgot all of my aches and pains. I forgot that I was about to give up running. I took a deep breath and said proudly, "That's right, I'm a runner."

"Great," he said. "Let's meet at the high school track and run a few a laps."

I quickly agreed and we met that very afternoon. I had run from my house to the track, less than a half-mile, and it had taken everything I had to get there, but I didn't let on that I was hurting. We ran a mile together and I noticed that it seemed that Carl was really pushed to the limit - why, I thought, he can barely keep up. When we finished the four laps, we shook hands and he said, "You are good. I really appreciate you running with me."

Much later I realized that Carl had also run to the track from his house, about three miles away. After our run he ran back home, met some of his regular running buddies and they knocked out a 9 mile loop that was known as the Garbage Dump Route.

It was the beginning of a friendship that continues today even though Carl passed away on June 5, 2000 - because you see, my friend Carl is with me every time I lace up my running shoes and he always will be.

Every person who ever crossed his path was better for the experience - I'm damn sure glad I was one of them.