8 a.m. in mud--the Bruce Townsend Memorial Run (now Walk), an annual since 1988

At Rockford Tower, by Sam Francis's statue, on January 1, 1987, my neighbor Bruce Townsend, a compact young fellow who had helped me carry in a toilet in the summer, told me that he was not sure he could stop drinking. In February he shot himself to death down along the Brandywine. On New Year's Day I remember him.