Running with Santa

A week ago Saturday, Iain ran the Virginia Highland Christmas 5K. This year they registered 1200 runners. At least based on the number of people we saw walking away from Fire Station No. 19 that morning with their T-shirts and Santa hats, lots of those 1200 race numbers went to people who for whatever reason ended up not running the race. Too much eggnog the night before, perhaps? But of the ones who did run, many were dressed as elves or Santa or in one case a giant rabbit.





There was the woman in black runner's spandex wearing a red satin bra and thong over her the black spandex. There was the couple in footed fleece pajamas, and the middle-aged woman wearing the Christmas tree skirt as a cape. We saw our neighbor Aaron, unobtrusively dressed in normal running attire. And there were the dogs wearing sweaters or tinsel or antlers or Santa hats. It was a marvelous, quirky neighborhood event.



Finally, it was time for the runners to go to the starting line, which was on Los Angeles, not far from the fire station. It was a great scene of Santa-hatted runners filling the street curb to curb for just about as far as one could see. I walked back up Highland toward Morningside Presbyterian, where the race ended, to wait for Iain. On my way I saw an Atlanta police officer, manning the orange cones at an intersection. I said good morning, and thanked him for keeping the runners safe. He broke into a wide smile.

There was a woman sitting on the hood of a car with Cherokee County plates, parked on North Highland near the finish line, waiting for a runner to finish the race. I don't quite understand driving to our neighborhood, early on a Saturday morning, from Cherokee County to run this event. But there weren't many cars parked on Wessyngton that morning, so I don't think there were many people who came from outside the neighborhood. There probably were some serious runners participating (the best time overall was 17 minutes, 11 seconds), but Iain said he saw one person checking his Blackberry while running. And in the Morningside Presbyterian parking lot, along with the cases of plastic bottles of water and bananas and oranges, there were plenty of small groups in costume happy to pose for pictures.



A history of the Virginia Highland neighborhood was recently published. When streetcars ruled in Atlanta, before the cars took over, the subdivisions in Virginia Highland were suburbs. Virginia Highland -- as a defined neighborhood -- didn't exist until the Georgia highway department announced a plan to build an interstate highway through the neighborhood. An organization that had not been active, the Highland-Virginia Neighborhood Association, was claiming to represent the neighborhood, and was stating at public meetings (erroneously) that the neighborhood supported construction of the highway. From that was born the Virginia-Highland Civic Association, to distinguish it from the other group, and the VHCA became part of active neighborhood opposition to the state highway department's plans.

In 1974, the Federal government rejected the state's Environmental Impact Statement, and plans for the road were dropped. Many residents had fled to the suburbs during the years of legal battles over I-485, but the ones who stayed and the ones who replaced the ones who left rebuilt a wonderful community in Virginia Highland and Morningside, where we live. Christopher Leinburger mentioned Virginia Highland in a recent NY Times op-ed piece, "The Death of the Fringe Suburb." Neighborhoods like Virginia Highland and Morningside are good places to live. You can walk to a coffee shop or a restaurant or to Alon's, and you can run a 5K in a Santa suit. What could be better?

On Christmas eve, Iain walked to Fire Station 19 with a tin of Christmas cookies. My family made these, he told them, and we just wanted to say thank you, and Merry Christmas.