http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Sports/AndyNeidnig/tabid/9371/Default.aspx
Andy Neidnig’s Ninetieth Birthday
A medal he won when 11 is still on the wall
By Jack Graves
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(07/08/2009) On Friday morning, just as he always does, Andy Neidnig walked down Sag Harbor’s Main Street to the rear entrance of Tony Venesina’s Conca D’Oro pizzeria.
When he entered the kitchen through the back hallway at around 10:15, just as he always does, this writer stepped forward, grabbed his hand, and wished him a happy 90th birthday.
“Don’t squeeze! Don’t squeeze!” said the two-time New York Road Runners Club’s golden age award winner and Manhattan College Hall of Famer, who has been plagued lately by arthritis. “Everybody’s been saying, ‘Happy birthday,’ but I don’t know.”
“Well, it was nice of you to remember,” he said, after he’d drawn his usual glass of red wine and lowered himself gingerly into one of the chairs in the narrow raised dining area.
“It’s a big effort for me to walk now. I’m very disintegrated. The trouble is,” he said, pointing to his head, “the mind is better than the body.”
“You can kill two birds with one stone — you can write up an article on my birthday and then run it as my obituary,” he said with a laugh.
Aside from a brief period in his mid-40s, before masters (over-40) divisions came into being, Neidnig, who has competed in 30 marathons, beginning with a ninth-place finish at Boston in 1938 and setting an over-70 record with a 2:57 at New York in 1992, has run pretty much his entire life.
“Even in the war,” he said, “when I wasn’t fighting. . . . I’ve always taken running very seriously. . . . People used to think I was crazy when I ran through the streets — we lived in Queens, near Aqueduct — every day after work” as a steamfitter.
“The first medal in running I ever won was when I was 11. I still have it on the wall. It was from home plate straight to second base.”
Upon graduating from college in 1941, he volunteered for the prewar draft, figuring he’d be out in a year, “but after Pearl Harbor everything changed.”
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“Well,” he said, “I’ve got to go to the post office, and at 3:30 I’ll go to the Blue Skies for two or three beers. I go there to socialize, though maybe this afternoon there’ll be something more.”
At the door, on learning that this writer was still playing tennis, he said, “Good, don’t stop. Nature takes care of that — it will slow you. Meanwhile, don’t think about it.”
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Neidnig, Andy [MC1941]
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[JR: A beautiful story, some good advice, and a true Jasper going for some beers after 3PM. How civilized. Hope he's with us for another 90! Read the whole article. "Fair use" for us. But, it contains two or three interesting facets.]
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