December 12, 2025 • 42 mins
It's been a pleasure to get to know a fascinating group of longtime runners and ex-runners who meet monthly. The man behind the group is Bob Cook, who's life's journey is a fascinating one to hear. Ohio raised and a child of the 50's, he's embraced a variety of passions in baseball, music, military service, the business world, marathoning, and much more. A great American tale to enjoy!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Danny Clinkscale Reasonably Irreverent podcast, insightful and
witty commentary, probing interviews and detours from the beaten path.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Kansas City Profiles, presented by Easton Roofing. And
one of the recent new joys in my life has
been my association with the Doctor Pepper Breakfast Club, which
is a group of older men, some of whom still run,
but all of whom were avid runners at one time
or another. And the organizer of that group is Bob Cook.
(00:37):
He's a very interesting man. He ran many marathons, not
as many as our other guest, Steve Fuller did, who
we did a podcast with about six weeks ago or so.
But it's a really engaging group, a lot of fun.
Bill Hancock, the former head of the College Football Playoff
and the NCAA Tournament, is part of the group, and
(00:58):
he told some great stories the other day. But Bob
and I have had several conversations, and I just like
telling life stories, and his is a very interesting one.
He grew up in Ohio, went into the service at
the time of the Vietnam War, had an avid interest
in baseball and the piano had sort of a regular
(01:18):
work life as a businessman and a salesman, and at
one point in his life just decided that running seemed
to be an appealing thing, and he became a tremendously
avid runner and it became a big part of his life,
not only as a member of the board for the
Kansas City Track Club in their Voice for ten years,
but also with this breakfast club. He also has worked
(01:41):
at Gary Gribble's running stores for years and there's been
a Wednesday night running group where he would play the piano.
He's a running renaissance man and I love talking to him,
and I think you'll love listening to him. Our Kansas
City profile for today is Bob Cook. Kansas City Profiles
presented by Easton Roofing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
More of Danny's Reasonably Irreverend podcast after this.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hey, Kansas City, Joe Spiker Eastern Roofing here.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Don't you hate it when people start talking about Christmas
before Thanksgiving? Even arrives me too, but right now I'm
that guy. Call Eastern Roofing today and get on the
schedule to have your custom Christmas lights installed before Thanksgiving
and receive a ten percent discount on your holiday light installation.
Stay off that ladder and let the pros hang your
custom holiday lights this year Eastern Roofing Integrity matters, It'll
(02:33):
be real nice Clark.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
We're here with doctor brad Woodhell from Advanced Sports and
Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. And one thing I noticed when
I come here is just about once a month, there's
a special day for the little ones.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
We have a Kid's Day the first Friday of every
single month, and we dedicate our clinic to feeling comfortable
for them. Movies, music, fun gift bags, healthy treats, and
we want kids to learn about chiropractic and how to
stay well at an Earth.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's part of their lifelong process of staying fit right.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,
and when you learn about chiropractic at a young age,
you understand these healthy choices are worth it and they
just love it.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Advanced Sports and Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. There are eight
locations all around the Kansas City area, so it's easy
to find one near you, bring your kids, bring yourself,
be healthy at ASFCA. But here with Matt Lewellen from
the twenty third Street Brewery Hence Brewery. So beer is
important and you've got great ones.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
Yes, we do, and we've got a great brewer, Angelo
Ruiz has been here for three years now and just
bruise great great beer, always something new on tap. It's
hard to say what our best beers are because he
always has a new beer coming out for the season.
I was asked earlier today what we have coming up next,
and I'm like, I don't know. Ask Angelo. Come inside
(03:55):
the restaurant. Talk to Angelo, our brewer. He'll tell you everything,
but he might say he doesn't know either. No matter
what it is, Danny, it's a great beer though, and
Angelo Bruce all kinds of great beer.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Great beers, great food, great fun at the twenty third
Street Brewery, twenty third d Castle.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
If you'd like to join these and other great sponsors
and market your business to a growing and engaged audience,
contact us at Danny Clinkscale dot com. Look forward to
hearing from you.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You're born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and tell us a
little bit about what it was like being a fifties
kid in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
Well, let's say it was a beautiful place to grow up, Danny.
It was on the Ohio River across from Wheeling, West Virginia,
about two hours east of Columbus. On I seventy, it
was the actual first city in Ohio. The Ohio River,
which by the way, starts in Pittsburgh at the confluence
(04:54):
of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers. They come together in
downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio and settlers came down
the Ohio River and settled in Martins Ferry. And there
was a gentleman by the name of Ebenezer Martin who
had a ferry boat that went across the river, and
hence the name Martin's Ferry.
Speaker 8 (05:15):
That's how it got its name. So growing up.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
There was pretty cool, even though I was in Ohio
and there are sports teams in Ohio in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Martin's Ferry was just sixty miles from Pittsburgh, so everybody
there pretty much all of the Pirates and the Steelers,
and there were slim pickings there back in the in
the sixties until the seventies when Terry Bradshaw led the
(05:42):
Steelers to four Super Bowls. And also one of the
highlights of my grade school years was in nineteen sixty
I was in seventh grade and the Pirates were playing
the Yankees in the World Series and one of our
local guys, Bill Mazeroski, who played second base for the Pirates.
He grew up just about seven or eight miles north
(06:02):
of Martins Ferry, Wow, so he was our hero anyway.
Of course, in the seventh game of that series, tied
up nine to nine, he came up in the bottom
of the ninth and hit one over the wall off
of Ralph Kerry and won the It was a walk
off World Series win, So that was a very exciting
time for us kids. We had a little black and
white TV in our school. All the World Series games
(06:26):
were played during the day. Back then, they didn't have
the ninth game, so we got to watch the game
just as school was getting out. Mas hit that homer.
So had a great time living there and growing up
in Martins Ferry, and I stayed there all through grade
school and high school.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
What were some of your interest when you were growing up.
Obviously sounds like you were a sports minded kids. Did
I assume you played youth sports?
Speaker 7 (06:49):
Well, I was pretty small, too small for football and basketball,
but baseball was my sport and anytime I played baseball
and later years in softball. I played and base primarily
starting out because of Bill Mazeroski and my hero at
the time, and I played other positions in the infield,
but that was my main sport because I wasn't really
(07:09):
big enough at the time. In fact, I was one
of the smallest boys in my class. When I got
out of high school, and when I went to my
ten year reunion, I had grown about six inches in height,
gained about fifty pounds, and I had an afro haircut,
and nobody knew who I was. Sounds like most changed person.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Sounds like a familiar tale. So when you're going through
high school, what were some of your thoughts about what
your future might bring.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
Well, we planned on going to college. I'm the oldest
of five kids, by the way, and fortunately all five
of us did manage to graduate from college. I chose
Ohio University. There are a number of colleges in Ohio
and most of many of which are in the Mid
American Conference sports wise. But when I was at OHIOU
(07:59):
in the late sixth these early seventies, it was kind
of the best of times and worst at times. Back
in nineteen sixty eight, Ohio's football team went undefeated and
won the Mid American Conference title. Unfortunately, nobody noticed because
up the road in Columbus there was a team called
Ohio State that also went undefeated that year and won
the national championship, So we were kind of overlooked there.
(08:23):
Around nineteen seventy, our baseball team, we had a short
stop named Mike Schmidt at the time, that led the
team to the College World Series in Omaha. So that
was a thrill cheering on the bobcasts in baseball, and
our basketball team went something like twenty and five or
something back then. The bad news back then was that
(08:45):
in May of nineteen seventy there were a lot of
Vietnam Riots going on in college campuses. At Kent State
on May fourth of nineteen seventy four students got shot
and killed by the National Guard. Were riots at Ohio
you as well, teargas on campus, things like that. They
closed the campus early. So that was some tumultuous times
(09:10):
in my college days. My college career was interrupted somewhat
by serving in the Navy. Back then, they were drafting men.
Once you turned eighteen, you had to sign up for
the Selective Service, and they were drafting into the Marines
and the Army during the Vietnam War. A buddy of
(09:32):
mine and myself in nineteen seventy decided to join the
Navy reserves to avoid ending up in a foxhole in Vietnam,
and that allowed us to continue with school, which I
did and I had two quarters left to graduate with
my degree when I was called up to active duty
and I served on a destroyer ship out of Norfolk,
(09:55):
Virginia from seventy one until seventy and it was a
good experience as well. We spent seven months in the
Mediterranean Sea in several trips to the Caribbean, but fortunately
we stayed out of the.
Speaker 8 (10:10):
Conflict over Vietnam.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
I got out of the Navy in office of seventy three,
and then I finished up my last two quarters and
got my Bachelor of Business Administration degree at OHIOU in
March of nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Did you have a life's plan laid out at that
time with your business administration? What kind of business did
you want to do at that time or what did
what were you thinking?
Speaker 7 (10:34):
I did not have anything specific planned. I interviewed with
several companies that came on campus. One of which was
a company called International Harvester who had a truck assembly
plant in Springfield, Ohio. And one of my classmates that
I had met at Ohio worked there as a union
guy at on the assembly line, and I got to
(10:55):
know him, and so just on a lark, I interviewed
with them when they came to CAMPMPUS and they hired
me into their management training program along with about ten
other people, and that was in April of seventy four.
About a year later, they had a massive layoff at
that plant. They cut back on one of the two
(11:16):
assembly lines. They had eliminated about three thousand jobs, including
the ten of us that were in the management training program.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
While I was there, I ended up being a foreman over.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
About a dozen UAW workers.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
On a shipping dock. So it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 7 (11:32):
Dealing with those union guys. But I did get laid
off for a while. By that time, I was dating
a girl in Dayton, Ohio, and I moved there and
got a job with an insurance company. Did that for
a year and didn't really know anybody else there and
that wasn't working out for me. So then I actually
(11:53):
get a job with an elevator company in Cincinnati in
February of nineteen seventy seven, and I ended up with
that company, Dover Elevator for thirty five and a half years.
I will say this the time I had off between
jobs in nineteen seventy six, I a friend of mine
(12:15):
and myself decided on a wild hair to try parachuting.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
And we went to a small airport in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
South of Dayton, and we paid I think thirty two
dollars for our initial parachute class. And back then they
didn't have the tandem jumps what we had. There were
solo jumps. We had a four hours instruction jumping off
a platform, learning how to land properly and how to
get out of the airplane. And they were these big
(12:45):
T ten army parachutes, nothing like the fancy, little bed
cheek parachutes they have to day, with very accurate landings.
My first jump, they have a target area down there,
and I was off by about one hundred yards, but
that was better than my buddy. He jumped after I did,
and he ended up the wind picked up or something
and he ended up on nearly landing in a farmer's
(13:07):
pond adjacent to the airport, but I did about three
or four more jumps and then retired from that activity.
And when I started with the company in Cincinnati, I
was there for four years. I transferred to Saint Louis
in nineteen eighty one, selling elevators, mainly working with architects
(13:27):
and general contractors, and I was just there for one year.
Speaker 8 (13:32):
But while I was there, I got a pilot's license.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
It's just something that I wanted to do at the time,
and so I got my pilot's license and I would
rent planes there at that little airport in the Saint
Louis area. In nineteen eighty two, I transferred to Kansas City,
so I've been here for forty three years, and I
continued to fly rent planes out of a Johnson County
(13:57):
Executive Airport in alta little four seater planes called Piper Warriors,
and a lot of times I would have family or
friends come from out of town and take them on
a plane ride. One time I had this girl I
was dating. It was one of our early dates. We
flew to Topeka, had lunch, and flew back and I was
(14:18):
on final approach to land at Johnson County and the
poor girl opened up her person threw up vehemently. For
some reason. My good sunglasses were in their purse as well.
But so we landed there and I popped open the
little window as I was taxing to the area to
tie the plane down to let some air in there.
And the girl she got out of the plane as
(14:39):
I was tying the plane down. She says, you probably
won't want to date me anymore. I said, well, go
brush your teeth and we'll talk about it. So but anyway,
another time I dated a girl and I took her
on the same plane ride to Topeka back and she
wasn't too enthusied about it. So I was dating her
and I ended up just flying by myself for a while,
(15:00):
and that was getting kind of expensive. So I retired
from flying after ten years and took up a long
distance running. I found it to be a lot cheaper,
just takes longer to get somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, did this just come out of the blue. I mean,
you sound like somebody who embraces adventures, obviously, But had
you been had you been doing any running before this time?
Speaker 7 (15:25):
No, I would say that it had done a little
bit of running the early eighties when I moved here,
just kind of keeping shape, like a mile a day,
and then a couple miles a day, and then maybe
three miles a day. And then my boss at the time,
this was in nineteen eighty four asked me if I
would run the.
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Mason's ten k.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
His wife because my boss had a sore ankle or
something he wasn't going to be there. And I said, well,
I've never run six miles before, but let me think
about it.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
So I two weeks before the race.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
I went out and ran six miles of my neighborhood
about killed me, but I did agreed to do that.
Speaker 8 (16:05):
So they had the Macy's Marathon and ten k.
Speaker 7 (16:09):
And I think it was October or eighty four, and
I went down there and it was so crowded I
didn't even see the guy's wife. So I ended up
running getting back in the pack. The race took off
and I was just stuck behind a lot of slower people.
Not that I was fast, but I thought I should
not be near the front at this point. Took me
(16:29):
a couple of miles before I could stretch my legs
and run a little bit better. I made the mistake
of eating a whole pizza the night before because I
heard it was supposed to load up on carbohydrates and
that pizza was still with me when I was running,
So I was cramping up a bit, but I didn't
manage to get to the finish down at the country
Club Plaza, and I had a burst of adrenaline the
(16:52):
last hundred yards and passed three women. I think. I thought, Yeah,
this is the sport for me now, and I started
looking for other races to run and eventually increased my
mileage a little bit. And then for my fortieth birthday
in nineteen eighty eight, somebody suggested I should run a
(17:13):
marathon just to They said it would make me feel younger.
But at that point I had not even run a
half marathon. So in nineteen eighty eight I joined a
running group in town here and trained for the Hospital
Hill half marathon, and I was so excited to finish
under two hours in that race.
Speaker 8 (17:34):
It was like one point fifty three or something.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
But run across the finish line, I thought I could
not run two more blocks, let alone another thirteen pointy
one miles. But everybody in this group I was with.
Training group continued training for their first marathon that fall.
They're about twenty of us, so I stuck with a group.
We slowly increased our mileage, and I found it was
a lot of fun to run with other people on
(17:59):
the long run, running a little slower, and you can
talk and get to know a lot about people. And
I made so many very good friends just that year
in that training group. In that fall, everybody ran the
City Marathon except me. I went back and ran the
Columbus Marathon, being from Ohio, and my family members could
(18:20):
come and cheer me on. So in November of nineteen
eighty eight, about a week after I turned forty, I
ran the Columbus Marathon in a time of three fifty three.
So I was pretty excited.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
That I broke four hours.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
Nice And that's all I was originally planning to do.
Except I made so many friends in this training group.
Somebody said, let's do another one next year. And the
following year several of us went and ran the New
York City Marathon. And then the next year I ran
the Pittsburgh Marathon, and then that fall Twin Cities or
(18:54):
Chicago Marathon and sort of got the bug, and in
that Chicago Marathon, I I qualified for the Boston Marathon
for the first time I had to run a marathon
under three twenty, and I think I ran at three sixteen.
So my fifth marathon was Boston, and I thought if
I never run another one, my running career was complete
(19:15):
having run that one. But I stuck with it, continued
running and did about two marathons a year until I
got up to twenty five marathons and I retired at
that point from marathons.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
More of Danny's Reasonably Irreverend podcast after this.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Hey, Kansas City, Joe Spiker Eastern Roofing Year.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Don't you hate it when people start talking about Christmas
before Thanksgiving? Even arrives me too, But right now I'm
that guy. Call Eastern Roofing today and get on the
schedule to have your custom Christmas lights installed before Thanksgiving
and receive a ten percent discount on your holiday light installation.
Stay off that ladder and let the pros hang your
custom holiday lights this year.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Eastern Roofing integrity matters. It'll be real nice Clark.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We're here with doctor Brad woodl from Advanced Sports and
Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Staying active and being active is
part of a healthy lifestyle and something to make you happy,
but also maintaining the level of fitness so that you
can do it is important.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
We all want to perform better, whether we're ten moving
on to our next level of sports or whether we're
fifty wanting to maintain those sports. Staying in motion is
the key, but that motion isn't just the only part.
If our motion isn't balanced with our muscles, with our
joints and communicating through the nervous system, we are not
staying well. And that's where chiropractic can change your life.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And you have all kinds of things here at the
clinics to do that.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Lots of different touches and techniques, So if you're used
to traditional chiropractic, you are going to be amazed at
all the many different touches, techniques, therapies, and state of
the art equipment that helps you perform better.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Advanced Sports and Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Eight locations all
around the Kansas City area, so there's one near you
and you can stay fit, be fit, be happy, and
do all that at the eight locations of ASFCA. This
is Danny for my friends at Active Life Physical Therapy
where you can reclaim your active life or like me,
(21:18):
enhance it. I have been seeing doctors Troy and Jaden
for a couple of months now as I was looking
to improve my posture and the flexibility in my surgically
repaired knee, and it has worked. They're friendly and professional,
but will also really challenge you at their brand new
facility and create a personal plan that you can follow
away from your scheduled sessions. If you are rehabbing after surgery,
(21:41):
feeling pain and joints or muscles, or want to fine
tune like me, Troy and Jaden are the ones to
see at Active Life Physical Therapy at one hundred and
nineteenth in Greenwood. Find out more at ALPTC dot com.
That's alptc dot com for Active Life Physical Therapy and
get the same quality service that I enjoy Active Life
(22:03):
Physical Therapy. If you'd like to join these and other
fine sponsors and market your business to Kansas City's number
one variety podcast, contact us at Danny at Danny clinkscale
dot com. Look forward to working with you. Our guest
is Bob Cook and our association is through running and
it's been a great pleasure to be around his running
group a few times now and They are a testimony
(22:26):
to the virtues of running. These are older men, most
of them older than me, and I'm pretty old, and
they all look great and they're healthy, and some of
them still run and many of them don't. But running
became a really sort of a part of your existence,
as it were, and it sounds like you embraced it
(22:46):
pretty quickly. But one other thing that happened that running
group you mentioned you met your future wife.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
That is correct. Back in nineteen eighty eight, the same
time I was in this training group, one of the
people in the group was telling me about the Wednesday
Night Run. Now, the Wednesday Night Run is something that
was basically put on by the Kansas City.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
Track Club, one of the local running.
Speaker 7 (23:09):
Clubs, but it was open to anybody that wanted to participate.
And what it was each week, fifty two weeks a year,
somebody would host the Wednesday Night Run at their home.
They would draw out a map up to like ten
miles where anybody can go out and run whatever distance
they wanted. Back then, a lot of us did run
(23:31):
ten miles and then we would come back to that
house for a todd luck supper. So it was a
very social thing. And there are a number of marriages
that came out of that. But on my very first
visit there in nineteen eighty eight, a girl that hosted
it just off the Ward Parkway, I actually met Annie,
the girl I did eventually marry, and I tried to
(23:54):
keep up with her that first time. I failed miserably,
but weeks later we kind of connected and actually went
out a two or three times, but then we kind
of went our separate ways for a while. We continued
with the Wednesday night runs, or at least I did,
and that was in see eighty eight. Back in nineteen
(24:17):
ninety five, she and I had by that time dated
some other people, but we both ended up in a
Wednesday night run again in nineteen ninety five, and we
were both single at that time or not attached to anybody,
So I asked her if she wanted to go to
a Royals game, which we did. We kind of got
reacquainted and hit it off.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Pretty well, and then in February.
Speaker 7 (24:42):
Of nineteen ninety eight, she and I went out to
Las Vegas, ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon and got
married the same day in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Wow, that's a cool story. It sounds like you were
waiting for the right one. We've heard many datings stories,
but Annie, and then about ten years to flag Annie
down too.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Yeah, it took me. I was a slow learner in
some cases, and I needed a lot of practice over
the years. But yeah, she and I we had to
get up extremely early that morning, February first of ninety eight,
and they bust us out out in the desert. Back
then you ran out from the desert into down into
Las Vegas, and so we did that half marathon. The
(25:28):
wedding was scheduled for that evening at Valley's Hotel and Casino,
and I took a.
Speaker 8 (25:34):
Nap that afternoon.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
I thought that would be a good idea while.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
Annie swam some laps.
Speaker 7 (25:39):
In the outdoor pool and developed a severe case of
bloodshot eyes from the chlorine. So it looked like she
was all liquored up for the wedding. She was threatening
to wear sunglasses. And actually it was a very small event.
It was just us, another couple friends of ours from
Kansas City that also ran the half marathon, and then
(26:01):
my sister and her husband from Florida came up also
to see the wedding, and that was it. So it
was quite an event for sure, and so she was
a runner. Later that year, in ninety eight, she ran
the Chicago Marathon and that was and she crossed the
finish line in about five hours and said, well, I
(26:21):
did it.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
I'm a marathoner. But never again, and so she retired.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Well, I think I always said she was smarter than
I was, but I was doing two marathons a year,
and a concession to marriage, ran my last marathon in
two thousand, which was two years after we were married,
and I managed to qualify and run the Boston Marathon
as my twenty fifth and final marathon in the year
(26:48):
two thousands. So it's been twenty five years since I've
run my last marathon. But it was an enjoyable time.
I missed the long run sometimes. Getting back to the
Wednesday night runs, some of the these people that hosted
had a piano at their house, and I sort of
got a reputation of maybe sitting down and playing a
(27:10):
few songs on the piano and going back to my
youth in Martin Serry back in second grade. My mom
came up with the idea that well what happened was
in second grade I sat down on her family piano
one time and I plunked out Mary had a little
lamb with one finger. My mom seemed to think I
had talent, so she signed me up for Channel Lessons,
(27:32):
much to my dismay. I had no interest in it,
but for two or three four years I took Piane lessons.
I had much rather would have been out playing ball
with my buddies, but I persevered for a while. I
detested the little recitals we had to do in church
basements and things like that. But finally, in about sixth grade,
I convinced my mom I was really not interested at all,
(27:55):
so she begrudgingly let me quit the Channel lessons. Well,
when I was in high school in the sixties, specifically
in nineteen sixty four, after seeing the Beatles on Sullivan,
I was a big Beatles fan, and I would find
myself sitting down to piano and starting to try to
play Beatle songs by ear. I found it fairly easy
(28:16):
and much more fun and interesting than structured lessons, so
I would just start picking off Beatle songs and then
some songs by Elton John and Billy Joel things like that.
And when I went off to college, i'd find myself
coming back home to visit, sitting down to the piano and
playing more of these type of songs. And occasionally at
(28:36):
Ohio I've sit down at the nice piano they had
at the student Union. I hit a few Beatles songs there.
You know, I never became a professional or wanted to be.
It was just kind of my personal fun thing to do.
So when I started going to these, well, when I
graduated from college and got my first job and got
out the Navy and everything, I actually bought an old,
(28:59):
upright piano in Ohio and I dragged it with me
every way I went for several years, from Springfield, Ohio,
to Dayton, to Cincinnati, then Saint Louis, then to Overland
Park in an apartment, and then finally a house and
Overland Park. And when I started playing some of these
pianos at Wednesday Night run, some of these people had
some really nice pianos, much better than what I had it, right,
(29:21):
So I thought I'd better up my game a little bit,
and I about twenty five thirty years ago, traded that
old thing in for a nice baby grand piano, And
so I occasionally sit down and just play the same
old songs over and over again and picked maybe occasionally
something new, and once in a while Annie would say,
I haven't heard you play in a while, and I'd
(29:42):
sat down and play.
Speaker 8 (29:43):
Some old Beatles song and they'd make her happy.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
So the piano thing became kind of a surprisingly big
thing in my life, you know, even though initially I
had wanted nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's really a cool story. And also, you've been involved
in the running community in any different ways. Run the
board of the Kansas City Track Club for ten years
in the nineties. What do you think it is about
running and the running community and people who run that
was so appealing to you.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
Well, the appealing part when I just started for exercise
and then training for a race, I just found that
runners are like the friendliest people you can ever meet.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
Nobody's in a bad mood usually, and you go out
on the long run, like.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
I say, you get to meet and learn a lot
about people. And I did serve on the Kansas City
Track Club board for ten years, and my primary job,
in addition to helping put on races and volunteer at races,
was I was the voice of the Kansas City Track
Club back then before the internets and so forth we
(30:47):
had a phone number you would call and every week
I would update it a message indicating where what races
were coming up, where the training runs, where the Wednesday
their run is going to be. So people would call
this line, this hotline and hear my voice just giving
updates every week, and this went on for ten years.
(31:07):
That is my primary job at the track club because,
like I said, back then, nobody we didn't have the
Internet where people can just get online to find out
what was going on in the running community. But once
again I met so many runs runners that were good friends.
And then every weekend I did for twenty some years
I ran a long run with a bunch of guys
(31:27):
from Help Plus, which it was a fitness club located
about one hundred and seventh in a row. And that's
just something we did every Sunday or Saturday for years,
and it was good for training for long races and marathons,
and most of us were marathons anyway. And then a
few years ago I got involved in what we call
(31:51):
the Doctor Pepper group, a group of guys that are
in primarily their seventies and eighties, a couple in their
nineties that some people would consider these guys who's who
of Kansas City running history.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
I mean some are coaches.
Speaker 7 (32:08):
They all at one time or another were extremely good
runners in high school or college. Some coached. One fellow,
Gary Gribble, owned a number of running stores here in town.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Did a podcast with him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
You certainly did. And another podcast you did was another
one of our guys, Steve Fuller, who has run three
hundred and six marathons. I think stops that guy. He's
seventy seven years old. Gary Gribbles about eighty six or seven.
And there's another guy, doctor Ralph Hall, who's ninety nine
years old.
Speaker 8 (32:41):
He was an extremely good runner back way back in
his day.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
But he also was the founder of the famous Hospital
Hill Run in Kansas City, which has been going on
strong for fifty two years now, and he's ninety nine
years old. He drives himself to our little monthly gatherings
where we have coffee, share stories, and he, in fact
will turn one hundred in February. So we have a
(33:06):
lot of characters in this group, and a couple of
them in their seventy five to seventy nine age group.
They are extremely fast still and nationally ranked in track
events and they belong to a group called the so
Cow Track Club and they do racist track races all
over the country and they are nationally ranked. So it's
(33:28):
quite a group and occasionally we have some good some
members like Mark Kirk shows up on occasion. Mark at
one time held the world record in the half marathon.
Speaker 8 (33:38):
I think it was back in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
You're in at one hour in a few seconds, and
he held the American record for quite a few years,
in the world record for a few years as well.
So it's quite a group and we enjoy meeting and
getting together and as long as we're still still alive,
even though we're not running anymore, we just enjoy our
company with ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, and those guys who were still active runners, I mean,
you wouldn't guess they were fifty five, let alone seventy five.
But anyway, you retired in twenty twelve from work, but
of course then you worked at Gary Gribble's store for
a while and did stuff like that. You've always stayed active.
But one of the things you've liked to do, aside
from picking up jobs and the doctor Peckberg group and
(34:23):
everything in retirement.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
I continued to run races after I retired. I retired from.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
The Elevator Company after about thirty five and a half
years in fall of twenty twelve, and before I retired,
I contacted Gary Gribble because I had, as a runner,
had shopped at his stores.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
Gary owned five running stores locally here.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
And I had shopped there for a number of years,
so I knew him fairly well, and I had asked
him about getting a part time job, retirement job in
his stores when I retired, so he hired me after
I retired from the corporate world and just as a
part time retirement job, and I spent my time between
(35:08):
the store and word Parkway shopping center, and I went
in over a park at one hundred nineteenth in Quagia,
and I kept me connected with the running community. I
get to meet new people every day. I've been there
for thirteen and it was thirteen years now, and I
just enjoy Gary always hired runners anyway, so we were
(35:29):
able to give with our experience information tips to new runners,
especially and helping them get the right shoes and the
peril for running. Gary sold the stores about ten years ago,
and eventually these stores that he owned became fleet Feet,
which is a national company. They owned stores all over
(35:51):
the country, but including the Gribblls Gary Gribbles stores here
in the Kansas City area. So it didn't really change
my outlook much.
Speaker 8 (36:00):
As a just as.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
A part time where I enjoy working there. It gets
me out of the house, and so that's just what
I enjoy doing right now. I kind of gave up
on some of my crazier things like flying and parachuting
and things like that. But my wife and I have
been married since nineteen ninety eight, so like twenty seven years,
and we enjoy getting out walking a lot.
Speaker 8 (36:24):
Now. Neither one of us runs anymore, and so that's
kind of where we stand.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Do you like to travel? What are some of the
other interests in your life besides well, you got the piano,
you got walking, you got the groups. You sound like
they're pretty lively. But what do you like to do?
Speaker 7 (36:40):
Well? We did travel mainly for races a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 7 (36:46):
I mean I do some out of town marathon. Most
all of my marathons were out of town and it
just gave us a way too. I enjoyed running marathons
out of town. I think it's a great way to
see a city, especially in New York City, where you
go through all five boroughs during that race and there's thousands,
thousands of people out there, millions maybe carrying you on.
And so I've done races all over the country, and
(37:09):
four separate ones in California, and I've run Chicago.
Speaker 8 (37:13):
But it's just a great way to see the city.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
And when after we got married, she'd go with me
and either run a associate or race maybe a five
k or something that was there at the same time
as the marathon, and it was to travel and see
different places. So after I retired from marathons, why she
complained a little bit that, hey, we're not traveling very
much anymore, so go ahead and pick out another race.
(37:37):
So I said, okay, well, there's one in New Orleans.
It's called the Marti Gras Marathon and half Marathon. And
we actually decided to do the half marathon together, and
so it was right around Marty Gras February, I think
it was two thousand and four or so. It was
the year before Katrina hit there. The race started at
(37:59):
the Superdome down there, and we ran through the French Quarter,
and one thing I remember about that is our feet
sticking to the ground from some of the fluids that
were spilled there the night before. They weren't properly cleaned up.
But it was a great way to see that city.
And actually the race finished inside the Superdome. Football season
was over, so there's no field there other than concrete,
(38:21):
but they had to finish line set up in what
would have been about fifty yard line of the Superdome.
So other than that, some of my family members my siblings,
have moved to Florida, so we would occasionally get down
there and spend some time. It's one of our favorite places.
We also would visit friends in Phoenix as well as California.
On my wife's sixtieth birthday in twenty ten, we actually,
(38:45):
on the very day of our sixtieth birthday, ran the
Long Beach California Half Marathon, so that was another fun event.
So that's kind of what most of our traveling was
over the years, had to do with a running, but
otherwise to visit friends and family. We were supposed to
go on a cruise, a Mediterranean cruise in twenty twenty
in October, but it was canceled by the COVID right epidemic,
(39:10):
so we never did go through with that one.
Speaker 8 (39:13):
So most of our travel has been in the country
here well.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Through all the work life and running life and piano life,
it sounds like you have created a life of real contentment.
When we talk and we've had some long conversations, you
seem like a person who has enjoyed life and has
a lot of peace and joy in his life.
Speaker 7 (39:36):
Yeah, we're in a good place right now. I'm pretty happy.
My health is held up. I did back in twenty ten.
I was doing my honeydew list on Memorial Day, cleaning
the gutters, and I slipped off the ladder and broke
six ribs in my back. This was on Memorial Day
twenty ten, and I was rushed to the hospital and
(40:00):
they did some X rays and said I had six
broken ribs, three of them broken in more than one place.
And I told the doctor I'm signed up to do
the Hospital Hill half marathon a week later. He said, well,
get that out of your mind right now. So a
friend of mine asked me if since I was already
registered for that race and I couldn't run it. My
(40:20):
friend asked me if I could have his number, my
number and my bid number, and so I said sure,
and he was a pretty good runner. But unfortunately for me,
he decided to run that half marathon with his girlfriend.
It was her first half marathon, so when they finished,
my name ended up in the results with the slowest
time I'd ever had there because my friend was wearing
(40:42):
my number. But that was a good I never ran
the half marathon after that, and at least that one
that broken ribs slowed me down for a while, but
I eventually got back into it and ran some shorter
races and continued running because I thought it's important to
keep moving as you get older, whether you're running or
walking or crawling, just keep moving.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I like to end with a good answer, and that
was a good one. I knew it would be an
enjoyable ride. So thanks very much for doing this. I
really appreciated it, and I knew a lot of the
stuff that was in there, but now I'll get to
share it, and you have something to share with friends
and family, and I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Okay, I appreciate it, Danny, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
All right, And as I said, I'll do the intro
and then send over anything you like. I'll be able
to work with some other things. But if you have
a couple of favorites you want to send over, that'd
be great.
Speaker 8 (41:37):
Okay, you mean just text you some pictures.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Or yeah, yeah, email would be emails a little easier, but.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
However you do it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I can send you some for sure, right, maybe
maybe the Las Vegas wedding picture with no sunglasses.
Speaker 8 (41:50):
Okay, that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
We'll do Thanks a lot, Bob, Hey, Danny, talk to
you later, all right, have a great day.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
We hope you enjoyed the latest Danny Klinkscale reasonably irreverent podcast.
Come back soon for something fresh and new. This podcast
was made possible by our great sponsors like the twenty
third Street Brewery in Lawrence. Great food, finely crafted beers, cocktails,
and great sports viewing in a friendly and comfortable atmosphere.
(42:24):
Joined Matt Llewellen and his great staff at twenty third
and Castled in Lawrence.
Welcome to the Danny Clinkscale Reasonably Irreverent podcast, insightful and
witty commentary, probing interviews and detours from the beaten path.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Kansas City Profiles, presented by Easton Roofing. And
one of the recent new joys in my life has
been my association with the Doctor Pepper Breakfast Club, which
is a group of older men, some of whom still run,
but all of whom were avid runners at one time
or another. And the organizer of that group is Bob Cook.
(00:37):
He's a very interesting man. He ran many marathons, not
as many as our other guest, Steve Fuller did, who
we did a podcast with about six weeks ago or so.
But it's a really engaging group, a lot of fun.
Bill Hancock, the former head of the College Football Playoff
and the NCAA Tournament, is part of the group, and
(00:58):
he told some great stories the other day. But Bob
and I have had several conversations, and I just like
telling life stories, and his is a very interesting one.
He grew up in Ohio, went into the service at
the time of the Vietnam War, had an avid interest
in baseball and the piano had sort of a regular
(01:18):
work life as a businessman and a salesman, and at
one point in his life just decided that running seemed
to be an appealing thing, and he became a tremendously
avid runner and it became a big part of his life,
not only as a member of the board for the
Kansas City Track Club in their Voice for ten years,
but also with this breakfast club. He also has worked
(01:41):
at Gary Gribble's running stores for years and there's been
a Wednesday night running group where he would play the piano.
He's a running renaissance man and I love talking to him,
and I think you'll love listening to him. Our Kansas
City profile for today is Bob Cook. Kansas City Profiles
presented by Easton Roofing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
More of Danny's Reasonably Irreverend podcast after this.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hey, Kansas City, Joe Spiker Eastern Roofing here.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
Don't you hate it when people start talking about Christmas
before Thanksgiving? Even arrives me too, but right now I'm
that guy. Call Eastern Roofing today and get on the
schedule to have your custom Christmas lights installed before Thanksgiving
and receive a ten percent discount on your holiday light installation.
Stay off that ladder and let the pros hang your
custom holiday lights this year Eastern Roofing Integrity matters, It'll
(02:33):
be real nice Clark.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
We're here with doctor brad Woodhell from Advanced Sports and
Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. And one thing I noticed when
I come here is just about once a month, there's
a special day for the little ones.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
We have a Kid's Day the first Friday of every
single month, and we dedicate our clinic to feeling comfortable
for them. Movies, music, fun gift bags, healthy treats, and
we want kids to learn about chiropractic and how to
stay well at an Earth.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
It's part of their lifelong process of staying fit right.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,
and when you learn about chiropractic at a young age,
you understand these healthy choices are worth it and they
just love it.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Advanced Sports and Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. There are eight
locations all around the Kansas City area, so it's easy
to find one near you, bring your kids, bring yourself,
be healthy at ASFCA. But here with Matt Lewellen from
the twenty third Street Brewery Hence Brewery. So beer is
important and you've got great ones.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
Yes, we do, and we've got a great brewer, Angelo
Ruiz has been here for three years now and just
bruise great great beer, always something new on tap. It's
hard to say what our best beers are because he
always has a new beer coming out for the season.
I was asked earlier today what we have coming up next,
and I'm like, I don't know. Ask Angelo. Come inside
(03:55):
the restaurant. Talk to Angelo, our brewer. He'll tell you everything,
but he might say he doesn't know either. No matter
what it is, Danny, it's a great beer though, and
Angelo Bruce all kinds of great beer.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Great beers, great food, great fun at the twenty third
Street Brewery, twenty third d Castle.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
If you'd like to join these and other great sponsors
and market your business to a growing and engaged audience,
contact us at Danny Clinkscale dot com. Look forward to
hearing from you.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
Bob.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You're born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and tell us a
little bit about what it was like being a fifties
kid in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
Well, let's say it was a beautiful place to grow up, Danny.
It was on the Ohio River across from Wheeling, West Virginia,
about two hours east of Columbus. On I seventy, it
was the actual first city in Ohio. The Ohio River,
which by the way, starts in Pittsburgh at the confluence
(04:54):
of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers. They come together in
downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio and settlers came down
the Ohio River and settled in Martins Ferry. And there
was a gentleman by the name of Ebenezer Martin who
had a ferry boat that went across the river, and
hence the name Martin's Ferry.
Speaker 8 (05:15):
That's how it got its name. So growing up.
Speaker 7 (05:17):
There was pretty cool, even though I was in Ohio
and there are sports teams in Ohio in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Martin's Ferry was just sixty miles from Pittsburgh, so everybody
there pretty much all of the Pirates and the Steelers,
and there were slim pickings there back in the in
the sixties until the seventies when Terry Bradshaw led the
(05:42):
Steelers to four Super Bowls. And also one of the
highlights of my grade school years was in nineteen sixty
I was in seventh grade and the Pirates were playing
the Yankees in the World Series and one of our
local guys, Bill Mazeroski, who played second base for the Pirates.
He grew up just about seven or eight miles north
(06:02):
of Martins Ferry, Wow, so he was our hero anyway.
Of course, in the seventh game of that series, tied
up nine to nine, he came up in the bottom
of the ninth and hit one over the wall off
of Ralph Kerry and won the It was a walk
off World Series win, So that was a very exciting
time for us kids. We had a little black and
white TV in our school. All the World Series games
(06:26):
were played during the day. Back then, they didn't have
the ninth game, so we got to watch the game
just as school was getting out. Mas hit that homer.
So had a great time living there and growing up
in Martins Ferry, and I stayed there all through grade
school and high school.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
What were some of your interest when you were growing up.
Obviously sounds like you were a sports minded kids. Did
I assume you played youth sports?
Speaker 7 (06:49):
Well, I was pretty small, too small for football and basketball,
but baseball was my sport and anytime I played baseball
and later years in softball. I played and base primarily
starting out because of Bill Mazeroski and my hero at
the time, and I played other positions in the infield,
but that was my main sport because I wasn't really
(07:09):
big enough at the time. In fact, I was one
of the smallest boys in my class. When I got
out of high school, and when I went to my
ten year reunion, I had grown about six inches in height,
gained about fifty pounds, and I had an afro haircut,
and nobody knew who I was. Sounds like most changed person.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Sounds like a familiar tale. So when you're going through
high school, what were some of your thoughts about what
your future might bring.
Speaker 7 (07:37):
Well, we planned on going to college. I'm the oldest
of five kids, by the way, and fortunately all five
of us did manage to graduate from college. I chose
Ohio University. There are a number of colleges in Ohio
and most of many of which are in the Mid
American Conference sports wise. But when I was at OHIOU
(07:59):
in the late sixth these early seventies, it was kind
of the best of times and worst at times. Back
in nineteen sixty eight, Ohio's football team went undefeated and
won the Mid American Conference title. Unfortunately, nobody noticed because
up the road in Columbus there was a team called
Ohio State that also went undefeated that year and won
the national championship, So we were kind of overlooked there.
(08:23):
Around nineteen seventy, our baseball team, we had a short
stop named Mike Schmidt at the time, that led the
team to the College World Series in Omaha. So that
was a thrill cheering on the bobcasts in baseball, and
our basketball team went something like twenty and five or
something back then. The bad news back then was that
(08:45):
in May of nineteen seventy there were a lot of
Vietnam Riots going on in college campuses. At Kent State
on May fourth of nineteen seventy four students got shot
and killed by the National Guard. Were riots at Ohio
you as well, teargas on campus, things like that. They
closed the campus early. So that was some tumultuous times
(09:10):
in my college days. My college career was interrupted somewhat
by serving in the Navy. Back then, they were drafting men.
Once you turned eighteen, you had to sign up for
the Selective Service, and they were drafting into the Marines
and the Army during the Vietnam War. A buddy of
(09:32):
mine and myself in nineteen seventy decided to join the
Navy reserves to avoid ending up in a foxhole in Vietnam,
and that allowed us to continue with school, which I
did and I had two quarters left to graduate with
my degree when I was called up to active duty
and I served on a destroyer ship out of Norfolk,
(09:55):
Virginia from seventy one until seventy and it was a
good experience as well. We spent seven months in the
Mediterranean Sea in several trips to the Caribbean, but fortunately
we stayed out of the.
Speaker 8 (10:10):
Conflict over Vietnam.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
I got out of the Navy in office of seventy three,
and then I finished up my last two quarters and
got my Bachelor of Business Administration degree at OHIOU in
March of nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Did you have a life's plan laid out at that
time with your business administration? What kind of business did
you want to do at that time or what did
what were you thinking?
Speaker 7 (10:34):
I did not have anything specific planned. I interviewed with
several companies that came on campus. One of which was
a company called International Harvester who had a truck assembly
plant in Springfield, Ohio. And one of my classmates that
I had met at Ohio worked there as a union
guy at on the assembly line, and I got to
(10:55):
know him, and so just on a lark, I interviewed
with them when they came to CAMPMPUS and they hired
me into their management training program along with about ten
other people, and that was in April of seventy four.
About a year later, they had a massive layoff at
that plant. They cut back on one of the two
(11:16):
assembly lines. They had eliminated about three thousand jobs, including
the ten of us that were in the management training program.
Speaker 8 (11:23):
While I was there, I ended up being a foreman over.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
About a dozen UAW workers.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
On a shipping dock. So it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 7 (11:32):
Dealing with those union guys. But I did get laid
off for a while. By that time, I was dating
a girl in Dayton, Ohio, and I moved there and
got a job with an insurance company. Did that for
a year and didn't really know anybody else there and
that wasn't working out for me. So then I actually
(11:53):
get a job with an elevator company in Cincinnati in
February of nineteen seventy seven, and I ended up with
that company, Dover Elevator for thirty five and a half years.
I will say this the time I had off between
jobs in nineteen seventy six, I a friend of mine
(12:15):
and myself decided on a wild hair to try parachuting.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
And we went to a small airport in Ohio.
Speaker 7 (12:23):
South of Dayton, and we paid I think thirty two
dollars for our initial parachute class. And back then they
didn't have the tandem jumps what we had. There were
solo jumps. We had a four hours instruction jumping off
a platform, learning how to land properly and how to
get out of the airplane. And they were these big
(12:45):
T ten army parachutes, nothing like the fancy, little bed
cheek parachutes they have to day, with very accurate landings.
My first jump, they have a target area down there,
and I was off by about one hundred yards, but
that was better than my buddy. He jumped after I did,
and he ended up the wind picked up or something
and he ended up on nearly landing in a farmer's
(13:07):
pond adjacent to the airport, but I did about three
or four more jumps and then retired from that activity.
And when I started with the company in Cincinnati, I
was there for four years. I transferred to Saint Louis
in nineteen eighty one, selling elevators, mainly working with architects
(13:27):
and general contractors, and I was just there for one year.
Speaker 8 (13:32):
But while I was there, I got a pilot's license.
Speaker 7 (13:35):
It's just something that I wanted to do at the time,
and so I got my pilot's license and I would
rent planes there at that little airport in the Saint
Louis area. In nineteen eighty two, I transferred to Kansas City,
so I've been here for forty three years, and I
continued to fly rent planes out of a Johnson County
(13:57):
Executive Airport in alta little four seater planes called Piper Warriors,
and a lot of times I would have family or
friends come from out of town and take them on
a plane ride. One time I had this girl I
was dating. It was one of our early dates. We
flew to Topeka, had lunch, and flew back and I was
(14:18):
on final approach to land at Johnson County and the
poor girl opened up her person threw up vehemently. For
some reason. My good sunglasses were in their purse as well.
But so we landed there and I popped open the
little window as I was taxing to the area to
tie the plane down to let some air in there.
And the girl she got out of the plane as
(14:39):
I was tying the plane down. She says, you probably
won't want to date me anymore. I said, well, go
brush your teeth and we'll talk about it. So but anyway,
another time I dated a girl and I took her
on the same plane ride to Topeka back and she
wasn't too enthusied about it. So I was dating her
and I ended up just flying by myself for a while,
(15:00):
and that was getting kind of expensive. So I retired
from flying after ten years and took up a long
distance running. I found it to be a lot cheaper,
just takes longer to get somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, did this just come out of the blue. I mean,
you sound like somebody who embraces adventures, obviously, But had
you been had you been doing any running before this time?
Speaker 7 (15:25):
No, I would say that it had done a little
bit of running the early eighties when I moved here,
just kind of keeping shape, like a mile a day,
and then a couple miles a day, and then maybe
three miles a day. And then my boss at the time,
this was in nineteen eighty four asked me if I
would run the.
Speaker 8 (15:43):
Mason's ten k.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
His wife because my boss had a sore ankle or
something he wasn't going to be there. And I said, well,
I've never run six miles before, but let me think
about it.
Speaker 8 (15:56):
So I two weeks before the race.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
I went out and ran six miles of my neighborhood
about killed me, but I did agreed to do that.
Speaker 8 (16:05):
So they had the Macy's Marathon and ten k.
Speaker 7 (16:09):
And I think it was October or eighty four, and
I went down there and it was so crowded I
didn't even see the guy's wife. So I ended up
running getting back in the pack. The race took off
and I was just stuck behind a lot of slower people.
Not that I was fast, but I thought I should
not be near the front at this point. Took me
(16:29):
a couple of miles before I could stretch my legs
and run a little bit better. I made the mistake
of eating a whole pizza the night before because I
heard it was supposed to load up on carbohydrates and
that pizza was still with me when I was running,
So I was cramping up a bit, but I didn't
manage to get to the finish down at the country
Club Plaza, and I had a burst of adrenaline the
(16:52):
last hundred yards and passed three women. I think. I thought, Yeah,
this is the sport for me now, and I started
looking for other races to run and eventually increased my
mileage a little bit. And then for my fortieth birthday
in nineteen eighty eight, somebody suggested I should run a
(17:13):
marathon just to They said it would make me feel younger.
But at that point I had not even run a
half marathon. So in nineteen eighty eight I joined a
running group in town here and trained for the Hospital
Hill half marathon, and I was so excited to finish
under two hours in that race.
Speaker 8 (17:34):
It was like one point fifty three or something.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
But run across the finish line, I thought I could
not run two more blocks, let alone another thirteen pointy
one miles. But everybody in this group I was with.
Training group continued training for their first marathon that fall.
They're about twenty of us, so I stuck with a group.
We slowly increased our mileage, and I found it was
a lot of fun to run with other people on
(17:59):
the long run, running a little slower, and you can
talk and get to know a lot about people. And
I made so many very good friends just that year
in that training group. In that fall, everybody ran the
City Marathon except me. I went back and ran the
Columbus Marathon, being from Ohio, and my family members could
(18:20):
come and cheer me on. So in November of nineteen
eighty eight, about a week after I turned forty, I
ran the Columbus Marathon in a time of three fifty three.
So I was pretty excited.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
That I broke four hours.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
Nice And that's all I was originally planning to do.
Except I made so many friends in this training group.
Somebody said, let's do another one next year. And the
following year several of us went and ran the New
York City Marathon. And then the next year I ran
the Pittsburgh Marathon, and then that fall Twin Cities or
(18:54):
Chicago Marathon and sort of got the bug, and in
that Chicago Marathon, I I qualified for the Boston Marathon
for the first time I had to run a marathon
under three twenty, and I think I ran at three sixteen.
So my fifth marathon was Boston, and I thought if
I never run another one, my running career was complete
(19:15):
having run that one. But I stuck with it, continued
running and did about two marathons a year until I
got up to twenty five marathons and I retired at
that point from marathons.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
More of Danny's Reasonably Irreverend podcast after this.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Hey, Kansas City, Joe Spiker Eastern Roofing Year.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Don't you hate it when people start talking about Christmas
before Thanksgiving? Even arrives me too, But right now I'm
that guy. Call Eastern Roofing today and get on the
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and receive a ten percent discount on your holiday light installation.
Stay off that ladder and let the pros hang your
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Speaker 3 (19:59):
Eastern Roofing integrity matters. It'll be real nice Clark.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
We're here with doctor Brad woodl from Advanced Sports and
Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Staying active and being active is
part of a healthy lifestyle and something to make you happy,
but also maintaining the level of fitness so that you
can do it is important.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
We all want to perform better, whether we're ten moving
on to our next level of sports or whether we're
fifty wanting to maintain those sports. Staying in motion is
the key, but that motion isn't just the only part.
If our motion isn't balanced with our muscles, with our
joints and communicating through the nervous system, we are not
staying well. And that's where chiropractic can change your life.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And you have all kinds of things here at the
clinics to do that.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Lots of different touches and techniques, So if you're used
to traditional chiropractic, you are going to be amazed at
all the many different touches, techniques, therapies, and state of
the art equipment that helps you perform better.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Advanced Sports and Family Chiropractic and Acupuncture. Eight locations all
around the Kansas City area, so there's one near you
and you can stay fit, be fit, be happy, and
do all that at the eight locations of ASFCA. This
is Danny for my friends at Active Life Physical Therapy
where you can reclaim your active life or like me,
(21:18):
enhance it. I have been seeing doctors Troy and Jaden
for a couple of months now as I was looking
to improve my posture and the flexibility in my surgically
repaired knee, and it has worked. They're friendly and professional,
but will also really challenge you at their brand new
facility and create a personal plan that you can follow
away from your scheduled sessions. If you are rehabbing after surgery,
(21:41):
feeling pain and joints or muscles, or want to fine
tune like me, Troy and Jaden are the ones to
see at Active Life Physical Therapy at one hundred and
nineteenth in Greenwood. Find out more at ALPTC dot com.
That's alptc dot com for Active Life Physical Therapy and
get the same quality service that I enjoy Active Life
(22:03):
Physical Therapy. If you'd like to join these and other
fine sponsors and market your business to Kansas City's number
one variety podcast, contact us at Danny at Danny clinkscale
dot com. Look forward to working with you. Our guest
is Bob Cook and our association is through running and
it's been a great pleasure to be around his running
group a few times now and They are a testimony
(22:26):
to the virtues of running. These are older men, most
of them older than me, and I'm pretty old, and
they all look great and they're healthy, and some of
them still run and many of them don't. But running
became a really sort of a part of your existence,
as it were, and it sounds like you embraced it
(22:46):
pretty quickly. But one other thing that happened that running
group you mentioned you met your future wife.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
That is correct. Back in nineteen eighty eight, the same
time I was in this training group, one of the
people in the group was telling me about the Wednesday
Night Run. Now, the Wednesday Night Run is something that
was basically put on by the Kansas City.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
Track Club, one of the local running.
Speaker 7 (23:09):
Clubs, but it was open to anybody that wanted to participate.
And what it was each week, fifty two weeks a year,
somebody would host the Wednesday Night Run at their home.
They would draw out a map up to like ten
miles where anybody can go out and run whatever distance
they wanted. Back then, a lot of us did run
(23:31):
ten miles and then we would come back to that
house for a todd luck supper. So it was a
very social thing. And there are a number of marriages
that came out of that. But on my very first
visit there in nineteen eighty eight, a girl that hosted
it just off the Ward Parkway, I actually met Annie,
the girl I did eventually marry, and I tried to
(23:54):
keep up with her that first time. I failed miserably,
but weeks later we kind of connected and actually went
out a two or three times, but then we kind
of went our separate ways for a while. We continued
with the Wednesday night runs, or at least I did,
and that was in see eighty eight. Back in nineteen
(24:17):
ninety five, she and I had by that time dated
some other people, but we both ended up in a
Wednesday night run again in nineteen ninety five, and we
were both single at that time or not attached to anybody,
So I asked her if she wanted to go to
a Royals game, which we did. We kind of got
reacquainted and hit it off.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Pretty well, and then in February.
Speaker 7 (24:42):
Of nineteen ninety eight, she and I went out to
Las Vegas, ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon and got
married the same day in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Wow, that's a cool story. It sounds like you were
waiting for the right one. We've heard many datings stories,
but Annie, and then about ten years to flag Annie
down too.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Yeah, it took me. I was a slow learner in
some cases, and I needed a lot of practice over
the years. But yeah, she and I we had to
get up extremely early that morning, February first of ninety eight,
and they bust us out out in the desert. Back
then you ran out from the desert into down into
Las Vegas, and so we did that half marathon. The
(25:28):
wedding was scheduled for that evening at Valley's Hotel and Casino,
and I took a.
Speaker 8 (25:34):
Nap that afternoon.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
I thought that would be a good idea while.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
Annie swam some laps.
Speaker 7 (25:39):
In the outdoor pool and developed a severe case of
bloodshot eyes from the chlorine. So it looked like she
was all liquored up for the wedding. She was threatening
to wear sunglasses. And actually it was a very small event.
It was just us, another couple friends of ours from
Kansas City that also ran the half marathon, and then
(26:01):
my sister and her husband from Florida came up also
to see the wedding, and that was it. So it
was quite an event for sure, and so she was
a runner. Later that year, in ninety eight, she ran
the Chicago Marathon and that was and she crossed the
finish line in about five hours and said, well, I
(26:21):
did it.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
I'm a marathoner. But never again, and so she retired.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Well, I think I always said she was smarter than
I was, but I was doing two marathons a year,
and a concession to marriage, ran my last marathon in
two thousand, which was two years after we were married,
and I managed to qualify and run the Boston Marathon
as my twenty fifth and final marathon in the year
(26:48):
two thousands. So it's been twenty five years since I've
run my last marathon. But it was an enjoyable time.
I missed the long run sometimes. Getting back to the
Wednesday night runs, some of the these people that hosted
had a piano at their house, and I sort of
got a reputation of maybe sitting down and playing a
(27:10):
few songs on the piano and going back to my
youth in Martin Serry back in second grade. My mom
came up with the idea that well what happened was
in second grade I sat down on her family piano
one time and I plunked out Mary had a little
lamb with one finger. My mom seemed to think I
had talent, so she signed me up for Channel Lessons,
(27:32):
much to my dismay. I had no interest in it,
but for two or three four years I took Piane lessons.
I had much rather would have been out playing ball
with my buddies, but I persevered for a while. I
detested the little recitals we had to do in church
basements and things like that. But finally, in about sixth grade,
I convinced my mom I was really not interested at all,
(27:55):
so she begrudgingly let me quit the Channel lessons. Well,
when I was in high school in the sixties, specifically
in nineteen sixty four, after seeing the Beatles on Sullivan,
I was a big Beatles fan, and I would find
myself sitting down to piano and starting to try to
play Beatle songs by ear. I found it fairly easy
(28:16):
and much more fun and interesting than structured lessons, so
I would just start picking off Beatle songs and then
some songs by Elton John and Billy Joel things like that.
And when I went off to college, i'd find myself
coming back home to visit, sitting down to the piano and
playing more of these type of songs. And occasionally at
(28:36):
Ohio I've sit down at the nice piano they had
at the student Union. I hit a few Beatles songs there.
You know, I never became a professional or wanted to be.
It was just kind of my personal fun thing to do.
So when I started going to these, well, when I
graduated from college and got my first job and got
out the Navy and everything, I actually bought an old,
(28:59):
upright piano in Ohio and I dragged it with me
every way I went for several years, from Springfield, Ohio,
to Dayton, to Cincinnati, then Saint Louis, then to Overland
Park in an apartment, and then finally a house and
Overland Park. And when I started playing some of these
pianos at Wednesday Night run, some of these people had
some really nice pianos, much better than what I had it, right,
(29:21):
So I thought I'd better up my game a little bit,
and I about twenty five thirty years ago, traded that
old thing in for a nice baby grand piano, And
so I occasionally sit down and just play the same
old songs over and over again and picked maybe occasionally
something new, and once in a while Annie would say,
I haven't heard you play in a while, and I'd
(29:42):
sat down and play.
Speaker 8 (29:43):
Some old Beatles song and they'd make her happy.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
So the piano thing became kind of a surprisingly big
thing in my life, you know, even though initially I
had wanted nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's really a cool story. And also, you've been involved
in the running community in any different ways. Run the
board of the Kansas City Track Club for ten years
in the nineties. What do you think it is about
running and the running community and people who run that
was so appealing to you.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
Well, the appealing part when I just started for exercise
and then training for a race, I just found that
runners are like the friendliest people you can ever meet.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
Nobody's in a bad mood usually, and you go out
on the long run, like.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
I say, you get to meet and learn a lot
about people. And I did serve on the Kansas City
Track Club board for ten years, and my primary job,
in addition to helping put on races and volunteer at races,
was I was the voice of the Kansas City Track
Club back then before the internets and so forth we
(30:47):
had a phone number you would call and every week
I would update it a message indicating where what races
were coming up, where the training runs, where the Wednesday
their run is going to be. So people would call
this line, this hotline and hear my voice just giving
updates every week, and this went on for ten years.
(31:07):
That is my primary job at the track club because,
like I said, back then, nobody we didn't have the
Internet where people can just get online to find out
what was going on in the running community. But once
again I met so many runs runners that were good friends.
And then every weekend I did for twenty some years
I ran a long run with a bunch of guys
(31:27):
from Help Plus, which it was a fitness club located
about one hundred and seventh in a row. And that's
just something we did every Sunday or Saturday for years,
and it was good for training for long races and marathons,
and most of us were marathons anyway. And then a
few years ago I got involved in what we call
(31:51):
the Doctor Pepper group, a group of guys that are
in primarily their seventies and eighties, a couple in their
nineties that some people would consider these guys who's who
of Kansas City running history.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
I mean some are coaches.
Speaker 7 (32:08):
They all at one time or another were extremely good
runners in high school or college. Some coached. One fellow,
Gary Gribble, owned a number of running stores here in town.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Did a podcast with him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
You certainly did. And another podcast you did was another
one of our guys, Steve Fuller, who has run three
hundred and six marathons. I think stops that guy. He's
seventy seven years old. Gary Gribbles about eighty six or seven.
And there's another guy, doctor Ralph Hall, who's ninety nine
years old.
Speaker 8 (32:41):
He was an extremely good runner back way back in
his day.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
But he also was the founder of the famous Hospital
Hill Run in Kansas City, which has been going on
strong for fifty two years now, and he's ninety nine
years old. He drives himself to our little monthly gatherings
where we have coffee, share stories, and he, in fact
will turn one hundred in February. So we have a
(33:06):
lot of characters in this group, and a couple of
them in their seventy five to seventy nine age group.
They are extremely fast still and nationally ranked in track
events and they belong to a group called the so
Cow Track Club and they do racist track races all
over the country and they are nationally ranked. So it's
(33:28):
quite a group and occasionally we have some good some
members like Mark Kirk shows up on occasion. Mark at
one time held the world record in the half marathon.
Speaker 8 (33:38):
I think it was back in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 7 (33:40):
You're in at one hour in a few seconds, and
he held the American record for quite a few years,
in the world record for a few years as well.
So it's quite a group and we enjoy meeting and
getting together and as long as we're still still alive,
even though we're not running anymore, we just enjoy our
company with ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, and those guys who were still active runners, I mean,
you wouldn't guess they were fifty five, let alone seventy five.
But anyway, you retired in twenty twelve from work, but
of course then you worked at Gary Gribble's store for
a while and did stuff like that. You've always stayed active.
But one of the things you've liked to do, aside
from picking up jobs and the doctor Peckberg group and
(34:23):
everything in retirement.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Well.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
I continued to run races after I retired. I retired from.
Speaker 7 (34:30):
The Elevator Company after about thirty five and a half
years in fall of twenty twelve, and before I retired,
I contacted Gary Gribble because I had, as a runner,
had shopped at his stores.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
Gary owned five running stores locally here.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
And I had shopped there for a number of years,
so I knew him fairly well, and I had asked
him about getting a part time job, retirement job in
his stores when I retired, so he hired me after
I retired from the corporate world and just as a
part time retirement job, and I spent my time between
(35:08):
the store and word Parkway shopping center, and I went
in over a park at one hundred nineteenth in Quagia,
and I kept me connected with the running community. I
get to meet new people every day. I've been there
for thirteen and it was thirteen years now, and I
just enjoy Gary always hired runners anyway, so we were
(35:29):
able to give with our experience information tips to new runners,
especially and helping them get the right shoes and the
peril for running. Gary sold the stores about ten years ago,
and eventually these stores that he owned became fleet Feet,
which is a national company. They owned stores all over
(35:51):
the country, but including the Gribblls Gary Gribbles stores here
in the Kansas City area. So it didn't really change
my outlook much.
Speaker 8 (36:00):
As a just as.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
A part time where I enjoy working there. It gets
me out of the house, and so that's just what
I enjoy doing right now. I kind of gave up
on some of my crazier things like flying and parachuting
and things like that. But my wife and I have
been married since nineteen ninety eight, so like twenty seven years,
and we enjoy getting out walking a lot.
Speaker 8 (36:24):
Now. Neither one of us runs anymore, and so that's
kind of where we stand.
Speaker 7 (36:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Do you like to travel? What are some of the
other interests in your life besides well, you got the piano,
you got walking, you got the groups. You sound like
they're pretty lively. But what do you like to do?
Speaker 7 (36:40):
Well? We did travel mainly for races a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 7 (36:46):
I mean I do some out of town marathon. Most
all of my marathons were out of town and it
just gave us a way too. I enjoyed running marathons
out of town. I think it's a great way to
see a city, especially in New York City, where you
go through all five boroughs during that race and there's thousands,
thousands of people out there, millions maybe carrying you on.
And so I've done races all over the country, and
(37:09):
four separate ones in California, and I've run Chicago.
Speaker 8 (37:13):
But it's just a great way to see the city.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
And when after we got married, she'd go with me
and either run a associate or race maybe a five
k or something that was there at the same time
as the marathon, and it was to travel and see
different places. So after I retired from marathons, why she
complained a little bit that, hey, we're not traveling very
much anymore, so go ahead and pick out another race.
(37:37):
So I said, okay, well, there's one in New Orleans.
It's called the Marti Gras Marathon and half Marathon. And
we actually decided to do the half marathon together, and
so it was right around Marty Gras February, I think
it was two thousand and four or so. It was
the year before Katrina hit there. The race started at
(37:59):
the Superdome down there, and we ran through the French Quarter,
and one thing I remember about that is our feet
sticking to the ground from some of the fluids that
were spilled there the night before. They weren't properly cleaned up.
But it was a great way to see that city.
And actually the race finished inside the Superdome. Football season
was over, so there's no field there other than concrete,
(38:21):
but they had to finish line set up in what
would have been about fifty yard line of the Superdome.
So other than that, some of my family members my siblings,
have moved to Florida, so we would occasionally get down
there and spend some time. It's one of our favorite places.
We also would visit friends in Phoenix as well as California.
On my wife's sixtieth birthday in twenty ten, we actually,
(38:45):
on the very day of our sixtieth birthday, ran the
Long Beach California Half Marathon, so that was another fun event.
So that's kind of what most of our traveling was
over the years, had to do with a running, but
otherwise to visit friends and family. We were supposed to
go on a cruise, a Mediterranean cruise in twenty twenty
in October, but it was canceled by the COVID right epidemic,
(39:10):
so we never did go through with that one.
Speaker 8 (39:13):
So most of our travel has been in the country
here well.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Through all the work life and running life and piano life,
it sounds like you have created a life of real contentment.
When we talk and we've had some long conversations, you
seem like a person who has enjoyed life and has
a lot of peace and joy in his life.
Speaker 7 (39:36):
Yeah, we're in a good place right now. I'm pretty happy.
My health is held up. I did back in twenty ten.
I was doing my honeydew list on Memorial Day, cleaning
the gutters, and I slipped off the ladder and broke
six ribs in my back. This was on Memorial Day
twenty ten, and I was rushed to the hospital and
(40:00):
they did some X rays and said I had six
broken ribs, three of them broken in more than one place.
And I told the doctor I'm signed up to do
the Hospital Hill half marathon a week later. He said, well,
get that out of your mind right now. So a
friend of mine asked me if since I was already
registered for that race and I couldn't run it. My
(40:20):
friend asked me if I could have his number, my
number and my bid number, and so I said sure,
and he was a pretty good runner. But unfortunately for me,
he decided to run that half marathon with his girlfriend.
It was her first half marathon, so when they finished,
my name ended up in the results with the slowest
time I'd ever had there because my friend was wearing
(40:42):
my number. But that was a good I never ran
the half marathon after that, and at least that one
that broken ribs slowed me down for a while, but
I eventually got back into it and ran some shorter
races and continued running because I thought it's important to
keep moving as you get older, whether you're running or
walking or crawling, just keep moving.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I like to end with a good answer, and that
was a good one. I knew it would be an
enjoyable ride. So thanks very much for doing this. I
really appreciated it, and I knew a lot of the
stuff that was in there, but now I'll get to
share it, and you have something to share with friends
and family, and I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 8 (41:25):
Okay, I appreciate it, Danny, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
All right, And as I said, I'll do the intro
and then send over anything you like. I'll be able
to work with some other things. But if you have
a couple of favorites you want to send over, that'd
be great.
Speaker 8 (41:37):
Okay, you mean just text you some pictures.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Or yeah, yeah, email would be emails a little easier, but.
Speaker 7 (41:42):
However you do it.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I can send you some for sure, right, maybe
maybe the Las Vegas wedding picture with no sunglasses.
Speaker 8 (41:50):
Okay, that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
We'll do Thanks a lot, Bob, Hey, Danny, talk to
you later, all right, have a great day.
Speaker 7 (41:58):
Bye.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
We hope you enjoyed the latest Danny Klinkscale reasonably irreverent podcast.
Come back soon for something fresh and new. This podcast
was made possible by our great sponsors like the twenty
third Street Brewery in Lawrence. Great food, finely crafted beers, cocktails,
and great sports viewing in a friendly and comfortable atmosphere.
(42:24):
Joined Matt Llewellen and his great staff at twenty third
and Castled in Lawrence.
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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.