Mike Andrea
The last time Mike and Andrea and our families together was in Provence. Only that was before we had a family - Eitan and Madeleine yet a blink in the mind's eye. Their oldest, Oscar, was two and I still recall what a cute kid he was - fascinated by a toy red double-decker bus which I brought him as a gift: it is forevermore is "the crazy bus." Now Oscar is 12 and would probably die to see his name in my blog. Mike and I went to Berkeley High together then college on the East Coast, where he met, and courted, Andrea - Sonnet and I at their wedding in '94, for sure dude. Today Mike practices law with Tyler. Despite our history, we got to know each other as adults on the Norcal trails - Mike completed the '93 San Francisco marathon with Adam, Christian and Chip, who is no longer with us. The race notable for many reasons but especially Bill Vaughan, the co-creator of PowerBar - Bill was founding his next product, the sports gel GU, in the basement of his house where it was mixed in the sink by the washing machine. Probably not approved by the FDA then. The day before the marathon Bill loaded up the guinea pigs with GU and sent them on their merry way or, in this case, to the Golden Gate Bridge for the start (GU is now a multi-million dollar operation and beloved by endurance athletes around the world). Of course nobody can out-clever 26-miles and our lads may have been a tad thrown off by a new supplement the day of the race. I recall Mike and Adam struggling on the back-half while Adam's berry flavor looked surprisingly like blood when splattered down his shirt and leg. As for the rest: results mixed though everybody finished one way or the other. The race's conclusion, a lap around the old Kaiser Stadium track, a nice touch.
