Gerry Lindgren on Sportscenter

[MJD]

Gerry's response:


http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read. ... =1#1183351

[Martini]

People; it's television.

[dupontred]

This was also on Geraldo last night, of all places. They were doing a piece on "why do people run away/disappear."

I actually had been unaware of the entire story, although I was certainly familiar with Gerry's accomplishments on the track.

[RMc]

I knew Gerry in the late 1970s when he lived in Seattle. I think you would need to know him before you judge him. To put it politely, he does not have the intellect of a typical collegiate runner. In fact, I doubt he would have gone to college except for his running. At the time he was running the "Stinky Foot" store in Tacoma. It ran into financial difficulties, which was not entirely surprising given Gerry's situation. He saw no easy solution and decided to escape. It probably was the wrong decision, but he simply did not have the wherewithall to come up with another solution.

[DrJay]

Those that think people who suffered through "parenting" (if you want to call it that) like Gerry had should just "snap out of it" or "deal with it" or "be a man" or "face their responsibilities" gravely underestimate the permanent emotional injury done between age 0 and 18 by evil adults like his father. It's really hard to undo. Maybe GL has done some therapy, maybe not, I don't know the man. The problem is, GL's father's father saddled GL's father with shit, the father saddled GL with shit, then by not being a nurturing father to his son, GL has saddled GL Jr. with shit, and on it goes until someone either 1) doesn't reproduce or 2) does the hard work necessary to deal with their mental health baggage.