Anyway, I had a wonderful visit to Philadelphia. The whole purpose of the weekend was for my friend Simon's wedding on Sunday, August 19th. I made a weekend out of it and visited with old friends and enjoyed running in the city. Sunday morning, my friend Mali and I were getting ready for the wedding. We were running a few minutes late but felt good about the time. The wedding was at 11am in Doylestown which is about 1 hour from where Mali lives.
As we were leaving the house, we debated whether we should take 95 or 76 to get to Doylestown. Neither is perfect...they both basically go around Philadelphia and meet up via 276 or 476. The only direct route through the city is Route 1/Broad Street...that would probably take 14 hours because it is stop lights the entire way. I have done it in the past and it is mind numbing how long it takes to get out of the city that way. We decided to take 95 because it was closer to Mali's house. In a last second consultation, we looked at the direction's provided with the wedding invitation. They suggested taking 76...so we changed our route and were on our way.
About 10 minutes later, we were cruising down 76 in the far left lane probably going a little faster than the speed limit. The expressway was four lanes wide at this point just on our side of the median. The next few realizations happened within split seconds...
All of a sudden, I saw a man running on the right side of the highway...well he was more jogging. I then noticed his bright blue street shirt that looked a lot like a Students Run Philly Style shirt and also a many color mohawk wig he was wearing on his head. Just as I was about to say to Mali that it looked like a kid from Students Run, she yelled out, "Oh my God! Is that Tim*?" I looked quickly and agreed that it was in fact Tim! (For those of you familiar with Philadelphia, this is the general spot on the expressway we picked up Tim...marked by the B)
*Name changed
BACK STORY (must read): I was a running leader for Students Run for a little over two years. Through Students Run, I met a ton of people including Simon and Mali. Simon and I have maintained our friendship though my multiple moves and I was so grateful to get an invite to his wedding. If you are over involved in Students Run (like I was), you get to know a ton of other running leaders and especially a ton of students beyond the students on your own team. Mali used to work for Students Run so she knows even more students because she was one of the faces of the organization. Anyway, there are Students Run teams from all over the city and one of the teams is from the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. Each year they have a ton of students but they always have their regulars...Tim being one of them. Tim is probably around 20, deaf and also has a variety of other learning disabilities. He is a wonderful young man and I have known him for a few years...but he doesn't necessarily know me. I would recognize him anywhere and so would Mali!
STORY CONTINUED: Mali yells, "Oh my God! Is that Tim?" We quickly realize it is...and Mali somehow manages to get across four lanes of traffic and we pull over on the side of the expressway. Mali gets out of the car and starts jogging to Tim. She says he started jogging towards her not out of recognition but thinking...hey there is someone else running out here too. I get out of the car and start calling anyone I know who will be able to help us figure out why Tim is running on the side of the highway (mind you we are both in dresses and look like we should be at a wedding and not running down the highway). I first get a hold of Becky, a running leader and friend, who was a leader for PSD. Meanwhile, Mali leads Tim to the back seat of the car. Becky knows Tim and trying to help me learn how to sign, "Where is home?" over the phone because she is pretty sure he can direct us home. I started signing (or what I think is signing, "where is home?" and Tim does not show any sense of recognition. For all I know I am signing, "Hey what's up?" or something sinister.
Mali starts typing on her iPad, "Where is your home?" I ask Becky, "Can Tim read?" And she quickly says no. We are in a bind. We finally get a hold of Heather who is the Director of Students Run, who gets a hold of Tim's dad. Apparently there was a Students Run race that morning and Tim thought he should be there but missed his bus to the race or something like that (we never got the full story). Tim Sr. agrees to meet up with us about 3 miles away near a big city park in West Philly. We drive over there and pass over Tim Jr. (bright colored mohawk wig and all) who the whole time was just signing to us that he was running. Tim Sr. dropped him off at the park an hour or so earlier and said he was supposed to be running there. Regardless, Tim. Jr. was safe and we were back on our way.
At this point, we have already missed the wedding. We start driving again towards Doylestown completely in shock about what just happened. What if we took 95 instead of 76? What if we didn't see Tim on the side of the road running? What was he doing there in the first place? How did he manage to just run onto the expressway with no one stopping him?
We arrived at the wedding in time for the reception. We had a few mimosas and had a great story to tell. We were incredibly sorry to miss Simon and Melissa's (his bride) wedding. It sounded amazing though! The brunch was excellent and we sat at a great table of old friend's of Simon's. His Best Man gave one of the best wedding toasts I have ever heard. Simon understood (I think)...he too knows Tim and knew Mali and I could not just drive by this deaf kid on the highway without stopping and helping. It's just not in our nature....and trust me we debated...what do we do...miss Simon's wedding...for a split second we thought about bringing Tim to the wedding with us. It would have saved us a lot of time!
The best part...strange/weird things happen to Mali all the time as well...we decided the combination of the strange attraction to weird things happening to us combined to create this epic occurrence and one heck of a story.
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