Somethings old, somethings new

On Thursday a track meet at Rensselaer Central celebrated its centennial. The RMD (Rensselaer Monticello Delphi) meet was first held in 1911, a hundred years ago, and has, with four exceptions, been held every year since. This was the 96th meet in the series. Since it rotates among the schools, Rensselaer will not be hosting the 100th meet--it will get the 99th. I remember a few RMD meets from the years in which I went to all the home meets. Some things change. Now they are running the boys and the girls together in the races. I guess gender equality has finally truly arrived in the sport of track.

I was just kidding about the coed races. Above you see the lineup at the start of the 3200. Since a fast time in this race is ten minutes and it often has only a few participants, often both the boys and girls races are run at the same time--it reduces the length of a meet by at least fifteen minutes. The winning time was just a bit over ten minutes and the Rensselaer boys finished 1-2-3-5. (I wonder who holds the Rensselaer record for this distance? Speaking of records, I had a chat with the holder of the Rensselaer long jump record at the VFW on Saturday. That record was set by a man who during World War II served on the battleship Wisconsin.)

Somethings have not changed much in Rensselaer track meets. The starter is still the same. The really important people are still the timers--how could you have a meet without us them. Notice them on the right. And Rensselaer still struggles in the sprints.

The best place to take an action picture is still the pole vault.

Earlier Thursday the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce had its open house and grand opening. They are now in the back of the building next to the city parking lot on Front Street. They have a view of the river and will have easy access to Austin Park when or if the pedestrian bridge is installed. (Note on progress of the Talbert Bridge--they finished planking it Thursday. Now it needs the side rails, but an outside contractor has to do them.) Notice all the green trees. The past week has seen the greening of Rensselaer.

Their office complex consists of two offices behind the narrow windows and a large conference room with a fireplace. The fireplace room originally had a skylight, and you can see it if you know where to look in the picture above. It is plastic and it no longer looked very nice from inside, so it has been blocked. It also leaked heat in the winter.

There was a ribbon cutting, but I missed that. I am sure that the Rensselaer Republican will have pictures.