Still digging through the layers of the last box of archives.

Come across a clipping, a letter to the editor, from back in the day when you actually put some words down on paper and mailed them at the post office. Got in a lot of miles going back and forth to the P.O.

I really really tried to make the sport better.

Soft Surface Needed For Salem Joggers

To The Oregon Statesman

[Appeared October 20, 1977]

I am writing to add my support to your editorial of October 13. “Jogging track on island park.”

The need for bark dust jogging trails is obvious. Jogging on hard surfaces is quite simply an abnormal activity. The human body is not constructed to pound, mile after mile, on concrete and macadam. Injuries to the lower extremities are not just possible but probable. A soft surface running trail would minimize injuries, and increase running enjoyment.

Minto-Brown is the ideal location for such a path. I would like to remind the planners that there are many “joggers” in Salem who most certainly are interested in running nine miles. The trails should not be too circuitous.

A similar trail in Bush’s Pasture Park would serve most joggers ideally. Perhaps a path around the perimeter and/or a figure-eight loop of some sorts. The paths are being trod into the grass anyway.

Salem needs these jogging paths.

We gotta keep those kinds of people off the streets.

Jack Welch

Publisher, Running, the magazine for thinking runners