Some time back I became a chaplain with the Antioch PD... one way to get more involved in the community. Most of that work so far has been to be with family members when there has been a death. However, there are other things as well. Last week I got to help with a program called Every 15 Minutes, whose purpose is to discourage teen drinking and driving. It's a really well-done program.
Today I got to do another pretty cool thing. Our backyard neighbor, Art Acosta, is a sergeant with the Antioch PD, and each year he runs in the Torch Relay for Special Olympics. Officers from various agencies carry the torch from city to city in the Bay Area for a week or so until it winds up in Berkley for the Northern California Special Olympics. Well, Art asked me if I wanted to run with them this year (I think he just wanted another "old guy"), and I said sure... I guess I represented the Chaplain Corps.
The Oakley PD handed us the torch at the border of Oakley and Antioch, and we ran about 5 miles across town where we handed it to the Pittsburg PD. It was really cool, because they also had about 25 or so Police Academy Recruits who also ran with them in formation. Here are a few pics.
Here we see Art and me bringing up the rear.
Running in formation past Antioch HS. We had this cool motorcycle escort the whole way.
I got to take a turn leading with the torch as well.
After the hand off to Pittsburg.
And, my Achilles tendon seems to have survived just fine. Of course we were running a pretty slow pace, but I was just glad to be able to do it.
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