David Crow's Blog

The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver by Jane Little Botkin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jane Little Botkin has written a profound and deeply personal book about the extraordinary class struggle for women's rights in the wake of the Ludlow coal-mining massacre, a dark stain on the American conscience. While Mother Jones and others get credit for fighting the battles for workers and women's rights, Botkin adds a well-researched and well-written book about a woman who would be otherwise lost to history.

Founding a housemaid's union was something the elite looked down upon. After all, these women had no rights and many felt they deserved none. But with dignity, courage, hard work, and tenacity, Jane Street made a difference in these women's lives, giving them rights that were denied.

This book is a valuable addition to the history of women struggling for freedom, and it is written with a loving hand that makes the reader root for Jane until the last page. Well done, Jane Little Bodkin.



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The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kristin Hannah has put faces, names, and courageous stories to the great tragedy and heartbreak of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. The pain, pride, and endurance shown by the greatest generation is beautifully told through Elsa, her children, and the people who survived unspeakable hardship with extraordinary courage.

I loved this book and will look for other books from this remarkable author.



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The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a reader and an author, I find that nothing is better than reading a book of superb craftsmanship. Larsen’s latest masterpiece, set in Churchill’s London during the height of the Nazi air blitz, blends new details, large and small, gobs of facts, and a deep insight into Churchill himself into a mix so smooth it reads like a page-turning novel.

Larson would have stood out in any era as one of the all-time greats. In the world of nonfiction, few have ever achieved his heights. Perhaps the greatest compliment to an age, a place, or a person is to be worthy of a Larson book. I have read Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania and The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America and thought they could not be topped, but The Splendid and the Vile does so as the master continues to refine his art.

Simply put, there is nothing better than an Erik Larson book, whether you want to learn or just be entertained. He is without equal, and I eagerly await his next winner.


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Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Having been part of the 1970s running boom, I thought there was nothing left to say about Nike, Bill Bowerman, Steve Prefontaine, and the movement they led. I was wrong. Phil Knight has written a splendid book about the ups and downs of starting Nike and keeping it alive when it might have died many times.

A great memoir is a story you can't put down, with characters you identify with deeply, with an outcome that is satisfying. This book is all of that and more. Knight writes with the imagination of a novelist who has lived an astonishing life. He freely admits his mistakes, his foibles, his good luck, but the reader will remember his brilliance, his tenacity, and his dream. This book is so much better than I imagined, whether you are a runner or not.


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Running defined my life for decades. When I was a young kid, nothing felt better than running far into the desert on the Navajo Indian Reservation and chasing rabbits and roadrunners. I floated over sand, rocks, and snakes, unleashing restless energy and allowing my imagination to run wild.

My legs flew me away from my mentally ill mother and violent father. When I reentered the house, a sense of calm and peace came over me despite the tumult inside.

By the age of 10, I was running everywhere. Without knowing it, I was filling my body with endorphins that pushed away the sadness at home. Some days I had trouble moving my legs, battered as they were from my dad’s belt buckle. But still I ran because it offered the only peace in my life.

When I started high school, I ran endless laps on the track after delivering newspapers, imagining that wild throngs of crazed fans were screaming for me to win. Chauncey Ford, my first track coach, noticed me and invited me to run on his cross-country and track team. I would have rather been on the football team, but given my small size and thick glasses, cross-country and track were my only options.


Coach Ford (left) and me (right) in 1970.

At first, I didn’t like the strict structure and punishing workouts—running had been just a release for me. But over time, I grew to love being on a team, especially under Coach Ford. Even though he was demanding, he encouraged me and cared about me in a way few had.

He instilled discipline and respect into my untamed life, helping me channel my anger, sadness, and fear into winning. Not only did he want fast runners, but he also insisted his athletes conduct themselves with honor and dignity off the track. Otherwise, you were asked to leave the team.

Under his tutelage, I became one of his many stars as our Walter Johnson High School team won multiple cross-country and track championships in Maryland. Academically, I was failing nearly all my classes, so these wins were especially important to me.


Running at the University of Maryland in 1973.

I lived vicariously through my running heroes—Jim Ryun, the first high school kid to break four minutes in the mile and later a world champion and silver medalist; Frank Shorter, the marathon gold medalist; and Steve Prefontaine, who launched a running movement with his incomparable spirit. I keep a Go Pre T-shirt to this day. They made running cool, even if the girls preferred the football, baseball, and basketball stars.

In college, I continued running, first at Montgomery Community College and then at the University of Maryland. Because of my high school training, I found my place among the college athletes.

As it had all my life, running helped calm my anxiety and sadness when my family problems worsened. Running was my drug of choice, keeping me centered during the continuing chaos in my life. It never failed me.

DECADES LATER
By the time I entered my 60s, I had hundreds of races under my belt, including over 40 marathons, four of them in Boston. There’s nothing more fun for a runner than passing a crowd of enthusiastic fans on Patriot’s Day. Through the years, I’ve run in every roadrunner race available, making friends in every state and many countries around the world. No longer fast, we older runners still love to compete even if we are far back in the pack.

And then my left knee gave out. The five operations I’d had to fix a ruptured Achilles tendon, and later a torn meniscus, had taken their toll. I visited several doctors, who all told me to quit running, so I kept going to new doctors hoping for a different answer.

I was depressed, thinking my life was over, that nothing could replace the feeling of running.

Finally, I consulted my son Matt, a doctor of physical therapy. He knew how much I loved running, and he knows how stubborn I can be, so he gently nudged me toward replacing running with cycling.

He said, “Dad, it’s just a matter of time before you’ll need a new knee.”

When I pushed back, telling him I would be fine, he was firm. “If you want to keep a healthy lifestyle, stay open to the possibility that you may have to make a change.”

So I switched to cycling. It worked great, and when I started riding an ElliptiGO bike, it got even better because I had the same sensation as running. Then, as Matt predicted, the day came when using the ElliptiGO bothered my knee as much as running had.

I needed a new left knee.

Months after getting my arthritic knee replaced with two and a half pounds of cobalt and chrome, I started getting my strength and flexibility back. Every day is a little bit better if I stretch, lift leg weights, and ride.

I’m lucky enough to live in the Washington, DC, area where there are hundreds of miles of excellent trails, and I can bike to work most days on the Washington and Old Dominion and the Custis trails. My round trip is almost 29 miles.


Riding my ElliptiGO bike.

The Stand Up and Ride movement has become my new source of aerobic happiness. And it still pushes the anxiety and sadness away.

When we get through this pandemic and life returns to some kind of normalcy, I’d like to look for bike races around the country and enter them with the same enthusiasm I did with running.

My friends tell me that the camaraderie among bikers is just as strong as it is among runners, and that at 68, I have many years of aerobic enjoyment ahead of me.

I never want to stop biking—or working, for that matter—because continuously moving has shaped my body, mind, and soul all my life.

I wouldn’t be where I am today, or possibly even be alive, if it hadn’t been for the angels in my life. In my memoir, The Pale-Faced Lie, I describe the handful of kind people who saved me from following in my parents’ footsteps and, most importantly, who helped me not to give up hope.

The lives of the four Crow children were bleak from the beginning. Our father spent time in San Quentin for a crime that could have gotten him the death penalty or at least a long prison stay. He brilliantly convinced the chief psychiatrist and warden that none of it was his fault and he deserved an early release. I was born nine months after he got out. Starting when I was 10, he groomed me to be his partner in crime, making me his lookout during his frequent stealing trips.

Our mother was mentally ill and far more of a child than any of her own children. We veered between protecting her and escaping the vicious physical and mental punishments of my father. I stayed away from the house as much as possible, oftentimes dragging my younger brother along.

At a particularly low time—after my father abandoned my mother and became more violent—a miracle happened. We were living in Mud Flats, a part of the Navajo Indian Reservation where Anglos weren’t allowed and even Navajos entered with trepidation. I didn’t feel safe stepping into the pockmarked dirt road leading out of our yard. If the wild dogs didn’t attack us, the Navajo bullies did. Every day became a fight for survival as we walked the half mile back and forth to school.

Then one afternoon, an elderly Navajo woman knocked on our door. I recognized her from the rusted trailer across the street.

“I been watching,” she said in her broken English. “Think you need help. I Evelyn.”

I couldn’t believe it. Why would this woman show kindness to four children she had no connection to? And as a Navajo, she would have hated us for living on the reservation.

But she came out of concern, and soon I realized she was the first adult who loved me unconditionally, who wanted nothing back but our friendship. I couldn’t imagine such kindness. I began pouring my heart out to her, and she dried my tears and listened with the patience Navajos are known for.

Before long, many of my secrets spilled out: that we had abandoned my mother and I was afraid she was dead; that my dad beat us and I was afraid he would kill me if the Navajo bullies didn’t do it first. I shared my deepest fears, often not knowing how afraid I was until the words tumbled out of my mouth.

Evelyn talked about hozhoni (harmony) and aana’diyiit’ah (forgiveness). She told us about the Long Walk, when the Navajo people, including her grandmother at age four, had been forced to walk the 250 miles from Fort Sumner to Fort Defiance, and about the soldiers who killed many of them along the way. She said that she forgave those sins against her people and that happiness never happens when we are angry and hateful.

I think about Evelyn every day and regret so much that she passed away before I could adequately thank her for all she did for me and my siblings. She will always have a place in my heart.

One of my missions in life has been to pay forward the kindness shown to me. My lobbying firm, DCLRS Inc., has an intern program that helps six students annually get a start in the work. We’ve interned 250 students since we launched the program. And in addition to volunteering for such charitable organizations as Save the Children and Big Brothers Big Sisters, I support the Barrett House in Albuquerque, a homeless shelter for women and children.

Having read at least one book on all 45 of the US presidents, I’ve grown to realize that many of them were misunderstood during their lifetime.

As we study history, it’s critical not to interpret and judge past actions by today’s standards. Attitudes and values have changed dramatically over the centuries. This is especially important to remember during our current troubling times.

After the American Revolutionary War ended, George Washington was elected the first president of our new nation. He refused to be treated like a king and gave up power after his two terms (1789–1794), setting the tone for our democracy. He opposed political parties, thinking they would lead to divisiveness, and believed instead that we should form a consensus through compromise. It’s hard to argue with that.

But it didn’t play out that way. In 1791, two years into his first term, George Washington imposed a tax on corn, wheat, barley, and rye—the essential ingredients for making whiskey. It was the first domestic tax imposed by the new federal government, and its purpose was to pay the debt for the recently won war.

President Washington was convinced all Americans would understand the need for the tax and pay it willingly. He was mistaken.

Although the tax applied to all distilled spirits, it hit American whiskey the hardest. It soon became known as the whiskey tax.

Farmers from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania often used whiskey as a medium of exchange, meaning it was an important part of currency. Many of these farmers were Revolutionary War veterans who felt they had already paid their price for freedom. They fiercely resented Congress setting the tax, believing the federal constitution did not allow this. They were furious with President Washington for signing it into law.

The resistance came to a head in 1794 when US marshals arrived to serve writs to distillers who had not paid. Over 500 angry farmers set fire to the home of revenue inspector General John Neville and burned it to the ground. President Washington ordered the governors of the affected states to call up 13,000 militiamen to quell the rebellion.

Even though the tax remained, the angry farmers began organizing a political party (Republican Party) to oppose the federal government’s rights to impose their laws on the states (supported by the Federalist Party).

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson repealed the whiskey tax, siding with the farmers who believed the federal power to tax was unwarranted. Political parties became entrenched as the fight between a powerful central government and states rights intensified, continuing to this day.

I advise everyone who is upset with the angry partisanship of our era to pick up a copy of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty by William Hogeland. An eye-opening read.

The challenges we're facing right now aren't new to our country. The United States has always experienced difficult times. It’s helpful to go back in history to understand that we have survived much worse.

As my disabilities became more apparent in childhood, I often felt sorry for myself. My hearing was poor, particularly in my left ear where damage from an infection diminished it significantly. I was so nearsighted that teachers gasped when they saw how thick my lenses were, and eye doctors told me there would come a time when they couldn’t make them any thicker.

And if that weren’t enough, I was dyslexic. Letters on a page seemed to dance, my eyes didn’t track correctly across the page, and I frequently wrote my letters backwards.

Nothing about learning was easy.

But I was determined to push past it. I decided to read every book and newspaper I could get my hands on, no matter how long it took or how difficult it was to understand.

One day while in the library, I picked up a book about Helen Keller: The Story of My Life. Because of a childhood illness, she was blind, deaf, and mute. Yet somehow, she overcame all those disabilities to become a well-educated woman with admirers the world over.

My problems seemed so insignificant compared to hers. I’m sure she would have traded places with me in a heartbeat. She wasn’t bitter, but she had every right to be.

Anne Sullivan, her teacher, opened up the world to her:

Gradually I got used to the silence and darkness that surrounded me and forgot that I had ever been different, until she came—my teacher—who was to set my spirit free.

Anne taught Helen so well that she graduated with highest honors from Radcliffe College.

It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. . . . All the best of me belongs to her—there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that has not been awakened by her loving touch.

Later, Helen expressed what learning meant to her:

Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge—broad, deep knowledge—is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man’s progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries.

Many angels like Anne Sullivan have appeared in my life—teachers, neighbors, coaches, colleagues—who offered their help when I needed it most. I’m indebted to all of them.

It was Helen Keller, my first angel, who taught me that anything is possible if you don’t give up.