Razz – "You Can Run (But You Can't Hide)" (1979)

The shops along the street . . .

They’re not open to me yet

What’s up, dog?

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Perhaps the only positive result of the stay-at-home orders that the governors of Maryland and Virginia issued on March 30 is that there’s very little traffic on the automobile bridges that connect those two states.

I live on the Maryland side of the Potomac, but Virginia has better bicycle trails – hands down.  I’d cross the river to ride those trails more often if the traffic didn’t poop the bed so often.  It’s bad not only during the morning and evening rush hours, but also in the middle of the day and on weekends.

I got so frustrated returning home from Virginia after a bike ride a couple of years ago that I sent a text to my four children – all of whom live on my side of the river – and told them that if they ever moved to Virginia, they shouldn’t expect any visits from me.  

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The most scenic paved bike trail in northern Virginia by far is the 18-mile-long Mount Vernon Trail, which begins at the father of our country’s old stomping grounds and proceeds along the west bank of the Potomac River to Theodore Roosevelt Island.  

The day before Easter, I drove to my oldest son’s house on Capitol Hill to say hello to him, his wife, and their two sons – who I hadn’t seen in person in over a month.  I stayed on the sidewalk and they stayed in their front yard, behind a fence.  There was no touching, of course, but it was infinitely better than just seeing them on Zoom.

From there I drove to Old Town Alexandria, the midpoint of the Mount Vernon Trail, and headed north on my trusty Trek 7.3 bike.

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Once you get out of Alexandria, you ride by the marina at Daingerfield Island:

The trail then skirts Reagan National Airport.  Usually there are planes taking off or landing every couple of minutes, but today was quite different.  Saturday afternoon is a slow time at most airports, but “slow” understates the air traffic at Reagan today.

Just north of the airport is a Gravelly Point, where there’s a large parking lot for people who want a close-up view of airplanes taking off and flying over their heads:  

I had planned to stop there and take some dramatic and noisy video of the jets to send to my grandsons, but the parking lot was closed and there were no planes taking off.

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The stretch of trail between the airport and Roosevelt Island is never more than a few yards from the Potomac.  It passes over (or under) several major D.C.-to-Virginia bridges, and several memorials – including the Navy and Marine Memorial, which commemorates Americans who were lost at sea.

That memorial is surrounded by a wide circular bed of bright-red tulips, which are at their peak right now:

(Look closely at that photo and you’ll see the Washington Monument.)

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Theodore Roosevelt Island is an undeveloped, 90-acre island that’s owned by the National Park Service.  Its walking trails are closed to visitors due to COVID-19 concerns, which seems like overkill to me.  But ours is not to question why, etc.

The northern end of the Mount Vernon Trail marks the southern terminus of the Potomac Heritage Trail, a challenging hiking trail that continues north along the river for ten additional miles.

No bikes allowed on the Potomac Heritage Trail:

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On the way back to my starting point, I stopped and took some photos of a few of the many dogwoods – which is the official state flower of Virginia – along the trail:

Dogwoods are nice, but my #1 seed when it comes to flowering trees is the Eastern redbud:

I also stopped to take some pictures of some of the construction machinery being used in the rebuilding of the Arlington Memorial Bridge:

Here’s a little one-man tugboat that’s being used in the repair project:

(My grandsons eat that stuff up.)

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The trail took me past several waterfront parks in Alexandria, where there was plenty more good stuff to photograph for my boys, including a fire engine and a paddlewheel boat:

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Contrary to the title of today’s featured song, it seems that you can hide from the coronavirus – just stay in your house 24/7 and you should be fine.  (Not mentally, of course.)  

Tommy Keene was the brains behind the Razz, the Washington-area band that released “You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide)” in 1979.  Keene was a very gifted power-pop songwriter and performer who should have hit it big but never did.  It seems his records were too commercial for music snobs, but not commercial enough to get played on the radio.

Keene, who grew up in Bethesda, MD – which is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the home of 2 or 3 lines – died in 2017.  He was only 59.

Here’s an excerpt from an appreciation of Keene that was written by fellow musician John Davis:

There is reliable romance in the story of a brilliant musician who never got the full appreciation he was due.  With the death of Tommy Keene, it might be easy to look at his career and wonder why he remained solely a cult figure among fans of the earnest, infectious branch of rock and roll that is insufficiently dubbed “power pop.”  To do so would be folly: There is only joy in reflecting on a man who brought us elegiac yet ebullient songs . . . .

Click here to listen to “You Can Run (But You Can’t Hide”), which is yet another of the great songs I first heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes’ radio show in 1980.