Could the man

The man said he could outrun a horse.

I was 16 or 17 and living in a little mountain town in California. The annual craft fair festival brought a good number of people to town, but the town fathers and mothers thought maybe things were getting a little dull, and they let this guy promote his health program and challenge a horse to a race.

The local weekly newspaper ran the headline: "Man vs. Horse."

For a couple of weeks, leading up to the big, inter-species race, it was a hot topic of debate: Could the man do what he said he could do? The man was one of these wizened old runners, with stark white hair and a tan that left him looking like jerky.

Read the full column: The lesson of the horse-racing man