Wally Ypma celebrated his 80th birthday on August 5 with the Grand Rapids Running Club at the Streets of Fire 8K.
Wally Ypma remembers driving through fog to Hell. The retired trucker was hauling a friend to the southeast Michigan settlement's infamous Run Thru Hell.

"There was so much fog he about passed out, but driving was nothing to me," says Ypma. Eager to go, do, race, he blazed through the pre- dawn steam.

Life's been one odd odyssey for Ypma, a runner for 63 of his 80 years. He looks back on stints as a sailor, Teamster, racing Christmas tree, pioneer, legend ... the latter "only because I am so damn old," he says.

Much is razor-clear. "Other times it takes me 20 minutes to remember my name," he says. "Don't believe a word I say and you're safe."

It's as if his long run was launched in - and sure to return to - mist.

Ypma, son of "a God-fearing mom" in then-very-much-Dutch Grand Rapids, never played sports in school. He joined the Navy at 17, during World War II, and his eyes were opened.

"Everywhere we went, we had fun," says Ypma, who fought and played in European and Pacific theaters.

"When you're 17, you're afraid of nothing," the veteran says.

"I had a brother-in-law killed in Germany. He had a wife and two babies

- one he had never seen. I asked myself, 'How fair is this?' But life wasn't like that," he says.

Ypma started running on deck and land. "It was nice," he says, "as far as working the mind and body, so I kept going.

"I'm going to run for as long as I live. Why not? There's no reason to quit," he says.

He came home, got married, had six children and drove big rigs for Armour Meat, hauling potted pig brains "to every port in four states," he says.

Ypma parked and would run at rest stops, wearing pantyhose winters to keep his legs warm. "People looked at me like I was crazy. I didn't care," he says.

The 1970s running boom turned "crazy" into a craze. "Road races started and I entered them," says Ypma.

"They didn't have age divisions then. I was in my fifties, running head- to-head with young guys like Bill Rodgers, Greg Meyer, Brian Diemer and the Reed City guy, Herb Lindsay. They would pass me so fast on loop courses they'd yell 'Hi, Wally' and it sounded like they were yodeling."

The sport spread and age groups came into being. "Whenever they added one - 50-plus, 60-plus, 70 and so on, they called them 'The Wally Division,'" Ypma says.

"My wife, Donna, wasn't crazy about me running. I'd come home from races and throw my medals in the trash so she wouldn't see them.

"She was also my biggest fan. She kept scrapbook after scrapbook of stories, race results ... We never argued over anything," Ypma says.

He and his children rigged up a Christmas-tree costume to wear during jingle-bell runs. "It had green felt, lights, packs of batteries, a hoop base and hat with a star on top. Must have weighed 25 pounds," says Ypma.

"I wore it handing out candy canes during night races in the neighborhoods. One year it snowed so hard the children would not come out, so I ran up to porches to hand out candy."

Knock-knock.

"Mom, it's a running Christmas tree. Should I take candy?"

"Most did," says Ypma. "After races we stopped at hospitals to sing carols. People asked Rodgers and Meyer for autographs because they were them; they asked me for autographs because I was the Christmas tree."

He ran in a pumpkin costume for Halloween races. "I was leading my age group in the Aquinas Apple Run 20K when a reporter stopped me on the corner of Bird and 4-mile," he remembers. "He couldn't believe he was seeing a running pumpkin.

"As we talked, all the guys in my age group passed me. I resumed and passed them all back. When you're running good, that's what happens.

"That was then, this is now," he says.

No one ever mistook Ypma for an Olympian. But he loved running. "In my 50s and 60s, 80- to 90-mile weeks were nothing," he says. "I did so many marathons I lost track, then got into ultras." Some proved eventful.

He remembers a 100-miler in Ohio. "I was 50 miles in, in the dead of night, when I heard on the radio, 'Everyone's packing up to go home.' I didn't want to get lost in the jungle and have to hitchhike home. So I stopped.

"I don't lift my legs so high anymore. I have to watch extra hard for roots and rocks on the trails, which means, with my head down, I miss direction signs. I go the wrong way each time."

He found himself running a lot at night. "If you're scared of the dark," Ypma says, "forget it." Wildlife advice? He throws stones at dogs and backs off from skunks. A raccoon was his closest and worst encounter.

"I was 10 miles into the North Country Trail Run 50-miler when I tripped on the largest 'coon I had ever seen. He was big as a hound dog," Ypma says.

"I fell and skidded about 10 feet. Threw me out of balance. When I got up, I couldn't run straight. Using a stick as a crutch I made it through the night, but at age 74 it was pretty hard.

"With three miles to go I came to a wood bridge and thought, 'I'll be lucky as hell to make it.' I was almost there but decided to take a ride back. Not finishing didn't matter, not at my age. I had to laugh.

"I'd still enter ultras if I wasn't so slow. They have time limits. I'm afraid I'll hold people up."

Much has come and gone. Ypma had a son, 44, drop dead suddenly at work. "He was a good Dutchman; he punched out before he died," Ypma says.

"I see humor in everything. What choice do I have?" he asks. He saw death as a teen during war. Healthy runner friends felled by heart attacks and in accidents. "You won't go a second before your time," he says from the vantage of his ninth decade.

"If you hear the bullet, it's already by you. It's the one you don't hear that gets you," Ypma says.

"I remember the Run Thru Hell that one foggy year. Dave Hulst rode with me. The 10-mile course is on washboard roads - I told Dave, "Run on top of the bumps" - and has hellish hills.

"It was so hot our shoes filled with sweat. We had the time of our lives," he says.

"I don't always run. I do paying back: volunteering at races, cheering up people, walking with beginners. I'll never leave anyone on the course; if they're hurt, I'll help them.

"You can't take all of the time; you've gotta give back," he says.

The furnishing in his house is spare, almost bare.

"Donna died two years ago after eight years of being sick. She couldn't do nothing," Ypma says. "After that, the kids hauled 13 tall pickup trucks full of stuff away to Goodwill.

"There was tons of stuff she crocheted and t-shirts from my races. Trophies? I kept a couple.

"I gave the coin collection I'd started when I was 10 to my daughter, and all Donna's stamp books to my son. What do I need that stuff around for?" Ypma asks.

He is not inside that much anyway. There are places to go, uncollected coins, coffee shops and diners in which to banter, drives down once-dirt roads today asphalt, four-laned and lined with chains that don't serve cheddar cheese with your apple pie like the ma-and-pa diners always used to; runs without time limits; all the glories of an aging and ageless universe still to see.

A cuckoo clock chimes the hours. In and out pass grandchildren, children who live nearby and don't need to bother knocking.

How many great-grandkids? "Four, I think," Ypma says. "The little ones keep on coming."

For years he ran as many miles on his birthday as his age: 70 at age 70, 76 at age 71 ("Because someone mismeasured the course. It was hot that day too," he remembers.)

But that was then. When the Grand Rapids Running Club marked his Aug. 5 birthday at its Streets of Fire 8K, he called it "The Run of Slow Embers, for me." At 80, 8.0 kilometers was enough.

"I'd do more, but they'd close the course on me. I'm too slow anymore," he said.

Friends sang happy birthday before the race. After finishing, several ran back to walk/jog alongside Wally. The youngest and fastest ran cool- down miles scarcely noticing the old man making his way to another finish.

Once the first to begin was the last to finish, the party started. Burgers, brats and brews flowed - Ypma eschewing the latter, keeping clarity in the dreamscape that rose around him.

"I have to get up tomorrow. Go for a run," he said. MR