A historical stair-running performance inside of the Bunker Hill Monument

Tuesday 6/17/25

Saturday was Bunker Hill Day in Charlestown. It was a big celebration this year to mark the 250th anniversary of the battle. There was a parade, veterans, food stands--almost like a festival atmosphere up on the hill.

I had ran five circuits of stairs in the Monument on Wednesday, but none Thursday or Friday. It was very hard to keep going at all, as in remain alive. I have days--and increasingly now--where they become a question of, "Is this it, is this the last one, should it be?"

Not good. There's nothing for me to live for. I get up and make the best work there has ever been, for what? To not have it be seen? But I don't need to go into the details of what each day is like. That's documented well enough throughout these pages.

But there I was Saturday. Weeks, as I've said, start for me on Saturday, not Sunday, definitely not Monday. And still being there on Saturday, and with the beginning of a new week, I wanted to make sure I tried in multiple areas. So, I worked throughout the morning on "Just Pants." I put up that entry about Emily Nemens and Lynne Nugent. Then I headed to Charlestown around twenty past nine.

The weather was perfect for stair running. Fifty-seven degrees. That's not so cold that you can't have shorts on as you walk over there (and then for when you walk back wet afterwards), and I thought, "Okay, let's see what we can do today." I was pretty fresh as well, having just ran the five sets of stairs three days back.

I knew I'd be running at least ten circuits, but I haven't gone over ten in years. I didn't really want to do ten circuits for the latest time, though. That would just feel ordinary. I resolved to keep going and see where I was at various points.

All of the rangers were on hand at the top of the hill. It was a very lively scene. One of the two rangers i know best said he couldn't let em in early like he often does, because his boss was there. I like this guy. He's into history. I've known him, I believe, for four years. He went off to do somewhere else, and eventually another ranger turned up. It was two minutes before opening, he delivered some instructions to the people waiting in line behind me, and then he said, "You should get started," and let me in to give me give me that brief head start.

I felt good in there. As I was going, I decided to think in terms of units of five. Break things down, as it were. I did the first five and that went well. When you're doing ten circuits, circuits six and seven are kind of a drag. They're in this no man's land. Circuits eight, nine, and ten are you being close to done.

I did six and seven, then my focus was getting to ten and hopefully not having them take much of an effect. Because you don't know. You never know how it will go. Each day running stairs is different. Maybe not a lot different, but each day is some degree easier or harder. And it can be for no reason that you know of at all. Like when you're shooting baskets. There are times you get out there and the shot falls, and the next day you know right away it won't be falling as much.

I finished the tenth circuit, and for the first time since either 2018 or 2019, I started back up again. Circuit eleven!

Now I was looking at the next five circuits. Get to fifteen, and you're really doing okay. As I was running, cannons were going off outside as part of the celebration. As I wrote a little while back, the Monument was erected not in direct commemoration of the battle of Bunker Hill (the hill atop which the Monument itself stands is actually Breed's Hill--you can see Bunker Hill if you're outside of the Monument and you walk around to the back; it's where that church is) but as a memorial to service and sacrifice. It was also made, in part, with Rockport granite.

Everything I do is in sacrifice and service. To my work, which is for the world. Which is being denied in getting to the world. Even each stair I run is in service and sacrifice. To being strong to keep going. To remain alive. To not be killed by the great weight of the injustice that has been done here. To endure.

There was a historical day at this spot and it was being recognized outside. But this could also be a historical day. That on this 250th anniversary of a battle that came to symbolize service and sacrifice, there was a man unlike any other, an artist unlike any other, doing this thing no one else had ever done. Something for the biographies. And people, too, could come here, and follow in his footsteps. Or try to. Maybe there would be someone who replicated what he did within this structure, if nowhere else. With this in my mind, I pressed on.

By now, there was group after group of Navy personnel entering the Monument. Four or five members of the first group got halfway up and said "Hell no!"--a number of them actually said that--and went back down. Again and again I passed Navy people wearing their fatigues. They started asking me questions. How many times was I doing this? The word got passed. They began cheering me on as I went past them.

I finished circuit fifteen, and thought, "Okay, this won't be pretty, but let's grind it out, however long it takes." I got to the bottom again, and a ranger was waiting for me. They'd been watching the monitor. He asked me how many times it had been. I told him.

On the next circuit, I passed someone wearing a Rockport sweatshirt on the way down. Because of course I did. These definitely weren't pretty circuits. I wasn't in pain, I'd say, but they were slow. My goal: keep moving. Don't stop. Just so long as there is constant movement. No resting, no leaning, and, above all--always--

No stopping.

A couple more circuits and then at the bottom there was that same ranger having brought a buddy ranger with him. "How many times now?" they asked. I told them.

And i just saw it through. In the end, I tied the record--my record--of twenty circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument in one go. I believe the other time I'd done that was 2018 or 2019. (The irony, by the way, of someone saying, "You're almost there," like you'd never done this before in your life and were just like them, on circuit number nineteen.) I remember that I was texting with someone I used to talk to on the radio as I was in there that day, saying I thought I might go for the record. You assess where you're at. You realize you can continue. You'll probably be able to continue for a while. So you do.

I'd had a twelve circuit day, a thirteen circuit day, and a fifteen circuit day, then that twenty circuit day, and now this one. I could have kept going on Saturday, but I don't need to keep extending this, because I'll never let that go. Every so often, though, I want to get to twenty, and that was one of the goals I set for this year. I won't backslide. I don't want to not be able to do what I've done before. Time-wise, it was about two and half hours of stair running. Straight.

Zulu.

I walked back down the hill and into the Bunker Hill Monument museum, where i bought a cheap water bottle for five bucks and then sat in the basement where I could fill it up for maybe fifteen minutes. I had felt a tiny bit gimpy as I walked down the hill, but no more. By the time I rose from the bench in the basement, I was fine. It was as if I'd run no stairs at all. No pain, no twinges, no soreness. Absolutely fine.

Today is the actual date of the 250th anniversary of the battle, and I'll likely be back inside the Monument in a few hours.