nothing to do with running

I, Phil Schrader, do affirm that I first met Thomas Church when I was beating up homeless people in Ladysmith, WI. Mr. Church was rowing down the Flambeau in a wooden bathtub, reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I hailed him from shore and he gladly rowed over and we shared some boiled sturgeon and Full City Guatemala. He asked if I "was from these parts" and I just laughed. "No, seriously," he said, "are you from these parts?" -- but I just laughed again.
He told me he was seeking the legendary city of El Dorado which he believed could be found "by one who was pure of heart, sailing up the Thornapple with Sansone's blessing."
Between bites of sturgeon, I noted that he was currently 'sailing' the Flambeau and not the Thornapple, which flows past Bruce, not Ladysmith.
Now it was his turn to laugh. "The Thornapple," he said, "is here *tapping his breast* and here *tapping somewhere near his kidneys*."
"It's odd," I reflected, "for someone who is so close to the actual Thornapple to speak so cryptically."
"It is no matter, my new friend," said he, producing a wax tablet from his gown and replacing "Ladysmith" with "Bruce."
Years later we would meet again, both scouring a stone wall up near Buckton. I asked him what had become of his travels on the Flambeau. He said that after wandering for several months he had managed to locate "some beaver" but no lost cities-- unless you count Bruce and Wyergore. Since then, he told me, he had been attending the Walter Mondale school of law, a fact which I knew because we often run together and I see him there several times a week. Today, I think back to what he said, so cryptically, about the Thornapple and I think to myself, with a smile, that my old friend did find the lost city after all-- only his El Dorado was not made of gold and gold, but rather of legal knowledge.

Your honor, I rest my case.