As cyclist Jeff Crouch fills his water bottle and shoots the breeze Sunday at Santa Rosa's NorCal Bike Sport, in rolls Barry Bonds.
The ex-Giants star, now a serious two-wheeler, is resplendent alongside his new, ultra-elite Specialized bike. Soon, he's trying to choose between two S-Works Evade helmets, one black and one white.
Bonds notices Crouch and asks his opinion: which color does he like better? So Crouch reaches up and taps his own, white helmet.
He tells the African-American sports star, "Well, white is faster, you know."
Bonds chuckles and replies, "Not in the Olympics."
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RUNNING FOR KYLEE: Petaluma police officer and Marine Corps veteran Paul Gilman makes no bones about it.
"I hate running," he said. Despite that, he has done well in three 100-mile benefit runs and he's training for a fourth.
Gilman and fellow Marine vets run to raise money to help injured or suffering fellow vets, or to assist families of Marines killed in action.
In July, the non-profit organization Gilman helps to operate — Always Brothers — will host a 100-mile run in Seattle. Proceeds will go to scholarships for four children of fallen Marines.
One of them is Kylee O'Day. Her late father, Patrick O'Day, was 20 when he was first person from Sonoma County killed in Iraq. That was in March of 2003.
Kylee is now nearing 11.
"She's going to be starting middle-school in the fall," her mother, Shauna, said from home in El Dorado County.
Though Kylee's still a ways from college, Petaluma officer Gilman arranged for her to be one of the beneficiaries of the scholarship fund to be created with proceeds of the Always Brothers run in Seattle.
The hope, said Gilman, who served as a Marine from 1993-'97 and attended Patrick O'Day's funeral in April of '03, is that there will be sufficient funds to support Kylee through four years of college.
There's more to learn about this hard-running band of brothers on the Always Brothers Facebook page and at alwaysbrothers.org.
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WE CAN LOOK for Patrick O'Day's name on a traveling remembrance wall that will be on display in Santa Rosa throughout the Memorial Day weekend.
The Global War on Terror wall, created by a pair of Marines, bears the names of more than 11,000 people claimed by acts of terror or killed while serving in Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Thanks to the sponsoring Michael Ottolini AMVETS Post 40, the Wall of Remembrance will be at Santa Rosa Memorial Park on Franklin Avenue from Friday afternoon until Monday afternoon.
The wall will be present for viewing all through the stirring Avenue of the Flags observance at the Franklin Avenue cemetery on Monday.
Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.
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