Opinion> Connie Schultz> Middle Aged Moxie

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Middle-Aged Moxie

Last week, I turned 53, but a woman I never have met named Mary Dolan Welgs made it a lot easier.

I'm still upright and mouthy — and hoping Downward Dog will feel like a relaxation pose one day. What's not to celebrate?

But 53. Yikes. I still remember half my cheerleading routines from 1974. Pointless skill, seeing as my cartwheels now look like Regan's spider walk in "The Exorcist." So cruel, these random acts of aging.

Even so, there'll be no sliding into the gully of gloom for me, thanks to 53-year-old bandit-nabbing Mary.

It always helps when you can see yourself in your hero, and I must say: Mary and I have a lot in common.

She grew up in Northeast Ohio. So did I.

She is 5 feet 8 1/2 inches tall. In 2 1/2-inch heels, so am I.

She weighs 130 pounds. Don't count my torso and we're practically twins.

Now comes the part where we're different. It's a long list.

I first learned about Mary after reading Plain Dealer reporter Pat Galbincea's story chronicling her caper in which she chased down a burglarizing boy on a motorized scooter. In pumps.

"Sistah!" I yelled. Then I called her.

Mary is a mother of five and lives in Chautauqua, N.Y. Last week, she was visiting her sister, Kathleen Konrad, in a Cleveland suburb called Westlake. On Tuesday morning, Mary dressed as she always does for her job as regional sales and marketing director for Presque Isle Downs and Casino in Erie, Pa., and sat on her sister's backyard patio to wade through piles of paperwork.

Suddenly, she heard a pop and the sound of shattering glass.

Mary stood up, walked around a few houses, but saw nothing.

Back to work.

Moments later, Mary heard glass shatter again.

"That's when I knew something was going on," she said.

Mary jumped to her feet and started running. She spotted a teenage boy zooming through yards on a scooter.

Off she went in her 2-inch heels.

"Stop!" she yelled. "You stop!"

For reasons he must surely now regret, the boy ignored her.

"He kept putting one foot on the ground, and I was wondering, 'How is he going so fast with one foot in the grass?'"

What Mary didn't know, until he hit pavement, was that his little scooter had a motor.

Once she realized that, she did what virtually no 53-year-old woman I know would have done: She kept running.

And running.

"I watched too many 'Columbo' movies," she said. "I told myself it was my job to catch him."

At one point, she stopped long enough to bang on the window of a parked car and yelled to the woman behind the wheel, "Call the police! And follow that boy!" Inexplicably, the woman showed no interest in following a child trying to escape a screaming middle-aged woman.

Eventually, neighbors saw Mary and apparently thought maybe somebody should call the police. Westlake police showed up, and with Mary's help, they eventually caught the boy.

"I read every Nancy Drew mystery as a kid, and I do sudoku all the time," she explained. "I have a mind for mysteries."

She also has the heart of a woman who refuses to surrender.

Ten years ago, Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time, she was planning to run a 25K race in Ireland. Instead, she had a mastectomy.

"That's when I decided to start running regularly," she said. She's been running five miles a day for years.

Mary insists she's no hero. "I think everyone would have done what I did," she said.

Oh, but to wish, Westlake police said.

"Most people don't want to believe something bad is going on in their neighborhood," Westlake police Capt. Guy Turner said. "But nobody knows a neighborhood like the people who live and work there. If you see your neighbor's garage door open at night and you know that's unusual, call us. If you hear glass breaking..."

He laughed.

"OK, we're not saying everyone should run after them," he said. "But if you see something, say something."

Alas, there is a footnote to Mary Dolan Welgs' newfound stardom. It involves her seven siblings and the family's longtime habit of playing the parlor game "How to Host a Murder."

"I always solve the crime," Mary said. "Always."

Not anymore.

"That game is for amateur crime solvers," sister Kathleen told Mary. "You're a professional now."

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.