Perhaps you frequent a store or cafe and see the same person behind the counter every time. Maybe you've progressed beyond exchanging pleasantries and have come to know something about that person who makes your coffee or sells you a newspaper or stamps.
Yes, such things happen here in New York. But I'm sure they happen even more frequently in some smaller towns.
While it's nice to get to know that person who makes your sandwich, doing so can also be a little sad: That person might be doing it because of some unfortunate circumstance. And getting to that counter every day could be a job in itself.
Such was the case of Johnny Phillips. Every day, he walked two hours to the Circle K market in Springfield, Illinois, where he worked a ten-hour shift. Then he walked two hours to go home.
Jim Copeland learned of his story because he stops at that Circle K store every night, on his way to work. He knew that Phillips "had to walk through a bad neighborhood" and figured that "if he did all that, he was really dedicated." So, Copeland thought, "maybe I could help him."
On his way to work, an idea popped into Copeland's head: "What if I could find a decent bike at a decent price?" So he went--where else?--to Craigslist, where he found a suitable machine. He took it to a "bike nut" friend, who oiled the chain and adjusted the brakes.
On Monday, Copeland brought the bike to the store's parking lot, told Phillips to close his eyes and handed him his new mode of transportation. One can only imagine the emotions Phillips must have felt, some of which showed on his face.
For his part, Copeland drives a truck for a postal service contractor, so I suspect he knows a thing or two about work and dedication!
How much home can you buy for $2 million?
You might wonder why I'm raising such a question here. It's not that I'm getting rich from writing this blog: In fact, I haven't made a cent from it. Then again, I've never made any attempt to monetize this site.
The question entered my mind because of something I saw during my ride yesterday.
In some parts of this nation, two million dollars can buy you a veritable palace, or at least a mansion. I have to admit, of the ones I saw in this article, I am partial to the ones in Poulsbo, Washington and Block Island, Rhode Island. Perhaps those high wispy clouds tinged by the sunset make the one in Washington State seem even more beautiful than it is. And I just might like the one in Rhode Island because I'm generally partial to New England.
So...what does $2 million get you in New York?
Yes, a toilet.
This public restroom facility (I think that's the official name for structures like it.) is in Gravesend Park, Brooklyn. While growing up, I spent a fair amount of time in that park, wedged between the 18th Avenue shopping area and a Department of Sanitation garage.
Can't beat the location, right? Maybe that's why it cost $5000 per square foot: more than it would take to buy the most expensive apartment in Trump Tower!
And, no, there are no gold-plated fixtures or marble ceilings. It's just a basic public restroom with steel stalls and fixtures. At least it was clean, which is all I ask when I stop to take care of my needs during a ride.
In case you were wondering: It took seven and a half years to complete. I bet it didn't take nearly as long to build this:
or the train line that ascends from, or descends to, the tunnel to the left of the photo. And I'll bet it will all last longer!
The tides rolled in, higher and higher on the rocks--closer and closer to me and Arielle, who took me to Point Lookout on one of the loveliest afternoons we've had this year.
She was up for it, wind and all. We rode into the wind all the way out, literally. It blew from just the right spot on the compass--somewhere between East-Southeast, South-Southeast and East-East South, I think. Whatever it was, it blew us all the way back to my place.
While she was soaking up the sun and wind--and I was getting burned by them, in spite of my third application of sunscreen to my arms, face and the back of my neck--I paid a visit to another old friend:
The Point Lookout Orca is a myth of my own creation. Which is to say, of course, that it's a rumor that, to my knowledge, has gone no further than this blog. I had to assure him, Arielle and myself that whatever the tide was bringing in was no more dangerous--at least, not yet--than anything that might result when two thin-skinned, impulsive guys lead their countries. One of them has a Twitter account. The other has, according to scientists, an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).
I fully expect the guy with the Twitter account to use it to exclaim that he has a bigger, stronger missile. But, because he needs the support of religious conservatives to undo everything Obama did, he can't let his warhead show. At least, not too much.
That was not a dirty joke. At least, I hope it isn't. If it is, then I've just dirty-bombed.
Anyway, it might seem frivolous to some that I am off riding my bike when we might be in the most serious situation this country has seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis. But,really, what else is there to do--besides peace, whether it's in one's own life or with others. And, yes, I've been doing as much of the latter as I can. The rides I take alone, like this one, enable me to do so as much as the rides I do with others--and the marches and everything else in which I participate.
If you head to Tampa from Daytona Beach, you will most likely pass through a city called Lakeland.
I have to admit that I'd never heard of it until my parents moved to Florida. Then it became a name on the weather map of the local television newscasts: The temperature in Lakeland would be shown, along with those of Winter Haven, Titusville, Daytona Beach and a few other locales in the middle of the Sunshine State.
Since then, I've learned that the headquarters of Publix, one of the largest regional supermarket chains, is in Lakeland. (If you've spend any amount of time in Florida, you've almost certainly shopped in a Publix store.) I have also learned another interesting fact about the city: The canine unit of its local police department is regarded as one of the best in the United States. One of its dogs, Nox, took first place in the annual USPCA Police Dog Trials (the largest event of its kind), while another one of its police pooches--Bruno--won the event in 2012 and 2013
Knowing about their canine unit got me to wondering how the police officers themselves are trained. Something told me that their training must be pretty good . After all, studies have confirmed something I've always suspected: Developing a rapport with an animal helps people in their relationships with other people. Now, I realize that a police officer doesn't have the same sort of relationship with a German Shepherd in the unit as a civilian has with a pet poodle. But I think that the ability to communicate with an animal requires intuition, which is certainly useful in human relations.
I got to thinking about those things when I came across a story about a police officer in Lakeland who helped a little girl fix her bicycle chain. Items like that catch my eye, in part, because you would never see them in New York Metro Area media. Also, according to the story, the girl calmed down from the temper tantrum she lapsed into when her bike chain jumped off its sprocket. That's not a reaction one normally associates with seeing police lights flashing here in New York, especially if one is a member of a marginalized community.
I couldn't help but to wonder whether her reaction--and, for that matter, the fact that Shane Stinson stopped to help the girl--was a result of training, Officer Stinson's personal qualities or the community's relations with the police (which are probably a result of those other two factors), or some combination of them.
Whatever the answer, Officer Shane Stinson of the Lakeland, FL Police Department should be commended.
It also has me thinking about whether they should teach bicycle repair in police academies--and elementary schools!
Happy US Independence Day!
I hope that this isn't the last year we'll be able to use the word "independence" in reference to this day. With the Orange One in the Oval Office, I have to wonder just how independent we'll be next year. Or whether we'll be here at all.
On a lighter note: Oliver Stone made a film about me. Really! At least, the title applies to me.
I am thankful that I could come to the convictions I share with Ron Kovic without having to come to them the way he did.
Next Fourth is a round-number birthday for me. And the Mercian Vincitore Special I've ordered is the gift I plan to give myself--and ride!
We're white. We're male. After our training rides in the park, we wheel our flashy carbon-fiber machines under canopies of luxury condo buildings.
We're male, too. But we're brown and black. We pedal dilapidated-looking-bikes--or bikes that we're not supposed to be able to afford because, well... We don't speak English well, or at all. We're probably undocumented, to boot,
We are also male--and could be white, brown or black--but we're not likely to be yellow. We are riding bikes because...we can't afford to drive. Or we can't drive because we've lost our licenses, or couldn't get them in the first place.
The Rev. Laura Everett describes each of these stereotypes about cyclists in her Daily Beast editorial, "We Need To Ditch All The Old Cliches About Cyclists." She makes a very good case against each of those cariactures, using data (e.g., that the majority of cyclists are indeed poor, but don't necessarily fit into the second and third stereotypes) from various studies I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts.
She also makes a very interesting point: During the two previous "golden ages" of cycling in the US--1890-1910 and the 1970s--cycling was seen as a pastime of the leisured class. And, once it lost that status, cycling fell into a steep decline. The first "boom" ended when automobiles became affordable to average working people. (Interestingly, during the 1890s, a bicycle cost what an average worker earned in year!) The second declined with a deep recession fueled by a spike in petrol prices and suffered its death blow when the election of Ronald Reagan ended the first major environmental movements in the US.
She sees that we are in a third "golden age" of cycling. In order to sustain it, she says, all of the stereotypes have to be shattered. Cycling will never become mainstream if it is not seen, by planners and the general public alike, as a vital link in the transportation system. That, in turn, will not happen if cycling is seen only as a leisuretime activity of the privileged or as the "last resort" of the poor, nonwhite or criminal classes.
For her part, Rev. Everett says she began cycle-commuting because she was a poor recent graduate who was just starting her career. Seven years later, she continues to ride because, as she says, it really is the best transportation option for her--and because she enjoys it.
To me, she sounds like the kind of cyclist the public needs to know more about if cycling is to become mainstream And, I must add: She's a woman. Thus, she can't help but to break the stereotype. I like to believe that I am, too.
For as long as there have been bicycles, artists have been riding them. Of course, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century, bicycle riding was pretty much de rigeur. But even after automobiles changed the landscapes of much of the world, artists continued to pedal. Many have ridden, and still ride, for transportation, as many live in cities where it's the most practical way to go. But others have also ridden as part of their creative process, or simply for fun.
Then there are those artists who were inspired by the machine itself:
It's getting to be a habit for me...
I've stripped another one of my bikes.
My latest "victim" is Vera, my green Miss Mercian mixte.
Like Helene, the last bike I stripped, Vera is going away.
But fear not...she'll come back.
I'm sending her on this trip as a kind of reward, a spa treatment. She's been good to me. Now she's going to get some TLC.
You see, I've been riding her with a shim in the seat lug. I think someone tried to jam a 27.2mm diameter seatpost into the frame, which takes a 27.0. So I'm having that fixed.
Also, the cable guides are going to be replaced with shifter bosses--which can also be used for those bolt-on cable guides used with "brifters", in case I ever decide to install handlebar end shifters. But, for the foreseeable future, I'm going to use down-tube shifters, which I ride on all of my geared bikes.
And, finally, her new finish will make her more like the rest of the family. She won't be painted the "flip-flop" purple/green (#57) of Arielle and Tosca, the Mercians I have now. Nor will she be adorned with the Lilac Polychromatic (#17) paint and Deep Plum Pearl (#56) headtube and seat tube panel I've requested for the Vincitore Special I ordered.
Instead, I'm ordering Mauve Pearl (#53), without any panels or bands: It's hard to do those on a mixte, especially one with twin laterals, without cluttering the frame.
Vera deserves the treatment. Also, I think seeing her renovated will be a kind of appetizer for the Vincitore Special.
So why am I beginning this post with a photo of a house in France most Americans have never seen?
Well, if you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that I'm a bit of a Francophile. Yes, just a little bit. One way you know that I'm American is that I am also something of an Anglophile and see no contradiction!
Anyway, the house is in a French city most foreigners (except, perhaps, from neighboring countries) never visit. That's a shame, really, because it reveals so much about France that people don't experience during the three or four das they spend in Paris as part of their European trips.
You can probably guess one reason I included the photo: I have cycled to that house. And to this one:
Now, that's one tourists are more likely to see. It's in Paris, on one of the city's most elegant squares, the Place des Vosges. There's a nice little park in the middle of the square where Parisians take lunch breaks or walk their dogs or kids, or just loll around on the grass. And folks like me ride or walk there, baguette and hunk of cheese in hand.
One great thing about the Place des Vosges is that it's next to one of the most historic parts of Paris--le Marais--and literally steps from all sorts of interesting museums, galleries and shops.
Anyway, the house in Besancon and the one in Paris share something: specifically, someone who lived in them.
I'll give you a hint: He wrote the novel more people know about without actually having read. In the English-speaking world that has much to do with a musical--a musical!--made out of that novel. You may have seen it.
That novel is, of course, Les Miserables, written by none other than Victor Hugo.
Just as more people know about Les Miserables than any other novel without having read it, more people lie about having read Moby Dick than any other novel. Now I'm going to tell you a secret: If you're ever at a dinner party with a bunch of snotty pseudo-intellectuals, you can more or less bluff your way through a discussion of MD if you've read Old Man and the Sea!
But I digress. No, it's not really a digression: It's part of what I'm going to say, just like all of those hundred-page long asides about the Paris sewer system or whaling in New England are integral to LM and MD, respectively.
You see, such seeming digressions are part of some of the best bike rides. You might start with a destination in mind or that you are simply going to ride a certain distance or amount of time. Unless you're riding strictly for training purposes, the parts of the ride you'll remember are the things you encountered along the way.
In the case of Besancon, I found myself there because of a challenge. In the summer of 1997, I bought a round-trip ticket to Paris--with a return date of a month after my departure--and brought my bicycle, among other things. I had no particular plan except to visit my friends in Paris and get on my bike. In those days, I used to take trips like that, staying in hostels or pensiones--or simply rolling out my sleeping bag--wherever I found myself when I stopped riding for the day.
I was talking to Jay and Isabelle, whom I've mentioned in other posts, when Isabelle asked, "Ou n'avais pas visite en France?" As I tried to think of some place in France where I hadn't been, Jay blurted "Alpes"!
"Les Alpes?" Even though I understood perfectly well, I just had to make sure.
They both nodded. So did I.
And so I pedaled south and east from Paris. That is how I found myself, five days later (spending days in Troyes and Chaumont) in Besancon, on the edge of the Jura mountains, which are a kind of sub-range of the Alps. A few days after that I was in Chamonix and hiked up part of Mont Blanc.
Anyway, Victor Hugo was born in the house in Besancon. That house, amazingly enough, is in a square that also contains the houses in which painter Gustave Courbet, writer Charles Nodier and the Lumiere brothers--considered the "fathers" of cinema--were born!
And, of course, I've cycled (and walked) to the Hugo house on Place des Vosges any number of times during my stays in Paris.
So why am I thinking about Victor Hugo now? Turns out, on this date in 1862, he completed Les Miserables. It was published soon after and became popular with soldiers on both sides of the US Civil War. "I've been reading Hugo's account of Waterloo in Les Miserables and preparing my mind for something of the same sort," wrote Wilky James of the Massachusetts Free Black Regiment in 1863. "God grant the battle may do as much harm to the rebels as Waterloo did to the French."
The funny thing is that the sections about Waterloo--and the Paris sewer system--are what got the novel both praised and lambasted. But Les Miserables could no more exist without them than Moby Dick could without al the stuff about New England whaling practices--or our favorite ride without whatever you encountered along the way.
Now tell me: Is there a surer sign of an early summer day than this?
It was a little cooler than normal (high temperature of 27C, or 80F) but I didn't mind. From that tree, you might know where I rode: Connecticut.
(I have to admit, I couldn't help but to think of the quarter coin dedicated to the Nutmeg State--one of the prettiest pieces of currency ever issued.)
Anyway, the sky was as bright and blue as my cell-phone photos make it seem. I rode into a fairly stiff wind on the way up, which meant, of course, that I had it at my back on my way home.
I couldn't have asked for anything better. Nor could Arielle, my Mercian Audax.
