GRATITUDE

STROUDSBURG PA: APRIL 8
We hitch the trailer to the Honda, collect the bike. Stroudsburg is a fifteen minute drive. I attempt to give thanks, ask for an address.
“It's nothing,” my savior tells me. A nothing miracle of generosity! And so typical of my few weeks in the United States...
I set out on this journey through the Americas in 2006 from Providence, Rhode Island, the home of my ex and her son, Jed. I traveled south by train to Dallas and Don and Jane Weempe and adventured with the Boys with Bikes and was saved from disaster in Amarillo by the Angel of the Bourbon Street Cafe. Now, riding north in 2008 I was saved first by the wicked Muslim at the Texas gas station on my way to Galveston to enjoy the company and hospitality of Terry and Ed, Carol and Peter. I have been pampered in North Carolina by Jim and Liz and aided by Mike Townsend at the Long View Cycle shop. Now I ride towards my daughter and her partner in Duchess County, New York. Encountering such kindness, such generosity, why dare I be so critical of the United States? Why do I feel more at home, more secure, in Hispanic America?

CITY FOLK

ROUTE 209: APRIL 8
I park the bike behind the church. The young man in the Honda opens the passenger door. The rear is loaded with waders and rods and fishing tackle.
He asks where I come from.
“You rode that far on that small bike...” He shakes his head in semi-disbelief. Then, “There's no sense leaving the bike out here. I have a trailer at the house...”
We drive through semi-suburban pinewoods country. His home is on a rise, dark-stained cedar, white window frames, perfectly maintained. Azaleas and rhododendrons are in bud. His parents live near by. So do his in-laws. He works for the electricity company, maintenance on high-wire pylons. He and his wife have a first baby. They were at church this morning. His wife gave him the afternoon off to go fishing.
City folk are moving into the neighborhood, building weekend and holiday homes. City folk complain if he keeps a pig or his chickens crow. We have the same problem back home. An ancient yew tree has been massacred on our lane. Neighboring women complained that the tree cut their light. The tree was there before they bought their cottages. It was there before they were born.

MIRACLE

ROUTE 209: APRIL 8
The chain has snapped. I pry the chain free, drape it over the crutches and push the bike fifty meters to a side turn. Do I push the bike onward until I find a village? Or do I wait in hope of a miracle? The miracle appears in the guise of a red Honda 4x4 driven by a typically friendly young man with short hair and dressed in standard GAP. Sunday and bike shops are closed. He suggests I park the bike a hundred meters down the road behind a church. The bike will be safe. He will drive me to a motel in Stroudsburg.
I imagine, as I push the bike, attempting to push a Harley or Gold Wing.
No way...I would collapse.

SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR

ROUTE 209: APRIL 8
Route 209 joins the main highway south of Stroudsburg. Sunday hasn't kept truck drivers off the road. I open the throttle to max in hope of not being run down. Full throttle on the flat is around 100 KPH. A machine gun fires a burst under my backside. The chain has snapped. The chain will entangle the wheel spokes. The wheel will collapse. I'll be catapulted onto the road. I'll have two seconds watching a truck's tyres before I get squashed. Totally squashed. Smeared. Except the bike comes quietly to a halt at the road edge.
I sit a while before dismounting.
The sun shines. I breathe carefully and inhale the scent of pine woods bordering the highway. Trucks thunder by.
What am I going to do? I am seriously short of funds. So close, yet so far...