ROUTE 209: APRIL 8
Midday, the sky clears. The country grows more open, bigger fields bordered by good woodland, wealthier. Polished automobiles pack the parking lot of a roadside diner. The diner is low and light and new and built to last half of a short life time. I finger-comb my hair before entering and struggle out of a wet bomber jacket. Sunday lunch and tables are full. Uniformity in dress is obligatory. GAP or Old Navy is the choice in male tailoring. A smiling waitress with good teeth seats me at the counter and asks, “How are we today?”
Cold and hungry.
In England waiting is obligatory.
This is the US and coffee comes by instant magic.
I cup the mug in cold fingers. I must look a little weird. Too fat for a scarecrow, but, yes, a little weird: three short sleeve jerseys over one long-sleeved jersey, all tucked inside two pairs of outsize rain-proof pants yanked half way up my chest, two sets of broad suspenders visible, red and grey.
What is he? A pessimist? Maybe. But weird, definitely weird.
Country Brits would show their suspicions. Here bland faces hide any curiosity. Or maybe I'm invisible.
Oh, to be back in Hispanic America. South of the border I'd be in conversation, answering questions.
Fish and chips is England's national dish. In my youth the chippy wrapped your dinner in newspaper. Now it comes wrapped in off-white recycled. The smell of sweat, malt vinegar and stale oil is the same. So is the thick, grease-soggy batter and greasy-soggy potatoes. US fish and fries may be equally designed to halt longevity. However the batter and fries are crisp, the servings are immense and I prefer the odour of chemical air freshener.
I doubt that I can reach my daughter's today. So one more night in a motel. One more night and the journey is done. From the start I expected to give up somewhere along the road - admit that I was an old fool, that the journey was too tough. All in all, I am well content.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
BITTER? YES, INDEED...
PENNSYLVANIA VALLEYS: APRIL 8
I ride beneath a low gray sky. A thin drizzle falls. Broken-backed trailer-homes hide in dripping birch woods. The mining and mill towns are imprisoned in narrow valleys: Tremont, Minersville, Port Carbon, New Philadelphia. Battered pick-ups are a fashion statement - abandoned automobiles and soon-to-be abandoned automobiles. Shop windows are boarded up. For Sale notices thrive on small red-brick and clapboard houses. Sullen teenagers cultivate a tobacco habit. Health Warnings? What has life on offer?
So were the Scottish Borders of the Thatcher Government in the 1980s, mills shut, mines closed, a lost generation of kids on street corners. Bitter? Yes, indeed...Though Senator McCain claims that bitterness is un-American.
Tories in Scotland ceased to exist.
What future have the Republicans?
What future do I have?
For bikers, this is unfriendly weather. Oh for a little Global Warming...
I ride beneath a low gray sky. A thin drizzle falls. Broken-backed trailer-homes hide in dripping birch woods. The mining and mill towns are imprisoned in narrow valleys: Tremont, Minersville, Port Carbon, New Philadelphia. Battered pick-ups are a fashion statement - abandoned automobiles and soon-to-be abandoned automobiles. Shop windows are boarded up. For Sale notices thrive on small red-brick and clapboard houses. Sullen teenagers cultivate a tobacco habit. Health Warnings? What has life on offer?
So were the Scottish Borders of the Thatcher Government in the 1980s, mills shut, mines closed, a lost generation of kids on street corners. Bitter? Yes, indeed...Though Senator McCain claims that bitterness is un-American.
Tories in Scotland ceased to exist.
What future have the Republicans?
What future do I have?
For bikers, this is unfriendly weather. Oh for a little Global Warming...
Saturday, August 02, 2008
KIND COPS AND MANIACAL TRUCK DRIVERS
PENNSYLVANIA: APRIL 8
Forgive me for writing further of danger and truck drivers. My friends in Dallas judged my journey mad or suicidal. They warned of Mexican drivers, of crooked cops and crooked border officials. Mexicans in Veracruz added bandits to their warnings. So I progressed, country to country, each peopled by homicidal truck drivers, vicious terrorists and equally murderous bandits. Chance acquaintances expressed amazement at my survival.
I encountered only kindness.
On occasion, arrogance made me resent the kindness...As with cops in Peru.
I crossed the desert in Peru in a sandstorm. Cops stopped me every twenty kilometres.
“Hey, grandfather, are you okay?”
They were nurse-maiding me.
Me! A survivor of ambushes in the Ogaden, of Russian gunships in Afghanistan.
I felt belittled.
I stopped for lunch at a truck and coach halt and chatted half an hour with the waitresses. Two cops ate at a table against the far wall. They departed. I asked for my bill. The cops had paid. This Blog is my Thank you to the Peruvian police.
And yet, there is a downside.
All drivers in Venezuela are insane.
Most truck drivers in Argentina are bully boys.
Bikers, avoid Venezuela. In Argentina, ride with care.
Forgive me for writing further of danger and truck drivers. My friends in Dallas judged my journey mad or suicidal. They warned of Mexican drivers, of crooked cops and crooked border officials. Mexicans in Veracruz added bandits to their warnings. So I progressed, country to country, each peopled by homicidal truck drivers, vicious terrorists and equally murderous bandits. Chance acquaintances expressed amazement at my survival.
I encountered only kindness.
On occasion, arrogance made me resent the kindness...As with cops in Peru.
I crossed the desert in Peru in a sandstorm. Cops stopped me every twenty kilometres.
“Hey, grandfather, are you okay?”
They were nurse-maiding me.
Me! A survivor of ambushes in the Ogaden, of Russian gunships in Afghanistan.
I felt belittled.
I stopped for lunch at a truck and coach halt and chatted half an hour with the waitresses. Two cops ate at a table against the far wall. They departed. I asked for my bill. The cops had paid. This Blog is my Thank you to the Peruvian police.
And yet, there is a downside.
All drivers in Venezuela are insane.
Most truck drivers in Argentina are bully boys.
Bikers, avoid Venezuela. In Argentina, ride with care.
PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY IS A STEEPLECHASE
PENNSYLVANNIA: APRIL 8
A massive trailer truck smashed me from the rear in Tierra del Fuego. The accident has left me wary. I fancy myself an expert on truck drivers. Mexicans are the most humane. See a small bike on the road and Mexican truck drivers pull wide. They salute on the klaxon, wave. Peruvians and the drivers of Ecuador are equally friendly. Meet them and they say Hi with a flash of headlights. I write here of drivers away from the Pan-American Highway. The Pan-American is a high-speed steeplechase track. National borders are the obstacles. Trucks queue for hours, sometimes days. Frustration seeds hostility. Keep your distance...
A massive trailer truck smashed me from the rear in Tierra del Fuego. The accident has left me wary. I fancy myself an expert on truck drivers. Mexicans are the most humane. See a small bike on the road and Mexican truck drivers pull wide. They salute on the klaxon, wave. Peruvians and the drivers of Ecuador are equally friendly. Meet them and they say Hi with a flash of headlights. I write here of drivers away from the Pan-American Highway. The Pan-American is a high-speed steeplechase track. National borders are the obstacles. Trucks queue for hours, sometimes days. Frustration seeds hostility. Keep your distance...
A BUG WITHOUT A BITE
PENNSYLVANIA: APRIL 8
I ride a short stretch north from Harrisburg before turning westward through the Pennsylvania valleys on route 209. Massive trucks roar passed on the Interstate. The trucks strike me as symbolic of US power, blunt, heavy, rowdy, chrome-flashy and with no use nor need for subtlety. Air is the enemy. Ram it out of the way. Engine thunder engulfs us. Massive tyres add their own roar. The bike and I shudder under the onslaught. I shrink onto the gas tank and struggle to steady the bike against the slipstream. Here comes the next and the next...In passing, they give me the space prescribed in the Highway code. No more, no less...and no communication. My bike is too small for this land of giants. I am unimportant, a harmless bug.
I ride a short stretch north from Harrisburg before turning westward through the Pennsylvania valleys on route 209. Massive trucks roar passed on the Interstate. The trucks strike me as symbolic of US power, blunt, heavy, rowdy, chrome-flashy and with no use nor need for subtlety. Air is the enemy. Ram it out of the way. Engine thunder engulfs us. Massive tyres add their own roar. The bike and I shudder under the onslaught. I shrink onto the gas tank and struggle to steady the bike against the slipstream. Here comes the next and the next...In passing, they give me the space prescribed in the Highway code. No more, no less...and no communication. My bike is too small for this land of giants. I am unimportant, a harmless bug.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
CAN I MAKE IT TODAY?
ROUTE 209: APRIL 8
I speed (potter|) north through Harrisburg before turning East onto Route 209. 209 will take me through the Pennsylvania Valleys to Kingston, New York. Cross the bridge over the Hudson, ride through Millbrook and Pine Plains, turn left onto Johnny Cake Hollow and right up the track to Duchess Views Farm and the Metropolitan Stud. I shall hug my daughter, admire my new grandson, park the Honda in the stables – Bliss. How far? 270 miles. Can I make it today? Maybe...
I speed (potter|) north through Harrisburg before turning East onto Route 209. 209 will take me through the Pennsylvania Valleys to Kingston, New York. Cross the bridge over the Hudson, ride through Millbrook and Pine Plains, turn left onto Johnny Cake Hollow and right up the track to Duchess Views Farm and the Metropolitan Stud. I shall hug my daughter, admire my new grandson, park the Honda in the stables – Bliss. How far? 270 miles. Can I make it today? Maybe...
THE LAND OF THE FREE
GETTYSBURG: APRIL 8
Road signs point back into recent history: Harpers Ferry, Gettysburg; signposts, in the Land of the Free, to a war in defense of the rights of gallant slave-owning Southern gentlemen. Perhaps I am obsessive. However, I repeat accusations made by so many Hispanic Americans met on this journey.
Spain is the historic evil taught to white Protestant Anglo Saxon England and the United States: Spain, Catholicism and the Inquisition.
The first laws in defense of the freedom of the native population were promulgated in Spain by Charles v in the 16th century ('New Laws' 1542,43,44).
US President Andrew Jackson ordered the clearing by force of the native population from its lands in the 19th century (Removal Act, 1830).
Evil knows no monopoly.
Road signs point back into recent history: Harpers Ferry, Gettysburg; signposts, in the Land of the Free, to a war in defense of the rights of gallant slave-owning Southern gentlemen. Perhaps I am obsessive. However, I repeat accusations made by so many Hispanic Americans met on this journey.
Spain is the historic evil taught to white Protestant Anglo Saxon England and the United States: Spain, Catholicism and the Inquisition.
The first laws in defense of the freedom of the native population were promulgated in Spain by Charles v in the 16th century ('New Laws' 1542,43,44).
US President Andrew Jackson ordered the clearing by force of the native population from its lands in the 19th century (Removal Act, 1830).
Evil knows no monopoly.
SCAREDY CAT
AND ONWARD: APRIL 8
I traveled deserts in my youth, was shot at, broke free of ambushes. In my thirties I rode trucks the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent and, in later years, drove and rode horseback across much of Afghanistan, hid from Russian gun ships, mislaid my false teeth in a mountain stream. Now I am old – and a scaredy cat. Or grown more sensible? Washington DC can wait. I crossed the Appalachians on Route 211. I bypass Washington on Route 15 to Harrisburg and head for safety.
MEMORIALS ARE EPILOGUES
ONWARD: APRIL 8
Is my head cold responsible for my dark mood? Or my fear of riding through DC?
I feel vulnerable.
I imagine DC as a city to which wise people travel by train or plane. They take cabs to their hotel or to friends' homes. They venture forth by cab or with a guide.
I have a young friend in DC, Elizabeth Bergner. We met this trip in Cartagena, Colombia. Elizabeth is making a career change. She shares a house with the like-minded, mostly met on her travels. I would enjoy listening to their experiences and to their opinions. Sadly, Elizabeth is away at a wedding.
And the Vietnam War Memorial would be out of place at this point in my journal. Memorials are epilogues...
Is my head cold responsible for my dark mood? Or my fear of riding through DC?
I feel vulnerable.
I imagine DC as a city to which wise people travel by train or plane. They take cabs to their hotel or to friends' homes. They venture forth by cab or with a guide.
I have a young friend in DC, Elizabeth Bergner. We met this trip in Cartagena, Colombia. Elizabeth is making a career change. She shares a house with the like-minded, mostly met on her travels. I would enjoy listening to their experiences and to their opinions. Sadly, Elizabeth is away at a wedding.
And the Vietnam War Memorial would be out of place at this point in my journal. Memorials are epilogues...
GONE WITH THE WIND
DILEMMA TERRITORY: APRIL 8
A pale sun shines upon a vast territory of gated communities and country clubs. The cold front hasn't yet hit. I weep with a head cold. Sneezing fogs my spectacles. Signs point to Monticello – slavery as romantic, all those loyal darkies, Gone With The Wind...
A pale sun shines upon a vast territory of gated communities and country clubs. The cold front hasn't yet hit. I weep with a head cold. Sneezing fogs my spectacles. Signs point to Monticello – slavery as romantic, all those loyal darkies, Gone With The Wind...
REAP AND WEEP
ROAD TO WASHINGTON, DC: APRIL 8
I am finally north of the Appalachians. Washington, DC, is a rock thrown into a vast economic puddle. Ripples flow outward. White clapboard houses are bigger, better maintained. Mercedes, BMWs and Porches are common as flies on a Third World butcher's slab. I catch glimpses of red brick mansions sheltered by parkland. Riding stables abound, paddocks protected by white picket fences. Horses are as plentiful as hand guns and bare the same romantic mystique. I am crossing the political heartland of the Land of the Free whose early heroic Presidents, General George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were slave owners.
The slaves have rebelled.
Reap and weep.
Or move to the suburbs and gated communities...
Monday, July 28, 2008
ANXIETY ATTACK
ON THE ROAD: APRIL 8
I have been riding and cogitating. I checked the chain before leaving the Ramada Inn. It is very slack and I am a little anxious – and nervous - not only regarding the chain. I have survived the cities of Hispanic America without mishap. I understand Hispanic American cities. I am sensitive to invisible frontiers that divide safe from dangerous – and moderately safe from terrifying.
Washington, DC, is an unknown. However, shootings-for-sport and carjackings are frequent – so the media reports - and I don't have a city map...Though city maps aren't marked with safety zones.
Jim Donovan visited on his Harley and had police warn him that he had taken a wrong turn, was in the wrong area and should get the hell out fast.
The Honda won't do fast.
I wish to see the Vietnam War Memorial.
I don't feel in immediate need of a personal memorial.
And I am running short of funds.
I have been riding and cogitating. I checked the chain before leaving the Ramada Inn. It is very slack and I am a little anxious – and nervous - not only regarding the chain. I have survived the cities of Hispanic America without mishap. I understand Hispanic American cities. I am sensitive to invisible frontiers that divide safe from dangerous – and moderately safe from terrifying.
Washington, DC, is an unknown. However, shootings-for-sport and carjackings are frequent – so the media reports - and I don't have a city map...Though city maps aren't marked with safety zones.
Jim Donovan visited on his Harley and had police warn him that he had taken a wrong turn, was in the wrong area and should get the hell out fast.
The Honda won't do fast.
I wish to see the Vietnam War Memorial.
I don't feel in immediate need of a personal memorial.
And I am running short of funds.
NEARLY HOME
TOWARDS WASHINGTON, DC: APRIL 8
I leave the comforts of the Ramada Inn, Harrisonburg, soon after first light.
I ride the Interstate north towards Harrisburg. I am riding through a gently up-and-down horse country of green meadows, white fences and woods. The sun shines – less watery as the morning progresses. Washington, DC, is over to the West. I intend stopping a night in DC. I want to visit the Vietnam Memorial. I also want to be safe at my daughter's, to have this ride done with. To survive.
I leave the comforts of the Ramada Inn, Harrisonburg, soon after first light.
I ride the Interstate north towards Harrisburg. I am riding through a gently up-and-down horse country of green meadows, white fences and woods. The sun shines – less watery as the morning progresses. Washington, DC, is over to the West. I intend stopping a night in DC. I want to visit the Vietnam Memorial. I also want to be safe at my daughter's, to have this ride done with. To survive.
PRAWN DETOX
HARRISONBURG: APRIL 8
Evening: the wind has dropped. Rain continues. Tomorrow will be dry - and cold. I am suffering a head cold. I am scared that the infection will move down to my chest. I am scared of United States medical bills. So are most citizens of this country.
Should I hole up here in Harrisonburg until the cold front passes through?
Or should I make a dash for my daughter's in upstate New York?
Cogitating such weighty matters requires energy.
I call the Thai restaurant and order spicy prawns.
Eleven months on the road - I'll be in need of a prawn detox.
Evening: the wind has dropped. Rain continues. Tomorrow will be dry - and cold. I am suffering a head cold. I am scared that the infection will move down to my chest. I am scared of United States medical bills. So are most citizens of this country.
Should I hole up here in Harrisonburg until the cold front passes through?
Or should I make a dash for my daughter's in upstate New York?
Cogitating such weighty matters requires energy.
I call the Thai restaurant and order spicy prawns.
Eleven months on the road - I'll be in need of a prawn detox.
SENATOR OBAMA IS ELITIST
HARRISONBURG: APRIL 7
Wind and rain batter Harrisonburg, Virginia. I watch Primary Election coverage on TV. Both Senators Clinton and McCain attack Senator Obama for describing working class men of the Pennsylvania Valleys as bitter. According to Senator Obama the cause of their bitterness is the closure of the mills and mines in the Pennsylvania valleys. The men have lost their jobs. However, bitter is an insult, it is un-American. Describing the unemployed as bitter proves Senator Obama an elitist (according to Senators Clinton and McCain).
I am an outsider.
What would I know?
Wind and rain batter Harrisonburg, Virginia. I watch Primary Election coverage on TV. Both Senators Clinton and McCain attack Senator Obama for describing working class men of the Pennsylvania Valleys as bitter. According to Senator Obama the cause of their bitterness is the closure of the mills and mines in the Pennsylvania valleys. The men have lost their jobs. However, bitter is an insult, it is un-American. Describing the unemployed as bitter proves Senator Obama an elitist (according to Senators Clinton and McCain).
I am an outsider.
What would I know?
VILE WEATHER
HARRISONBURG, VIRGINIA: APRIL 7
Fierce squalls thrash rain against the windows of my room at the Ramada Inn. The Honda is parked outside between a massive RV and an equally massive double-cab pick-up truck. The Honda seems very small and somewhat bedraggled – even a mite reproachful. It is accustomed to overnighting in hotel lobbies and 17th century Spanish Colonial patios. The Ramada Inn is a come-down for a bike. The king size bed is a sybarite's delight.
I suffer a twinge of guilt – and worry that the Honda will avenge its self; worry that the chain won't hold up or that a worn tooth or teeth on the sprockets will offer insufficient purchase for the chain.
However, this is not a biker day. It is a day for catching up on correspondence and my journal, for planning the final stage of the ride and for watching the election reports on TV.
And for sprinting (slowly) for free breakfast across the parking lot to the main building.
Fierce squalls thrash rain against the windows of my room at the Ramada Inn. The Honda is parked outside between a massive RV and an equally massive double-cab pick-up truck. The Honda seems very small and somewhat bedraggled – even a mite reproachful. It is accustomed to overnighting in hotel lobbies and 17th century Spanish Colonial patios. The Ramada Inn is a come-down for a bike. The king size bed is a sybarite's delight.
I suffer a twinge of guilt – and worry that the Honda will avenge its self; worry that the chain won't hold up or that a worn tooth or teeth on the sprockets will offer insufficient purchase for the chain.
However, this is not a biker day. It is a day for catching up on correspondence and my journal, for planning the final stage of the ride and for watching the election reports on TV.
And for sprinting (slowly) for free breakfast across the parking lot to the main building.
WET CLOTHES AND HOT SHRIMP
HARRISONBURG: APRIL 6
Management, Reception and cleaners at the Ramada Inn, Harrisonburg, are Gujarati. I long for a curry made with fresh spices. I negotiate a small discount on the room rate. I have ridden through steady drizzle for the past three hours. Now the TV weather channel shows heavy rain moving southward towards Harrisonburg. Rain will be followed by a cold front. Is a cold front colder than the cold I have already suffered up on the Blue Ridge Parkway?
I strip, turn the heating up and drape wet clothes over chair backs and over the air conditioner. Bliss is basking in a hot bath and contemplating the menu of a newly opened Thai restaurant. Spicy shrimp with fresh coriander...
Management, Reception and cleaners at the Ramada Inn, Harrisonburg, are Gujarati. I long for a curry made with fresh spices. I negotiate a small discount on the room rate. I have ridden through steady drizzle for the past three hours. Now the TV weather channel shows heavy rain moving southward towards Harrisonburg. Rain will be followed by a cold front. Is a cold front colder than the cold I have already suffered up on the Blue Ridge Parkway?
I strip, turn the heating up and drape wet clothes over chair backs and over the air conditioner. Bliss is basking in a hot bath and contemplating the menu of a newly opened Thai restaurant. Spicy shrimp with fresh coriander...
Friday, July 25, 2008
KINDLY PEOPLE
HARRISONBURG: APRIL 6
Most cities have an obvious geographical purpose. The lesser inland US cities often confuse the foreigner. Why were they founded in this particular stretch of emptiness? Where is the center? What logic propels developers to clump forty story buildings wall to wall in a country of unlimited space? Why these few city blocks rather than the next? And where do I find a hotel? I enter Harrisonburg on a minor road. For a motel I need the Interstate. Rain mists my spectacles. Dusk settles. I am wet, cold, miserable and lost.
I pull in at a gas station beside a black Buick sedan. The driver is a Black woman dressed (that bit that I can see of her) in artificial furs. She owns four teenagers - surely sufficient Hell in an automobile without instructing a fat old Brit on a bike seeking a bed.
The teenagers compete with her in directions. My younger sons might understand the teen-speak. The mother recognizes my bewilderment and accepts the impossibility of keeping the teens hushed long enough for a sensible conversation – even if the drenched old Brit on the Bike is capable of rational communication (doubtful). “Follow,” she says, “I'll drive slow.”
She makes a U out of the gas station and heads right across town to a Ramada Inn.
Many people have aided me on this journey. Few will read this account – and expressions of gratitude come easy. Yet I know of a future. I will sit on a bench in our Herefordshire garden, enjoy those few days of sun offered by our English summers and be better warmed by remembered evidence of so much kindness in a troubled World.
Most cities have an obvious geographical purpose. The lesser inland US cities often confuse the foreigner. Why were they founded in this particular stretch of emptiness? Where is the center? What logic propels developers to clump forty story buildings wall to wall in a country of unlimited space? Why these few city blocks rather than the next? And where do I find a hotel? I enter Harrisonburg on a minor road. For a motel I need the Interstate. Rain mists my spectacles. Dusk settles. I am wet, cold, miserable and lost.
I pull in at a gas station beside a black Buick sedan. The driver is a Black woman dressed (that bit that I can see of her) in artificial furs. She owns four teenagers - surely sufficient Hell in an automobile without instructing a fat old Brit on a bike seeking a bed.
The teenagers compete with her in directions. My younger sons might understand the teen-speak. The mother recognizes my bewilderment and accepts the impossibility of keeping the teens hushed long enough for a sensible conversation – even if the drenched old Brit on the Bike is capable of rational communication (doubtful). “Follow,” she says, “I'll drive slow.”
She makes a U out of the gas station and heads right across town to a Ramada Inn.
Many people have aided me on this journey. Few will read this account – and expressions of gratitude come easy. Yet I know of a future. I will sit on a bench in our Herefordshire garden, enjoy those few days of sun offered by our English summers and be better warmed by remembered evidence of so much kindness in a troubled World.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
VIRGINIA: TUESDAY, APRIL 6
I last an hour on the Parkway. Thin drizzle mists my safety spectacles. I take a left down to the foothills and ride a further hour before pulling in at a gas station. A woman serving coffee directs me to an upright heating unit. I wear wet-suit gloves under leather gloves. I put both pairs on top of the heater. I unzip my bomber jacket, press my chest against the heater and sip coffee. I am in a small town. Asking the woman serving coffee which town seems impolite. A weather man on TV points to bands of downpour sweeping south from the Great Lakes. The rain won't hit till late evening. I could find a motel. Or I could ride a further couple of hours. Riding gets me closer to the end, to my daughter. I ride.
This is Virginia horse country. Route 42 crosses a land of hills and lush pastures, white farm houses, white stables and white fences. Goshen and Staunton are red brick. Drizzle turns to light rain. Trees drip. I drip.
I last an hour on the Parkway. Thin drizzle mists my safety spectacles. I take a left down to the foothills and ride a further hour before pulling in at a gas station. A woman serving coffee directs me to an upright heating unit. I wear wet-suit gloves under leather gloves. I put both pairs on top of the heater. I unzip my bomber jacket, press my chest against the heater and sip coffee. I am in a small town. Asking the woman serving coffee which town seems impolite. A weather man on TV points to bands of downpour sweeping south from the Great Lakes. The rain won't hit till late evening. I could find a motel. Or I could ride a further couple of hours. Riding gets me closer to the end, to my daughter. I ride.
This is Virginia horse country. Route 42 crosses a land of hills and lush pastures, white farm houses, white stables and white fences. Goshen and Staunton are red brick. Drizzle turns to light rain. Trees drip. I drip.
BRAVE OR STUPID?
BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: TUESDAY, APRIL 6
There are those who believe me brave in undertaking this journey. I judge myself stupid. To exchange the warmth of the diner for the heights of the Blue Ridge Parkway – definitely stupid. I wish to write that the Parkway was beautiful. Perhaps. If so, I was soon too cold to notice. Low grey cloud enveloped the mountains a hundred feet above the road. A lone black turkey cock scuttled across the tar in search of a new winter overcoat. I rode with my left hand under my backside. The right hand froze.
There are those who believe me brave in undertaking this journey. I judge myself stupid. To exchange the warmth of the diner for the heights of the Blue Ridge Parkway – definitely stupid. I wish to write that the Parkway was beautiful. Perhaps. If so, I was soon too cold to notice. Low grey cloud enveloped the mountains a hundred feet above the road. A lone black turkey cock scuttled across the tar in search of a new winter overcoat. I rode with my left hand under my backside. The right hand froze.
WEST VIRGINIA DINER
APPALACHIANS: TUESDAY, APRIL 6
I am being mothered by the waitress in the diner. The waitress is medium young and blond. She has a genetic advantage in remaining slim or avoids fried cat fish in crisp batter accompanied by equally yummy fries. The servings are vast. Outriders escape. Add tomato ketchup and my plate is soon encircled by a scarlet-spattered war zone.
The lunchtime crowd packs the diner and double doors keep the heat in. The waitress helped pry me out of my bomber jacket and I have shed a couple of jerseys. Warmth seeps through the remaining layers. My hands stop trembling. I feel good. I ponder on the politeness of people here, their friendliness. And I ponder at their lack of curiosity. Or does questioning a traveler breach etiquette? Are people nervous of what opinions they might encounter, nervous of betraying their own opinions, nervous of disagreement?
It is very different south of the Rio Grande. South of the Rio Grande, I would be in a discussion. The discussion would begin with the standard interrogation. How old? Where have I been? How does my wife feel at my being away? What do my children think? Which country did I like best?
We would drift into accounts of the economy and on into local politics and, inevitably, someone would denounce President Bush as ignorant, arrogant and stupid - and denounce the United States as racist.
In the Appalachians, I have met only one Afro-American. That was yesterday, the up-market dealer in up-market Bonds, the driver of a 4x4 Lexus. Or was he an FBI agent or a lawyer with the IRS – or a holidaying hit-man? Or chaufeur for his ill-dressed Caucasian American companion?
I have no idea.
People south of the Rio Grande are close kin culturally to Europeans. They are familiar to me. A few minutes talk and I can write a reasonably accurate summary of their place in society.
Our sharing of language with the United States provokes a delusion of commonality. Dig a little deeper and we are very different. The United States is unknown territory...
I am being mothered by the waitress in the diner. The waitress is medium young and blond. She has a genetic advantage in remaining slim or avoids fried cat fish in crisp batter accompanied by equally yummy fries. The servings are vast. Outriders escape. Add tomato ketchup and my plate is soon encircled by a scarlet-spattered war zone.
The lunchtime crowd packs the diner and double doors keep the heat in. The waitress helped pry me out of my bomber jacket and I have shed a couple of jerseys. Warmth seeps through the remaining layers. My hands stop trembling. I feel good. I ponder on the politeness of people here, their friendliness. And I ponder at their lack of curiosity. Or does questioning a traveler breach etiquette? Are people nervous of what opinions they might encounter, nervous of betraying their own opinions, nervous of disagreement?
It is very different south of the Rio Grande. South of the Rio Grande, I would be in a discussion. The discussion would begin with the standard interrogation. How old? Where have I been? How does my wife feel at my being away? What do my children think? Which country did I like best?
We would drift into accounts of the economy and on into local politics and, inevitably, someone would denounce President Bush as ignorant, arrogant and stupid - and denounce the United States as racist.
In the Appalachians, I have met only one Afro-American. That was yesterday, the up-market dealer in up-market Bonds, the driver of a 4x4 Lexus. Or was he an FBI agent or a lawyer with the IRS – or a holidaying hit-man? Or chaufeur for his ill-dressed Caucasian American companion?
I have no idea.
People south of the Rio Grande are close kin culturally to Europeans. They are familiar to me. A few minutes talk and I can write a reasonably accurate summary of their place in society.
Our sharing of language with the United States provokes a delusion of commonality. Dig a little deeper and we are very different. The United States is unknown territory...
HARPER COLLINS
COLWALL, HEREFORDSHIRE: TUESDAY, JULY 9
A publishing disaster delayed my posting the completion of this journey. The journey was planned to end close to publication date. My publishers declared bankruptcy. Harper Collins have cherry-picked the corpse. I have agreed a new contract with Harper Collins (though, if a cherry, I must be over-ripe). OLD MAN ON A BIKE will be published September 1 and I reappeared in public last Saturday to give a presentation at the annual UK meet for bikers organized by Horizon Unlimited.
The presentation lasted an hour. Listeners expected highlights of a ride from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego followed by a question and answer session. I short changed the audience. One hour and my account had reached Panama.
Those frustrated might buy the book.
Meanwhile I will tidy up my notes and post the final week of the journey.
A publishing disaster delayed my posting the completion of this journey. The journey was planned to end close to publication date. My publishers declared bankruptcy. Harper Collins have cherry-picked the corpse. I have agreed a new contract with Harper Collins (though, if a cherry, I must be over-ripe). OLD MAN ON A BIKE will be published September 1 and I reappeared in public last Saturday to give a presentation at the annual UK meet for bikers organized by Horizon Unlimited.
The presentation lasted an hour. Listeners expected highlights of a ride from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego followed by a question and answer session. I short changed the audience. One hour and my account had reached Panama.
Those frustrated might buy the book.
Meanwhile I will tidy up my notes and post the final week of the journey.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
CATFISH AND FRIES
BORDER OF WEST VIRGINIA: APRIL 6
Back in my youth, blue-collar Brits queued at the chippy most Saturday nights for fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. Thick soggy batter encased a stale chunk of greying cod; chips oozed grease. Today's preference is for equally vile fast-food sweet-and-sour with fried rice, chicken tika, donar kebab or a Savaloy sausage.
So I muse as I shelter at a corner table in a gerry-built road-side diner in the Appalachian foothills on the border of West Virginia.
Lunch hour and the diner is packed with locals. These are country folk and polite. They don't stare at the fat old man off a Mexican mini-bike. A friendly waitress serves coffee and takes my order for catfish and fries. A woman at the next table interjects that we are suffering a cold front.
Yes, indeed...
Back in my youth, blue-collar Brits queued at the chippy most Saturday nights for fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. Thick soggy batter encased a stale chunk of greying cod; chips oozed grease. Today's preference is for equally vile fast-food sweet-and-sour with fried rice, chicken tika, donar kebab or a Savaloy sausage.
So I muse as I shelter at a corner table in a gerry-built road-side diner in the Appalachian foothills on the border of West Virginia.
Lunch hour and the diner is packed with locals. These are country folk and polite. They don't stare at the fat old man off a Mexican mini-bike. A friendly waitress serves coffee and takes my order for catfish and fries. A woman at the next table interjects that we are suffering a cold front.
Yes, indeed...
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
COLD
BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: APRIL 6
The Blue Ridge Parkway relates the history of white occupation. Here camped explorers, traders and military expeditions. Historic cabins and camp sites mark their progress. A century or two of rain and stormy weather has washed away the blood of conquest. Cafes and a hotel cater for tourists. Campsites have hot and cold water and power points for recreational vehicles (camper trucks). Ancient trading posts (1850s) sell tourist tat. Log-cabin is the architectural style and signposts are varnished slices of tree trunk. Very tasteful...
What makes me cynical?
The pretty-pretties of a Colonial Power that boasts that it is rooted in freedom and democracy?
Or merely that the intense cold makes joy impossible?
Cafes are shut. So is the Minerals museum and the urinals. I pass two cars in 100 miles. I hunt with numb fingers within layers of clothing and pee with my back to the log wall of a Trading Post. I leap and caper in the deserted parking lot and thrash circulation back into frozen hands. A few mile further and the cold is victor. I take a left down off the parkway. A diner advertises fried fish heaven...
The Blue Ridge Parkway relates the history of white occupation. Here camped explorers, traders and military expeditions. Historic cabins and camp sites mark their progress. A century or two of rain and stormy weather has washed away the blood of conquest. Cafes and a hotel cater for tourists. Campsites have hot and cold water and power points for recreational vehicles (camper trucks). Ancient trading posts (1850s) sell tourist tat. Log-cabin is the architectural style and signposts are varnished slices of tree trunk. Very tasteful...
What makes me cynical?
The pretty-pretties of a Colonial Power that boasts that it is rooted in freedom and democracy?
Or merely that the intense cold makes joy impossible?
Cafes are shut. So is the Minerals museum and the urinals. I pass two cars in 100 miles. I hunt with numb fingers within layers of clothing and pee with my back to the log wall of a Trading Post. I leap and caper in the deserted parking lot and thrash circulation back into frozen hands. A few mile further and the cold is victor. I take a left down off the parkway. A diner advertises fried fish heaven...
BLOWING ROCK IS DEAD
APPALACHIANS: APRIL 6
Zoning laws are foreign to North Carolina. Property rights are sacrosanct. Citizens have the right to do what they wish on their own land. Guard it with guns. Turn it into a shooting range. Or a bombing range. Build a cottage, tower block, incinerator.
Blowing Rock is a pretty village for affluent summer residents. Early April is out of season. Shops and restaurants remain shuttered. Blowing Rock is dead. So are my fingers. I beat my hands on my thighs a while, then take a right up through pine forest gouged for summer mansions and reach the Parkway. The cloud has lifted. The mountains are blue with cold. So am I. I work hard at admiring the view. I work hard at imagining trees in leaf, rhododendrons and azaleas in flower, the tiniest smidgeon of Spring blossom. Beautiful? Yes. And enjoyable if wearing two pairs of thermal socks and driving an RV graced by a fully functioning heater. This is bad weather for a biker - even a biker wearing heated leathers. Cold is cold is cold...
Zoning laws are foreign to North Carolina. Property rights are sacrosanct. Citizens have the right to do what they wish on their own land. Guard it with guns. Turn it into a shooting range. Or a bombing range. Build a cottage, tower block, incinerator.
Blowing Rock is a pretty village for affluent summer residents. Early April is out of season. Shops and restaurants remain shuttered. Blowing Rock is dead. So are my fingers. I beat my hands on my thighs a while, then take a right up through pine forest gouged for summer mansions and reach the Parkway. The cloud has lifted. The mountains are blue with cold. So am I. I work hard at admiring the view. I work hard at imagining trees in leaf, rhododendrons and azaleas in flower, the tiniest smidgeon of Spring blossom. Beautiful? Yes. And enjoyable if wearing two pairs of thermal socks and driving an RV graced by a fully functioning heater. This is bad weather for a biker - even a biker wearing heated leathers. Cold is cold is cold...
TOO COLD BY FAR
BLUE MOUNTAIN PARKWAY: APRIL 6
I am so close to the end of the ride - yet so far with news on TV of heavy rains tomorrow. Today promises clear skies and a cold front.
I intend rejoining the Blue Ridge Parkway. I load the bike under an overcast sky and take Route 321 out of Lenoir into the Appalachians. The cold grows bitter on the climb. Add wind chill and my fingers freeze. Paulo in Ushuaia fitted protective cuffs to the Honda's handlebars. The cuffs were torn off in the accident.
The road is being widened. Giant dozers and hydraulic diggers munch chunks out of the mountain. Patches of wet slippery clay transform tar into a bobsleigh run. Massive dumper trucks pant on my tail. Frightened? Scared shitless...
I pull in at a gas-station cafe and wrap frozen fingers round a steaming mug of black coffee. Breakfast is two eggs sunny-side up, bacon, hashed potatoes. I share a table with two locals,lank haired and noses they wipe on their shirt sleeves. Conversation is unintelligible. Yellow hard-hats occupy the other tables. Two women work a stainless-steel hot plate. The smaller is younger and pregnant. Her nose drips. Heat and grease fumes rouge her cheeks. Or does she have a fever? I am a little anxious as she breaks my eggs onto the hot plate. What makes the eggs splutter?
I am so close to the end of the ride - yet so far with news on TV of heavy rains tomorrow. Today promises clear skies and a cold front.
I intend rejoining the Blue Ridge Parkway. I load the bike under an overcast sky and take Route 321 out of Lenoir into the Appalachians. The cold grows bitter on the climb. Add wind chill and my fingers freeze. Paulo in Ushuaia fitted protective cuffs to the Honda's handlebars. The cuffs were torn off in the accident.
The road is being widened. Giant dozers and hydraulic diggers munch chunks out of the mountain. Patches of wet slippery clay transform tar into a bobsleigh run. Massive dumper trucks pant on my tail. Frightened? Scared shitless...
I pull in at a gas-station cafe and wrap frozen fingers round a steaming mug of black coffee. Breakfast is two eggs sunny-side up, bacon, hashed potatoes. I share a table with two locals,lank haired and noses they wipe on their shirt sleeves. Conversation is unintelligible. Yellow hard-hats occupy the other tables. Two women work a stainless-steel hot plate. The smaller is younger and pregnant. Her nose drips. Heat and grease fumes rouge her cheeks. Or does she have a fever? I am a little anxious as she breaks my eggs onto the hot plate. What makes the eggs splutter?
BRAVE TOAD? DUMB TOAD?
HIGHWAY 40: APRIL 5
I have backtracked to Ashville, taken Highway 40 to Morganton, then north to Lenoir on Route 64. Crazy to retreat into this vast semi-circle? Probably. However what remains of my mind refused to grapple with the map and Highway 40 required a minimum of navigation. True, trucks are vast; slipstreams buffet a small bike. Buffeting does nothing for my bladder control - such are the minor handicaps of old age.
Now I am in Lenoir at the Comfort Inn and tapping the keyboard while sprawled on a king-size bed. I arrived at dusk and too tired to search for a less costly or better presented hotel. Better presented? Carpets are being renewed which may explain the hotel's unpleasant odor.
The TV weather channel warns of a cold front moving down from the north followed by heavy rains and flooding on the East coast. The screen fills with snow shots from Michigan. At least tomorrow will be fine. I set the alarm for 6 am.
I have backtracked to Ashville, taken Highway 40 to Morganton, then north to Lenoir on Route 64. Crazy to retreat into this vast semi-circle? Probably. However what remains of my mind refused to grapple with the map and Highway 40 required a minimum of navigation. True, trucks are vast; slipstreams buffet a small bike. Buffeting does nothing for my bladder control - such are the minor handicaps of old age.
Now I am in Lenoir at the Comfort Inn and tapping the keyboard while sprawled on a king-size bed. I arrived at dusk and too tired to search for a less costly or better presented hotel. Better presented? Carpets are being renewed which may explain the hotel's unpleasant odor.
The TV weather channel warns of a cold front moving down from the north followed by heavy rains and flooding on the East coast. The screen fills with snow shots from Michigan. At least tomorrow will be fine. I set the alarm for 6 am.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
SUMMER HOMES
HILLBILLY TERRITORY: APRIL 5
I am on an adventure through Indian/Hillbilly land. The Indians have long gone. So have the Hillbillies. These lovely green valleys offer cool summers and glorious mountain views. Perfectly groomed houses set in greenery are second homes for the wealthy who bypassed Florida - or third homes for those who took the Florida route.
I stop at a gas station. A gleaming Lexus 4x4 pulls up. An Afro-American and a white man dismount. I check the atlas with them. They aren't familiar with minor roads. The Black man has the soft clear diction of an upmarket bond trader. This is the South and he is the first Afro-American I have seen since fleeing Nashville. Is he investing a small fraction of his Wall Street Christmas bonus on a summer home? He seeks deliverance for his family from summer city pollution.
I am delivered from DELIVERANCE...
I am on an adventure through Indian/Hillbilly land. The Indians have long gone. So have the Hillbillies. These lovely green valleys offer cool summers and glorious mountain views. Perfectly groomed houses set in greenery are second homes for the wealthy who bypassed Florida - or third homes for those who took the Florida route.
I stop at a gas station. A gleaming Lexus 4x4 pulls up. An Afro-American and a white man dismount. I check the atlas with them. They aren't familiar with minor roads. The Black man has the soft clear diction of an upmarket bond trader. This is the South and he is the first Afro-American I have seen since fleeing Nashville. Is he investing a small fraction of his Wall Street Christmas bonus on a summer home? He seeks deliverance for his family from summer city pollution.
I am delivered from DELIVERANCE...
RETREAT IS IGNOMINIOUS
HILLBILLY TERRITORY: APRIL 5
I wish the tractor driver Good day and ask for directions back to the Parkway. He appears unsurprised at being addressed by an Englishman on a Mexican registered motorcycle and he was born with good teeth or has an excellent orthodontist. A rock fall has blocked the Parkway. The only road round the fall is loose dirt and mud – not to be ridden by an old man on a town bike. I can retreat to the Parkway and return to the diversion or circle back to the highway. The highway will be quicker. Retreat is ignominious.
I wish the tractor driver Good day and ask for directions back to the Parkway. He appears unsurprised at being addressed by an Englishman on a Mexican registered motorcycle and he was born with good teeth or has an excellent orthodontist. A rock fall has blocked the Parkway. The only road round the fall is loose dirt and mud – not to be ridden by an old man on a town bike. I can retreat to the Parkway and return to the diversion or circle back to the highway. The highway will be quicker. Retreat is ignominious.
HOLLYWOOD EDUCATION
HILLBILLY TERRITORY: APRIL 5
A barrier closes the Parkway. The barrier is 20 miles beyond the sign for the diversion. The diversion was to the right. Here there is only a lane to the left. The lane twists down through forested mountains. Appalachians are Hillbilly territory. Hillbillies are vicious degenerates in need of an orthodontist. I was taught this by Hollywood. Remember DELIVERANCE? Trees drip. Shadows twist into scary shapes. I ride very slowly and with great caution.
The lane leads to a lush narrow valley and a T junction. I carry a road atlas inside my jumper for extra protection against the wind. I brake and unzip my bomber jacket. Where I am doesn't exist or the atlas is in code. I don't have the code. I turn right and hit a further T junction. Right leads to a church. Left gets narrower and turns to dirt. I retreat. I am, of course, about to be raped or murdered. True, the only person in sight drives a red tractor and mower across a horse paddock. And the Hillbilly houses seem in fine repair and are considerably grander than those few in DELIVERANCE. I stop by the paddock, heave myself out of the saddle and wait for the driver to approach. He shuts off his engine – both a sign of friendship and that he has cash for a good battery. In the old days a Native American would have raised a hand and said How - or carved my scalp into a belt decoration. More Hollywood education...
A barrier closes the Parkway. The barrier is 20 miles beyond the sign for the diversion. The diversion was to the right. Here there is only a lane to the left. The lane twists down through forested mountains. Appalachians are Hillbilly territory. Hillbillies are vicious degenerates in need of an orthodontist. I was taught this by Hollywood. Remember DELIVERANCE? Trees drip. Shadows twist into scary shapes. I ride very slowly and with great caution.
The lane leads to a lush narrow valley and a T junction. I carry a road atlas inside my jumper for extra protection against the wind. I brake and unzip my bomber jacket. Where I am doesn't exist or the atlas is in code. I don't have the code. I turn right and hit a further T junction. Right leads to a church. Left gets narrower and turns to dirt. I retreat. I am, of course, about to be raped or murdered. True, the only person in sight drives a red tractor and mower across a horse paddock. And the Hillbilly houses seem in fine repair and are considerably grander than those few in DELIVERANCE. I stop by the paddock, heave myself out of the saddle and wait for the driver to approach. He shuts off his engine – both a sign of friendship and that he has cash for a good battery. In the old days a Native American would have raised a hand and said How - or carved my scalp into a belt decoration. More Hollywood education...
BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY
BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY: APRIL 5
Add the Natchez trail, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive north along the Shenandoah Mountains: the distance far exceeds the length of the British Isles. Perfect road surfaces and no trucks offer a fine combination to a nervous old man on a small bike. I ride without fear of being smashed in the rear. Views are superb. Oh that the walls of rhododendron were in flower. And sad that disease is attacking the pines. I stop a dozen times to photograph the mountains. This is the Blue Mountain Ridge and the mountains are blue. I wish that I owned a wide angle telephoto lens. A sign warns of a diversion – no barrier so I ride onwards. Fool...
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
TOO EARLY
APPALACHIANS: APRIL 5
Early Spring and the Parkway climbs to over 6000 feet. I wear three jerseys and a thick shirt over Alpinestar thermals, overalls, two pairs of $9 waterproof trousers from Walmart in Franklin, leather jacket, two pairs of gloves and Alpinestar boots. The road climbs steeply out of Cherokee. Road sides are grey rock, pine trees and rhodedendrohns. The rhodedendrohns aren't yet in flower and I ride five or more miles before meeting a car. My feet, legs and body are warm. My cheeks freeze. So do my hands. I pull in at the summit view point, dismount, beat my hands and sprint on the spot. Sprinting is an inexact term at my age and swathed in layers of clothing. However I thaw somewhat and take photographs and say Howdee to a couple of fellow tourists warm from a heated motorcar. The crunched-up ridges and peaks of the Appalachians march eastward to the horizon. A faint blue haze softens the contours and makes distant magic of the valley below where toy houses and barns crouch amongst stands of broad-leaf trees and beside small paddocks minutely spotted with dairy cows. Beautiful, magnificent, spectacular – oh that it were a fortnight later, warmer and the banks of rododendrohn in full flower. Maybe another time...and riding with Liz and Jim. That would be fun. In thinking of them, I feel my solitude. This journey has been an accumulation of farewells. Depression threatens. I heave a leg over the bike (no mean feat), kick the starter, settle into the saddle. A final wriggle of gloved fingers and onward again. A few days and I will be with my daughter, Anya, lie on the carpet and goo and coo at the baby, talk horses with Michael, admire the foals. Then home to England, my own bed, Bernadette, the boys, my daughter-out-of-law and Charlie Boo. Depression lifts. Life is good. I am imensely fortunate.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
APPALACHIANS: APRIL 5
The Blue Ridge Parkway runs the length of the Appalachian mountains from Cherokee, North Carolina, pretty much all the way to Washington DC - though the last stretch over the Shenandoah mountains has a different name. Speed limit is 45 mph. Commercial vehicles are forbidden. Perfect for the ancient rider of a small bike who is fearful of trucks...
Cherokee is Native American tourism: mowed grass by the river beneath great trees in Spring leaf, log-cabin fast-food outlets, mom and pop motels, native handicrafts manufactured in China. A gentleman riding a mower assures me that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed, that it was closed yesterday. Sun shines. Gates are open. A Park Authority cream Ford pickup speeds by. Go for it...
The Blue Ridge Parkway runs the length of the Appalachian mountains from Cherokee, North Carolina, pretty much all the way to Washington DC - though the last stretch over the Shenandoah mountains has a different name. Speed limit is 45 mph. Commercial vehicles are forbidden. Perfect for the ancient rider of a small bike who is fearful of trucks...
Cherokee is Native American tourism: mowed grass by the river beneath great trees in Spring leaf, log-cabin fast-food outlets, mom and pop motels, native handicrafts manufactured in China. A gentleman riding a mower assures me that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed, that it was closed yesterday. Sun shines. Gates are open. A Park Authority cream Ford pickup speeds by. Go for it...
FAREWELL TO FRANKLIN
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
I leave in the morning. This evening I sit in a comfortable armchair and watch with Jim the political news. Liz, Jim and I are Obama supporters. I don't have a vote- unjust given that the UK's foreign policy is dictated in Washington. Obama is under threat for suggesting that the people of Pennsylvania are bitter at losing their jobs and take shelter in a gun and church culture. I shall ride through Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile I enjoy friendship and companionship and kindness. I have been a guest of the Donaldsons for a week. We have done nothing out of the ordinary. We have merely spent time together, enjoyed each other's company, explored a little our differences and our similarities. It has been a good time, a very good time. These are wonderful people...
I leave in the morning. This evening I sit in a comfortable armchair and watch with Jim the political news. Liz, Jim and I are Obama supporters. I don't have a vote- unjust given that the UK's foreign policy is dictated in Washington. Obama is under threat for suggesting that the people of Pennsylvania are bitter at losing their jobs and take shelter in a gun and church culture. I shall ride through Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile I enjoy friendship and companionship and kindness. I have been a guest of the Donaldsons for a week. We have done nothing out of the ordinary. We have merely spent time together, enjoyed each other's company, explored a little our differences and our similarities. It has been a good time, a very good time. These are wonderful people...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
GENEROSITY
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Jim rides me down to collect my bike from the bike shop - Long View Cycle Inc. Mike Townsend is the owner. A mechanic has serviced the bike, oil change, etc. Mike has written across the invoice OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE RIDE - one more act of generosity.
Mike warns that the chain is about done and that the drive sprockets are worn sharp.
Will the chain get me to upstate New York?
Ride carefully...
Jim rides me down to collect my bike from the bike shop - Long View Cycle Inc. Mike Townsend is the owner. A mechanic has serviced the bike, oil change, etc. Mike has written across the invoice OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE RIDE - one more act of generosity.
Mike warns that the chain is about done and that the drive sprockets are worn sharp.
Will the chain get me to upstate New York?
Ride carefully...
SWEAT, GOLF AND EROSION
FRAMKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Jim and Liz have been showing me the beauty of North Carolina. Spring has yet to blossom the forested mountains. Private roads to summer houses of the wealthy spill trails of soil erosion through naked trees. Many of the incomers are Northerners by way of Florida which they find too sultry in July August. Sweat wrecks their Florida golf game. Their holiday homes wreck North Carolina.
Jim and Liz have been showing me the beauty of North Carolina. Spring has yet to blossom the forested mountains. Private roads to summer houses of the wealthy spill trails of soil erosion through naked trees. Many of the incomers are Northerners by way of Florida which they find too sultry in July August. Sweat wrecks their Florida golf game. Their holiday homes wreck North Carolina.
ROOTLESS AND GUILT FREE
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Franklin, North Carolina and Ledbury in Herefordshire are both small country towns. Where do they differ? Sprawl is the easy answer. Distance from Franklin town center to the Walmart mall would take me half way to Hereford. Treking to either one of two bike shops is further. And by our very English standards everything is new. Our cottage was built in a time when the Appalachians were Native Cherokee territory. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830: the Cherokee were herded 1200 miles in winter. The trek lasted six months. One in four died.
Few of today's US citizens have roots in the Americas deeper than the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They avoid guilt for genocide and for expropriating the tribal lands of Native Americans.
Franklin, North Carolina and Ledbury in Herefordshire are both small country towns. Where do they differ? Sprawl is the easy answer. Distance from Franklin town center to the Walmart mall would take me half way to Hereford. Treking to either one of two bike shops is further. And by our very English standards everything is new. Our cottage was built in a time when the Appalachians were Native Cherokee territory. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830: the Cherokee were herded 1200 miles in winter. The trek lasted six months. One in four died.
Few of today's US citizens have roots in the Americas deeper than the last quarter of the nineteenth century. They avoid guilt for genocide and for expropriating the tribal lands of Native Americans.
ADIEU TO THE FIRST FLUSH OF YOUTH
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Jim has steel panniers and a top box on his trail bike. One pannier is already full with spares. The other holds a medical kit. He has divided his future trip by nations and files information in a leather folder. I am not against being organized. I am merely a foreigner to it. My main doubt in regard to Jim's preparations is weight. Jim and I have passed the first flush of our youth. We are mature citizens (mature in age – in attitude we remain boys with toys). Our legs have lost much of their thrust. We delay getting up in the night for fear of back pain. Lifting weights is dangerous. I can heave a Honda 125 back onto its wheels. I wouldn't waste time trying to lift Jim's bike. And spares are heavy. My advice is to chose a bike for which spares are available. True, I am being wise after the event. I bought the Honda because it was cheap and because I drive a sixteen-year-old Honda Accord back home that has never betrayed me.
Jim has steel panniers and a top box on his trail bike. One pannier is already full with spares. The other holds a medical kit. He has divided his future trip by nations and files information in a leather folder. I am not against being organized. I am merely a foreigner to it. My main doubt in regard to Jim's preparations is weight. Jim and I have passed the first flush of our youth. We are mature citizens (mature in age – in attitude we remain boys with toys). Our legs have lost much of their thrust. We delay getting up in the night for fear of back pain. Lifting weights is dangerous. I can heave a Honda 125 back onto its wheels. I wouldn't waste time trying to lift Jim's bike. And spares are heavy. My advice is to chose a bike for which spares are available. True, I am being wise after the event. I bought the Honda because it was cheap and because I drive a sixteen-year-old Honda Accord back home that has never betrayed me.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
SEEKING PERFECTION
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
Jim's approach to biking differs from mine. I put my trip together in under a week. For bikes, I wanted light and cheap and with spares available. I checked prices on the Internet and emailed the Honda agent in Veracruz.
Birmingham to Boston with Aerlingus was the cheapest flight to the Americas. Hoping for an upgrade, I found a secondhand Irish jumper and a green cord shirt at a charity shop in Hereford. I waxed my Church's walking shoes and stuffed five months of heart medication and two FootPrint guides in a hold-all: Mexico and Central America, and South America. The guides have maps that give an idea of where places are. For detail, I talked with people on the road and picked up road maps at gas stations.
Jim is a planner. He and Liz have toured the US and Canada on a Harley (they towed a custom camper trailer). Jim has explored Mexico with the gang and ridden south through Central America to the Darien Gap. He wants to complete his long-distance biking with a ride through South America. Triple bipass and a bad back have ended his Harley days. Harleys are too heavy. Fall and he would be pinned under the bike until help came. The Harley is for sale and Jim has downsized to the trail bike.
However - it is a big However – Jim is seeking for perfection.
Jim's approach to biking differs from mine. I put my trip together in under a week. For bikes, I wanted light and cheap and with spares available. I checked prices on the Internet and emailed the Honda agent in Veracruz.
Birmingham to Boston with Aerlingus was the cheapest flight to the Americas. Hoping for an upgrade, I found a secondhand Irish jumper and a green cord shirt at a charity shop in Hereford. I waxed my Church's walking shoes and stuffed five months of heart medication and two FootPrint guides in a hold-all: Mexico and Central America, and South America. The guides have maps that give an idea of where places are. For detail, I talked with people on the road and picked up road maps at gas stations.
Jim is a planner. He and Liz have toured the US and Canada on a Harley (they towed a custom camper trailer). Jim has explored Mexico with the gang and ridden south through Central America to the Darien Gap. He wants to complete his long-distance biking with a ride through South America. Triple bipass and a bad back have ended his Harley days. Harleys are too heavy. Fall and he would be pinned under the bike until help came. The Harley is for sale and Jim has downsized to the trail bike.
However - it is a big However – Jim is seeking for perfection.
PILLIONS AREN'T FOR COWARDS
FANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - MAY 4
My tires are shot. A man at Honda in Queretaro told me they are cheaper in the US. Yes, but you pay to have them fitted. And availability is a problem: Honda 125s aren't common in the land of super power. Jim checks via the Yellow pages – no success. So we order a fresh set at a local bike shop for delivery in 48 hours. We leave my bike at the shop and I ride pillion home behind Jim on his trail bike. I hate riding pillion. Riding pillion surrenders your safety to a fellow biker. Bikers are adrenalin freeks. Risk is fun.
Except for cowards.
I am a coward.
My tires are shot. A man at Honda in Queretaro told me they are cheaper in the US. Yes, but you pay to have them fitted. And availability is a problem: Honda 125s aren't common in the land of super power. Jim checks via the Yellow pages – no success. So we order a fresh set at a local bike shop for delivery in 48 hours. We leave my bike at the shop and I ride pillion home behind Jim on his trail bike. I hate riding pillion. Riding pillion surrenders your safety to a fellow biker. Bikers are adrenalin freeks. Risk is fun.
Except for cowards.
I am a coward.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
SOUTHERN COOKING AND LIGHTNING STRIKE
silver foxes
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
The Donaldsons have been introducing me to Southern cooking: fried chicken, corn bread, collard greens, black-eye peas, grits.
Grits are for chickens. The rest is great – especially the corn bread. So are the politics.
Jim and I are avid and cantankerous followers on TV of the Democratic Party's Presidential Primaries. We are angered by the same crap, dismissive or suspicious of the same people, hope for an outcome of which we doubt the probability. Yes, Senator Obama...
We share other attributes. Jim has had triple-bipass surgery. I've had a couple of minor heart attacks. Jim has been in agony much of the past six months with a bad back. I suffered six months of back pain; the truck cured me.
Jim has a long silver mustache. I have a trim silver beard.
And we both enjoy toys.
A massive white Harley and an equally impressive trail bike bare witness to one of Jim's passions. I am privileged to sit astride the Harley.
Ride it?
No, thanks...
Harleys weigh a ton.
HOLIDAYING WITH MOVIE STARS
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 -APRIL 4
the Donaldsons are typical of the American heartland as portrayed by the Hollywood pre the 60s - the Hollywood of segregation. They are decent folk, open, kindly, generous and honourable. In stature, they are taller than the average European and make a handsome couple. And they are white. James Stewart would have made an excellent Jim. Liz is played by Deborah Kerr.
In his early days, Jim was a staff photographer for Time Life. Divorce and custody of three children switched him to the construction industry. Liz inherited a 500 acre farm and they bred horses for a while – Pintos. Horses enjoy company. See them in a paddock, heads together. What do they discuss? Grass? Stallions? Horsemanship? They make a big target. Lightning killed the Donaldson's two best horses. My daughter's husband, Michael, lost two mares last year. I lie in bed and wonder that giraffes survive.
the Donaldsons are typical of the American heartland as portrayed by the Hollywood pre the 60s - the Hollywood of segregation. They are decent folk, open, kindly, generous and honourable. In stature, they are taller than the average European and make a handsome couple. And they are white. James Stewart would have made an excellent Jim. Liz is played by Deborah Kerr.
In his early days, Jim was a staff photographer for Time Life. Divorce and custody of three children switched him to the construction industry. Liz inherited a 500 acre farm and they bred horses for a while – Pintos. Horses enjoy company. See them in a paddock, heads together. What do they discuss? Grass? Stallions? Horsemanship? They make a big target. Lightning killed the Donaldson's two best horses. My daughter's husband, Michael, lost two mares last year. I lie in bed and wonder that giraffes survive.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
SPUD GUNNING
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 29
A sun-shiny Spring afternoon in the hills outside Franklin, North Carolina: rain has washed the air; tiny patches of pale pink blossom shimmer in sunlight on trees sprinkled with minute green jewels. Liz and Jim and I are on the deck at the rear of the Donaldson's home. Jim is introducing me to spud-gunning. The gun is made from plastic water pipe. Jim loads the eight-foot barrel with a plump potato and charges the combustion chamber with two squirts of hair spray. He spins the sparker: Whoomph!
That whoomph is spud-gunner heaven (think car crazies responding to the whining roar of a tuned Ferrari).
The spud flies high over a row of massive trees and I stamp and caper and slap my knee with juvenile glee.
My turn to fire.
A well fitting potato hurtles three hundred yards. Accuracy? A barn door is a suitable target – or maybe the barn - a big barn.
Jim and I whoomph a sack of red salad potatoes while Liz watches with that look of kindly condescension. You know? The look all women keep in their armory? The Boys with their toys look...
Friday, May 02, 2008
BIKERS AND BORDERS
NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28
Two bikers on Harleys recount a ride through Mexico and Central America. The bikers are middle-aged, married with kids, financially comfortable, on the School Board, etc., respected. The respect is important. These are law abiding citizens.
They complained at having to wait in line at frontiers, traipse with their documents from window to window, fill forms they couldn't read (they don't speak Spanish).
They were caught speeding a couple of times and overtaking across the double yellow line.
They paid the cops off.
Breaking the law didn't concern them: this was Latin America and they were citizens of a super power. Superiority goes with the territory. In our days of Empire, we Brits thought ourselves superior.
An island off the coast of mainland Europe doesn't carry the same weight.
Perhaps that explains my sympathy for Mexicans who queue patiently at US borders. And why I understand Latin American anger at what they perceive as United States arrogance.
Two bikers on Harleys recount a ride through Mexico and Central America. The bikers are middle-aged, married with kids, financially comfortable, on the School Board, etc., respected. The respect is important. These are law abiding citizens.
They complained at having to wait in line at frontiers, traipse with their documents from window to window, fill forms they couldn't read (they don't speak Spanish).
They were caught speeding a couple of times and overtaking across the double yellow line.
They paid the cops off.
Breaking the law didn't concern them: this was Latin America and they were citizens of a super power. Superiority goes with the territory. In our days of Empire, we Brits thought ourselves superior.
An island off the coast of mainland Europe doesn't carry the same weight.
Perhaps that explains my sympathy for Mexicans who queue patiently at US borders. And why I understand Latin American anger at what they perceive as United States arrogance.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
HEALTH
Jim and Liz, a walk in the country
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
I am staying with Jim and Liz Donaldson at their home outside Franklin, North Carolina. Jim is a young 69 and retired. Liz teaches school in Georgia, a four hour drive. Why? To retain medical insurance. Liz rents a studio apartment close to the school. She and Jim spend weekends together, either in Georgia or at home, and the school holidays.
Insane? Of course. Health in the United States is insane.
McCain, Republican Presidential nominee, asked an audience whether they would rather enjoy the freedom of choice and excellence of the American system, the best in the World, or suffer British socialised medicine and wait months for an operation. McCain forgot to mention that we Brits have private hospitals for those who chose to carry private health insurance – or he deliberately deceived. Unlikely. McCain is an American hero.
However he is old and naturally forgetful of inconvenient facts...Whilst we Brits are in agreement with our European neighbours in our belief that medical treatment for all is a hallmark of civilized society.
FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28 - APRIL 4
I am staying with Jim and Liz Donaldson at their home outside Franklin, North Carolina. Jim is a young 69 and retired. Liz teaches school in Georgia, a four hour drive. Why? To retain medical insurance. Liz rents a studio apartment close to the school. She and Jim spend weekends together, either in Georgia or at home, and the school holidays.
Insane? Of course. Health in the United States is insane.
McCain, Republican Presidential nominee, asked an audience whether they would rather enjoy the freedom of choice and excellence of the American system, the best in the World, or suffer British socialised medicine and wait months for an operation. McCain forgot to mention that we Brits have private hospitals for those who chose to carry private health insurance – or he deliberately deceived. Unlikely. McCain is an American hero.
However he is old and naturally forgetful of inconvenient facts...Whilst we Brits are in agreement with our European neighbours in our belief that medical treatment for all is a hallmark of civilized society.
Friday, April 25, 2008
BEREFT OF A SOCIAL MAP
TO FRANKLIN, NORTH CAROLINA: MARCH 28
I am meeting a biker today. Jim Donaldson is more than a biker; he organizes biker meets. We first made contact via an Internet biker site. He has read my Blog and I talked with him on the telephone from Galveston. He advised me to ride the Natchez Trail – excellent advice. He and his wife have invited me to stay at their home outside Franklin, North Carolina.
But who is he? What is he?
Were he a Brit and we were back home, I would have picked up clues.
I am lost in the United States. I don't possess a social map.
Is he a Hell's Angel? A racist? A Red Neck? A Right-wing Bushite Republican? Supporter of the United States Occupation in Iraq?
Is he insulted by my oppinions?
Will he swill Budweisers and bash me over the head with a bottle...Or throw me out of the house in mid-discussion?
I am a little nervous as I circle the south west tip of the Appalachians. Athens to Franklin is a short ride, no hurry. I stop for lunch at a diner.
I am meeting a biker today. Jim Donaldson is more than a biker; he organizes biker meets. We first made contact via an Internet biker site. He has read my Blog and I talked with him on the telephone from Galveston. He advised me to ride the Natchez Trail – excellent advice. He and his wife have invited me to stay at their home outside Franklin, North Carolina.
But who is he? What is he?
Were he a Brit and we were back home, I would have picked up clues.
I am lost in the United States. I don't possess a social map.
Is he a Hell's Angel? A racist? A Red Neck? A Right-wing Bushite Republican? Supporter of the United States Occupation in Iraq?
Is he insulted by my oppinions?
Will he swill Budweisers and bash me over the head with a bottle...Or throw me out of the house in mid-discussion?
I am a little nervous as I circle the south west tip of the Appalachians. Athens to Franklin is a short ride, no hurry. I stop for lunch at a diner.
ATHENS, TENNESSEE
ATHENS, TENNESSEE: MARCH 28
With a population of 15,000, Athens, Tennessee, is a small, quiet, pleasant town situated at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. Tennessee Wesleyan College is a small liberal arts University – less than a thousand students – and provides that archetypal American amalgam of God, sport, education and the American flag. The 40 acre campus is two blocks north from Athens town square. Buildings are of red brick with the obligatory white pillars and surrounded by lawns. Old College Hall was built in the 1850s and is referred to as historic. Architecture is inoffensive.
I stay at the DayInn motel on Interstate 75. The motel is run by Gujarati and is equally archetypal of the United States...As is the diner specialising in barbecue chicken wings.
With a population of 15,000, Athens, Tennessee, is a small, quiet, pleasant town situated at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. Tennessee Wesleyan College is a small liberal arts University – less than a thousand students – and provides that archetypal American amalgam of God, sport, education and the American flag. The 40 acre campus is two blocks north from Athens town square. Buildings are of red brick with the obligatory white pillars and surrounded by lawns. Old College Hall was built in the 1850s and is referred to as historic. Architecture is inoffensive.
I stay at the DayInn motel on Interstate 75. The motel is run by Gujarati and is equally archetypal of the United States...As is the diner specialising in barbecue chicken wings.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
A RIDE THROUGH TENNESSEE
TENNESSEE: MARCH 27
Spectacles mist in a light drizzle. A narrow lane passes a clutch of small houses with sagging porches. Weeds clamber up rusting trucks and tractors, abandoned refrigerators, cookers, washing-machines. I am reminded of a road-side gypsy encampment.
Three dark curls in a field are Latinos harvesting spring greens. In Herefordshire they would be East European and legal. Here they are illegals. Get rid of them is a popular cry. Truck farms would close. Rural economies would collapse...And from where would the US import fruit and vegetables? I stop at a diner and eat fried catfish served with fat fries. Three overweight women belly-bulge from belted jeans, drink colas and eat fried food. One woman raps instructions in Spanish into a cellphone. I listen as she organizes a squad of cleaners. Cleaning is Latino work. Surely Tennessee is part of the South. I had expected Afro-Americans.
Spectacles mist in a light drizzle. A narrow lane passes a clutch of small houses with sagging porches. Weeds clamber up rusting trucks and tractors, abandoned refrigerators, cookers, washing-machines. I am reminded of a road-side gypsy encampment.
Three dark curls in a field are Latinos harvesting spring greens. In Herefordshire they would be East European and legal. Here they are illegals. Get rid of them is a popular cry. Truck farms would close. Rural economies would collapse...And from where would the US import fruit and vegetables? I stop at a diner and eat fried catfish served with fat fries. Three overweight women belly-bulge from belted jeans, drink colas and eat fried food. One woman raps instructions in Spanish into a cellphone. I listen as she organizes a squad of cleaners. Cleaning is Latino work. Surely Tennessee is part of the South. I had expected Afro-Americans.
A RIDE THROUGH TENNESSEE
TENNESSEE: MARCH 27
I am due in Franklin, North Carolina, tomorrow. Franklin is the far side of the Appalachian mountains. Today I ride east from Nashville on country lanes that dip and twist through green hills topped by woodland. The countryside is similar to my native Herefordshire. Cattle are the same breed: Herefords. Locals call them White Faces. Even today's weather is a reminder of home with low cloud and spits of drizzle. Lack of hedges is the prime difference; erecting fences is quicker; as is building in timber as opposed to brick or stone.
The houses are pretty when freshly painted, yet, to European eyes, lack permanence. Agriculture has changed. As at home, dairy herds have been superseded by fruit and vegetables. Our brick barns are converted into luxury homes. Here, out of use, they rot. As do houses and trailer homes.
I am due in Franklin, North Carolina, tomorrow. Franklin is the far side of the Appalachian mountains. Today I ride east from Nashville on country lanes that dip and twist through green hills topped by woodland. The countryside is similar to my native Herefordshire. Cattle are the same breed: Herefords. Locals call them White Faces. Even today's weather is a reminder of home with low cloud and spits of drizzle. Lack of hedges is the prime difference; erecting fences is quicker; as is building in timber as opposed to brick or stone.
The houses are pretty when freshly painted, yet, to European eyes, lack permanence. Agriculture has changed. As at home, dairy herds have been superseded by fruit and vegetables. Our brick barns are converted into luxury homes. Here, out of use, they rot. As do houses and trailer homes.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
MYTH AND IGNORANCE
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE: MARCH 26
Anyone who has tapped along to Country & Western music on the car radio knows Nashville. It is a small town on a flat dusty plain, maybe a dozen streets, battered black Ford pick-ups, a bunch of saloons, a couple of theaters, a few last-decade recording studios manned by over-weight white men who keep their pants up with red suspenders. We have been there, all of us, in our imaginations. A cowboy songster hopeful drops off the Greyhound bus with his guitar and heads for the Grand Ole Opry.
Or has Hollywood has been at it again - deluding us.
I am complicit with Hollywood through laziness.
Nashville is a big modern American city set in green rolling wooded hills and embraced by twelve-lane Interstate expressways.
The red brick buildings of Vanderbilt University dominate the high street. Glass and steel office blocks tower. The Grand Ole Opry is a minor also-ran.
I had imagined Vanderbilt as East Coast Ivy League. And I hadn't expected to ride ten miles from the city center to find a hotel room under $80. I will be out of here tomorrow.
Anyone who has tapped along to Country & Western music on the car radio knows Nashville. It is a small town on a flat dusty plain, maybe a dozen streets, battered black Ford pick-ups, a bunch of saloons, a couple of theaters, a few last-decade recording studios manned by over-weight white men who keep their pants up with red suspenders. We have been there, all of us, in our imaginations. A cowboy songster hopeful drops off the Greyhound bus with his guitar and heads for the Grand Ole Opry.
Or has Hollywood has been at it again - deluding us.
I am complicit with Hollywood through laziness.
Nashville is a big modern American city set in green rolling wooded hills and embraced by twelve-lane Interstate expressways.
The red brick buildings of Vanderbilt University dominate the high street. Glass and steel office blocks tower. The Grand Ole Opry is a minor also-ran.
I had imagined Vanderbilt as East Coast Ivy League. And I hadn't expected to ride ten miles from the city center to find a hotel room under $80. I will be out of here tomorrow.
A PERFECT RIDE
NATCHEZ TRAIL: MARCH 26
Trucks and commercial vehicles are banned from the Natchez trail. Speed limit is 50 mph: perfection for the small Honda. The countryside unrolls, meadows glimpsed through the naked trees, a herd of our native Hereford cattle - White Faces Americans call them. Azaleas and rhododendrons remain in bud but the yellows and blues and mauve of wild flowers sprinkle the grass. I am well muffled and sunshine offsets the Spring chill.
I pull into a lay-by and chat for a few minutes with a clean-shaved thirties on a gleaming blue 650 Suzuki.
Bikers are a community in the US. Every passing biker extends a hand as they pass.
What a magnificent ride! What joy it would be to ride it in summer shirt-sleaves.
The trail ends and I head into Nashville...
FORGET BREAKFAST
NATCHEZ TRAIL: MARCH 26
A white-tail stag bolts across the road. The road follows the wooded shores of a reservoir. The reservoir would dwarf any lake in Europe. A spur leads to a boat ramp and general store with a couple of gas pumps. A dozen vehicles with boat trailers line one side of the car park.
I pay $6 for gas. The store keeper left his smile in the bedside locker. Perhaps he has tooth-ache or had a fight with his wife.
Two men arrive in a pick-up and scoop minnows out of a tank for sale at the store.
I report seeing the eagle.
I am lucky. Eagles are increasingly rare.
I hoped for breakfast and use of the restrooms. The storekeeper has been replaced at the cash-register by an overweight wife who has forgotten to brush her hair.
The restrooms are back of an abandoned diner. Perhaps the diner isn't abandoned. Possibly it merely looks that way. Breakfast can wait. I remount, ride a while, irrigate a conifer.
BEAUTIFUL AMERICA
NATCHEZ TRAIL: MARCH 26
I have seen an eagle. This is a wondrous experience. The eagle flew directly overhead and its size startled the hell out of me. It flew up the road well below tree tops. Given time, I could have counted the bird's belly feathers: the bird was that close. Brilliant sunshine and I was riding the Natchez Trail. The Natchez Trail is glorious. The trail winds north through wooded hills from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. Picture a private road through parkland to a Duke's castle in the Scottish borders - lengthened to 470 miles and not a single halt sign. I ride in brilliant Spring sunshine. Blossoms sparkle. Buds on broad leaf trees uncurl...
Monday, April 14, 2008
A SHORT TIRADE
NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI: MARCH 25
A parade of chuches marched through my head as I lay in bed at the Day Inn motel in Natchez. I intended spending a day here admiring the architecture. Natchez is pretty-pretty. Trees shade Southern houses. Southern houses have pillars. Pillars are romantic. So is the South. And the South is gallant. Both Hollywood and Southern tourism projects the image. Visit an old plantation house, inspect the slave hovels. Tourists go home happy...they have flirted with history.
Sadly, it is too recent a history for years to have softened the evil. Slavery existed in the South during my great grandfather's lifetime.
Racial segregation continued into my adult years...And Jews were banned from resorts and great hotels, not only in the South, but in New York City and Chicago and San Francisco - Restricted Clientele was the euphemism.
Institutional segregation and anti-Semitism continued through the Presidencies of Truman and Eisenhower. We knew of the Holocaust. We had seen film of Dachau and Belsen and of Ravensbruck where my Aunt Helen's sister was executed.
This is very recent history. The white elders of the myriad churches here in the South were complicit as are the white Southern pastors of my generation.
This is not company that I wish to keep.
I shall move on tomorrow.
A parade of chuches marched through my head as I lay in bed at the Day Inn motel in Natchez. I intended spending a day here admiring the architecture. Natchez is pretty-pretty. Trees shade Southern houses. Southern houses have pillars. Pillars are romantic. So is the South. And the South is gallant. Both Hollywood and Southern tourism projects the image. Visit an old plantation house, inspect the slave hovels. Tourists go home happy...they have flirted with history.
Sadly, it is too recent a history for years to have softened the evil. Slavery existed in the South during my great grandfather's lifetime.
Racial segregation continued into my adult years...And Jews were banned from resorts and great hotels, not only in the South, but in New York City and Chicago and San Francisco - Restricted Clientele was the euphemism.
Institutional segregation and anti-Semitism continued through the Presidencies of Truman and Eisenhower. We knew of the Holocaust. We had seen film of Dachau and Belsen and of Ravensbruck where my Aunt Helen's sister was executed.
This is very recent history. The white elders of the myriad churches here in the South were complicit as are the white Southern pastors of my generation.
This is not company that I wish to keep.
I shall move on tomorrow.
CHRISTIANITY IS A CASINO
NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI: MARCH 25
I have cruised, on this journey, the Beagle Channel and the Madeira River, crossed the Amazon, Orinoco, Panama Canal and Rio Grande (a muddy trickle). This evening I ride across the Mississippi into Natchez. The Southern States are a fine market for white paint: first the churches, now a casino disguised as a virginal white paddle steamer moored up-stream. Life is a gamble. So is the after-life. Pick your Christian sect or pick your number on the roulette wheel.
I have cruised, on this journey, the Beagle Channel and the Madeira River, crossed the Amazon, Orinoco, Panama Canal and Rio Grande (a muddy trickle). This evening I ride across the Mississippi into Natchez. The Southern States are a fine market for white paint: first the churches, now a casino disguised as a virginal white paddle steamer moored up-stream. Life is a gamble. So is the after-life. Pick your Christian sect or pick your number on the roulette wheel.
CHRISTIANITY OR THE DEVIL'S WORK
spring flowers in sunshine
LOUISIANA: MARCH 25
Massive trucks roar east on Interstate 10 from Beaumont to Baton Rouge. The Honda 125 is a flee. I am a plump tick on the back of the flee. Flee and tick quiver in the slipstreams. We escape north on State 165 towards Alexandria and Natchez. Louisiana is as flat as Texas. However fields are green and the road runs for mile upon mile through loose woodland. Broad leaf trees are faintly powdered with emerald green. Wild flowers edge the road. Brilliant splashes of deep pink azalea mark houses tucked amongst the trees. Trailer homes are common. Many are old and shabby; backs broken, they sag at each end as do old wooden ships beached on the mud.
And, of course, there are churches.
Christian churches painted in gleaming white serve or are served by a bewildering assortment of congregations. Is there a true difference between the dozen or more Baptist sects? Enough over which to divide a small rural community? Or merely sufficient to keep a pastor in food. There are Methodists and Independent Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists and Lutherans; best of all, the Church of Christ. What are the rest? Such exclusion, such splendid arrogance of faith...
LOUISIANA: MARCH 25
Massive trucks roar east on Interstate 10 from Beaumont to Baton Rouge. The Honda 125 is a flee. I am a plump tick on the back of the flee. Flee and tick quiver in the slipstreams. We escape north on State 165 towards Alexandria and Natchez. Louisiana is as flat as Texas. However fields are green and the road runs for mile upon mile through loose woodland. Broad leaf trees are faintly powdered with emerald green. Wild flowers edge the road. Brilliant splashes of deep pink azalea mark houses tucked amongst the trees. Trailer homes are common. Many are old and shabby; backs broken, they sag at each end as do old wooden ships beached on the mud.
And, of course, there are churches.
Christian churches painted in gleaming white serve or are served by a bewildering assortment of congregations. Is there a true difference between the dozen or more Baptist sects? Enough over which to divide a small rural community? Or merely sufficient to keep a pastor in food. There are Methodists and Independent Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists and Lutherans; best of all, the Church of Christ. What are the rest? Such exclusion, such splendid arrogance of faith...
WIZARD OF OZ AND BOLIVAR PENINSULAR
THE SOUTH: MARCH 25
I am back in my travelling persona: a weird old bearded Brit with crutches riding a small bike. There is a warming openness and generosity in the American character. A tangled gray beard in a hooded yellow rain slicker approaches while I wait for the ferry east from Galveston to the Bolivar Peninsular. Where have I come from? Where am I going? My replies are relayed to deckhands on the ferry and to what ever driver has a window open. I am made welcome instantly and bid Have a good one, as I disembark - though two seagulls squatting on the top of the ramp give me a cold eye.
Bolivar Peninsular is a narrow strip some thirty miles long. The road bridge spanning Rollover Pass is the highest point on the peninsular. Much is marshland and a haven for water birds. A gray heron stalks the rushes. A scattering of developments face the beach. Pillars raise wooden holiday homes in offering to a stiff cold breeze. I imagine a hurricane tearing the houses free and spinning them inland: a scene from the Wizard of Oz.
I am back in my travelling persona: a weird old bearded Brit with crutches riding a small bike. There is a warming openness and generosity in the American character. A tangled gray beard in a hooded yellow rain slicker approaches while I wait for the ferry east from Galveston to the Bolivar Peninsular. Where have I come from? Where am I going? My replies are relayed to deckhands on the ferry and to what ever driver has a window open. I am made welcome instantly and bid Have a good one, as I disembark - though two seagulls squatting on the top of the ramp give me a cold eye.
Bolivar Peninsular is a narrow strip some thirty miles long. The road bridge spanning Rollover Pass is the highest point on the peninsular. Much is marshland and a haven for water birds. A gray heron stalks the rushes. A scattering of developments face the beach. Pillars raise wooden holiday homes in offering to a stiff cold breeze. I imagine a hurricane tearing the houses free and spinning them inland: a scene from the Wizard of Oz.
HOUSTON ROCKETS
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 25
My replacement credit card arrived yesterday. This morning I drink coffee upstairs at Ed and Terry's for the last time. We dined together last night at Terry's favourite restaurant. Now Terry presents me with a ROCKETS shirt on which she has written: ya'll come back now, ya hear!
For the ignorant, the Rockets are Houston's basketball team
I shall sport the shirt with pride - and I would dearly love to return. Galvestonians share with folk from other islands that sense of being different - somewhat off the wall.
Memories of Terry and Ed will warm me through bad patches, as will memories of the Davies family. Carol has straightened my thoughts. Time to leave: Brrmmm Brrmmm
My replacement credit card arrived yesterday. This morning I drink coffee upstairs at Ed and Terry's for the last time. We dined together last night at Terry's favourite restaurant. Now Terry presents me with a ROCKETS shirt on which she has written: ya'll come back now, ya hear!
For the ignorant, the Rockets are Houston's basketball team
I shall sport the shirt with pride - and I would dearly love to return. Galvestonians share with folk from other islands that sense of being different - somewhat off the wall.
Memories of Terry and Ed will warm me through bad patches, as will memories of the Davies family. Carol has straightened my thoughts. Time to leave: Brrmmm Brrmmm
Saturday, April 12, 2008
TELLING BLACK FROM WHITE
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
I have heard white Liberals attest their inability to differentiate Black from white. I would be dysfunctional in not noticing that Carol is Black. Black is part of her beauty. It is also integral to an upbringing different to my own. We interest each other. We map who we are by exploring our recollections. Carol is a PhD. She has a disciplined mind. I am a High School drop-out. I have an untidy mind. I kid myself that I am moderately insightful. Talking with Carol clarifies my thoughts. Hopefully I will leave Galveston as a wiser man.
I have heard white Liberals attest their inability to differentiate Black from white. I would be dysfunctional in not noticing that Carol is Black. Black is part of her beauty. It is also integral to an upbringing different to my own. We interest each other. We map who we are by exploring our recollections. Carol is a PhD. She has a disciplined mind. I am a High School drop-out. I have an untidy mind. I kid myself that I am moderately insightful. Talking with Carol clarifies my thoughts. Hopefully I will leave Galveston as a wiser man.
EDUCATED BY HOLLYWOOD
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
Carol's students are attempting the conversation Barak Obama requested. They are discussing their attitudes to race and sharing experiences. I suggest that we are educated by Hollywood. I tell of the image Herefordshire High School students gave of Mexicans: fat, sweaty, big moustaches, big hats, comic accents.
A student relates his surprise at being shown home photographs of upland meadows by his Ecuadorian girlfriend. Hollywood Ecuador is sweat, bugs and jungle.
The class has run 30 minutes over time. Kai's babysitter is waiting.
Carol's students are attempting the conversation Barak Obama requested. They are discussing their attitudes to race and sharing experiences. I suggest that we are educated by Hollywood. I tell of the image Herefordshire High School students gave of Mexicans: fat, sweaty, big moustaches, big hats, comic accents.
A student relates his surprise at being shown home photographs of upland meadows by his Ecuadorian girlfriend. Hollywood Ecuador is sweat, bugs and jungle.
The class has run 30 minutes over time. Kai's babysitter is waiting.
Friday, April 11, 2008
TEXAS A & M
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
I am nervous. I sit in an upright chair with my back to a blackboard. Fifteen students face me. This is an Afro-American literature course at Texas A & M. I have an untidy mind. I waffle about Latin America.
Carol interrupts. She says, "Simon believes that Americans are obsessed by race. Do you agree?"
People in the US are reluctant to discuss race in mixed racial company. A brave blond student in the first row raises her hand lower than shoulder height. Others follow. All agree. A medium brown student in his mid twenties tells of a white co-worker asking what Black people were like.
"Like me," he said.
"Normal Black people."
"I'm a normal Black person."
Yeah, but you're not a proper Black person. You're educated was the unspoken comment.
A Latino student talks of an Anglo boy making her feel that she came from a different planet: asking how her family lived and what they ate at home (only beans and rice?).
A black student from a military family tells of switching from a majority white high school to a largely Black high school where her fellow students accused her of talking white.
She replied, "I'm talking English."
None of the students had listened to Barak Obama's speach.
Weird...!
I am nervous. I sit in an upright chair with my back to a blackboard. Fifteen students face me. This is an Afro-American literature course at Texas A & M. I have an untidy mind. I waffle about Latin America.
Carol interrupts. She says, "Simon believes that Americans are obsessed by race. Do you agree?"
People in the US are reluctant to discuss race in mixed racial company. A brave blond student in the first row raises her hand lower than shoulder height. Others follow. All agree. A medium brown student in his mid twenties tells of a white co-worker asking what Black people were like.
"Like me," he said.
"Normal Black people."
"I'm a normal Black person."
Yeah, but you're not a proper Black person. You're educated was the unspoken comment.
A Latino student talks of an Anglo boy making her feel that she came from a different planet: asking how her family lived and what they ate at home (only beans and rice?).
A black student from a military family tells of switching from a majority white high school to a largely Black high school where her fellow students accused her of talking white.
She replied, "I'm talking English."
None of the students had listened to Barak Obama's speach.
Weird...!
Thursday, April 10, 2008
PROUD TO BE AMERICAN
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
For the past week and more, TV channels here have been broadcasting a twenty second loop of Reverend Wright bouncing up and down in apparently insensate rage at the wickedness of the United States. The Reverend Wright was Barak Obama's priest/Minister. Barak Obama made a speech yesterday. I lay in bed in the studio apartment at Ed and Terry's and watched on TV. Obama addressed the most divisive aspect of the United States: Race.
Race is dangerous ground. Politicians avoid the subject. Obama wasn't speaking as a politician. He was asking people to confront the truth and think outside the proscribed box. The speech was the finest and most relevant I have heard uttered by an American. Much of what has happened recently in US Government must shame Americans. Obama should make them proud.
For the past week and more, TV channels here have been broadcasting a twenty second loop of Reverend Wright bouncing up and down in apparently insensate rage at the wickedness of the United States. The Reverend Wright was Barak Obama's priest/Minister. Barak Obama made a speech yesterday. I lay in bed in the studio apartment at Ed and Terry's and watched on TV. Obama addressed the most divisive aspect of the United States: Race.
Race is dangerous ground. Politicians avoid the subject. Obama wasn't speaking as a politician. He was asking people to confront the truth and think outside the proscribed box. The speech was the finest and most relevant I have heard uttered by an American. Much of what has happened recently in US Government must shame Americans. Obama should make them proud.
A YOUNG LADY'S GALLANT
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
Carol, Kai and I drive to town for breakfast. Carol parks and Kai takes my hand as we walk from the car. I am proud at being chosen.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
BIRTHDAY DRUMMERS
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
All four Davies brothers studied drums with a Cuban musician. The youngest brother, Chris, is excellent; the other three are merely good. The brothers play together on Easter Sunday in Peter and Carol's garden. Ostensibly they are celebrating their mother's birthday. Son Two is a Philosophy Professor at Loyola University. Son Three is employed in a Central American eagle protection program. Son Four teaches school in Colombia. The brothers have kept the birthday party secret from their mother. The brothers appear one by one. Their mother is truly surprised - and touched by their thoughtfulness. Many cousins are present - and three grandchildren. Kai is part Afro American. The other two grandchildren are half Japanese. The half Japanese grandson will be a good drummer.
THE PEOPLE WHISPERER
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 17/24
Galveston is a sandbar. Locals call it an island. Real locals wear BOI buttons: BOI - Born On Island. Peter's mother is 6th generation BOI. In company, she demands attention by speaking barely above a whisper. She is a school teacher by profession. Surely she must speak in a normal pitch to her students. Peter is the eldest of four sons. His three brothers have arrived to celebrate their mother's 70th birthday. Carol is Afro American. Son Two is married to a Japanese. Son Three is in company with a Parsee (Mumbai via the US) while Son Four has a companion from East Germany. Mrs. Davies must feel somewhat rejected.
Galveston is a sandbar. Locals call it an island. Real locals wear BOI buttons: BOI - Born On Island. Peter's mother is 6th generation BOI. In company, she demands attention by speaking barely above a whisper. She is a school teacher by profession. Surely she must speak in a normal pitch to her students. Peter is the eldest of four sons. His three brothers have arrived to celebrate their mother's 70th birthday. Carol is Afro American. Son Two is married to a Japanese. Son Three is in company with a Parsee (Mumbai via the US) while Son Four has a companion from East Germany. Mrs. Davies must feel somewhat rejected.
PEOPLE HEATING
ed preparing coffee
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
The ice cap would melt were Terry and Ed to live at the North Pole. They possess that intensity of warmth. They care. They care for the underprivileged, for those who suffer. They are enraged by the shenanigans of Washington. Terry is conversant with the shenanigans. She worked in Washington for the Government of Texas.
A spiral staircase leads up from the studio apartment to their living room. Ed doesn't sleep much. I climb the stairs and find him reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass. He has a bubble in one eye. The bubble should be absorbed over the next weeks. Meanwhile he is restricted to peripheral vision. He pours coffee. We watch morning news. Terry is working on other people's tax returns. Returns are designed to make work for tax specialists and to be incomprehensible to those on low incomes and who should profit from rebates and tax credits. Terry is a CPA. She gives free advice to those most in need of advice - those who can't afford advice.
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 18/24
The ice cap would melt were Terry and Ed to live at the North Pole. They possess that intensity of warmth. They care. They care for the underprivileged, for those who suffer. They are enraged by the shenanigans of Washington. Terry is conversant with the shenanigans. She worked in Washington for the Government of Texas.
A spiral staircase leads up from the studio apartment to their living room. Ed doesn't sleep much. I climb the stairs and find him reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass. He has a bubble in one eye. The bubble should be absorbed over the next weeks. Meanwhile he is restricted to peripheral vision. He pours coffee. We watch morning news. Terry is working on other people's tax returns. Returns are designed to make work for tax specialists and to be incomprehensible to those on low incomes and who should profit from rebates and tax credits. Terry is a CPA. She gives free advice to those most in need of advice - those who can't afford advice.
BAYWATCH REALITY
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 17
Peter Davies drives me to Beach Patrol HQ. I listen at a meeting of Peter and his crew. Peter relates diving for the missing girl in the last of yesterday's daylight, the helicopter pilot spotting the body, Peter's attempts at revival, waiting with the body. The drowning took place outside the Patrol's zone of responsibility. No blame is attached to the Patrol, yet a young girl died and these men feel responsible. Humor is the best antidote to tragedy and Peter does his utmost to lighten his account, to get the message across to his crew that he is OK: Spring Break and they need to be out on patrol.
Peter takes me to lunch at a Vietnamese noodle bar. The strain is there, noticeable in his eyes and around his eyes. He has no time to recuperate. His three brothers and their wives/partners are arriving for their mother's birthday. I try to normalise this one tragedy through a maze of statistics. How many lifeguards does he employ in the summer season? How many drownings? How many children get lost?
In the height of summer they have a tent on the beach manned by two lifeguards only for lost children. Ten or fifteen lost children in the tent at any one time is normal.
Later Peter drives me along the sand in his truck. A young dad waves us down; his infant has been stung. Peter copes equally well with a second man who only speaks Spanish. Peter calls a warning over the loud-hailer to a couple of bathers prancing in the sea between two DANGER signs. A rip current surges off the tip of a stone jetty. Two families comprising young children stand at the end of the jetty. Waves burst against the jetty and the children shriek. One slip and Peter would face another tragedy.
Teenyboppers don't mob us. So much for Baywatch...
Peter Davies drives me to Beach Patrol HQ. I listen at a meeting of Peter and his crew. Peter relates diving for the missing girl in the last of yesterday's daylight, the helicopter pilot spotting the body, Peter's attempts at revival, waiting with the body. The drowning took place outside the Patrol's zone of responsibility. No blame is attached to the Patrol, yet a young girl died and these men feel responsible. Humor is the best antidote to tragedy and Peter does his utmost to lighten his account, to get the message across to his crew that he is OK: Spring Break and they need to be out on patrol.
Peter takes me to lunch at a Vietnamese noodle bar. The strain is there, noticeable in his eyes and around his eyes. He has no time to recuperate. His three brothers and their wives/partners are arriving for their mother's birthday. I try to normalise this one tragedy through a maze of statistics. How many lifeguards does he employ in the summer season? How many drownings? How many children get lost?
In the height of summer they have a tent on the beach manned by two lifeguards only for lost children. Ten or fifteen lost children in the tent at any one time is normal.
Later Peter drives me along the sand in his truck. A young dad waves us down; his infant has been stung. Peter copes equally well with a second man who only speaks Spanish. Peter calls a warning over the loud-hailer to a couple of bathers prancing in the sea between two DANGER signs. A rip current surges off the tip of a stone jetty. Two families comprising young children stand at the end of the jetty. Waves burst against the jetty and the children shriek. One slip and Peter would face another tragedy.
Teenyboppers don't mob us. So much for Baywatch...
GALVESTON TRADGEDY
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
Peter Davies has been down the beach for the past three hours with a dead sixteen-year-old girl. The girl was spotted from a helicopter. Peter picked her up on the Beach patrol's Honda aqua-scooter. Peter tried revival. Too late. The girl was declared dead on the beach. The ambulance driver wouldn't take the body. The crowd exiting from the Rap concert had degenerated into riot mode and blocked the sea road. Peter sat alone in his truck with the body and with only his thoughts for company. Now he is home. I find him standing beside his truck. An Old Brit stranger is low on Peter's requirement list. He needs peace. I cross to Ed and Terry's studio apartment and watch late night political news on TV.
Peter Davies has been down the beach for the past three hours with a dead sixteen-year-old girl. The girl was spotted from a helicopter. Peter picked her up on the Beach patrol's Honda aqua-scooter. Peter tried revival. Too late. The girl was declared dead on the beach. The ambulance driver wouldn't take the body. The crowd exiting from the Rap concert had degenerated into riot mode and blocked the sea road. Peter sat alone in his truck with the body and with only his thoughts for company. Now he is home. I find him standing beside his truck. An Old Brit stranger is low on Peter's requirement list. He needs peace. I cross to Ed and Terry's studio apartment and watch late night political news on TV.
Friday, April 04, 2008
THOUGHT CRIME
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
Years ago I went spear fishing with a Frenchman. France had withdrawn recently from Algeria. My fishing partner was a hard right ex-colonist. I discovered this while we were in his inflatable. Had the Frenchman known my opinions, he would have been tempted to spear me in the gut and dump me overboard. This was a cold morning and I wasn't comfortable.
I am equally uncomfortable in Texas. I hold the wrong views. In Bermuda Beach, I have hit on a clandestine cell of Democrats. Carol is easy to talk with. She is an Obama supporter. So is Ed. Ed's wife, Terry, backs Hilary Clinton. Ed and Terry own the next house. It has a great sea view from the deck. They have a studio apartment at ground level. I am to stay in the studio apartment.
GALVESTON BAYWATCH
davies dogs
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
I met Carol and Peter Davies at a road-side pizza joint on Panama's Pacific coast. Carol and I talked politics and publishing for thirty minutes. We have exchanged Emails on politics. We don't know much about each other. I am invited to speak with Carol's students at Texas A & M and be the Oldie at a 70th birthday party for Peter's mother. Peter is head man at Galveston's Beach Patrol – Mister Baywatch. Late Sunday evening of Spring Break weekend and he is way down the beach searching the sea for a missing girl. He has been there two hours. No news is bad news. The Davies' two-year-old daughter, Kai, is asleep. Carol and Ed and I drink beer and speak quietly.
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
I met Carol and Peter Davies at a road-side pizza joint on Panama's Pacific coast. Carol and I talked politics and publishing for thirty minutes. We have exchanged Emails on politics. We don't know much about each other. I am invited to speak with Carol's students at Texas A & M and be the Oldie at a 70th birthday party for Peter's mother. Peter is head man at Galveston's Beach Patrol – Mister Baywatch. Late Sunday evening of Spring Break weekend and he is way down the beach searching the sea for a missing girl. He has been there two hours. No news is bad news. The Davies' two-year-old daughter, Kai, is asleep. Carol and Ed and I drink beer and speak quietly.
PUG DOG AND CORONA BEER
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
Galveston beach is a thirty mile housing development. Developers have named different sections. Bermuda Beach is unpretentious. It is liable to flooding and houses are raised on pillars. A hurricane removed thirty meters of sand and most of the front line of homes a few years back. At high tide, survivors have their feet in the sea.
Carol and Peter live two houses back. Carol is waiting at the gate beside an antique VW camper in bright green with red and black shell borders. For company Carol has two dogs and a fit white pony-tail in his fifties. One dog is a pug. The other is questionable. The pony-tail holds a cold Corona beer. Carol introduces him as Ed.
Carol has beer in multiple-choice for the Brit. Choice in beer is less stressful than a Starbucks coffee-house menu.
STUDENT-SPEAK
bermuda beach
GALVESTON,TEXAS: MARCH 16
A chill Spring Break weekend in Galveston. 7 pm and a few crazies are in the surf. A few throw balls on the beach. Thousands spill out of a rap concert. Cars and bikes crowd the beach road. Kids sit out of car windows; in convertibles on seat backs; on car roofs, feet dangling through sun roofs. A majority are black. Age is unity. All are high on mirth. They shout joyfully in a foreign language, foreign to an Old Brit on a Bike: student-speak.
A kid throws dollar bills from a 4X4. The chill breeze grabs the bills. Kids give chase. The chase is competitive. A people carrier swerves across the road. Chaos!
I sneak through gaps. Five miles to Bermuda Beach where Carol and Peter live...
Monday, March 24, 2008
GALVESTON, TEXAS
GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
Galveston is a small city built on a sand bar a couple of miles out from the Texas coast to which it is connected by a causeway. By nature of being a sand bar, Galveston has beaches. The seaward beach is forty miles longs and has reasonable surf on a good day. The landward side is protected and has excellent wind surfing, good fishing and dinghy sailing. Five million tourists visit Galveston during the summer months.
I ride into Galveston in early evening and head for the city center. Four Black men in a smart car draw along side at each red light intersection. The man in the back is filming me. The others try for a conversation. The lights turn green and drivers behind immediately hit their klaxon. So it goes, so it goes, all the way down Broad Street to the Catholic Cathedral. I make a U and halt in front of the church where a Latino family are taking photographs.
I ask if they are Catholics.
Sunday, would doing a good deed make them happy?
Do they have a cell phone? Could they call Carol Davis for me? I have the number.
The mother calls Carol and tries to hand me the cell phone.
I explain that: a) I am deaf and can never hear over a cell phone.
b) That I need directions and Carol's address.
The mother writes directions on the back of a hymn sheet.
I am in business.
Galveston is a small city built on a sand bar a couple of miles out from the Texas coast to which it is connected by a causeway. By nature of being a sand bar, Galveston has beaches. The seaward beach is forty miles longs and has reasonable surf on a good day. The landward side is protected and has excellent wind surfing, good fishing and dinghy sailing. Five million tourists visit Galveston during the summer months.
I ride into Galveston in early evening and head for the city center. Four Black men in a smart car draw along side at each red light intersection. The man in the back is filming me. The others try for a conversation. The lights turn green and drivers behind immediately hit their klaxon. So it goes, so it goes, all the way down Broad Street to the Catholic Cathedral. I make a U and halt in front of the church where a Latino family are taking photographs.
I ask if they are Catholics.
Sunday, would doing a good deed make them happy?
Do they have a cell phone? Could they call Carol Davis for me? I have the number.
The mother calls Carol and tries to hand me the cell phone.
I explain that: a) I am deaf and can never hear over a cell phone.
b) That I need directions and Carol's address.
The mother writes directions on the back of a hymn sheet.
I am in business.
EVIL MUSLIMS
TO GALVESTON, TEXAS: MARCH 16
Yes, well...My apologies, readers, if I occasionally write what I feel. We have had Homeland Security PR, coffee, Malls, obesity and politics. Here is a return to travel. I have 650 Ks to ride. Edinburgh to Galveston is flat. A highway fly-over rates as a hill. Cloud hides the sun – fortunately, no rain. Other dangers lurk: primarily, an Old Man's stupidity. I take on gas midway. Three Harleys cruise into the gas station. I ask permission to touch the big, broad, leather seats. Heaven!
Excitement makes me forgetful. I run short of fuel 150 Ks from Galveston and discover that I left my billfold and address book on the gas pump at the last halt.
This is bad.
Actually, this is very bad.
I am almost out of gas. I am staying with Carol and Peter Davis in Galveston.
I have their telephone number. I don't have 50 cents for a phone call.
Very bad...
The gentleman manning the cash register at the gas station is an immigrant from Karachi, Pakistan. Yes, he is one of those evil Muslims. I relate my predicament and offer my camera for a gallon and a half of gas. He is unimpressed by the camera.
He says, “This is something that happens to everyone some time in their lives.” He takes six dollars from his billfold. “Is that sufficient?”
“More than sufficient.”
I ask for his address. He tells me not to be silly.
This is my thank-you letter to a dear kind sweet man....And, of course, one of those evil Muslims.
Yes, well...My apologies, readers, if I occasionally write what I feel. We have had Homeland Security PR, coffee, Malls, obesity and politics. Here is a return to travel. I have 650 Ks to ride. Edinburgh to Galveston is flat. A highway fly-over rates as a hill. Cloud hides the sun – fortunately, no rain. Other dangers lurk: primarily, an Old Man's stupidity. I take on gas midway. Three Harleys cruise into the gas station. I ask permission to touch the big, broad, leather seats. Heaven!
Excitement makes me forgetful. I run short of fuel 150 Ks from Galveston and discover that I left my billfold and address book on the gas pump at the last halt.
This is bad.
Actually, this is very bad.
I am almost out of gas. I am staying with Carol and Peter Davis in Galveston.
I have their telephone number. I don't have 50 cents for a phone call.
Very bad...
The gentleman manning the cash register at the gas station is an immigrant from Karachi, Pakistan. Yes, he is one of those evil Muslims. I relate my predicament and offer my camera for a gallon and a half of gas. He is unimpressed by the camera.
He says, “This is something that happens to everyone some time in their lives.” He takes six dollars from his billfold. “Is that sufficient?”
“More than sufficient.”
I ask for his address. He tells me not to be silly.
This is my thank-you letter to a dear kind sweet man....And, of course, one of those evil Muslims.
BOUNCING PASTOR
EDINBURG, TEXAS: MARCH 15/16
I write much of the day in my motel room. Edinburgh is a good place to write. The alternative is visiting a couple of Malls (no great temptation). Between writing I watch TV news. FOX and CNN are delirious with joy. They have grabbed an opportunity to destroy Senator Barak Obama. Obama's pastor is the weapon. FOX and CNN broadcast endless repeats off the pastor bouncing up and down while fueled with rage at the suffering of Afro Americans. “God damn America,” the pastor yells.
God has saved MacCaine, breathe Republicans.
God be blessed for passionate Afro American Christianity, breathes Hillary Clinton.
I write much of the day in my motel room. Edinburgh is a good place to write. The alternative is visiting a couple of Malls (no great temptation). Between writing I watch TV news. FOX and CNN are delirious with joy. They have grabbed an opportunity to destroy Senator Barak Obama. Obama's pastor is the weapon. FOX and CNN broadcast endless repeats off the pastor bouncing up and down while fueled with rage at the suffering of Afro Americans. “God damn America,” the pastor yells.
God has saved MacCaine, breathe Republicans.
God be blessed for passionate Afro American Christianity, breathes Hillary Clinton.
TEXAS WADDLERS
EDINBURG, TEXAS: MARCH 15/16
I am in Edinburg, Texas. I feel slim. People here waddle rather than walk. Obese is an understatement.
A Chinese restaurant in Edinburgh, serves a great buffet: all you can eat for $6.95. The buffet contains four different shrimp dishes, stuffed crab, calamares and every kind of meat. A notice hangs above the buffet: PLEASE TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU CAN EAT.
Customers serve themselves mountains.
I prefer Asian food to European. Latin America doesn't do Chinese. It tries – the result is inedible. I serve myself at the buffet both days that I am in Edinburg. That one meal is sufficient intake for the day. The food is excellent. The Chinese lady who runs the restaurant has a sweet smile and is happy to chat.
I am in Edinburg, Texas. I feel slim. People here waddle rather than walk. Obese is an understatement.
A Chinese restaurant in Edinburgh, serves a great buffet: all you can eat for $6.95. The buffet contains four different shrimp dishes, stuffed crab, calamares and every kind of meat. A notice hangs above the buffet: PLEASE TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU CAN EAT.
Customers serve themselves mountains.
I prefer Asian food to European. Latin America doesn't do Chinese. It tries – the result is inedible. I serve myself at the buffet both days that I am in Edinburg. That one meal is sufficient intake for the day. The food is excellent. The Chinese lady who runs the restaurant has a sweet smile and is happy to chat.
ROYALS, LEDBURY AND LUGGAGE
EDINBURGH, TEXAS: MARCH 15/16
We live in a small village back home. Ledbury is our local market town. The route to Ledbury from our cottage runs through country lanes and over hills and through ancient woods and glorious green pastures. My wife, Bernadette, tailors hand and travel luggage. She numbers movie stars and Royals amongst her clientèle. Her work is exhibited at Ledbury Market House. The Market House was built in the 13th century. This is not a digression. I am writing of coffee. An Italian coffee shop serves great coffee upstairs on Ledbury's Main Street. The coffee shop is the same distance from our cottage as MoonBean is from my Edinburgh motel. Ledbury is a pleasant drive from our cottage. Riding to MoonBean is a procession of Malls. I want to go home.
Find photographs of Bernadette's luggage and of me talking with one of her Royals in the biography section at www.simongandolfi.com
OR VISIT www.bernadettesbags.com
We live in a small village back home. Ledbury is our local market town. The route to Ledbury from our cottage runs through country lanes and over hills and through ancient woods and glorious green pastures. My wife, Bernadette, tailors hand and travel luggage. She numbers movie stars and Royals amongst her clientèle. Her work is exhibited at Ledbury Market House. The Market House was built in the 13th century. This is not a digression. I am writing of coffee. An Italian coffee shop serves great coffee upstairs on Ledbury's Main Street. The coffee shop is the same distance from our cottage as MoonBean is from my Edinburgh motel. Ledbury is a pleasant drive from our cottage. Riding to MoonBean is a procession of Malls. I want to go home.
Find photographs of Bernadette's luggage and of me talking with one of her Royals in the biography section at www.simongandolfi.com
OR VISIT www.bernadettesbags.com
STUCK-UP STARBUCKS
EDINBURG, TEXAS: MARCH 15
I ask directions to Edinburgh town center. Edinburg doesn't have a center. Edinburgh has Malls. Drive enough miles in any direction and you are in the next town which is also Malls. I ride 7 Ks to a Starbucks. Starbucks considers itself superior. So do its staff. I need black coffee. I am faced with an incomprehensible menu. Bewilderment merits a sneer and half an inch of black liquid in a ceramic cup. WiFi Internet connection is an extra.
A woman whispers to me that Internet is free at MoonBean. MoonBean is on the next block in a neighboring Mall. Staff are friendly and relaxed. Coffee comes in a beaker. Customers talk to me. I am happy.
I ask directions to Edinburgh town center. Edinburg doesn't have a center. Edinburgh has Malls. Drive enough miles in any direction and you are in the next town which is also Malls. I ride 7 Ks to a Starbucks. Starbucks considers itself superior. So do its staff. I need black coffee. I am faced with an incomprehensible menu. Bewilderment merits a sneer and half an inch of black liquid in a ceramic cup. WiFi Internet connection is an extra.
A woman whispers to me that Internet is free at MoonBean. MoonBean is on the next block in a neighboring Mall. Staff are friendly and relaxed. Coffee comes in a beaker. Customers talk to me. I am happy.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID...
EDINBURGH TEXAS: MARCH 14
A patrolman at Border Patrol recommends Motel 6 for a cheap clean room. Motel 6 in Edinburgh began life as a Holiday Inn. I have a room the size of a South American small-town hotel. Towels would bandage an army. I am due Sunday in Galveston, Texas. I am way behind with writing. I book in for three nights, drag out the waterproof purse that hangs round my neck on a steel wire. Where in Hell is my credit card? Have you suffered the same disaster?
You hunt through every pocket.
Then you hunt through every pocket.
Finally you hunt through every pocket.
The reception clerk comes to my aid with a bright suggestion: “Have you checked your pockets?”
Don't snarl – the clerk means well.
"Where did you last use it?” the clerk asks.
How would I remember? At 75? Close to the end of my journey and I got careless. That is the truth. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
I pay cash for the room, dump my bag on the bed and cool my brain in a shower. Then I call the bank to cancel the card and call Bernadette to wire me money through Western Union.
A patrolman at Border Patrol recommends Motel 6 for a cheap clean room. Motel 6 in Edinburgh began life as a Holiday Inn. I have a room the size of a South American small-town hotel. Towels would bandage an army. I am due Sunday in Galveston, Texas. I am way behind with writing. I book in for three nights, drag out the waterproof purse that hangs round my neck on a steel wire. Where in Hell is my credit card? Have you suffered the same disaster?
You hunt through every pocket.
Then you hunt through every pocket.
Finally you hunt through every pocket.
The reception clerk comes to my aid with a bright suggestion: “Have you checked your pockets?”
Don't snarl – the clerk means well.
"Where did you last use it?” the clerk asks.
How would I remember? At 75? Close to the end of my journey and I got careless. That is the truth. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
I pay cash for the room, dump my bag on the bed and cool my brain in a shower. Then I call the bank to cancel the card and call Bernadette to wire me money through Western Union.
NASCAR IS COOL
EDINBURG, TEXAS: MARCH 14
Border Patrol PR is a misnomer. The PR man for Border Patrol is forbidden to discuss illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, coyotes, progress building the frontier fence.
These are major points of discussion amongst ordinary and extraordinary citizens of Texas and New Mexico, Arizona, California, Washington politicians and candidates for the Presidency.
Accompanying a Border patrol is illegal (I might get shot).
A poster of a Nascar saloon decorates the office. The car is sponsored by Homeland Security. Racing cars are cool with the type of kid Homeland Security hopes to recruit. Has the car won races? Is that a forbidden subject? Is PR superfluous?
Border Patrol PR is a misnomer. The PR man for Border Patrol is forbidden to discuss illegal immigration, illegal immigrants, coyotes, progress building the frontier fence.
These are major points of discussion amongst ordinary and extraordinary citizens of Texas and New Mexico, Arizona, California, Washington politicians and candidates for the Presidency.
Accompanying a Border patrol is illegal (I might get shot).
A poster of a Nascar saloon decorates the office. The car is sponsored by Homeland Security. Racing cars are cool with the type of kid Homeland Security hopes to recruit. Has the car won races? Is that a forbidden subject? Is PR superfluous?
HOMELAND SECURITY AND ILLEGAL MUSIC SITES
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS: MARCH 14
I expected to wait in line at the Brownsville border. I was through to a Customs bay in minutes and through to Immigration with equal speed. Immigration takes a while. Back home I understand computer delay: our sons download music from weird sites and collect viruses. I don't like to ask the woman official what Homeland Security downloads. Perhaps the computers are antique.
I want to ride with an agent from Border Patrol on a night hunt for illegals.
The head office for this sector is north in Edinburg.
The PR man will be back late in the afternoon.
I expected to wait in line at the Brownsville border. I was through to a Customs bay in minutes and through to Immigration with equal speed. Immigration takes a while. Back home I understand computer delay: our sons download music from weird sites and collect viruses. I don't like to ask the woman official what Homeland Security downloads. Perhaps the computers are antique.
I want to ride with an agent from Border Patrol on a night hunt for illegals.
The head office for this sector is north in Edinburg.
The PR man will be back late in the afternoon.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
STRIP CLUBS - MEDICAL PROCEDURES
MATAMOROS/BROWNSVILLE: MARCH 13
Lunch with the newspaper editor takes a while. I reach the frontier town of Matamoros in early evening - easier to cope with border formalities tomorrow morning. Matomoros is an interesting town. I had expected streets of strip clubs and massage parlors. Cheap sex has been supplanted by cheap medical treatment. Clubs and massage parlors have given way to hospitals and doctors' surgeries.
Lunch with the newspaper editor takes a while. I reach the frontier town of Matamoros in early evening - easier to cope with border formalities tomorrow morning. Matomoros is an interesting town. I had expected streets of strip clubs and massage parlors. Cheap sex has been supplanted by cheap medical treatment. Clubs and massage parlors have given way to hospitals and doctors' surgeries.
COYOTES AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
TO BROWNSVILLE, USA: MARCH 13
Edward James was a wealthy and eccentric Englishman. He spent much of his life designing a series of interconnected follies and having them built in the lush forest near Xilitla. I am an Englishman and vaguely eccentric. I am not rich. I don't stop in Xilitla. I do reach Ciudad Victoria. I find a room on the cathedral square and relish a final prawn cocktail in Mexico. From Ciudad Victoria to the border at Brownsville is one vast flat field of sorghum. The field is 200 miles long, God knows how wide. Rains are late. I read, over breakfast, that farmers are in panic.
I take a break midway to the border. A middle-aged Mexican admires my bike. He is editor/owner of a local paper. He invites me for lunch. We discuss bikes, politics, the border. Smugglers of illegals into the US are called coyotes. US$1,500 is the fee for smuggling an illegal. The fee carries a guaranty. The US Border Patrol catches an illegal, the Immigration Department returns him or her to Mexico. The coyote takes him across again and again and again - until successful.
Edward James was a wealthy and eccentric Englishman. He spent much of his life designing a series of interconnected follies and having them built in the lush forest near Xilitla. I am an Englishman and vaguely eccentric. I am not rich. I don't stop in Xilitla. I do reach Ciudad Victoria. I find a room on the cathedral square and relish a final prawn cocktail in Mexico. From Ciudad Victoria to the border at Brownsville is one vast flat field of sorghum. The field is 200 miles long, God knows how wide. Rains are late. I read, over breakfast, that farmers are in panic.
I take a break midway to the border. A middle-aged Mexican admires my bike. He is editor/owner of a local paper. He invites me for lunch. We discuss bikes, politics, the border. Smugglers of illegals into the US are called coyotes. US$1,500 is the fee for smuggling an illegal. The fee carries a guaranty. The US Border Patrol catches an illegal, the Immigration Department returns him or her to Mexico. The coyote takes him across again and again and again - until successful.
A LAST VISIT TO THE CARTER BAR
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 12
I am heading for the US/Mexico border at Brownsville. I will cross tomorrow. Today the road north climbs up through the Sierra Gorda. I look down on clouds for the last time in Latin America. A dry
stone wall divides a small paddock of rough grass. The wall ends at a fast-flowing burn. Broad-leaf trees grow on the banks. Pines grow further up the slope. Wall, burn, trees, the quality of the hill grass, all are reminders of the Scottish Borders - even the wet mist. The US lies ahead. The US frightens me. It is foreign territory in all but language. I long to be home...
ONE MORE POSSIBLE HOME
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 12
On this journey, I have walked the streets in so many towns, made friends, imagined how life would be, what street to live on, which house would be closest to perfection. Jalpan would be a fine place. It is the right size in which to become accepted, has a great climate, beautifuil architecture, wonderful country, good fishing. My bag is packed. The bike is loaded. Staff join me for a photograph. One more farewell.
JALPAN CHURCH DETAIL
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 11
Share a table in the late evening at the hotel with the owner and his wife, her sister and brother-in-law.
I will miss Mexico. I will miss Latin America. Some weeks, most weeks, I have spoken only Spanish.
We change character when we change language. We have history in our native language; we have absorbed prejudices from the cradle on. Those of our own nationality recognise from whence we come and judge us by the opinions they presume we hold. Shifting into a different language frees us. I am a nicer person in Spanish than I am in English. I am less self-conscious, less defensive, less aggressive in my arguments, curious of others rather than judgmental.
This evening we talk of the US Presidential race. We hope for an Obama victory.
The sister says, “They will never elect him...”
OLD MAN FOR THE TRASH HEAP
hotel owner
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 11
I have spent much of the day writing in the hotel. Why am I so tired? Tired is a misnomer. Exhausted is an understatement.
Being away ten months and on the road, vulnerable on a small bike; seemingly endless series of packing and unpacking; at night, trying to recall in each new hotel room which direction the bathroom is and where the light switches are – all of that is counterbalanced by warm, interesting, kindly people, by superb country and wonderful buildings.
So why so exhausted?
By nature, I am an optimist (aged 75, only an optimist would attempt this ride). Holding on to one's optimism is hard. Country to country, the endless tales of coruption are depressing, the belief so many have that the system is too entrenched, that there is nothing anyone can do, that even trying is to waste one's life. Yes, exhausting.
There is a further factor: my editor/publisher is in adminsitration (bankrupt used to be the word). I had a three book contract. The first of the trilogy was due for publication in May. I had a young enthusiastic intelligent editor. Yes, I am suicidal...
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 11
I have spent much of the day writing in the hotel. Why am I so tired? Tired is a misnomer. Exhausted is an understatement.
Being away ten months and on the road, vulnerable on a small bike; seemingly endless series of packing and unpacking; at night, trying to recall in each new hotel room which direction the bathroom is and where the light switches are – all of that is counterbalanced by warm, interesting, kindly people, by superb country and wonderful buildings.
So why so exhausted?
By nature, I am an optimist (aged 75, only an optimist would attempt this ride). Holding on to one's optimism is hard. Country to country, the endless tales of coruption are depressing, the belief so many have that the system is too entrenched, that there is nothing anyone can do, that even trying is to waste one's life. Yes, exhausting.
There is a further factor: my editor/publisher is in adminsitration (bankrupt used to be the word). I had a three book contract. The first of the trilogy was due for publication in May. I had a young enthusiastic intelligent editor. Yes, I am suicidal...
TOURISTS ARE RARE
JALPAN, SIERRA GORDA: MARCH 10
Tourists are rare this month in the Sierra Gorda. Mexicans arrive for Easter week. The road over the mountains may scare people from the US – and lack of beach. This evening a married couple sit at the next table in a taco place round the corner from my hotel. They are in their late fifties to early sixties. He is a University Professor. His field is Urban Studies. They visit Europe regularly. This is their first visit to Mexico. The wealth of historic architecture surprises them. I am surprised by their surprise.
The Professor and his wife have flown direct from a New York winter. They are very white. He immediately questions me on racial attitudes in Mexico. The US obsession...
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