Man of LaMancha

A Reason to Live

A reason to live! That’s the best medicine anyone ever has. I live to bust hate. It all started, I now see, when I was three and four and five years old. Week after week I would sit in Sunday School and listen to my teachers tell the stories of Moses and David and Samson and the awesome things they did to save their people. Then one Sunday morning in 1949 when I was 14, I heard a sermon and an offhand comment that would blaze forever in my mind like neon in the night.

Gordon Clinard was a gentle and humble human being. When I was a teenager, he was my pastor. He had just preached another of his always elegant and eloquent sermons about loving all people. I was transported to heaven on the wings of his words. I just knew that when Monday morning came and all of us went back to school and to work, our town would be a new and better place where we all loved one another. The feeling I had at that moment—that all was now right with the world—would last no longer than it took me to walk up the aisle and out the front door of the church. But to feel that way again would motivate most everything I would do from that time forward.

Mr. Singletary and Mr. Bratcher, two of our church deacons, stood talking in the doorway as I walked past. I overheard a single sentence from each man. Said Mr. Singletary, “If them niggers try to come in this church, I’ll beat ‘em back with a baseball bat.” Said Mr. Batcher, “Me, too.”

That was more than 50 years ago. Few days in all that time have passed without the picture of my pastor and the two deacons flashing through my mind. How anyone could express such hate after having just been called to love was a mystery to my young mind.

“You have Multiple Sclerosis. It’s a damnable disease. You won’t be able to be active.” That’s what my doctor told me one Thursday May morning in 1981 as I lay in a hospital bed. Three years of deep depression came upon me. My doctor gave me shots and pills and said to rest and not get hot. I was miserably unhappy. Thoughts of suicide were not strangers to me. I quit everything except teaching my classes and going to church.

I was sitting one day in 1983 in a corner of the garage, desperate and depressed and home alone. I glimpsed by son’s old bicycle in another corner. “Ride that bike.” The thought was so real it was audible I resisted. The doctor had said not to get hot. But finally I did. I made it down the block. To the church on the corner. I was exhausted. I had to rest. I made it back. And went to bed.

Three weeks passed before I got on the bike again. One overcast October Sunday in 1986, I set off from home to attempt my first century. Forty miles into the ride came another audible thought, “Ride your bike across America.” On May 17, 1987, I set off from Disney World, bound for Disneyland, by way of Seattle. I was riding alone and without money. From the church when I was young I had learned that we are all created in God’s image. I thought that must surely mean that all of us have at least a spark of goodness and genius in us. I wanted to find that spark of goodness by asking people I would meet for a sandwich, a glass of water, a bed for the night. If people everywhere helped me, I would have found that spark. I took no map with me. I would ask people in one town the best way to get to the next town. If they told me, I would have found that spark of genius.

There was another reason for the ride. If I made it across the country, I somehow knew that MS would have to live on my terms. If I couldn’t make it, I would be at the mercy of my illness. I made it. More than 500 people I asked for help. Except for five early morning waitresses who could not give me a bowl of oatmeal because they didn’t have authority, no one ever said no. To these five I said, “No problem. I’ll be okay.” And down the block or around the corner, another waitress said yes.

Ed’s Bike America: The Two Penny Odyssey. That’s the name I gave to my ride. A penny a mile for MS and a Penny a mile for the Human Family Reunion. The HFR is a big party my students and I started in 1976 in Kansas City. We would invite people of all colors, cultures and creeds to bring a dish of their favorite food. We would put it all together for a giant smorgasbord. Who’s right is the wrong question until we get to know each other—this was our number one rule. Rule number two: Eat first, ask later. If we ask, we may not be able to eat, and if we can’t eat, the people who brought the food will think we don’t like them.

As I rode across the country I would call at all the newspapers and TV stations. I would tell them about our Human Family Reunions and ask them to alert their readers and viewers. When I got to California Mickey Mouse gave me a trophy. So did the Orange County Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I rode 5,126 miles in 105 days and raised almost $10,000.00. My MS, I discovered, meant I must be active. My MS would live on my terms.

Just about the time I finished writing my book about my ride, a bad thing happened in Louisiana that galvanized my students and me into action. I had come to teach at William Jewell fresh from grad school in 1965, having spent the previous year in Kansas City on a fellowship to study local race relations.

I was teaching Race Relations at William Jewell College. I always told my students that it never is enough just to know why people hate. We must be ready and willing to act when hate appears and we can help. So in 1988 when a member of the Ku Klux Klan was elected to the Louisiana Legislature, my students and I started HateBusters. The governor invited us to come and help the state redeem itself.

We went. Three of us elected by the class. Eastern Airlines gave us free tickets. We organized an all-day bike ride to towns along the Mississippi. We invited everyone we met to come that night to our Human Family Reunion to be held at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. The governor declared HATEBUSTERS AND HUMAN FAMILY REUNION DAY IN LOUISIANA.

Because I have MS, I think I spend more time bustin’ hate. A laser-like focus on bustin’ hate, leaves me little time to think about MS. And I’ve told myself that if I don’t think about MS, it has no power over me. I’ve told myself that bike riding is the only medicine I need to hold MS at bay. So the long hours I spend on a bike are in lieu of time spent in doctors’ offices. Bike riding is more fun and much cheaper.

If I’m to keep MS from taking over my mind, I need projects to plan and make happen. Ed’s Elite 100 took months of planning and a day to make happen. Now that it’s over, the year-long Greater Liberty Ride for MS and HateBusters has moved to center stage.