That Question Again Miles 5635-5710 July 14

That Question Again Miles 5635-5710 July 14

That most welcome question comes again today. “How many miles ya got?” I’m laboring up a hill on Glenn Hendren Drive, approaching Liberty Hospital. A red pickup coming toward me pulls to a brief stop as we both top the hill. Steve Smith is Chaplain at the hospital, a friend and long-time HateBusters supporter. “Fifty-seven hundred,” I say. “Go for it,” Steve yells.

Bob Pence isn’t in when I stop by his office in Kearney to leave the packet of materials for him, asking him to accept the McClelland Law Firm’s Greater Liberty Challenge and get his business listed in Ed’s Elite 100.

Over Ruth’s Club Sandwich at Oma’s (aka Sarah’s Table), I meet Jim Johnson and J.D. Garton. I invite J.D. to get the brakes fixed on his bike and join me for a ride. Waitresses and customers are talking about The Breakfast Club, a new restaurant soon to open in downtown Kearney. “They don’t want Farmers.” “Don’t they know this is Kearney?” “They want to be upscale.” “No coffee drinkers. They must want the women before they go to work.”

A while later, I’m nearing the entrance to Watkins Mill State Park and spot an oasis. The language is blue and their hearts are gold inside The Greenville General Store. As I stumble in from the heat, empty water bottle in hand, all eyes turn in my direction. They’re all drinking beer. “Your color’s not good. Grab a Gatorade and get some fluids in you.” The clerk fills my bottle with ice and water. A customer pulls out a chair at his table and tells me to sit. “I’m dirty and don’t smell very good,” I say. “You smell better than him,” he laughs. And points to the guy at the bar doing most of the talking.

Matching Treks Miles 5710-5775 July 15

Matching Treks stand outside against the wall as I ride up. Bob and Jan Black sit inside in a booth against the back wall. I join them. And slide in beside Wayne Hurd. “Those your bikes out front?” I ask. “Yes.” “And mine’s round back by the air conditioner,” says Wayne. “Mine’s a Trek, too.” “So’s mine,” I say. “We could start a club.”

The Blacks live on Easy Street in Liberty. Wayne lives in the red brick house at the corner of Hillview and LaFrenz Road where the flaming maple trees erupt every fall. We’ve all ridden to the Mill Inn today on H Highway. “Isn’t it great,” says Bob Black. “Just resurfaced. No cracks or potholes now.”

ALWAYS PLUMBING Splashed in big blue letters across the side of that white van sitting in a field to my right off B Highway. I’ve just come from Highway 69. I’m plummeting down a hill as fast as gravity and the incline can take me. I catch a glimpse of someone in blue jeans and a baseball cap standing beside the van. “Hi, Ed!” I hear as I pass. “Hey,” I yell.

To have people call me by my first name is the major reason I never left this town I came to fresh from grad school. To give it a chance to happen gets me on my bike in all kinds of weather in every season of the year.

The Little School That Did Miles 5775-5830 July 16

The Little School That Did. So announces the green and white marquee that sits in front of Missouri City School. Some years ago this little school in this tiny town was praised in Reader’s Digest for assisting the Kansas City schools with their desegregation plans.

I sit here now beneath a shade tree in the schoolyard. The turkey and cheese sandwich I brought from home couldn’t have tasted better in any other setting. Washed down with the ice cold almond tea left from supper last night, no meal was ever more appreciated. Ten hot miles pedaled from home stoked a fierce appetite.

I sit mesmerized, watching a fuzzy yellow-green caterpillar with a black boxed head and a matching caboose slink its way through the grass. Like an expertly driven 18 wheeler navigating a Giant Sequoia forest, this little creature twists and turns and inches along over twigs and between blades of grass taller than its body. It makes a perfect half-circle around me, then disappears beneath an underpass of big leaf weeds that grow uninvited here.

The land stretches out flat and green to either side of the road as I make my way on 210 back toward Liberty from Orrick. Bursting with soybeans and pasture grasses and eight-foot corn with bulging ears, this river bottom land is ringed in the distance by low hills crowned with trees. Everything! Everywhere! GREEN.

A Blessing Missed Miles 5830-5915 July 18

Orthopedic surgeons must work long hours for the Missouri Department of Transportation. How else to explain the total recovery of the broken shoulder to either side of 210 highway as it runs past Orrick? For the past few years the shoulder had deteriorated almost daily, until it was hazardous for cars that might need to pull off the road and life threatening for bicycles trying to give way to 18 wheelers on the road. Now completely recovered and inviting, the shoulder is a reason to bike this way.

I suppose it would get old and taken for granted. But the panoramic view from the front porch of this red brick house at 7865 Southpoint Drive rivals in beauty and grandeur any I have seen anywhere in the world. A series of ever rising rolling hills mounts to the horizon. Farm houses and show homes and well-kept barns sprinkled here and there. One red barn. Silos. A water tower. Cars scurry along a ribbon of road that cuts at an angle across the valley floor. Trees everywhere.

Dan Allen was born in Pennsylvania, considers himself a native Californian and has lived for the past four years alongside C Highway just east of Rayville. “The post office says we live in Richmond. Don’t believe it.” Dan is mowing the ditch in front of his house. I spot him a hill away. As I ride up, he kills the motor. “Where you ridin’ from?” He asks. “Liberty,” I say. Dan used to ride with a California bicycle club. They would meet on a certain corner, get a map and be off for routes up to 200 miles. Dan married a woman with grandchildren in Missouri. “I don’t have a bike anymore. Haven’t ridden in years.” He says. Dan points to the garage some distance from the house. “Anytime you see those doors open, stop in.” Judy Allen, Dan’s wife gives me their email address. I’ll send them this story. And all those that come after.

Why did I say no? I made myself a promise never to refuse an offer of help. But I just did. Coming out of Lawson on Salem Road, my rear derallier cable broke, leaving the chain on the smallest sprocket. Logging more than 100,000 miles on this bicycle has not made me an expert on bicycle mechanics, repair or operation. Gear ratios and number of teeth mean nothing to me. I know that the smallest rear sprocket is for speed on flat land; the biggest sprocket is for hill climbing. But of my three front sprockets, the biggest is for speed while the smallest is for hill climbing.

Now I’m 25 miles from home and stuck in the speed gear. Luckily, the rugged hills are behind me. Except for the final one before I get to 69 highway. Coming off Salem Road onto Italian Way at the American-Italian Pasta Plant I always have to gear down to granny. Today I have to walk up that monster. That’s what I’m doing when that would be Good Samaritan pulls up in his car beside me. A woman sits next to him, children in the back seat. “You need some water?” He asks.

The bottle cages on my bike are empty. I’m carrying three bottles of ice water in the insulated bag behind my seat. I learned as a boy at my maternal grandmother’s house to prize ice. Her house in the 1940s was sweltering in the summertime. When the iceman came and pulled back the burlap cover at the rear of his truck, I could see all those big blocks of ice, and the cold air would wash over me, raising goose bumps. With his pick, he would chisel off a slab of ice and put it in my hand. Then with his tongs he would carry a chunk into the house, pull back the top of the icebox and place that magic cube inside.

“I have some water. The cable broke. I have just one gear.” “I have some water.” He motions toward the back seat. “I’m okay.” I say. He pulls a short distance up the hill and turns around in a driveway and drives back the way he had come. Then I realize that he must have seen me struggling up the hill and come this way just to help me. And I wouldn’t let him.

The Bible says it’s more blessed to give than to receive, a clear recognition that there is a blessing in both. He was trying to give. He was looking for a blessing. If I received his offer, he would be blessed. But I did not. I denied his blessing. And in doing so, I denied myself the lesser blessing that comes by receiving.

I could excuse myself by saying I was hot and tired and not thinking clearly. But that is precisely why he made the offer. I failed us both.

If I had accepted his offer of water, I would have learned his name. His wife’s name. His children’s names. I would have learned who he was and why he was so kind. But I missed all that. He will never know how sorry I am. He may not be anxious to offer help to the next needy person he sees. I can never make it up to him. The best I can do is to remember my pledge never to say no to an offer of help.