Ring Those Bells Miles 9970-9985 November 25

Ring Those Bells Miles 9970-9985 November 25

Of the four sites in Liberty where we ring our bells, Wal-Mart is my favorite. At Hy-Vee, Price Chopper and K-Mart, we can ring inside, out of the cold. Not so at Wal-Mart. No matter the weather, we are not allowed inside. Maybe it reminds me of being on my bike, but I prefer outside to inside. I like to shiver and stamp my feet and feel my toes and fingers tingle.

And I’m convinced we take in more money. I think the folks who see us shivering feel sorry for us and give us more. They drop more coins and stuff bigger bills into our kettles. We have to call more often for another kettle because the one we have is full.

I love standing in the cold, wearing the warmest clothes I can find. When I don that red Salvation Army apron and take up that bell and begin to call greetings to everyone who enters and departs, I have become resident for my two-hour tour of duty of the world as it should be, a place where we all speak kind words to one another and we all have generous hearts. Last year at all locations we took in $59,000.00, all of which stays right here in Liberty to fund InAsMuch Ministry and its work to care for the needy among us.

Loreta Moore and her helpers begin early every fall to line up hundreds of volunteer ringers. Though my wife, Bobbie, assists Loreta, I do not sign up for any of the slots. I tell them both to use me as a sub for any times they can’t fill and for those times when other volunteers suddenly can’t come to an assignment. Last year I rang for 40 hours. When Christmas Day came and it was all over, I felt sad.

Today I spend my first two hours this Christmas season in this frigid paradise. It’s not yet Thanksgiving. I don’t have it in me yet to call out “Merry Christmas.” I could say “Happy Thanksgiving.” And I do say it a few times. Mostly, through, I say “Hi, there, good to see you,” to those entering the store. To those departing, I call out, “You be careful now.” I make eye contact with every person. And let no one by without a greeting.

The thing I want most for Christmas is to ring those bells.

Our Fifth Saturday Miles 9985-10,000 November 29

Free at last! I made it. No more counting miles. No more promises to do so. I ride hereafter with no record of distance. Only of people and places. Greater Liberty now is bigger than the distance I can ride in a day on my bike. Bobbie and I are off to see the world. New Orleans, Orlando, Prague, Alaska, Moscow, Budapest, Warsaw. These appear in the road I see ahead. Who knows, though, what detours may come up along the way?

Before I give myself to thoughts of the year ahead, I must recount for you the events of this morning, the last five hours of my 1000 hours on my bicycle this year. I’m standing in front of Biscari Brothers Bicycles just after seven o’clock. I’m taping two signs to the window. One about HateBusters that Lara drew for me at our chili dinner last Sunday. The other I got from the MS Society. Sarah Cool comes to help.

Sarah graduated from William Jewell in 1987. She lives in Liberty and is a constant and dependable supporter. She and her sister, Gretchen, came with their small children and their mother to our chili dinner. They contributed valuable items to our silent auction. Sarah has put up signs today for our ride around the Jewell quad and our town square. She will drive in her car to breakfast with us at Mill Inn.

Richard Mark is here with Sean, his son. Sean will ride with his dad on their tandem. At 11 years of age, Sean is our youngest rider. At 68, I am the oldest. Richard is captain of our Together We Ride MS-150 team, 161 members strong we were for this year’s ride. We raised a ton of money for MS.

Charlie Hughes was in the first class I taught at William Jewell in the fall of 1965. Charlie has ridden with me many times over the years. He rode in our Ed’s Elite 100 on the Saturday after Memorial Day this year. He is here to ride today.

Rich Groves and John Anderson are here. Rich has made all the maps for our Saturday rides. He is my regular biking buddy on Saturday mornings throughout the year. John rode with me from Kansas City to St. Louis two years ago when we joined the Bike-Aid team from San Francisco on their way to Washington DC as they rode through Missouri. John is our HateBusters song leader at all of our Human Family Reunions.

Sandy Hamilton rode with us to Catrick’s on November 8. She is with us again today. She brought her bike, but she drives to and from Excelsior Springs instead. On the way over she transports Tom so he can take pictures of our ride.

Tom Strongman is here. He has brought his bike. Also his camera. He loves to ride. He also loves to take pictures. He rides to Mill Inn with Sandy, stopping several times to take our pictures. He rides back. Into the wind, it turns out.

Seth McMenemy is here, the only one of us who has come by bike. Seth lives just a few blocks away. Except for one Saturday when he helped his grandmother move, Seth has been here. “I have something to give you,” he says as we ride. Over breakfast at Mill Inn Seth gives me two checks.

Graham Houston is here. Graham is a Jewell alum and an avid bike rider. He rides hundreds of miles every year to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. He’s also a HateBusters supporter. This is the first of our November Saturday rides he has been able to make. But he has been a supporter of my year-long ride.

Steve Hanson is here. Steve lives out on Plattsburg Road a few miles from Liberty and has joined three of our Saturday rides.

Mike Winburn is here. Mike lives in Independence and is with us for the first time today.

Kevin Brasfield was not with us for our November 1^st ride, but he has been here for the next four. He samples ample portions of the rural ambrosia served up at our breakfast stops.

H Highway is a magnificent road to ride. For the first five miles out to Liberty Hills Country Club traffic sometimes is a minor distraction for a biker. With the weather too cold for golf, though, the road is almost deserted. Two or three cars pass us. None come for the last 10 miles to Mill Inn.

By the time we all arrive by bike and car there are three tables of us, 17 in all. Kelly McClelland and Jack Miles came together. Kelly was the very first contributor to my ride. He gave $1000.00 and issued the Greater Liberty Challenge, asking other business leaders and communities to match his gift. Jack Miles is Editor of the Liberty Sun. He wrote glowing editorials and front-page news stories about my ride. Stories more complimentary than even my mother would write.

Bob and Jean Watts drove here. They would have come on their tandem, as they did to Atlanta and Missoula when I rode across the country. But Bob is not fully back from his bout with cancer. Bob built the bike I rode across America, the bike I still ride. The bike I have as of today ridden 10,000 miles this year. Over 100,000 miles in the 18 years I’ve had it. Bob said the bike would stand up to a Mack Truck and climb a tree.

Bobbie has come to breakfast. She will drive me back to Liberty so I will be certain to be at the college by 11:30. Chances are I could make it back on time if I rode, but I’m so excited right here at the end that I’m afraid I can’t keep my mind on what I’m doing. And if I should have another of the many flats I’ve had this year, I could disrupt the plans we have for the final half-mile from the campus back to the bike shop.

Don Post is here. Don is one of my heroes. He used to ride a Harley before he was attacked by some degenerative monster that has him now in a wheelchair and makes everything an uphill battle. But Don is a full time volunteer for the MS Society and for a whole directory of other good causes. He jokes about his condition and takes life head on, asking no sympathy or special consideration.

Don rides sag for us this morning. He parks out front at the Mill Inn. The two side doors of his van open. Don maneuvers himself into his chair and rolls out the door on a platform. It lowers to the ground, and with levers he operates from his chair, Don makes the lift retract and the doors close. Then he rolls inside and to the table where Graham, Charlie, Rich and Bobbie sit. Over breakfast Bobbie signs Don up to ring bells for the Salvation Army at the Liberty Wal-Mart.

Our plan is to arrive at Mill Inn at 9:30. Thanks to a tailwind and an adrenaline rush caused by great expectations, the first of us come 45 minutes early. All are here by the appointed time. I introduce all our servers to everybody, and we all say hello in unison. Evelyn Cowsert, the owner of Mill Inn had been planning a trip to California for Thanksgiving. But she stayed here to welcome us and to make a contribution to our causes. More than an hour some of us linger

“We will rendezvous in front of the Music Building at 11:30,” I tell them at breakfast. Rich and Charlie decide to ride back with Bobbie and me. When we get back to the Spring Street exit off H, we decide to park and wait for them to come. If they should pass this exit, they might not find their way to campus on time. This last half-hour has been carefully timed.

We assemble in front of the Music Building. We ride up onto the quad and ride once clock-wise around it. WAY TO GO, YOU MADE IT. WE’RE PROUD OF YOU. And other signs have been put up around the quad, this place I walked for 30 years as a member of the faculty. Then behind the chapel and past the president’s home to Jewell Street. We turn left and over one block to Franklin. A right turn takes us past Second Baptist Church, where last Sunday we had our chili dinner fund-raiser.

Then another two blocks to our town square and the traditional lap around it, a ceremonial ending to all my rides going years back. Today in shop windows on all sides of the square we spot bright yellow signs announcing in bold black letter—10,000 miles. Then one block past the square on Franklin to Rotary Park, where Kelly McClelland, President of Rotary, is waiting to congratulate us and Jack Miles is waiting to take our picture.

We ride past McDonald’s and across the parking lot in front of Sutherlands and Price Chopper and arrive back at Biscari Brothers precisely on time—HIGH NOON. Ever since I saw that 1950’s black and white western with Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper and Tex Ritter’s theme song, the dramatic image of HIGH NOON has never been far from my mind. For years on end when they were small and we were on one of our family summer sojourns by car and camper across America, my children heard me sing in my off-key monotone: “I do not know what fate awaits me. I only know I must be brave, or lie a coward, a craven coward, or lie a coward in my grave.”

A small crowd waits for us in front of the bike shop. Kay Julian, Executive Director of the MS Society of Mid-America, thanks me for the awareness my ride has brought to MS and for the money I’ve raised. Ray Gill accepted the Greater Liberty Challenge on behalf of the city of Richmond by contributing $1000.00. Ray is here. We are too many in number to fit inside the bike shop. The temperature has risen from the mid-twenties when we started to the mid-forties now. We brave the chill for my short speech.

“I rode the miles. I didn’t raise the money. So far $20,000 has come in. I was hoping for $110,000. My dream is that 110,000 people will mail a letter to Box 442, Liberty, MO 64069. Inside each letter will be a one-dollar bill. We will be written up in the Guinness Book of World Records as THE GREATEST NUMBER OF ONE-DOLLAR BILLS EVER MAILED TO A SINGLE POST OFFICE BOX. I will have reached my fund-raising goal and thousands of people will have participated in my grand adventure. The money we raise will help those who suffer physically from MS and those who suffer spiritually from hate. And together we will have found part of our purpose in being alive at this time in this place.

“I promised Bobbie that we would see the world in this coming year. I may not be here when all the letters come. But the MS Society will pick them up. And when mountains of mail come to my little post office box the media will notice. MS and HateBusters will become topics of conversation across the country. Their work will be supported.

“In Man of LaMancha, Don Quixote says, ‘Too much sanity may be madness, and the greatest madness of all may be to see the world as it is, and not as it should be.’ The world should be a place where we all know about and care about each other. That’s the world I want to live in. The world I want to lead others to.

“In the words of Tiny Tim in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, “God bless us everyone.”

A Ride in Retrospect

A 10 mile ride along the beach in the shadow of the Rose Bowl on January 1^st began my 10,000 mile Greater Liberty Bicycle Ride for Multiple Sclerosis and HateBusters. A 30-mile ride from Liberty to Excelsior Springs on November 29^th brought my ride to an end. I rode a few of the miles in California, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Iowa. Mostly, though, I rode to places I could pedal to and from in a day from my home.

Those who know me well are accustomed to my normal method of operation. An idea comes to me. Something big and bold and daring. Crazy, sometimes they say. And I plunge ahead with some vague idea of how it might all play out. But with no specific plans for the day-by-day operation. Somehow I carry with me the certain knowledge that everything will work out and amazing things will unfold if I just get up every morning and do what seems needed at that moment to move me further in the desired direction.

I didn’t plan for five small town cafes to become satellite centers where I would meet people and entertain ideas that never would have come to me in other places. It just happened. I didn’t even realize it had happened until I was nearing the end of my ride and looked back. Then I saw how central they had become. In the kind of unplanned but totally expected symmetry that seems somehow to mark my life, the month of November worked out to be the month I would finish. I was born in November. And this November had five Saturdays, making it possible to devote one Saturday to each café.

Fubbler’s Cove in Orrick on the 1^st. Catrick’s in Lawson on the 8^th. Sarah’s Table in Kearney on the 15^th. JJ’s in Plattsburg on the 22^nd. Mill Inn in Excelsior Springs on the 29^th. Most of my 10,000 miles I had ridden alone. Most everybody has more important things to do than spend hundreds of hours on a bicycle. But on these five November Saturdays I wanted to invite everyone to go with me to these good places. On our bikes or in our cars, I wanted us all to meet each other and share the excitement and the contentment I find here.

I make it a practice not to compare people or places. Each person and each place in my book is his or her or its own standard. I look for the goodness and genius in every person and place. On these five Saturdays I wanted my friends to come with me so they too could experience it. The order in which I chose for us to visit these five places has no meaning other than that we could not go to all at the same time.

I didn’t plan this or realize it had happened until my ride was finished and I looked back over the record I kept of my daily rides. The Mill Inn was the first of the five I visited this year, back on January 4. and it was the last one on November 29. Also the most frequent one. It’s the oldest of the five. And the closest to my home.

Jack Miles Sums It Up

10,000 Mile
Bicycle Odyssey Ends in Liberty
Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia
Editor, Liberty Sun-News

December 4, 2003


While dining on home-style pancakes topped by a sunny-side-up egg, a couple slices of bacon and a glass of milk, Dr. Ed Chasteen accepts early congratulations from friends at the Mill Inn, Excelsior Springs, Saturday.

Only a few miles remain on 68-year-old Chasteen’s 10,000-mile, yearlong quest to raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society and HateBusters, a group that combats religious and racial intolerance in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

In the small-town restaurant, beneath photographs of area sites and characters, including outlaw Frank James, Chasteen chats with Bob and Jean Watts at one of several tables occupied by a dozen friends who came along for the ride. Ed thanks Bob, a retired airline mechanic and bicycle shop owner, for creating the reinforced bike that has been ridden for the last 10,000 miles, and about 90,000 more over the past two decades.

“I put Swiss-made spokes in it — the best spokes in the world. They’re stainless steel. We put 48 spokes in per wheel, instead of 36, to make it a lot tougher wheel,” Bob says. “We increased the gear capacity, too. We put in a triple- instead of a dual-chain ring up front, because the triple gives you so much advantage for lower gears.”

Looking up from his pancakes, Ed attests to the bike’s durability, saying, “I’ve had it painted three times.”

An hour later, in Liberty, Chasteen and friends circle the quadrangle at William Jewell College, where Chasteen spent his career teaching. They then ride down the hill along Franklin Street, climb the slope to Liberty Square, circle the courthouse and Freedom Fountain, and pause at the bottom of Franklin to accept more early congratulations at Rotary Plaza.

Under a new American flag waving in a smart autumn breeze, Rotary President Kelly McClelland shakes Chasteen’s hand. During the early weeks of the ride, McClelland, an attorney and former Jewell student, donated $1,000 for the effort and issued the Liberty Challenge to encourage others to donate, too.

Scores of people throughout the year did donate, partly because they believe in the charities Chasteen supports, and partly because they believe in Chasteen, a retired professor who taught them to dream of the world as a better place, a 1996 Olympics torch bearer, an MS-sufferer who has refused to give into the disease, and the founder of HateBusters.

Among those who believe in Chasteen and his causes is Carol Miller, who organized a chili luncheon on his behalf last week at Second Baptist Church, Liberty. The event, including an auction, drew about 150 guests and raised more than $2,000.

Miller recalls that Chasteen once told her about how he felt after being diagnosed with MS in 1983. The disease erodes control over nerves and muscles, eyes and speech, and can kill victims. He had been told to avoid exercise and, in essence, to await the affects of the disease passively.

“When his diagnosis was originally confirmed, he just sat down in the corner of the garage and started crying. He said he then saw his son’s bicycle was in the corner and thought if he could not walk, then maybe he could ride the bike, and then he got on the bike,” Miller says.

In the 20 years since that time, Chasteen has done far more exercise than his doctor suggested, including riding the bicycle Bob made for him from Disney World on the East Coast to Disneyland on the West Coast in 1987.

“He went with no money,” Miller says. “He would go to a church, and the church would give him money, and he would ride to his next location.”

Upon arriving at Disneyland 5,126 miles and 105 days later, Chasteen rode as a dignitary in the parade and met Mickey Mouse.

“It is an amazing story,” Miller says. Now at the Rotary Plaza, as Chasteen buckles on his helmet to set out on the final mile to the finish line, McClelland jokes, “What’s the goal next year?”

Chasteen’s friends laugh, but only a little; they know their friend and his desire to help others. After the moment passes, they push off for Biscari Brothers, a bicycle shop on Missouri Route 291.

A few minutes later, pedaling and grinning in the noon sunlight, Chasteen raises his right hand in salute while his bicycle glides across the asphalt parking lot to the shop where a crowd of a couple of dozen supporters has gathered. Chasteen brakes to a stop, announcing, “It’s over!”

The ride raised more than $20,000 and, just as importantly, increased awareness about a debilitating disease, the crowd learns from Kay Julian, president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Mid-America Chapter. Later, Julian says privately she knows of no one else who has ever ridden so far for MS.

“Ed is a unique individual and that’s part of his charm,” Julian says. “He sets the bar high.”

Chasteen had hoped to raise $100,000 to combat MS and $10,000 for HateBusters. He does not sound disappointed about falling short after a grueling effort, only hopeful. He urges the friends gathered around him to e-mail their friends, asking each to send a dollar to finish the fund drive. He says he would like to get a truckload of envelopes, each containing a dollar.

“I’m as excited about getting the letters as the money,” he says.

Chasteen admits to the crowd that his goals are ambitious.

“I don’t now why I keep thinking of crazy ideas,” Chasteen says, but part of it may be that his favorite character is Don Quixote, who wished to see life as it could be rather than as it is.

Again the idea arises about what he plans for an encore. Chasteen says he is not sure what might come next, but if he were to say he would ride his bicycle to the moon, odds are he would do it.

“Life is a grand adventure,” he says.

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