Man of LaMancha
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- Camelot-Brigadoon Miles 6880-6930 August 25
- Drought Miles 6930-7030 August 27
Peckerwood August 23rdBack at the traffic light in front of Pour Boy’s Conoco a car had passed me. The horn sounded. A fist shot from the passenger side. And a loud word I couldn’t make out. Now in the parking lot behind the new McDonald’s, I’ve just left my car and am running to my bike shop. I just called, and Dave has replaced my blown tire. It’s already a little past Biscari Brothers 4PM closing time. A car pulls up behind me. “Sir, what does your license plate mean?” I turn. It’s the same car. I run to the driver’s window and kneel beside the car, my hands resting on the open window. “My license plate is H8BSTR. Stands for HateBusters. It means we help people who have been hurt because someone hates them.” “Hate Crimes?” He asks. All crimes are hate crimes.” The large man sitting in the passenger’s seat is speaking. He raises his left arm so I can read the tattoo in large letters on his forearm, running from elbow to wrist. PECKERWOOD. “What does your sign mean?” I ask “It means I’m a skin head. It means I fight. Why don’t you go live on 23rd street? A bunch of niggers beat up my uncle down there You go live with them. You nigger lover..” “I’m sorry,” I say. “My name is Ed Chasteen. What’s your name?” I stick out my hand to shake his. “I won’t shake your hand.” He says. “Get your hands off my car. I fight.” “I’m sorry, my friend. We don’t have to fight. I wish you well. If you’re ever in trouble, I’ll help you” A woman is driving. But my attention is on the man. He has close-cropped black hair and a trim mustache. He’s wearing a tank top. He doesn’t give me his name. I feel great sorrow that he is angry with the world. I feel bad to think what lies in store for him and those whose lives he touches. Camelot-Brigadoon Miles 6880-6930 August 25As I approach Liberty Hills Country club on my way to Excelsior Springs along H Highway and glance off to the southeast across rolling pasturelands, all the world’s problems and all my own personal cares do not prevent a smile and a spontaneous WOW! The morning mist that still lingers softens everything. The jagged line of trees on the horizon seems to wall off this little piece of God’s good earth and give it all a Camelot-Brigadoon ambiance. I do not stop. The moment is made more precious by two rules I set myself years ago: never take a camera; never stop. Pictures in my mind I prefer to those in a box somewhere in a closet. And knowing I cannot stop primes my mind instantly to take it all in. I have this sense that should I stop, I might miss something down the road, something that depends on my moving steadily toward it. Where H bends left just past the water tower, I go straight ahead onto 100th Street and come soon to Queen of Angels Monastery off in a field to my right. Highway Department trucks are everywhere about this morning and signs are up announcing ROAD WORK. A left turn down the hill from the Monastery brings me to 102nd Street and a bend to the right over to JJ Highway. I turn left and make my way up and down over hills until I come to a last long downhill. I cannot quite muster the carefree abandon with which I’ve hurtled down this hill in the past. I keep seeing Ron and Helen on their tandem last week in Iowa. Their front tire blew as they rushed down a hill, spilling them across the road and across gravel that put them in bandages and in pain. But I let ‘er rip. The adrenaline rush that comes is all the greater. It hurts to watch those trapeze daredevils who work without a net. But knowing they are there draws me to the circus, the way these hills draw me to my bike. Drought Miles 6930-7030 August 27A cowboy on an ATV, rounding up cows to get them to breakfast. The north side of H Highway is home to Liberty Hill Country Club and nice homes. The south side is home to cows and ponds and rolling pasture. Rain came last night. Not much. And not in time for the parched corn. The two-month drought caused the governor to declare 39 counties as disaster areas. But the rain has cooled the morning air. Maybe the string of 100 degree days will end today. Catherine is in the kitchen at Catricks this morning when I stop to deliver her gift. Rick isn’t here, so I leave both copies of the book with Catherine. Just yesterday I mailed a copy to each rider who rode in Ed’s Elite 100. Now I’m delivering a copy to all those who helped with the ride. I have included their names in the book and want each of them to have a copy so they will know how much I appreciate all they did. Catherine and Rick furnished sack lunches for riders .”Let us know how we can help next year,” Catherine says. Goats graze in the fields to either side of M Highway on the eastern edge of Vibbard. They pay me little notice, unlike the cattle that sometime turn and run as I ride by. What promised in May and June to be one of the best corn crops ever has by the end of August burned to a crisp. It stands brown and brittle in thirsty fields of cracked earth as stark testimony to the vagaries of nature and the fortitude of farmers who plant without ceasing in the face of continually capricious circumstance. Sypliss rolling the stone always uphill must have been an early ancestor of these who now dare nature to do its worst. And when it does, these anonymous optimists by the tens of thousands come back for more. They do not loose because they never recognize defeat. This farmer decided to cut his loses. Coming out of Richmond on T Highway, I spot a field of corn stubble off to my left, the first I’ve seen this season. A few miles farther, just past Fleming, I see it again. Not just a few acres this time. Hundreds! Stretching far off to the tree line in the distance, the corn here looked like it could feed the world. That was in early summer. Now as August winds down it has all been scorched by relentless sun and hot dry winds. I can imagine the grim satisfaction that farmer took as he cut, thinking to himself that these stalks would no longer stand sentinel to the disaster that took place here.
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