Carol Miller to the Rescue November 13

Carol Miller to the Rescue November 13

The phone rings. “Ed, this is Carol Miller. I read the story in the Sun. It said you hoped to raise$110,000, and you’ve raised only $16,000. I want to help. Would Sunday, November 23 be a good time for our church to have a celebration dinner to raise money for you?” “Wow! Thank you, Carol. That would be a fine day.”

I’m addicted to bold and audacious projects. Even as I’m doing one, I’m dreaming of others. I don’t really know why. I can never adequately explain myself to my wife. But this one thing I do know. While I’m attempting something grand, like riding 10,000 miles or raising $110,000, I live in a state of great expectations. I expect every time the phone rings, the mail comes or an email arrives to be awed and humbled by the message that comes.

I want to laugh and cry all at the same time when I hang up the phone and explain to Bobbie what Carol has just said. “Carol asked if we could meet her at nine o’clock in the morning at Hy-Vee, so we can make plans.” I say to Bobbie

The three of us are members of Second Baptist Church. Carol took her idea to the church staff and they approved it. Now we need to find ways to get the word around. With only 10 days from now until the 23^rd, we must work fast and smart. Carol hopes 400 people will come to the chili dinner she’s planning. Each will pay $10.00 for their meal. We will conduct a silent auction of donated items. And all the money will go to my two causes: Multiple Sclerosis and HateBusters.

A Mack Truck on My Tail Miles 9630-9660 November 14

The most direct route from my house to the Fork N’Spoon is just at two miles, not a sufficient distance to stoke a fierce hunger and put me in the perfect state to do justice to good food. So up the hill from my house I turn left, toward Independence, rather than right, toward Liberty, and the Fork N’Spoon. I cross 291 over to Liberty Landing Road out to Old 210 to EE and over to H, at Liberty Hills Country Club. A left turn toward Liberty to Spring Street and onto the Jewell campus. I turn right off Bowles Drive to climb the steep hill up behind Greene Hall. And at the top swing right and pass in front of Pillsbury Music Building.

Many times over many years I’ve climbed this hill. But today as I approach it from the Mabee Center, a giant Mack Truck pulling a long trailer approaches from the Mill Street entrance. We arrive at the base of the hill at the same moment and face each other across the width of the street. I have a right turn up the hill. The truck has a left. I go first.

Up a steep hill with a Mack Truck on my tail is an adrenaline rush. I kid you not. As we crest the hill and both turn right, the truck pulls around me. We both then go left behind the chapel, and I see in big, black letters the words BANTA FOODS on the back of the truck. As it comes just past Yates College Union, the truck stops. So do I. Well in back of the truck. From having been here on similar occasions before, I know the truck is preparing to back up into the unloading dock for the cafeteria. I watch in awe as the driver backs that monster truck with ballet grace into a space big enough to comfortably accommodate a compact car. When he has finished, I go to him. “I appreciate work well done. That was a masterful job,” I say to the driver. “Thanks,” he says. “I’ve done it a time or two.”

Owner Jim Forney greets me as I enter the Fork N’Spoon. The canister bank I left here weeks ago is full. He hands it to me. He agrees to donate two complimentary dinners for our silent auction. When I go to pay my check, Jim says, “Let me get this. And you put what it would have cost in that canister.”

Chris Todd at By the Book donates a $20.00 gift certificate for our silent auction. I pick up his canister bank. Mark Midkiff is busy in the kitchen when I stop by the Hardware Café. I leave an invitation to our chili dinner and promise to call. Mike and Linda Hendershot at Pandolfi’s Deli donate dinner for two. Corbin Theatre donates two tickets for the Christmas Carole.

Does anyone ever realize life as they live it, every single minute? This was Emily’s question in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. With friends like these, I come mighty close.

Our Third Saturday Miles 9660-9685 November 15

Six the first Saturday. Eight the second. This Saturday ten. We rendezvous at the appointed early morning hour in front of Biscari Brothers Bicycles. We began our two previous rides here. Today we drive our cars to the Blue Light Station at the intersection of I-35 and Highway 69, giving us easy access to open country on Plattsburg Road.

A series of undulating hills and little traffic await us on Plattsburg Road. With several gentle curves and hills for the first few miles, Plattsburg sweeps to the right and 200 yards later makes a more abrupt leftward sweep, passing a while later over 92 Highway. Some earlier bike rider has chalked a message in the road just ahead of the intersection with Highway 92: DANGER.

Long before we come to the intersection, the ten of us are strung out along the road. Rich Groves and I are in our customary place at the back of the pack. Richard Mark holds up and waits for us a couple of times.

Mt Gilead Church and School functioned as their names indicate a century ago. Now they are historic sites, visited now and then by school children studying the old days. As we pass them off the road to our left, we notice markings in the road of another bike ride: 25, 50, 62, 100, indicating the four mileage options available on that ride. Just over the next little hill, Plattsburg Road T’s, and we must turn either to the left, as we will next week when Plattsburg is our destination, or to the right, as we do today. A mile or so of rather abrupt hills brings us to Highway 33, about a mile north of Kearney. We turn right. Toward Kearney. And breakfast at Sarah’s Table

Betty pulls three tables together so the 10 of us can sit together. Michael Calabria, Rodger Suchman, Rich Groves, Richard Mark, Seth McMenemy , Steve Hanson, Kevin Brasfield, Keith Brandt, Scott Reiter and me. I’ve talked so much about the biscuits and gravy that everyone expects me to order that. I do. So does Rich. We also split a short stack. Blueberry pancakes, eggs prepared in various ways, toast, bacon and other breakfast staples Betty brings to our table. Janis has been busy in the kitchen preparing our breakfast. Before we leave, I step to the kitchen window to thank her.

Rich and I over the years have discovered several good ways to get by bike from Liberty to Kearney. We decide this morning to lead our crew back through Kearney neighborhoods to the bike trail. Kearney has grown like gangbusters lately and had the foresight to lay out a four-mile loop trail for bicycles and walkers. We ride about a mile of the trail. Opposite the new Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we leave the trail and cross a railroad track to turn left onto Petty Road.

Over hills and around curves for a couple of miles we come to the intersection with 128^th Street. A right turn brings us over I-35. The road bends left and becomes Vines. The name changes several more times as we round curves, but the next intersection is with Plattsburg Road. A left turn brings us back past Prairie Home Baptist Church on our left and the under-construction Private Gardens up-scale subdivision opposite the church on our right.

Some of us have long since shed some of the layers of clothes we donned early this morning when rain seemed imminent. That threat quickly disappeared and the temperature climbed, leaving us a little too warm. We had kidded Keith earlier for wearing shorts and a light windbreaker. Now I’m thinking he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

By 11 o’clock we are all back at the Blue Light Station and making plans for next Saturday. Rodger will be in Williamsburg, Virginia with his family for Thanksgiving. Scott will be in Los Angeles with his. “Thank all of you for coming today. Please come next week if you can. I would love to see you,” I say. Then we are into our cars and gone in all directions.