August 17, 2016 – Sunny, 95 degrees
Miles Today: 30
Miles to Date: 14,653
States to Date: 41
Welcome to Georgia! I took an easy day and got my bike a 2,000 mile check-up at Andy Jordan’s Bike Shop in Augusta. Tom got a new pair of shiny red pedals after the factory standard plastic ones cracked and the shop was out of any subtle colors. Just another way for me to stand out on the road!
I rode along the Augusta canal system and then took a long afternoon break in McDonald’s. About 2:00 I realized the dining room was full of young people. Turned out to be interview afternoon. I
overheard the manager give a dozen or more personal interviews – the exact same questions to all applicants. A few candidates spoke right up, but most slumped through the ordeal. With so many applicants, shy folks won’t make the cut.
On my way to Hearth Table catfish buffet I came upon a confused elderly man in an electric wheelchair. He showed me his nametag: Sylvester Dawson, Richmond Summit House. I goggled his apartment, discovered it was more than a mile away, and asked him what he was doing out on such a hot day. “Getting lost.” So, I walked him sixteen blocks through Augusta’s eviscerated inner city. Many streets had no sidewalks, but his low-boy wheelchair navigated the blacktop better than concrete anyway. We made quite a pair. I let my bright shirt and sadd
lebags stand between Sylvester and what little traffic there was.
A husky back woman, his wife Linda, waited at the lobby of a questionably respectable apartment house on Augusta’s aging Broad Street. Despite his Alzheimer, I could tell the poor man was in for a good scold.
I finally got to my buffet, famished, just before a torrential downpour flooded the city and barely lowered the thermostat a notch. No worry. The catfish was excellent.
The Awkward Pose 