The Awkward Pose

November 18, 2016 – Cloudy, 55 degrees

Miles Today: 7

Miles to Date: 19,060

States to Date: 47

Bentonville Arkansas is the 21st century company town, home of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation. The numbers are staggering. More than 2.4 million ‘associates’ work at Wal-Mart: only China’s red army surpasses its workforce. The company has over 11,000 locations worldwide. Over 100 million Americans shop at 4600 Wal-Mart stores in our country, choosing from more than a million items for sale. If Wal-Mart were a nation, it’s GDP would rank 28^th in the world.

All of that is run out of a town that, twenty years ago, had less than 10,000 people. No more. Now, Bentonville has 40,000 people, suburban sprawl and traffic. Neighboring Rogers is even larger. Northwest Arkansas is now referred to as a single region, the megalopolis of the Ozarks.

Three themes stream through my mind on my day in Bentonville, touring the Wal-Mart Museum, eating an undistinguished but low-priced lunch at a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, reading Sam Walton’s Entrepreneur’s Creed – straight out of Ayn Rand – in the food aisles, and meeting Wal-Mart people everywhere I go.

First, Bentonville mirrors perfectly the explosive growth of the last fifty years. Development crawls over the Arkansas hills without regard to terrain or ecology.

Second, the downtown core is beautifully preserved and lively. A few people commented on the irony that the company that destroyed so many downtowns has such a nice one. I don’t buy that. Sure the Walton’s have enough money to create whatever downtown they like. But they didn’t ruin the rest of them. We did. When we chose to shop at Wal-Mart. Sam Walton was a savvy guy in the right place at the right time. 1950’s America was keen to climb in its automobiles and leave its heritage behind. Every corporate and governmental program fueled the idea: Interstate highways, zoning, vertical integration, cheap gas. Sam did not create the economy-driven society.; he merely facilitated a nation quick to shed history, culture, and community in the quest for Every Day Low Prices.

Third, and most disconcerting to the architect in me, is how Wal-Mart’s low-cost mantra manifests the environment the company creates. Downtown is quaint, but the Wal-Mart ‘campus’ is a series of monochrome commercial strip buildings in a sea of parking partitioned into windowless offices and rudimentary workspaces. The message of Every Day Low Cost extends to the workplace. But we know these low cost workplaces, just like their low cost merchandise, have collateral costs that are not reckoned until tomorrow. It is not healthy for people to spend 25 to 30 percent of their lives, and most of their daylight hours, in an artificially controlled environment.

I appreciate that Wal-Mart does not have a grand corporate headquarters and I understand the message of prudence their facilities convey. People here highlight Wal-Mart’s increased focus on sustainability, healthier products, and mandating a $10 minimum hourly wage as demonstration of the company’s corporate responsibility. Where Wal-Mart goes, the rest of America follows. I hope they will extend that to providing healthier work places. I am sure their Bentonville employees would appreciate it, and because Wal-Mart establishes the defacto standard of corporate behavior throughout the world, it would lead to healthier work places for others as well.

November 16, 2016 – Sunny, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 84

Miles to Date: 19,053

States to Date: 47

Exciting weather today, on the precipice of change. Still warm, but the strong south winds pushed me north, a last blast of summer. Last night’s hosts lived deep in the country; I pedaled twenty miles of gravel, narrow pavement, and creek level bridges before I reached a numbered highway. The beautiful country compensated for the hard riding.

Fifty miles in I reached Siloam Springs, totally spent. A Eureka Pizza refueled my legs and I arrived in Bentonville by 3:30 p.m.

I spent a great evening in this bike-friendly town with a Wal-Mart Sustainability Manager. Dinner outdoors alongside the main bike path included wood fired pizza from Pedaler’s Pub and craft beer at the Bike Rack Brewing Company.

November 15, 2016 – Sunny, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 57

Miles to Date: 18,969

States to Date: 46

The excitement of the new President-elect, my Seattle vacation, and achieving a full year of cycling has eclipsed reporting on some of the best cycling of my trip. For three days I’ve enjoyed perfect Indian summer weather; cool mornings, warm afternoons, gentle breezes, and variegated foliage just past peak that laid a crisp carpet along the side of the road. The air is pungent and heavy, as if I’m cycling through miles of fresh laundered sheets billowing on the line.

I wear a baseball hat underneath my helmet to keep the sun off my forehead (sunscreen on your forehead sweats into your eyes and stings). Cycling is very hard on hats. I went through four before I found the perfect hat in Seattle last year – a durable camouflage model whose message complimented my spandex. I wore it for 12,000 miles, only to leave it behind when I returned to Seattle last week. I pedaled one day without a baseball hat while on the lookout for a suitable replacement, and got a wicked headache and sunburned brow as a result. I spotted a perfect replacement – a black McDonald’s visor – and inquired about buying one. Not available for purchase, but the manager gave me one. When I arrived at my host’s that night, he presented me with an official Surly cap “so you don’t have to wear that McDonald’s thing.” Within an hour I went from no hat to two. Such is the luck and life of a bicycle tourist.

November 15, 2016 – Sunny, 75 degrees

Miles Today: 76

Miles to Date: 18,912

States to Date: 46

One year on the road. A full 365 days of bicycling and meeting strangers and asking people ‘How will we live tomorrow?’ I still have six weeks or so left to complete my 48-state objective, but I am in the red zone of my journey. Despite my desire to have the experience and then decide what to do with it, conclusions are beginning to coalesce, patterns are beginning to emerge.

What have I learned over the past year?

I have learned that no matter how much a body does something, we can always get better. A year older and several broken bones later, I am a better cyclist: stronger, faster, more patient, more observant. Seven hundred plus blog posts later, I am also a better writer: clearer, quicker, more economical, more observant.

I have learned how to be a professional guest. I communicate with my hosts. I arrive on time, I don’t ask for anything yet accept what is offered. I clean up after myself. I leave on time. I leave a token of appreciation. I write a thank you. But mostly I listen. People everywhere are starving to be heard.

I have learned to be grateful for the benign majority and the generous minority. I don’t let the twenty or thirty motorists who’ve heckled or hit me detract from the million or more vehicles that have passed me with respectful distance. So many more have slowed down than have revved past. Similarly, I pass thousands of souls hunkered behind garages and security systems. I believe they yearn for fellowship but fear has paralyzed them into isolation. So I appreciate all the more the tiny number of trusting folks who invite this stranger into their home for conversation and connection.

I’ve learned how to ask for people’s time, be appreciative when it’s offered and not upset when I’m ignored.

A year on the road is more than a list of lessons learned; it’s a litany of new fellowship. I count friends in every port, and they have a safe haven should they ever come to Boston. I’ve celebrated births and birthdays, anniversaries and graduations, and, I’ve also shared tragedy

I detoured my route to stay with Juanita Campbell in Pecan Island Louisiana because her warmshowers profile highlighted ‘smokers and drinkers here’. Juanita fired up a giant crab boil. I helped feed her chickens and load a sofa on her pick-up. I slept on a too-short futon with a half dozen dogs underfoot. Afterwards, I sent her a note every time Southern Louisiana flooded, which made us regular correspondents. Juanita died last week. I don’t know if she died of high water or charred lungs, the cause doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was privileged to meet this feisty lady of the bayou. She will long rest easy on my mind as an integral piece of our nation’s mosaic.

And so I mark a year on the road with the bittersweet reality of life’s wondrous gift, a gift we embrace in our joys and savor in death.

November 14, 2016 – Sunny, 65 degrees

Miles Today: 59

Miles to Date: 18,836

States to Date: 46

Vacations are all well and good – the conference was enlightening, my niece was delightful, her three boys enchanting, and the rooms I fresh painted look good – but when you love your work like I do it’s great to be back at it, pedaling again.

Turns out it was a good week to be stationary since everyone in our great land suffered a bout of disequilibrium. Who is more confused? The confident Democrats who thought Hillary was a shoo-in, the mainstream Republicans who now bow to the standard bearer they abhorred, or the Trump supporters, who relished the prospect of belly-aching Clinton crimes and rigged elections for the next four years. Now actually have to govern. There will be no fun in that.

To my mind, the only clear winner is Melania; the White House’s period rooms will set off her striking features more elegantly than her husband’s Modernist towers ever have, though I doubt she will get Michelle’s kitchen garden dirt under her nails, so that’s an instant loser. For the rest of us, the gains and deprivations will unfold with time.

Suddenly my continental meanderings take on new meaning, as if being so slow and close to the ground this entire election season empowers me to know what others missed. Tonight, In Perkins, I participated in a post-mortem dinner with a group of small town souls searching for the meaning in it all.

I did not predict Trump’s victory: no one did. But I am not surprised he won. In primary after primary we dismissed the man. In primary after primary he came out on top. Trump supporters distrust everyone and everything at the most elemental level. They’re covert operatives who provide misleading information to every arm of the political elite, and that includes pollsters. But when the curtain was drawn in the voting booth, millions of our citizens’ disgust with the Federal government trumped all other considerations.

One of my readers suggested I revise my route map to feature blue dots instead of red, in solidarity with the Democrats. My dots are not political affiliations. I am no more a Democrat than I am a Republican. I am an observer. I listen to what people say, I witness what they do, and I filter it through a sieve of human decency. My dots will remain red, my politics unaffiliated.

During the year I’ve been riding people argue we’ve suffered the most divisive election ever. I disagree. Reread John Adam’s letters to Abigail during the first presidential election ever and accept that electoral circus is a national pasttime. Rather, we have just completed an extended, exhaustive conversation about one man. Every one of us has measured ourselves against Donald Trump and determined whether he is a narcissistic buffoon or the elixir for federal indigestion. Every other player, including Hillary Clinton, has been peripheral. In the end more people voted for the woman who prepared to be President, but that doesn’t matter because The Donald concocted the winning electoral strategy.

Some people I’ve talked with call Trump a despot who, if elected, will terminate our democracy; others predict nothing will change. President Donald Trump will have a larger say in tomorrow than most of us. But he does not have the final say, unless we abdicate tomorrow to him.

November 2, 2016 – Sunny, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 21

Miles to Date: 18,777

States to Date: 46

 Bicycle maintenance day! Al’s Bicycles in OKC did a great job sprucing up Tom for his 2,000-mile check-up. While he was getting a new chain, cassette and tune-up, my high school friend Marion Paden took me to lunch – three hours food and talk to catch up on more than thirty years.

The short but harrowing ride to my nephew’s house included a left turn from the traffic lane of NW 122^nd Street at Hidden Creek with rush hour cars racing toward me over the blind hill. Thanks to the considerate pick-up driver who stopped to left me escape that busy road.

Jeff and Joey and I enjoyed a great evening of historic baseball as the Cubs shook off 108 years of coming up short. Jeff’s girlfriend Lana captured the identical, drab shirts and shorts all three of us wore. Fallon boys are not fashion setters.

Tom settled into the garage for an extended break. Tomorrow I fly to Seattle to deliver the keynote address at the NW Sustainability Conference and spend a week with my niece and her boys while her husband is deployed in the Middle East.

I will begin the last leg of my cycling journey on Monday November 14 and look forward to sharing more Trip Logs then.

November 1, 2016 – Sunny, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 20

Miles to Date: 18,756

States to Date: 46

There are two truths I run up against everywhere I go: our public education system is failing; our public library system is thriving.

To paraphrase Dallas Police Chief’s David Brown’s remarks after five Dallas police officers were killed, ‘we ask to much of our public schools.’ We expect our schools to reflect the America we hope for – a place where our children are educated and fed and socialized and integrated; while in reality our culture devalues, often denigrates, education, tolerates hunger, fosters inequality, and remains largely segregated. People argue about funding and teacher salaries, unions and charters. But ultimately our schools are failing because they are not supported by the society they are supposed to prepare our children to enter. Teachers feel beaten down and unappreciated, parents feel shortchanged; taxpayers are unwilling to pour money into a floundering system.

Our public libraries, on the other hand, are the most well utilized democratic institutions in our country. Libraries allow everyone, regardless of race or income, to access the information and technology necessary to be an informed citizen. I’ve visited hundreds of libraries across the country and am amazed at how well they’re used. Patrons respect these facilities. Librarians are consistently positive and helpful. I’ve observed librarians help non-English speaking adults navigate the Internet, assist transients in obtaining identification, and coordinate a line of homeless through the men’s room with patience and respect. They are not just reference sources; they are our new social workers.

I spent most of the day at the new Patience Latting Library in Northwest Oklahoma City. When I arrived on a weekday morning most of the computer terminals were already occupied and I landed the last available study carrel. The 35,000 square foot, LEED building that opened in 2012 buzzed with purposeful inquiry. It’s bright interior is rich in Oklahoma imagery: skylights that evoke oil derricks on the roof top identify key elements of the open plan interior.

The $8.2 million facility cost is less than one quarter of this year’s Oklahoma City Schools capital budget. The schools don’t seem to get comparable bang for their buck.

Schools are not a high priority in this state; Oklahoma ranks 46^th in per pupil public school expenditure and people throughout the state report that teachers move for higher salaries. An effort to curb this trend, ballot initiative 779, would boost sales tax to increase teacher pay. Right now, it is polling favorably.

Libraries are not schools. They are elective rather than mandatory use facilities. But I can’t help thinking what make libraries so wonderful – that they serve across generations, that they invite independent inquiry, that they are staffed by people who support the patron’s interests rather than deliver prescribed content – are ingredients we ought to stir into our efforts to revitalize our schools.

October 31, 2016 – Sunny, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 24

Miles to Date: 18,736

States to Date: 46

I indulge in local culinary delights of the highbrow and fast food variety wherever I go. Today an old high school friend invited me to her favorite sushi place for lunch. Delicious.

Unfortunately, sushi hardly fills a guy pedaling against the Oklahoma wind, so I bookended lunch with snacks from Oklahoma’s premier fast food emporiums: a mid-morning pair of Sonic Drive-in 50 cent Halloween corndogs and a Braum’s double dip cone in the afternoon. Warning label: my diet is hazardous to the health of anyone burning less than 4,000 calories a day.

October 30, 2016 – Overcast, 75 degrees

Miles Today: 48

Miles to Date: 18,712

States to Date: 46

Oklahoma City went from 0 to 10,000 citizens in a day: April 29, 1889. For the next hundred years, OKC continued to be a boom and bust place: many credit the 1980’s recession with the failure of Oklahoma City’s Penn Square Bank.

In the 1990’s, while the city was still recovering from the fallout of Penn Square, Mayor Ron Norick and the Chamber of Commerce proposed MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects), an innovative way to fund specific capital projects bundled together for broad appeal through a one percent city sales tax, overseen by a citizen’s committee rather than a government agency, and built with cash derived from the tax rather than bonds. Over the past twenty years, voters have passed three specific MAPS initiatives. In the process, OKC has boosted its urban core, diversified its economy, and become nationally known as both a progressive and easy place to do business.

I cycled through downtown on a lazy Sunday afternoon, visiting the Boathouse District (OKC created a permanent basin off the North Canadian River to become the center of US Olympic Rowing), and Bricktown, a San Antonio-like canal and warehouse district.

OKC’s initiatives are not limited to downtown. A few blocks from where I lived in the 1980’s an abandoned theater and grocery store became home to the Lyric Theater. The city throttled traffic and expanded the sidewalks. The Plaza District became the hot place to be in a city that, for many years, had few cohesive places at all.