Two Wheels Good

June 3rd is World Bicycle Day and I spent a very pleasant portion of today on my bicycle. This is not an unusual thing for me, the bicycle has long been my preferred mode of transport. Even though I have built myself the solar-assisted three-wheeled pedal car that Christine and I call Daisy, I still prefer two wheels to three or four.

This past Monday I drove Daisy down to Amnicon Falls State Park which is about 17 miles south of Superior. Whether I'm driving Daisy or riding my bike, I stick to trails and low traffic roads and while I made it "there and back again" as the hobbits say, the trip did point out some of Daisy's limitations. The trip to the park involved a steep descent into the Amnicon River valley on a gravel section of County Road U. Daisy's motor is in her front wheel and tends to lose traction on a steep gravel climb, so for the return trip I opted for the flatter Tri-County Trail, which is an old rail route without any steep climbs. But the Tri-County trail is coarse gravel and potholes and Daisy lacks suspension. And, I realized, a three-wheeled vehicle has a three times greater chance of hitting a pothole compared to a bicycle, where the two wheels are in line. The bumpy section was only a few miles long, but it was a teeth-jarring experience.

Today I rode my bike to Amnicon Falls, exploring some alternate routes. There doesn't seem to be a good, bike or trike friendly route to Amnicon Falls that doesn't involve gravel, but today I was struck by how much better my bike handles the rough stuff. Even though my bike doesn't have mechanical suspension, by using the natural flex of my leg muscles and keeping my elbows bent, I am much more comfortable on the bike than I am on Daisy. Of course, I have biking reflexes honed over tens of thousands of miles of riding, including riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike route a couple of times on unsuspended bikes. I am just naturally at home on a bike.

I also prefer the fact that my bike is 100% me powered. Daisy's extra weight really means she needs the electric assist to be practical transportation and even though the solar plus human power is a neat trick, it's a trick that doesn't need to happen if I keep things simple and just bike.

Biking is also a better work out and I think using my muscles is a good thing. My friend Andy Goldfine has convinced me that the act of balancing a two-wheeled vehicle engages the mind in a way that doesn't happen when we are piloting three or four wheeled machines and I think that balance is an important thing. One more advantage of the bike.

Christopher Morley wrote that "The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets." I agree with that sentiment.

I also think Ernest Hemingway got to the heart of the key difference between a bike and a motor car when he wrote "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

Christine and I will still be driving Daisy to church on Sundays and she will be in Superior's 4th of July Parade and Car Show, but for most of my daily trips my little green bike is still the best machine for the job.

A Simple Saturday

Two weeks ago at the Barker's Island Farmer's Market I bought a packet of really good biscotti which, of course, I promptly ate because it was really good. I went back last week and the Biscotti Lady did not have any biscotti. I politely expressed my disappointment and bought some consolation mini chocolate chip muffins from her which were good, but not as wonderful as the biscotti. She assured me that she would have biscotti this week.

So today, after Christine and I had our usual delicious Saturday breakfast at KD's, I hopped on my bike and headed over to Barker's Island where I got distracted for a bit taking pictures of geese and a Eastern Kingbird and by the time I got to the Biscotti Lady she had sold all her biscotti except for the last packet which she had saved for me. And she says she will be sure to have more next week. I also wound up getting some pretty darn good peanut butter cookies from another vendor at the market. I am running the risk that the cookies might also become a weekly purchase.

Being retired there is very little that I have to do on any given day, so I get to fill the day doing the things I want to do. So I usually spend a chunk of the day reading and a bit more wandering around on foot or by bike taking pictures. On Saturdays I also like to check out rummage sales.

Today I had good rummage sale luck in not spending money. I always win at rummage sales, I either feel smart that I didn't buy junk I don't need, or delighted that I found some bargain. Today I found a lot of things that were easy to pass by and I only spent two dollars for three movies that are the kind of entertainment I like. Nobody gets revenge quite like Vincent Price and nobody smashes stuff quite like Godzilla.

When I stopped by one garage sale, I saw a deer bound across the yard and it paused and looked back at me long enough for me to get a nice photograph with my Sony. Today turned out to be a good day for photography, I got a nice shot of a Blue Jay at our back yard pond early this morning and I also got a nice shot of Jim Kari's little Studebaker Museum. Jim's family have been car dealers in Superior since the 1930s and Jim, who I think is a about 80 years old and retired, has restored an old gas station in Billings Park to a single car museum. The car is the first Studebaker sold in Superior and Jim has it restored to mint condition. At a later date, I'll get some pictures of the car. The little gas station is filled with Studebaker memorabilia.

As I have gotten older I've realized that life doesn't have to be some big spectacular thing and the things I get the most satisfaction from are little things like a good breakfast, a good conversation, or a friendly smile. Sometimes it's a Blue Jay at the back yard pond and other times it's some darn good biscotti. Every damn day there are thousands of delightful things happening and I feed lucky and blessed that I've got the time to notice them. 

Saturday with Books and Reptiles

Saturday afternoon Christine and I had a double adventure at the old Post Office building here in Superior. While we have a relatively modern Post Office building here in town that does the usual Post Office things, the big old marble Post Office building on Tower Avenue has been repurposed as an entrepreneurial incubator that houses several very cool businesses.

Foxes & Fireflies is a wonderful independent bookstore that occupies the space that had been the lobby of the old Post Office and Christine and I tend to stop by there at least twice a month to browse and/or buy books. The have both new and used books and they will buy used books in good condition. Despite selling some books to Foxes & Fireflies and donating various books to our public library and the various Little Free Libraries around town, I tend to accumulate far more books than I pass on (as is true in many things, Christine is better balanced in this respect) and our little bungalow is currently over-booked and under-shelved.

A couple of times a year, Foxes & Fireflies hold a book swap and yesterday was a book swap day so I grabbed five good books that I either knew I'd never re-read or get around to reading and Christine and I headed off to the swap. Christine had recently donated a bunch of books to the library, so she has a clear conscience and less than overflowing shelves. My shelves and piles still need a lot of work.

The way the swap works is quite cool. Each of my five books was rated as a good swap candidate and I was given 5 small fox trinkets. Each little fox could be redeemed for another swap book or used for a 10% discount on a new or used book from Foxes & Fireflies. I got three swap books with my little foxes, used one for a 10% discount on a book that caught my eye in Foxes & Fireflies used fantasy section and I saved one for for later. The little foxes don't expire, I can redeem it at a later swap or use it for a future 10% off purchase.

So I came to the store with 5 books and left with 4. I guess that's progress, I have fewer volumes, but the fantasy book, ORDINARY MONSTERS by J. M. Miro, is a big book, so I didn't gain any shelf space.

After my successful swapping, Christine and I headed to the basement of the old Post Office to check out Sarah's Serpentarium. Sarah Glesner is a reptile enthusiast and educator (she does the READ TO A REPTILE program at various libraries) and now she has opened a shop that is part pet reptile supply store and part reptile sanctuary. Christine and I had a great time there getting to know the various creatures.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN by Clyde Edgerton

The fellow who calls himself Preston Clearwater is a charming liar and a thief. In North Carolina in 1950, Clearwater's racket is stealing cars and he could use some help. When he picks up a 20 year old hitchhiking Bible salesman named Henry Dampier, Clearwater spins a tale of working undercover for the FBI to break up a multi-state car theft ring and recruits Henry as his assistant. Henry buys the lie, thinking perhaps God's plan for him involves a dual life as a Bible salesman and a G-man.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN by Clyde Edgerton starts with these two characters and that delightful premise to spin a tale that is not just a page turning adventure, it is one of the best depictions I've read of the dual nature of faith and doubt. Clearwater has faith only in his own cunning and the belief that the world consists only of winners and losers. Henry, who was raised in Baptist certainty but has begun to read the Bibles that he sells, has a bit of faith and many questions and doubts. That book of Genesis doesn't exactly tell a consistent story...

After establishing the action in 1950, Edgerton turns his tale back to the 1930s and 1940s, painting a vivid portrait for the reader of Henry's life before his inadvertent life of crime. Edgerton wisely paces the book, pivoting back and forth a couple of times, calling out these sections Exodus and Genesis before wrapping things up with a very satisfying Revelation.

Edgerton's book is more than just the story of Clearwater and Henry, it is filled with other folks and little tales told along the way. It is by turns funny and horrifying. And there is a love story as well, Henry falls hard for a woman named Marleen.

Here's a little bit from page 130:

Henry walked to the bank of the river, sat on the wall. It was not the river it had been yesterday. It was a new river in a new world. His new thoughts and feelings spilled, stumbled, tumbled over each other. He wanted to take Marleen to McGarren Island, to the mountains, show her things. He remembered the old man, the fiddle player, at Indian Springs, up in the mountains, sitting by the spring every day for an hour, playing songs, talking to people who came for water. He'd said the two big invisible life ingredients were hope and fear, and that people took doses of hope from the springs in their jars and jugs and sheepskins. That was when Henry had first arrived up there to sell Bibles, and the fiddler told him about the history of the springs -- the little boy who found it and realized the next day that his sore throat was cured by the water, about all the other people cured. He remembered that the fiddle player said he didn't believe in the water but he believed in the hope that it made. He said that fear was hope's brother, that both could do bad and good things to people, just like water and liquor. He'd said water could rot wood and revive plants, and that liquor could rot marriages and revive storytelling. He wore a hat with sweat stains, and his fiddle had a .22 bullet hole in it. Sleeping on a cot in the tool shed behind the Indian Springs Hotel was when Henry got cold and realized he'd come to the mountains too early in the spring, and on leaving, met Clearwater. If he hadn't met Clearwater, he realized, he wouldn't have met Marleen.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN does what good fiction does, it tells a made up story, a lie, that somehow in the end says something true that the reader remembers. I think anyone, Christian, Atheist, Jew, Hindu or whatever, anyone who has questions about life, faith, coincidence or higher meaning, will find value in this novel. And if not, at least it's a good story, well-told.

The Bear Creek Trail

This past Wednesday I rode my bike out to Wisconsin Point via the Osaugie Trail and the Bear Creek Trail. The Bear Creek Trail is also known by the name given this route by the Ojibwe people, Makwa Ziibiins Miikana, and even though I've convinced my spell checker to accept that, my fingers and brain are going to stick to calling it the Bear Creek Trail for the remainder of this report.

While I am always awed by the beauty of the land, water, plants, and animals every time I venture out into these woods, something else that strikes me as quite wonderful is how people have been inspired to not mess this place up. Wisconsin Point is largely unspoiled and undeveloped public land with a single paved road running its length and a few parking lots where people can get out of their cars and enjoy the land and the views. There is a picturesque lighthouse at the end of the point and beaches that are good places to find surf-polished agates.

The Bear Creek Trail, which lets non-motorized folks reach the point, is a 2.2 mile meandering path through the woods. It took a decade of planning and several years of work to make this tiny old native trail into a meter wide accessible but environmentally considerate trail. Over forty bridges and boardwalks span the creeks and marshes and the trail is now enjoyed by hikers, dog walkers, and bicyclists. This is not trail built for speed, but for contemplation. At various points a bench and a beautiful view encourage one to stop, sit, and wonder.

I think it is important and essential to our survival that we keep conscious of how our actions impact the world. Enough footsteps become a path and our paths through the world do change the world, for better or worse. I don't think progress is a bad thing, I'm thankful for the humans who mapped and built the trails I'm riding on. But I also think we must be aware of the direction in which we are heading and not allow ourselves to be blinded by speed in our haste to get somewhere else. We manage to screw a lot of things up and do some things right. I'm glad there are still places where I can stop, sit on a bench, look at the trees, listen to the birds, and think about the ways I'm making my way in the world. 

The Poplar Wetland Basin

On my bike ride this morning, I stopped by the Poplar Wetland Basin. This little bit of land, about the size of two city blocks, is a neatly engineered bit of water routing. Some of the rain runoff from the city streets is channelled into this area instead of dumping directly into Lake Superior. The marshland serves as a giant filter. As the water slows here, cattails and other plants break down some of the salt and petroleum pollution and a lot of particulates sink to the bottom of the ponds. Before the city was here, much of the land was marsh and the Poplar Wetland Basin is a restoration of some of that original marshland. Understanding how the world worked before we decided to pave the planet can, if we're smart, show us how to lessen our impacts on the place and maybe undo or at least lessen some of the damage we've done.

One little wetland isn't the whole solution, of course, but it is a good example of local stewardship in action. The blackbirds, ducks, and geese seem to happy to call this bit of wetland home.

A Moment of Zen

Sometimes a Zen master will whack a pupil with a stick to bring their awareness into the present moment. We, and when I say "we" of course I mean "me", are often living in our own heads, thinking of the future or the past. We actively imagine something else or somewhere else, ignoring what is right in front us.

I try as much as possible to get out into the world beyond my own brain, to feel the sun, wind, or rain on my skin, to hear the birds and smell the trees and still I get distracted. But the world is full of Zen masters.

I was intent on my camera, walking with my eyes and lens zoomed in on a distant goose, when a SLAP! brought me into the moment just a few feet away. A beaver I'd damn near stepped on jumped into the water, smacking his tail as he dove. He then surfaced and circled back. "What part of 'be here now' don't you understand?" he seemed to be saying. Of course I was already regretting the great shot I'd missed as I took a couple of mediocre shots of my damp teacher. I still have so damn much to learn. It's a good thing the world is filled with so many teachers.