I biked around Atchison for a bit, before leaving it. The bridge over the Missouri River to Atchison is named after Amelia Earhart, whose birthplace is here. It is the home of Benedictine College, “one of the top ten private colleges in the US,” the young woman at the Visitors’ Center told me, though a banner on its campus more modestly quoted US News’ rating as “One of American’s top colleges”. The light-colored brick buildings of the campus, like those throughout town fronted by large shade trees provide a sense of stability, serenity; perhaps the prayers of the abbey’s monks contribute to this sense as well. I considered seeing if I could stay in the abbey a couple of days but decided to continue on in my mobile hermitage.
After the hills of Missouri, the gradual slopes of Kansas were a welcome change, especially when the tailwind from the northeast pushed me along. For one stretch of seven minutes, I did not pedal once: the tailwind combining with the momentum of a long decline to push me over the next rise to the next decline.
I had planned to look for a camp site as soon as I passed the KS-NE border but a couple miles before it, I saw a barn thirty yards off the road with no house in sight. The drive into it was overrun with tall grass. The branch lying across the entrance-way seemed to say “No cars should enter here but bikers are welcome as long as they leave the place like they found it.” The barn’s center was long enough for a tractor and baler from the era when family-owned and run farms were the norm. On each side were small stalls and lofts still holding some hay baled long ago. The roof was still good and the beams along the central area still solid, allowing me to sling my hammock between them on the south end away from the wind.
In the near-sitting position that the hammock allows, flashlight resting on shoulder, I was reading Chang Rae Lee’s The Surrendered when I got a text: “Hey Tim! How’s Kansas? How’re your legs? Bill Rochester would be proud of you.” No name, but the reference to our high school coach who in a Phys Ed session on wrestling slammed me to the mat because I couldn’t remember the names of takedowns, indicated it was from my good friend Kent. He hadn’t known about my trip until calling the house and talking with Christine. It was the first time for us to communicate by text. The soundless exchange hallowed words of friendship in this sanctuary and allowed me to hear, as I read one of his texts, a deer snort its alarm as it passed through the weeds near the south entrance.
Modesty Pays. In Kansas, and later in Nebraska I would find, one often does not have a good hiding place just to the side of the road to do what should be done in hiding. Cousin Roger tells me that his bike mate was in such a situation, desparate, so decided to just do what had to be done at the side of the road when no cars were coming. Well, we don't always know how long a task may take and a car did come. A sheriff's car. The bike mate got a ride into town in the sheriff's car where he was fined $100 for indecent exposure. Remembering this, I followed a dirt path that wound around behind a large stand of bushes. While emptying my vessel, I looked around and--dang!--those are blackberries in those bushes-nearly-trees! (You can make them out in the picture if you look closely enough.) I feasted on them until my fingers were stained a deep purple that would remain the rest of the day. So, children, be modest, keep secret what should be kept secret, and you will be rewarded with fine things.
No comments:
Post a Comment