Sept 12th – Every last, damned, loving word

We are keeping vigil with our father, my sister and I. It was not a plan, it simply came about. It is already after 10pm and the hospital ward is gone quiet.

We are a ridiculous threesome in our own way. I’m on a mattress on one side of the bed wearing a tee-shirt with the word Carmen, and a rose, emblazoned on it. It is a free promotional tee-shirt, faded from the wash. Patricia is on a pull-out chair on the other side, in a track-suit.

‘Is that Carmen-the-wine-brand?’, she enquires gamely, as I reveal my night attire for the first time. I chuckle, defending my graceful choice in cheap clothing. ‘Carmen-the-opera. There’s the difference between you and me’. We laugh together.

Dad sleeps between us. We are tuned to his breathing, his chest rising and falling. It is not fully rhythmic. There are moments of sharpness and urgency, yet there is still strength in the lungs of this big, proud man.

Time passes.

Patricia has dozed momentarily, and she joins in the sleeping percussion. For a moment I am transfixed, my ears held high from a makeshift pillow, seeking to distinguish between their breaths. They seem to have merged, finding a complementary rhythm. Then suddenly, she comes back, and his laboured breathing continues, alone.

For some time now, I house a fervent hope that our Dad can still hear and understand us – our words, our music, even our breathing. I have come to realise that I need to believe this, and see it as a choice that I am free to make, despite the dwindling evidence.

Earlier, Patricia and I decide to sing him songs before turning in.

To an uninvited guest it holds little promise, this ragbag concert for the half-dead. We are unconcerned by critics, however. Tonight’s special audience-of-one has willing and loving performers, despite their rather drowsy acquaintance with the lyrics.

The bedside gala starts with my sister’s choice, The Spinning Wheel. Mellow the moonlight… We move to Italy and Santa Lucia. Then to the church with Ave Maria. We are both standing, holding his hands as we ply our motley trade. We end with Danny Boy.

To Dad’s ears, I figure the performance is a smashing success. And yet, he does not acknowledge it. He cannot. He lies there, breathing.

The hospital room has become a family gallery. Pictures of his thirteen grandkids abound. Pictures of us, his seven children, smile out from silver frames.

There is one special photograph that has me rapt. It is already highly familiar, it being an iconic image in our lives.

There they are, our Mum and Dad, on their wedding day. They stand at the exit of the church in Cork, smiling in complete happiness. Their hands are tightly bound, Dad arching in somewhat, towards his new wife. Mum is a picture of early 1960′s elegance and beauty. His frame and features are lean and angular.

My eyes examine the photograph, searching out new detail. Much has changed in these fifty-one years. I look to the picture, and then to his profile in the hospital bed. Back and forth I stare, in a kind of melancholic trance, thinking of the things gained and lost, and this man we are losing.

And then, I see them; unchanged in over five decades. There they are, proud and unmistakable, in the photo and outlined on his pillow. Dad’s ears – channels of musings and of music – are mysteriously and inexplicably exactly the same. They are precisely as they were on his wedding day. Unbowed by Time!

I am strangely comforted. If his ears are unchanged, I consider, without regard to any particular logic, then maybe his hearing too. Maybe it is not just my wishful thinking. Perhaps he has indeed heard every last, damned, loving word.

September 5th – Daddy

I enrolled on a thirteen-week training course to be a life coach a couple of years back. My motivations, as I find is often the case, were more impulsive than I ordinarily admit to. Many of my twenty-five fellow students were there with authoritative and structured purpose. The course was another milestone in their careers, making more realistic their future plans.

I was drawn by other forces – the novelty of being down the country in Thurles for our weekends-only tuition, the idea of doing something fresh with new people, the knowledge that a friend whose judgement I trust found the course to be exceptionally good.

It was.

During those coaching weekends I made many friends, learnt new ways to think about life and our human concerns and had great old craic as well. I have not yet submitted a final document to claim my coaching certificate. I am not officially anything as a result of having completed it, but one cannot un-know what one has come to know, despite the lack of official wall-hangings.

One mantra which I have internalised as a belief since my Thurles sessions is a simple proposition: words create worlds. Words are the tools through which we create thoughts and they, in turn, shape our reality. The words we use influence the lives we inhabit, the relationships we form and the experiences we witness. When all is done, it is that which is said that lingers most.

My father, a powerful yet sometimes remote figure in my life, is lying in hospital. He hangs to life on a thin and brittle thread. Hanging may not be quite the right word. It is hard to discern his intentions as he has lost the power of speech. We believe that his cognitive abilities are diminished, though not fully gone. Hanging-to-life implies a struggle, a fight against the dying of the light. We doubt that this is how he perceives it. Rather, we believe that he is sad but accepting of his fate. Perhaps life is clinging to him, allowing us to settle with the idea; with the pain of losing.

Words are much on my mind.

For all of my adult life I have called my father ‘Dad’. But it was not always so. There was a time when he was ‘Daddy’; a name that makes me feel vulnerable, even to type its five letters.

When I had a Daddy, I had a different life. Those years before adolescence were so free – when a hunt for birds’ nests or a game of rounders each seemed to last forever. As a child, his protection, stern resolve, clarity of rules, of right and wrong, helped form my character. A neighbour told my mum that, one summer’s evening, she was struggling to open a jar of jam as I watched. I was perhaps seven years old.

‘I’ll take it home’, I offered helpfully. ‘My Daddy can open that’.

Almost four decades have passed since that jam jar was opened. Mrs. Cuneen is dead, my father now dying. I sit at his bed in the hospital. I have one word on my lips.

I observe the tubes, the shallow breathing, the atrophied muscle in his arms. We have become familiar with his inquisitive, distant eyes which sometimes regain their strength and understanding, allowing us the gift of silent communication.

I sit, hold his hand, and wait. No word is spoken, except the one that I have reshaped.

Having spent so long in the relative cold of ‘Dad’, I had forgotten the essence of our relationship – the foundation of our love.

All of this world, re-created in one simple word. Daddy.

Aug 28 – Realities

What is reality? I recall the pressure I felt during my College finals in the late spring of 1987. It was the fourth year, I was 21, and it all seemed like it was so damned important. I had a certain tightness in my body as I cycled the eight kilometres into the exam hall on those mornings. I recall stopping at a suburban crossroads, slowly perusing the motorists and pedestrians as they went about their morning routines. I examined their faces, their collective gait and demeanour.

There was something discordant to me in their behaviour. On an exam day as important as this one, how on earth could they be so calm? Did they not know?

At any one time, it appeared, there could be many different realities.

This is the sensation that I feel once again as I make my first journey in to see my father. I know he is not in good shape, I know he is weak, I know he cannot speak. I know this, but the world in general steadfastly refuses to know it. I am still buffeted by the same winds on the motorway, I am still compelled to stop at the red traffic lights, I too am informed of the exorbitant hourly parking charge at the hospital.

The attendant at the hospital help desk bears me no ill-will, nor any special privilege. I say his name, the first time but one in my whole life that I have needed to visit him in a hospital – and she responds with cursory interest. For her, this is a transaction. For me, a journey.

These corridors. These pale green, aching corridors. They shine, but they do not glisten. It is clear that they have been polished for cleanliness, not for pride. I dislike the dulled echo they create, the intermittent high squeak they demand from my shoes.

Those smells. There is something foreboding about the heavy, layered, air in a hospital. Perhaps, I reflect, it is a simple case of conditioning. I visited a dear friend frequently some years back, and this same smell pervaded. Different hospital, same odour. But surely, I argue with myself, a maternity hospital would have the same smells as this. Surely the greatest joy in life arrives to these same, unmistakable cloying aromas. Which reality is true for this hanging smell in the air?

I enter the ward, asking a nurse for the room number. All of this information I have been told, but it has evaporated. I have lost my usual flair for transaction. There is little joy in facts.

I think about the last time I saw my father, just before I departed for America. It is almost nine weeks ago. He was already somewhat diminished, but, we believed, on a road to recovery. I am not sure that he fully understood what I was planning to do in America, but he certainly knew the trip’s eleven-week duration.

‘Take care’, he had said, taking my hand. He was lying up on the bed as he spoke. My eyes bowed a little, not wanting a solemn or painful moment. I did not want to worry, or feel sad, or become emotional, even if he, in his reality, had had such a wish.
‘Take care, and come home safely’.

August 26 – Postponement of SingSongCycle

Dear friends, blog readers and followers of SingSongCycle,

My father, Peter McIntyre, is seriously ill and I will return to Dublin immediately. We are hopeful that he will pull through, but things are unclear right now.

I am in Carbondale, Illinois, about three quarters the way through the TransAm cycle trip. I intend to return and complete the journey, and my singing, when the time is right.

Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement throughout the past eight weeks. It has been a beautiful journey.

If you or your friends would like to make a contribution to my charity I’d be very grateful. www.mycharity.ie/event/singsongcycle

The children of St Agnes in Crumlin, where the music charity operates, are returning to class this week. I think they would benefit from our support. I am especially hopeful that many people will give small amounts; €2 would be really great. Please spread the word.

I intend to keep on blogging. I have notes for about twenty more stories, and will write when I can. Please subscribe to my blog at http://singsongcycle.wordpress.com/ so that we will not lose contact. Writing for me is a tonic, not a chore, so it will be my privilege to continue.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the wonderful friends and volunteers who have helped me throughout: Sarah, Maria, Patrick, Andrea, Karen, Tom, Paul, Kerri, Yvonne, Mary, Ann and Roly, and many others. I’d also like to thank my hosts, past and prospective, here in America for creating the singsongs with me and being willing to come on the journey, and those generous people who came, sang along and contributed.

I’d also like to thank Chris Hurst, my Aussie friend and fellow-TransAm cyclist with whom I have cycled much of the route. Chris is two days ahead of me now. I wish him god speed to the Virginia coast.

Every journey has meaning, and this singsongcycle has been very special for me. My journey with my Dad, however, is my full priority right now. I need to go home and be with him.

With sincere thanks and warm regards.

Brian

Aug 24 – The Inn Keeper’s Porridge

The largest descent of the TransAm trail might be expected to be unremitting good news. All free-wheeling, no cycling for perhaps 40 miles? You just can’t see this as a bad prospect. And you don’t. That day, in Colorado, I had a spring in my step. The coming downhill stretch would be one, massive payoff for the gruelling Rockies climb, those hours of ploughing the bike uphill. Genie, my beloved bike, is a heavy girl.

As it transpired, there was a sting in the tail of that downhill slide. I arrived from the chilled freshness of the high mountains into a cauldron in the valleys. In one afternoon, temperatures jumped 25 degrees. The arrival town with this dubious hellfire honour was Canon City, Colorado.

In the oppressive, stifling heat of late afternoon I sat outside a closed cafe and evaluated the reviews of the three motels in town. After a long day it’s worth it to not end up in a kip.

Motels are a true American invention, created for the gigantic distances of the continent. Road trips can take three days and more to complete, and motels are conceived to maximise comfort and minimise interaction for weary motorists. A good motel is clean, good value and well organised. It usually does no food. A good motel knows it’s not a hotel.

‘I can give you for fifty dollar because I like cyclists’. The manager of the first motel – the one that Tripadvisor recommended as the best – spoke with accented, imperfect English; his manner of offering discount was nonchalantly amusing to me. I agreed to his price and cycled over.

His name was Marek, but he mostly called himself Mark. ‘Americans don’t do Polish and I’m too tired to explain’. I smiled, amused once again. Underneath his sluggish gait, bloodshot eye and ruffled appearance, here was a man who was refreshing. We stood and chatted in the motel office, a welcome escape from the heat.

A picture of a beauty queen was in view, in an ornate frame. The beautiful girl had a central European aesthetic; something about her makeup, her jewellery – even the fact of her photographic presence.

‘My daughter’, he said, seeing the direction of my gaze. ‘She make my office look good. More attractive than it is’. It appeared that being pimped out in this manner was fine with his daughter; she was away for the weekend, but was frequently around Dad’s motel. Marek had an intuitive sense of marketing, I concluded.

We talked about Americans, and I went on my usual rampage against all of the packaged, dead food I encounter and am often forced to eat. I lamented the lack of simple, good porridge – a cyclist’s best breakfast gift.

I asked Marek what made a good motel good. His answer was surprising. ‘It depends on what your competitors think. If they spread bad word, they kill you. I send flowers to the receptionist in the motel down the street. Regularly’.

After some time, he offered to make me real porridge the next morning at 7am. I have taken to accepting kindness without hesitation. I have discovered that it is the most direct way to connect with people, and this the most direct means of being happy on the road.

Breakfast with Marek was fascinating. He had organic porridge oats, organic milk, freshly cut peaches and bananas all set out on the counter. He prepared things methodically, going to the back room for the microwave to complete the task.

We chatted about the world, how he was tired of running a motel after 14 years, how he did all of his repairs himself, how he nonetheless loved what America allowed him to do – own his own business, be his own man. As we spoke, I ate; standing.

It was breakfast for a king, and I left his motel revived and ready for the extreme heat of the plains. He shook my hand warmly as we parted.

We had discovered intimacy in being outsiders, both of us in love with this fascinating, exasperating country which does not speak Polish and does not do porridge.

Aug 23 – Old Man River

Ol’ man river, dat ol’ man river
He mus’ know sumpin’, but don’t say nuthin’

One always falls in love with one’s first singing teacher. This is a musical rule, as consistent as the pitch of middle C.

There is a reason for this, of course. Music is both a physical and a spiritual act. A singing teacher enters your being in a way that most teachers need not and maybe cannot. This person must inhabit the student before a singer can be created. Every solo performance which emerges thereafter is, in a sense, a hidden duet.

My first music teacher was Jody Beggan, a semi-retired musician from the Conservatory of Music in Dublin. She was wonderful, and had that special ability to find and praise all that was good without mismanaging her students’ expectations.

The song I liked singing with her best was Old Man River. Its rich melody and passionate depiction of life on the Mississippi were a joy; lyric and notes were perfectly fused. I could never quite remember those words, but Jody considered this a venal sin. Almost not worth mentioning.

At the heart of Old Man River is an evocation of timeless masculine strength. A sort of life-force that lives forever, through which we gain perspective. It is a powerful theme, and a true one: so much is ephemeral, yet seems so necessary in the moment. The muse of the song is that of stability – the wisdom and self-belief expressed in simply rollin’ along.

Old Man River became a firm favourite between my Dad and me. We parlayed the tune between us, he calling the words, me singing and playing. Like a fisherman, he tossed the bait of those lyrics just at the right moment, and I caught them, as if they were mine all along.

My father is of a generation in which talk was not venerated like it is today. Much of his life has been lived in the interior, to the point where mostly I am uncertain what he thinks at all. Within music, however, our world is different. We talk constantly, each needing the other.

I have come to see this as a gift given to both of us, even if the realisation has been a long time in the making.

Today, as I crossed the Mississippi on the bicycle, looking down on that great life-force of America, I thought only of my Dad. He is ill at the moment – although stable, and we are hopeful that he will make a recovery.

His strength, that invisible force which was so present to me as a child that I would not fully relax into sleep until I heard his car come in the driveway, is with me on my bike ride.

I trust that I will know when to keep on rolling, and when to return home, in search of my words.

Aug 21 – Dogs in a downturn

Those of us cycling the US from west to east are aware that there is one peculiar obstacle to overcome before hitting the Atlantic. This is not the Appalachians, or the humidity, or even the endless roller-coaster hills of Missouri. It is the attacking dogs of Kentucky.

Apparently (I am not yet in Kentucky) they are legion, restless and, to their delinquent owners’ delight, take out cyclists for sport. I notice that those who have braved the gauntlet often shake their head – like the experience was somehow surreal; unsettling.

One guy, very early on, gave an addendum to his warning. ‘It’s not just Kentucky that has dog issues. It’s Missouri too’. I had reason last evening to recall his words.

I had just left a rural store and a great chat, near Eminence Missouri. It started over Bill Clinton who was hanging on the wall. His picture; not Bill himself. Americans wear their politics on their sleeve which, curiously, has the effect of closing conversation, not promoting it. When positions are declared, what’s the point of discussion?

Bucking the trend, I and the owners talked about the good old nineties when the main event for a couple of years was that the President got caught.

We moved on to the legions of beautiful hummingbirds outside, feeding off sugared water before packing up for their Mexican migration in September. It was all very pleasant, and I then left and headed up a very steep hill.

I first heard the barking of many dogs. They got closer, their howling feeding off each other. Then, from out of what appeared to be woods, not private property, came a group of a dozen dogs, led by a Rottweiler bitch who recently had pups. The aggression was unmistakable. These were no one’s cuddly pets. The road was deserted and I pedalled up the hill. Despite my efforts, I could not get beyond them.

They bit and pulled at the back panniers containing my gear, destabilised the bike, creating a bloodied, warlike sound. I had the impression that I would be mauled if I stopped. I did not experiment, but shouted, shouted and shouted more. Twice they paused, stared at me, then started up again.

An oncoming car saw me pretty worked up and the the occupants, a couple, returned to see if I was ok. On their decent they too had encountered the pack of dogs. Provoked by a pet labrador inside, the dogs attacked the car. The woman was in shock, repeating the same thing, mantra-like. ‘I can’t believe you cycled through that’.

We chatted for a while and waited for the law. One its arrival the couple took off. The sheriff, a young man, was already tired of his role and the people he encounters. ‘I don’t understand why you foreigners want to come here. Americans are assholes, man’, he drawled, giving me paperwork. In all of his pleasant chat – and there was a lot of it – he did not read the statement I had written. In truth, it probably did not interest him. He was going through motions, pleasantly – but unprofessionally. Niceness is a favoured cloak of the incompetent.

It seems that in bad economic times people dump their dogs as they can’t afford to feed them. The dogs pack, breed, and become feral. His explanation was nonchalant; perfunctory.

He lingered, his mood shifting. ‘Can I see your passport?’ he enquired. He took it, looked through the pages, feeling the embossed harp on the front cover. A look of fascination came over his face as he handed it back. ‘I ain’t never seen a foreign passport before. That’s cool, man’.

Aug 19 – North by Northeast of Disaster

It occurred on May 23rd , 2011 in the late afternoon, and it was devastating. A Force 4 tornado hit the town and gathered strength as it ripped through a community of 50,000 people. On Joplin’s Main Street it became a Force 5.

160 were killed and 900 injured that day.

The TransAmerica bike trail runs to the north and east of the town, some twenty miles away at its closest point. Judging by road signage, it seems that most roads lead to Joplin, Missouri in these parts – it is the main town of the area. Indeed, it seems as though most people in these parts have a story of Joplin. Without having passed through it, Joplin is speaking.

Barbra shook her head behind the check-in desk of The Comfort Inn in Pittsburg. We were chatting and suddenly, without my prompting, we were to Joplin.

‘It’s like Hiroshima.’ she said. ‘I volunteered down there. It was something else’.

She recounted how her friend, living in the town, had seen the tornado touch down. Then it pulled up – tornadoes lift and drop frequently – only to arrive again, in front of his house. He got under the timber slats which were part of his home’s foundation. Over the course of three minutes the house was obliterated. Completely gone. His shirt was partially ripped from his back, striated by the timber slats which were his last defence.

Dolores sat with me in her cosy restaurant, Mama Loca’s, in Ash Grove, the next day. She and her husband make a point of spending time with their new customers. They want their restaurant to be an extension of family.

The day it struck she had been driving her car close to Joplin. The sky was clear, but she observed a field of cows acting strange. All the animals, about thirty five of them, were bunched together.

‘It was the tightest circle of animals I have ever seen. Something was wrong. I said it as we passed.’

She spoke of the aftermath, a look of resilient concern in her eyes. ‘It’s five miles long. That’s what’s most shocking. It goes on, and on, and on.’

She was talking about the clean line of havoc gouged out by the Joplin tornado. It ran through schools, the town’s hospital, hundreds of homes. It will cost $3billion to put right.

‘Often, all you see left are the steps. No home, just concrete steps – and an American flag planted beside them. I like that. It means that we intend to overcome this. We can’t let the fear of nature prey on us. We can’t do that.’

This fear of nature is a big theme in a continent that quakes, explodes, strikes lightening, blows and twists wind, and is home to bear, elk, snake and buffalo. Although the media dramatise it – this week is Hurricane Week on the Weather Channel – people are more balanced; it’s become part of how they live, and being alert is almost always enough.

I had briefly thought about detouring and visiting the scene for myself and then thought the better of it.

In truth, the people of Joplin wouldn’t benefit by such a visit, and probably me neither. Rubbernecking is a poor response to tragedy.

Aug 19 – Death by bear, or cold?

I lived in Saudi Arabia when I and the world were young. In fact, it was just after the first Gulf war. I recall being in Kuwait and seeing the black pall over the city emanating from the still-burning oil rigs set alight by the retreating Iraqis. The scene was so extreme it seemed from a novel; certainly not from my own life.

In Saudi, it was a return to business as usual at the time. Tens of thousands of westerners like myself were hired to carry out the middle-management functions of this modern and wealthy economy. We were untaxed, generally very respectfully treated, and we lived in large ‘western compounds’.

I was in Jeddah, in an enclosed living space of perhaps two hundred homes.

It was like five different soap operas running at the same time: flirtations, affairs, illegal brewing of liquor, camaraderie, flair-ups, and dalliances with the locals. The mood music to all of these shenanigans was buoyant – people had money, they had ideas of their social importance, and they lived for the moment. It was a surreal existence.

My Middle East past came back vividly as Dave spoke. We were in a smokey bar in Missouri at 2.30pm. Smokey bars are still legal in some rural counties, and drinking on Friday afternoons seemed to be fully normal. Dave was travelled, engaging and endowed with good memory. We were of an age.

‘It was called the Unisea Bar. It was never bright enough to see if the floors were of dirt or tiles. Man, that place saw a lot of money’.

He was speaking of the Aleutian islands on the Bering Sea in Alaska. It was 1987. He was crewing in the world’s most dangerous fishing grounds, where one could make $60,000 in a week, if one lived long enough. ‘We lost ten or twelve boats in my three years there. It was an intense way to live’.

The money was spent on drink, women and gambling. In the Aleutian islands in 1987 it cost $100 for a haircut, and there was a waiting list of five weeks even to get that. Many of the normal rules of interaction and economy had somehow broken down.

Honour, however, remained. A man dropped $6,500 in a named envelope and, by a circuitous route of four honest people, eventually got it back.

Another man lost a drunken pool game with a Samoan giant (Samoans are numerous in the Aleutians and are absolutely huge. You don’t want to mess with them). In a rage the man hit the Samoan over the head with his cue. Dave said the ensuing fight was the bloodiest he has seen, the pool cue being used in sabre-like fashion by an avenging Samoan.

On the island where Dave was based there were few polar bears and, it was thought, little danger.

One night, a fisherman recounted an outrageous story of his narrow escape from a bear five years previous. Dave, being a little wiser and in his third year in Alaska, called the guy on it. Said it didn’t happen. The guy promptly lifted his shirt and exposed a back full of scar upon scar.

The guy’s story was true, and here’s what happened:

This fisherman was walking outside of town at a very small inlet where the sea could be accessed. It was summer and the sea had warmed so a man can survive for a full six minutes immersed.

Unexpectedly, he was run by an adult female polar bear. There was no one about and he had no means of self-defence. The bear lashed out several times and the fisherman dodged. He was then clawed, clawed more, he escaped, only to be clawed and mauled again.

The fisherman’s last resort, staggering and losing blood and consciousness, was to swim out to the sea. This he did, knowing the odds he was running from and those he was running to. The polar bear, as often happens apparently, lost interest and did not pursue him.

After three minutes swimming in near freezing water a further choice presented itself. Die in the sea or return to shore? The latter involved returning to the inlet and passing directly by the now idle polar bear.

He had run out of options, and decided that re-attack was better than simply freezing. On emerging at the shore, wounded, dripping blood and delirious, he was obliged to pass within two metres of his attacker. The bear did not move; she did not even look at him. She had played enough that day. The fisherman struggled to find help and, of course, survived.

‘Wow’, I said. ‘What a story’. Dave nodded. Crazy things happen away from home.

Perhaps that’s why both of us had decided to go away in our early twenties. To experience soap operas, touch dramas, and to live to someday tell the tales.

Aug 18 – Doe, a deer

I have never been on safari. I’m not sure why I have not made this happen, as it has been a fascination for a long, long time. The idea of being in the presence of the wilderness and the wild is mesmerising.

One of the most memorable theatre moments I recall is the opening scene of The Lion King, with its parade of animals onto the stage. Don’t knock it until you’ve seen it – something primal awakens on witnessing such a spectacle play out. Disney, a brand that I feel a duty to dislike, had a good night that night.

Of all the animals I have seen, or been looking out for on this trip, it is deer which have most entranced me: them that I hope to see and theirs whose character I wish I could fully know.

I explained this briefly to a Kansan farmer in whose home I was staying. As I listed out deer’s many positives, I could see his eyes cloud over. He was checking out of this conversation.

‘One or two is ok. But Jay down the road, he got seventy of them on his land. They chewed up a whole lot on him. Deer need to be thinned out more around these parts’.

Of course I understood his point, but I claim that special privilege of the passerby. The privilege not to care, not to be practical, not to look at things in the round.

In my world, I’d have deer roaming through the plains with an agreed-upon preciousness that would make Indian cows seethe with jealousy. Ganges Indian cows, that is.

The most exciting thing is how they move. A deer jumps in live action which is simultaneously slow motion, creating perfect arcs of such progress which are truly a pleasure to behold.

Some days back I came across one, getting quite close before I was seen. She decided she needed to clear three fences to get away. I stopped and watched. ‘Oh’, I gasped, involuntarily, as she leapt and became suspended in air. ‘Oh’. One cannot look at a white tailed deer move across her habitat and not see the origins of ballet.

I thought of my farmer-conversation, and how he would have reacted to the same circumstances. It is curious but frequently so in our world that one man’s vermin is another man’s veneration.

Aug 12 – Fire in the sky

Being robbed of your peace of mind is a terrible thing. Where once you saw light and happiness, fear suddenly lurks.

This occurred to me just once in the American West. I had entered Yellowstone, was camping for the first time, and happened to view a ‘Bear Aware’ video. It ended with the emotive testimony of a male camper who have been dragged from his tent, chewed up a bit and then dumped by a grizzly. ‘Are you kidding?’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t camp again in bear country for any money’.

In the plains, the world, in many ways, has become more benign. True, I’m seeing a lot of dead snakes on the road and they’re big boys, but somehow snakes don’t do it for me. I am serpentinely serene.

Overall, the big game has receded, and one is more likely to be charmed than freaked by mother nature. With one exception: the sky.

Thunder and lightening gathers on such a vast and rapid scale that it warrants major worry. We do not have this kind of dramatic, big weather at home. Ours wounds with a thousand, damp cuts. Last Friday August 12th in Kansas, the Donner and Blitz gods came-a-calling. They had my name.

It was a normal, super-hot afternoon seven miles outside of Larned. The sky was blue, heavy and it was perhaps 95 degrees. I had made good cycling progress and decided to take a breather under a tree for an hour. I wrote a blog entry, something which – would you believe it? – requires attention. An hour later, when I looked skyward, everything had changed.

There was an arc of metallic purple where the sky used to be, the wind was picking up and a massive pall was closing in on me. In the distance, rain.

I jumped to action, intending to out-pedal it, but to no avail. The storm was almost upon me, moving with ferocity and, curiously, in the opposite direction to the wind at ground level.

Then, lightening. I careened off the road, dumping the bike on the verge, and lay low. When cycling, I had been the tallest thing about. The rain began in earnest now, drumming down in an angled, aggressive manner. Above, the sky was black and now continually growling. The lightning, once intermittent, became angry, multiple strikes occurring simultaneously. I felt vulnerable, a bit scared, but just a little buzzed; this was real weather.

A State Trooper stopped by the roadside and beckoned me. The rain danced off his circular hard hat; he did not stray far from his car as his job was assessing dangers, not saving souls.
‘Best get to that culvert over there. There’s hailstones arriving the size of pingpongs. They’ll do some damage’.

I was now officially freaked. Hail and twisters go together, at least in National Geographic land. The Trooper drove off.

The culvert – a concrete circular gutter channeling water – was fetid and soon, to my horror, started filling up with rain water.

Then, as the deluge continued, the pingpongs were in sight and life was feeling grubby, rescue arrived. A lady, seeing my abandoned bike, pulled in and invited me into her car. I was drenched, muddy and somewhat excitable.

‘Are you ok?’ she asked. ‘Stay in here, I’m not going anywhere’. She then set to figuring out how to rescue my bike given her trunk was not so big.

There is a certain catharsis we feel when imminent danger passes. A sort of grateful mistiness fills one’s perceptions. We feel delivered.

Within ten minutes this lady had organised her daughter, a young and beautiful woman, to bring her pick-up truck, grab me and my bike, and haul me into town. All I can remember is that this young woman was called Lisa and she lived in a town close to Larned. In my nervous excitement, her mother’s name left me.

I thanked her profusely. It was heartfelt. There was no denying this was severe weather.

‘You are very welcome’ she said. ‘I may need help some day. Our job in life is to play it on, when we can’.

I closed the car door, my fingers shrivelled from the soaking, but my peace of mind restored.

Aug 17 – Young Man on a Mission

The email name he wanted was taken. Such a troubadour already existed. He appended 24 to the name’s end, it being his age, and made up his calling cards. He then left Ohio, and his previous life. His name was Mike, and he rode a top-notch bike with a simple moniker appended to his back: bike4christ.

I met him as I was standing at a service station drinking one of those multi-coloured isotonic drinks. There were over thirty options in the energy fridge, lulling one into a sense of the endless possibility of America. Until you consider that none of the choices is particularly useful. My sour melon variety had minimal contact with melons. Sour melon mirage would have been more accurate.

We chatted for some time; he was headed west and I east. Such conversations are valuable on long tours as you get to find out the lie of the land. Bit by bit, his story unfurled.

Mike had left high school and had gone to LA in pursuit of an editing career. There for two years, he became unhappy with the hand-to-mouth hedonism and all of the ambitious madness that happens in Hollywood. He left for home, and found Christ.

‘So what does that mean?’ I asked. He explained that, in his case, it meant changing from having no religion to making religion his life’s organising principle. He hoped to establish a church in Ohio with his older brothers on his return. He had plans. In the interim, he was crossing the country, circuitously, via New York and Florida.

I surveyed his bike, his trailer, his insulated water bottles. As I’m not very technically inclined it was the latter that drew my attention most. Since dropping to the great plains I have not yet got used to drinking water the temperature of warm soup.

‘I trusted in God. I left Ohio with a heap of junk and one hundred dollars. People have helped me, bought me things, taken me in. I never ask for anything, I just explain what I’m doing.’ There was an earnest sincerity in his tone. He was at once in wonder of all he had accomplished on a shoestring, and also fully in control of his path.

‘I’ve ended up in private gliders, being part of a biking team for two weeks, been gifted this bike…’, his voice trailed. This cycle trip was a celebration of his new-found Christianity, and it was a greater experience than he expected. He had already meandered 4000 miles across the country, and had 1500 left before his destination, San Francisco.

I explained to Mike that I was heading in the opposite direction, some 10 miles, to do an Irish music gig. On an impulse he decided he’d join me. He did something that I would never do, being old and grumpy: he retraced his steps, cycled east instead of west, in search of new experience.

We ended up having a magical evening of music in Hutchinson Kansas and, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, were offered free and very comfortable accommodation in the local Lutheran church. Of course, Mike was far from considering it luck.

When we separated, I reflected on his story and what he was doing. In Europe, we often casually mock such outward signs of lives being reborn, reshaped. We seek to explain it either by exposing ulterior motive or by asserting naiveté.

I think this is unfortunate. Every man is entitled to start afresh, and borrowing the values of Christ to do so is not just valid, it can also be both noble and inspiring.

Aug 15 – Too old to dream

She had the gentlest manner and she ran a lovely coffee shop. If her stock was any indicator, I’d say she was not a morning person. At 8am on a Monday morning in Newton Kansas, I had to choose three things from the menu before I found something that she actually had. Her manner was warm and enquiring, so different from the feigned pleasantness of many people in the service of others.

I recall at Dublin airport an immigration official taking my passport onto which I had splashed a drop of mineral water. In the same manoeuvre that delivered the document back to me, the official administered her own hands with sanitiser. Her refusal to look at me spoke of the contempt with which I was held; tourists and their bodily fluids.

‘Can I take your photo later?’, she asked, pointing to the gallery created for TransAmerican cyclists on one of the cafe’s walls. ‘I think what you do is wonderful.’ It was said with sincerity and, for a brief moment, I was struck by the meaning behind the pedalling.

A police officer went around the counter and helped himself to coffee. He had a handgun in one holster and a taser gun in the other, its butt a florescent green. This was an interesting place.

She came later, joining me at my table as I ate a delicious lemon and poppy seed scone whilst working on my iPhone. She wanted my name and details for her photo.

‘I’ve been open two years. I love to cook. This has been my dream, even though I’m too old to dream.’

The officers laughed at the adjoining table where they sat eating breakfast burritos.

‘My husband is the town sherrif. They get a rough ride, the police. The firemen are always the heroes, yet it’s the police that arrive first and stay last. He was at a fire where three children died’. She paused. ‘It was tough.’

‘Yes’, I mused ironically. ‘Firemen get all the praise, even though they spend a lot of the time pumping iron and posing for calendars’.

She smiled as she explained her idea to increase the popularity of police officers, An innovative concept that she’d clearly pitched to her husband.

Apparently, part of the police’s Taser gun training involves being Tasered themselves. She had proposed creating a ‘Tasered Officer Calendar’, each month with a photo of a floored police officer, writhing. ‘It sure as heck would have sold well’, she said, and we both laughed.

We went out and she took my photo. Then she handed me a freshly made caramel cookie as a parting gift. ‘They’re delicious’, she said. ‘I don’t need the calories, but you will for the road’. It was 9am, and Karen’s Kitchen – the vessel of her dreams – was cranking up for another day.

Aug 14 – The Smell of Money

Germaine Greer, one of my favourite Australians despite her adolescent pining for the limelight, has many provocative things to say in her amusing polemic The Whole Woman. One is a belief that women have been turned into cleaning obsessives by the detergent and surface cleansing industries. She asserts that females spend their waking days perfecting a lemon smell in the kitchen, a germless waft of citrus in the bathroom and an elegant lavender trill emerging from the bedroom. Modern life, says Greer, has been kidnapped by a determined march towards germ free, sweet-smelling nirvana, and women are its marching colonels.

I found this amusing at the time, and then began to notice how true it is when you look. Wipes for this, cleanser for that, sprays, creams… We are assaulted by solutions to demon germs and demonic odours. Indeed, I once dated a terribly nice guy who smelled completely of Ariel Washing Powder. This was not unpleasant, but it was singular. It did not matter what he wore, or did not wear; he still smelled of Ariel.

What I noticed first on arriving into the Ordway Hotel, Colorado was the Glade air freshener. It was heavy in the air; thick, like an invisible soup. As I was brought upstairs to my room, the air became warmer and the aroma changed, but not its thickness.

Carol showed me the room, was extremely gracious, and talked in a low voice as she opened the window. ‘There may be a smell on the breeze later on. If it bothers you, close the window. It’s just the dust from the local cow feeding station. You’ll pass it tomorrow’.

This all sounded benign and charming, until the smell arrived. It was dark, heavy, cloying and vaguely nauseating. It smelled ungodly, like I imagine the open sewers of medieval Paris had been. Unfortunately, it competed with a stifling heat and airlessness that descended on Ordway that night. I had to choose between coolness and scent, and so chose to leave the window open and let the breezes blow.

The smell inhabited the room, my body, my clothes, my food; but I, being tired, became desensitised and slept easy in its sickly embrace.

The next morning I passed the carrals of thousands of cattle being fed prior to slaughter in a sort of bovine all-you-can-eat fantasia. Apparently, it is a happy time if you are a cow. They are blessed with poor sense of smell, and an even poorer set of future planning skills.

It was three full days before the smell of Ordway left me.

I was recounting this story to a warm and lively group of Kansans in Heston just last night. ‘Ah, that smell’, said Betsy knowingly. ‘That’s not just the smell of cattle. That’s the smell of money’.

We laughed, because we knew it was a rule of life: some smells are worth it.

Aug 13 – The Oil Man Cometh

They began to appear in East Colorado and I was not fully sure what they were. In Kansas, they became rampant, populating the landscape in their busy, dutiful manner.

Constructed of steel in a way that you could imagine the Mecano set that created them, the oil derrick’s shape is oddly alluring. It is a praying mantis, standing tall, rotating her forelegs up and down in rhythmic symmetry; she is instructing a swimmer in the butterfly stroke, and patiently guides the elbow-over-shoulder movement. Around and around. The effect is mesmeric, lending the rural landscape an unexpected industrial beauty.

When we think of oil and gas in America, we turn to Texas, the Gulf, Alaska. Big oil has long since left Kansas, but there is a thriving industry of modest drilling, often pulled together, or unitised, by bespoke oil companies happy to deal in small.

Kent works for one such company and I met him over breakfast in a rural motel. A young, gregarious, and insightful Kansan, he had spent some of his oil career in Utah and Oklahoma where similar drilling takes place.

‘Some folks resist pulling up oil. They don’t like the smell, the dirt, the environmental impact’. I had already noticed the sulphurous smell, and had seen the attendant tanks gathering the fuel for collection. Both smell and sight created an odd juxtaposition, it is true, among fields of corn.

‘Mostly, Kansans who need gas to drive long distances and to live their lives understand why we need to drill; it’s those with holdings here but living in cities who are more likely to object’. The observation struck me as interesting, the corollary of what the vegetarian lobby espouses: the best way to quit chicken is to go visit a battery farm and experience that particular husbandry up close.

‘In Kansan law, the landowner has full authority over what happens on his land. In Utah, it’s less so. There, I had to condemn an orphan to get his oil’. He said this with a flourish, amused by the self-characterisation of himself as a pursuer of widows and orphans. The child’s parents had died suddenly and a land- holding passed to the ten year old. His grandparents, living in Florida, did not want to join in the collective decision of the county to drill oil. Through unitising their communal power, Kent could effectively force, or condemn, them to give their OK. Eventually, they folded.

There is no condemning of orphans in Kansas. The law is squarely on the side of the landowner. ‘We were the first real homesteader state’, he said, attempting to explain the difference. ‘Your claim is your claim’.

When the first pioneers came to the Kansas flats they reckoned there was little to be done. The prairie grasses were over six feet tall with four feet of roots. The work to change this into agricultural land was momentous, a miracle of human endeavour – if one can consider the ransacking of one way of life for another miraculous. The feeling of ownership of the land is strong.

During our conversation, Kent was intermittently taking calls. Making calls. Building deals. Narrowing gaps. And throughout, I had this feeling that the small scale of Kansas’ oil made it so much more integrated and understandable. It felt different to the caricature of behemoth oil corporations wrecking our world, treating each drill site as though it were a battery hen. I had to admit it. I’d been thoroughly entranced by the charm of the praying mantis.