Biking Across America Read Online Free Page B

again. The bike now represented pain, and in just a few days I’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.
    Seven months later I had my driver’s license and the new freedom of driving a car. Who needs to ride a bicycle when you can drive a car? My mother sold the bike at a garage sale, and for the next twenty-five years the thought of getting back on a bicycle had never entered my mind.
    That night, Andy had stopped on a whim to chat with Ivan and me. I thought little of it at the time; it seemed like just a chance meeting. In all of our journeys, many events seem commonplace and unimportant, scarcely catching our attention. Yet these events weave threads into our stories, threads that can grow into significant and even powerful strands years later. That night on the quiet road, Andy could have passed us by. Instead, he stopped. I would not see him again for over forty years. Now this meeting with him, when I was once again pedaling a bicycle, had special meaning for me. He had been part of the sad night that changed my life.

    Andy and I agreed to meet at the Red Door Café in Newport. I arrived early, so I took a seat in the little deli that did indeed have a huge red door. The red door was standing wide open. As a former restaurant manager I knew that keeping a restaurant door open was an invitation to flies. Perhaps , I thought, the open door gives flies an opportunity to leave ? Suspended from the top of the door frame was a plastic bag full of water. I studied it, but saw only water in a plastic bag, hanging over the doorway. Curiosity got the better of me.
    â€œExcuse me, but why is that plastic bag full of water hanging from your door?” I asked the manager.
    â€œIt keeps the flies from flying through the opening,” she said.
    â€œYou mean that actually works?” I asked in disbelief.
    Apparently the flies are attracted to the bag of water and bump into it, and thus are deterred from entering. For twenty-five years in the restaurant business, I had spent a small fortune on sprays, granules, and other strategies of fly destruction. Could it really be true that all I needed was a bag of water over the front entrance?
    My enchantment with the fly repellent system was interrupted by Andy’s arrival. After spending several minutes getting reacquainted, we loaded the bike and its burdens into his car and headed inland.
    Oregon offers many different terrains. Our route back to Andy’s house seemed to consist primarily of hills and curves. Andy attacked these curves with vigor. Had my sense of motion been altered by riding the highway at 10 mph, or was he really screaming around those curves too fast?
    I’d been invited to stay at Andy’s house for the night. Happily, this included a delicious meal cooked by Andy’s wife, Lois. Since it was Wednesday and a church night, I joined them for an evening service at the Brownsville Mennonite Church.
    Along the way, we passed numerous seed farms scattered throughout Willamette Valley. Grass seed farming is big business here, with over 430,000 acres dedicated to this crop. The grass seed is harvested and taken to a mill, dried, cleaned, and packed for distribution. Huge bales of the straw left behind after the harvest were scattered all over the fields, awaiting transport to a local compactor, where they would be compacted to half their original size and shipped overseas for animal bedding.
    At one time, the seed farmers burned off their fields as part of the agricultural cycle. That burning is essential for some types of grass to produce well; burning also controls diseases and pests. But the environmental folks took offense to the smoke and banned burning on all but 15,000 acres. As a result, many seed farmersmust now use more pesticides and chemicals on their fields. That was quite a trade-off—several days of smoke traded for a lifetime of contaminated water.

    After a nourishing breakfast the following morning, Andy took