“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any
further than my own back yard.
Because if it isn’t
there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
Baum, LF: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
“Hey Kid! What the
hell are you doing?” The man yelled as
he got out of the car. “I could have
killed you!!”
I had made a sharp right turn at the corner, going as fast
as I could on my green Monark bike – cutting him off…I never saw the car. I was so scared, I thought the guy was going
to kill me anyway!
It was the early 1950s and while I had only had my brand new
used bicycle for a few months, it almost all ended at the corner of North
Street and East 212th. A
member of my dad’s church had given him the bike, he had it cleaned up and it
was the biggest and best Christmas surprise of my entire life.
North Street was two blocks long before coming to a dead end
in this lower middle class neighborhood, on the North East side of Cleveland,
Ohio. It was a quiet street lined with
modest working class houses. On the
corner of Chardon Road and North was the our first home in the United States, just
across the front lawn from the First Baptist Church, now many decades later the
Bible Baptist Temple.
One thing is certain, after that experience and for the rest
of my bicycle riding life, I kept a sharp look out for traffic.
Present day…
Four o’clock Tuesday afternoon.
I have known this day was coming, and yet much like
Christmas or summer vacations when I was a youngster, time seemed to slow down
as the day approached. It was something
I had wanted to do for a very long time, but never had the opportunity.
Nine of us showed up at the appointed time
in the basement of an old warehouse at 44 West 6th street in downtown
Tucson. To say this place was in a
warehouse district romanticizes a facility with no restroom accommodations (a
portable outhouse in the parking lot) and a cold water sink, with no drainage,
causing waste water to fill a five gallon – frequently emptied to the cactus
patch in the same parking lot – bucket under the sink.
This unlikely band of folk would NEVER have met under other
circumstances. There was a taxi driving
West Virginian…a snowbird physical therapist and nutritionist couple from Alaska...a
six foot six, ‘fine arts trained,’ native American/Canadian Indian whose
reservation lay on both sides of the border near Buffalo, New York – think ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’…a young
gal from Pittsburgh, PA…a government conservationist who oversaw regional
development projects…a bright eyed tiny thirty something African American
woman…a 62 year old ex-investment money guy who had retired, independently
wealthy at the age of 45, from a financial house in New York City…and me!
We did have one thing in common…none of us was from here!!
This eclectic group found itself together to take a bicycle
building class with the Bicycle Inter Community Art and Salvage Cooperative,
known to the local community as BICAS.
BICAS – what???
BICAS is an award-winning Cooperative that
has been in business for 25 years serving Pima County, Arizona and surrounding
areas. It provides affordable
transportation resources for practically anyone. More than 5,000 folks use the facility every
year and the organization provides some 2,200 hours of annual community
service.
One of the ways it helps people afford bicycle
transportation is through its ‘work trade’ program. Since the organization is a not for profit,
it depends on a small group of ‘members,’ and volunteers who do whatever they
have the skill set to do…breaking down donated bikes, sorting parts, cleaning
up and if one has a little skill – ‘work trade.’ Put in a few hours of work at a credit rate
of $8.00/hour and before you know it, one can afford a bicycle. Everything is donated from the community,
and except the workstations where folk work on bikes, the rest of the facility
is filled with every imaginable kind of bicycle and used parts.
Folk who want to work on their own bicycles, can rent a
workstation for $4.00/hour or $12.00/day…tools and designated bike mechanic
helpers are available at no additional charge.
Setting the context…
I am a child of the sixties, and walking into the place was
like entering a time warp…the twilight zone…a black hole in the Cosmos. Many of the staff are tattooed, pierced, hair
dyed and attired as though they had been in a 1960s commune and unbeknownst to
them, transported to this millennia.
It is not just appearance, but their spirit, was throwback as
well. This is a collective of the some
of the most gentle, thoughtful, and kind souls I have met in a very long time.
Bicycle skills? Icing on the cake!
How this happened…
When first arriving in Oro Valley last November, I took a
county sponsored bicycle safety class to see what the ‘rules of the road’ were in
this part of the country. Things are a
little different here…for example; it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk or
against traffic, both of which, if stopped, have pretty hefty fines. Riding against traffic on the sidewalk
creates an additive fine for both violations, exceeding $500.00! These people take bicycle safety seriously.
At this course, I learned about the bicycle Co-op, BICAS, as
a resource in the community where one could learn to build a bicycle.
“Build a bike! “ I thought. “Are you kidding me?”
The course…
Ash, our lead
instructor and Stephanie his assistant could not have been a better team to
take an awkward group of ‘no nothings,’ and in five evenings, turn them into
fairly confident neophyte bicycle builders!
My partner was Bob, and we were, by far, the oldest folk in
the class. ‘Ruby’ was our bike, and in
fact, she was a pretty straightforward ‘build.’ Building a bicycle, it turned out, meant
taking the donated two-wheeler…stripping it down and piece by piece rebuilding
it. Everything went well in this five
evening, 20-hour course – refurbishing and repacking the hubs, bottom bracket,
brake and gear cables – until the last evening.
The final class was winding down and each group of two were
putting final touches on their ‘rebuild.’
Bob and I had actually been a bit ahead of the rest of the teams, when
it appeared our rear derailleur seemed to not want to cooperate. As twilight approached, and the other students drifted
away having completed their bikes, Bob and I were still at it. After swapping out another derailleur, we
discovered the front shifter needed to be replaced. In the end we were the last ones to test our
bicycles in the parking lot and on the street.
Ash then took the final test ride for the concluding approval and the
task was successfully done.
Postscript…
It is difficult to express how diligent and talented both
Ash and Stephanie were in the class. In
fact, while they had us do all of the work, they provided constructive and
deliberate instruction during the course.
Without their guidance, one might say babysitting, I am certain Bob and
I would still be trying to figure out how to break down the hub on our front
wheel (the first task on the first night).
Postscript two…
When I saw that bicycle in front of the tree that Christmas
morning, I cannot say how I felt having something like this that belonged to
me…something changed, something that ignited a sense of freedom. Maybe I was only permitted to ride the two
blocks North Street afforded me, but those two blocks were mine, and ride them
I did. I felt an empowerment that,
unbeknownst to me, would quietly and subtly influence the rest of my life.
Six decades later as Bob and I watched Ash take Ruby for her
final test ride, something stirred inside...something had once again subtly changed. Maybe we had only refurbished a donated
bicycle, but I felt the now familiar sense of empowerment that comes with accomplishment and has so
deliberately influenced my life. I was
six years old again and grateful for that driver who through quick reflexes,
and I am certain a significant amount of fear himself, allowed a little boy to
live to ride another day.
- ted
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