Rowan « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Rowan

Just needs more

I’ve neglected to mention this here, I think, but I have the good fortune to work with a group taking an active role in cycling safety. It’s exciting watching these signs, and their message, pop up around town. It’s just one element of a long, long term project, but awareness and education are critically important.

The people doing this work are motivated for their own safety and their mindfulness of other cyclists. They’ve got the ear of the community, and the local state lawmakers.It’s impressive, and I hope the group can keep their momentum going.

Here, the state law requires motorists to move over a lane, or to allow for at least four feet to safely pass cyclists (and other non-motorists). Four whole feet!

Do you know the laws about safely passing cyclists in your state? You can look them up right here, and I’ll thank you for saving lives every time you drive.

We went to campus today and it’s a miracle we made it at all because I kept slowing us down, somehow. It got to that not-quite-comedy-of-errors level, culminating in finding zero parking in several consecutive walks. But we made it. And then we went for a swim.

It was my first indoor swim in a long time. There were lane ropes and lifeguards and chlorine and everything. Also, there was the mystery of when I would slip into the rhythm of swimming back and forth, back and forth. It finally happened, I’m not sure where I was in the swim. But I know where I was when I got pulled from the pool. The lap swim was over, some other people were wandering in and doing some organized looking stretching and warming up.

I said, “Do I have enough time to do 50 more?” But I was told I did not. And so I finished with a slow version of my 1,700 yards.

But, man, you never really know how useful that extra 50 could have been. It could have really made the difference!

After that we meant to a meeting in our department. There was food, and there was work. A handful of the faculty members were working on some important department-type language. On the third or fourth run through someone tossed a joke my way, being the newbie and all. I said, “Hey, you want to get all caught up in details, you’ve invited the right guy.”

Ultimately, the work got done. Everyone seemed pleased by it. I got a phrase or two into the finished product, phrases I may forget, so I’ll just point to all of them. I was just happy to be there.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature which finds me riding my bike around the county, hunting for historical markers. This is the 49th installment, and the 81st marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. (Assuming I have faithfully and accurately kept count.) And this time, we have to try to figure out why a post office has a historic marker.

This installment features the fabled form letter of plaques.

I love the National Registry markers, but I appreciate, even more, the local ones with some information on them. And it will never not disappoint me that the Registry doesn’t contain an extant explanation of all of the places they acknowledge. In this case, however, you can’t even find this post office on the list! Anyway, here’s the building.

The first post office opened there, or around there, in November of 1903. But the first post office in these parts, I read elsewhere, was created by legislation in 1792. Either way, 18th or early 20th century, they served very rural routes, I would imagine. Also, the first airmail flew out of the county in 1938, it was a gimmick marking the 20th anniversary of airmail. It possessed all of the 1930s pomp and circumstance a small town could muster. There were special envelopes and handlers. The mail bag was taken to the airfield by a fire truck, where other special handlers took part. The Boy Scouts turned out to witness the occasion, and so on. The mail flew to a town about 30 miles away.

And not related to this, but interestingly, I also read an anecdote of an airmail pilot who crashed his plane in 1918 one county away. He was trying to land, but some livestock got in the way. He made another pass, had engine trouble and wound up crash landing. Broke his machine up, but he lived. The mail got delivered. It was the second day of airmail in the U.S. On the same day as the first local airmail, commemorating 20 years of airmail, that pilot had a nationwide conversation on this thing called radio …

Also, historically speaking, a lot of mail has been delivered over the many years. Too much of it bills.

Next week, I’ll probably have similarly limited success on our next marker, but we’re here to try. If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

markers / music / Rowan / video / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
Sep 24

Briefly typing around meetings

A quick follow-up to yesterday’s hasty Re-Listening project. Prior to our last installment there was a self-made disc, I called it Mixed Vegetables. It was just a random assortment of songs. Probably I was trying to use up a stack of CDs or something, but I put one standout tune on there.

This is The Pistoleros, a brother band from Tempe, Arizona — and they sound like it. They sound like the Chimeras and the Refreshments and Dead Hot Workshop and Gin Blossoms. I wish I could remember how I even found this song. Maybe it was on a sampler, or something I downloaded, back when that was a thing you did, but I don’t know. It’s great from the first bass riff throughout the tempo, the mariachi brass and distortion at the end.

That’s my lovely bride’s ringtone.

We went to campus for a faculty meeting today. Before that, I had a smaller one-on-one meeting. Before that we went to look for new office desks and bookshelves. That was a brief, but successful errand. The guy that manages the office furniture for the campus (I guess that’s his job, which seems like a big one when you think about it) said he’s always juggling stuff as various buildings get moved or built or renovated. The library is about to undergo some improvements, and some of them people who have offices there will be temporarily moved during that process. That could mean more office chairs, desk, and bookshelves. He told me to check back in if we needed some more.

I have a lot of books.

My one-on-one meeting was helpful and productive. It was one-part lay of the land, and one part sorting out my schedule for the spring term. I’ll be designing a new course, and also running a class I have right now. And, perhaps the best part, I know what’s ahead four whole months in advance.

Immediately following that, there was a faculty meeting. We decided we were faculty, somehow overestimating me in that assessment, and then commenced the business of the meeting, which was impressively kept on schedule. Department items were discussed, a good time was had by all.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, the feature which finds me riding my bike around the county, hunting for historical markers. This is the 48th installment, and the 80th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. (That’s a lot of markers!)

And there’s not a lot to this one that I’ve been able to uncover so far. This is 117 Broadway, and the classic national plaque.

Built in 1849, it is today owned by a man who is apparently in the art restoration business. A century ago, it was a boarding house.

That’s all I’ve been able to find so far. I imagine it lands on the register because of its size relative to it’s mid 19th century neighbors. Though it feels a bit shopworn today, when t was new it was probably a fine sight after a long day’s toil.

Next week, we’ll try to answer the question, “Why is a post office historic?” If you have missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / history / markers / overwriting / photo / Rowan / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
4
Sep 24

Here are 1,000 quick words

Today began with so much ambition, and maybe half of the plans were accomplished. (More for tomorrow, then!) I blame the super late night, last night. But, hey, all of the professional tasks were achieved. Emails answered, questions asked, and so on. Dishes were also done. Some laundry was completed. It wasn’t all bad. Take that, super late night.

Oh yeah, I wrote something yesterday for the work Substack. No one has called to complain yet, so there’s that. Here it is.

This is terrible and senseless. And the extended Gaudreau family, who are experiencing a hurt that’s hard to express and impossible to heal, are by no means alone.

The National Safety Council has it that the number of preventable deaths from bike crashes rose 10% in 2022 and have increased 47% in the last 10 years (from 925 in 2013 to 1,360 in 2022). The League of American Bicyclists notes that 2022 was the deadliest year ever for cyclists. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 2022 records show more cyclists were killed by motor vehicles than any year since they began charting the data in 1975.

Talk to a cyclist, any sort of cyclist that rides on roads, and you’ll quickly hear themes emerging. The infrastructure is insufficient. Drivers don’t see cyclists. Drivers are distracted, or inconsiderate, or worse. Vehicles have gotten much, much larger.

Every cyclist you talk to has a story about a dangerous moment, a scary encounter, or a truly life-changing experience they’ve had on the open road. A place where they also belong, by the way (go here to see the specific laws for your state). It goes beyond a random heckle or a dated Lance Armstrong reference.

Each cyclist has their own reason for being there. They love it. This is how they commute. This is their exercise. Their childlike freedom. Their community. Their only means of transportation. Whether they are carefully calculating their watts, carefully balancing their groceries, or they are teaching their kids how to ride, no matter why they find themselves on two wheels, their experiences with motorists are common, profoundly troubling and they penetrate deep into the psyche.

We’re seeing that in a survey we’ve conducted in the light of the killing of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau. The Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact is asking cyclists in South Jersey a series of questions, has immediately received more than 500 responses, and the responses continue to roll in.

I was asked about this at 1:09 p.m. yesterday, 37 minutes later I had the first 770 words down.

And then I thought about it during most of the two hours I spent on my bike this evening.

My shadow went hunting for historical markers. Between the two of us, my shadow and me, we found quite a few, starting with the cheapie you’ll see below.

And this is the long straight road, the flat part of it, heading back home. I was halfway to a great ride. The bike felt smooth, in that way we spent all our time hoping to feel.

You get just a few experiences of la volupte, if you’re lucky. It’s so rare, maybe, that you can mistake a tailwind and a stellar ride for the sensation, la volupte.

La Volupte translates roughly to “voluptuousness”, and while the first thing the mind goes to is a sexual definition, my favorite is, “the property of being lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses.” In a sport where pain is worn like a badge of honor, those times when cycling is lush and abundant and a pleasure to the senses are what makes us want to climb onto our bikes again tomorrow.

Today wasn’t that. But it was something, an experience I have noticed before. Some days everything just feels sure, steady, at your command. My problem is that when I’m always going slow when I have that experience. I was not flying today, but, also I was not going slow. I had three Strava PRs, including a two-plus mile drag at the end of the ride. While my legs were not carrying me especially quickly, they had the decency to keep turning over without needing to stop, which was nice.

We return once again to We Learn Wednesdays, wherein I am tracking down the county’s historical markers via bike rides. By my count, this is the 46th installment, and the 78th marker in the We Learn Wednesdays series. And this one is, in fact, barely a marker.

In the 17th century, this was a place focused on trade and shipbuilding. One of the first ports, 1682, around here was near where this photograph was taken. There were British customs houses here. There’s still a local port authority nearby. It was an important center of trade until the Revolutionary War. The founder, John Fenwick, who we’ve learned about on two different Wednesdays (here and here) laid out this street for commerce and traffic.

Wharf Street was 90-feet wide, lined by houses and shops going all of the way to the docks and water. The people here here saw wheat, corn, beef, pelts and lumber come and go. Fishing was popular in the bay, oystering was a booming pursuit into the 20th century. Growth and overfishing killed the sturgeon and caviar business. Crabbing survived. The railroad, which came in 1876, was here by then, and so was the second industrial revolution, which was about glass around here, owing to the special sand that everyone was walking on, the sand that Wharf Street was built on, the street that was here for all of it.

Two genealogy site suggested Wharf Street was renamed for a prominent settler, Edward Bradway, a Londoner who landed in 1677 and built a fine house down by the water. Later, the town fathers updated the name again to Broadway. There are still Bradways in that town.

The next several weeks of markers are down that road. Some are really great; you’ll want to keep coming back. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / New Jersey / photo / Rowan / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Sep 24

A part of something on two wheels

Last Thursday night we got a series of frantic text messages from two different friends asking if we were OK. Of course we were OK, we’d just been in the backyard. It was a nice mild evening, and everything was fine. Only everything was not fine. Just two miles away two cyclists were killed.

Word spreads quickly in a small town. A fireman heard a scanner and called the bike shop and the local bike shop started calling and texting people and some of them thought, “Two people,” and thought of us. We spent the night with eyes a little bit wider, and a lot more sad.

On Friday we learned it was two guys who grew up around here were killed on their way home. They were hockey players. Both had skated at Boston College. Both became pros. One was a star in the NHL. The other had returned to their high school to coach the team. It seems the driver was drinking, had been drinking for sometime, and in his own little rush, swerved right through them, killing them just a few miles from where they were headed.

One of the guys has two young children. The other was expecting his first kid later this year. They were to be in their sister’s wedding this weekend. And now, there’s a growing memorial on the side of the road.

I went by there this afternoon to see it. It’s a stirring little thing, a series of small town gestures that barely registers in the terrible anguish that has been visited upon their families and friends.

This weekend, through the Center for Sports Communication & Social Impact we started a survey for cyclists in the area, and we’ve been impressed by the number of responses we’ve received, but not at all surprised by what their telling us. We’re going to going the survey and have several ideas about what we can do with the data we’re collecting.

In the meantime, my lovely bride did two interviews with the local media today. One with ABC 6.

She did another interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, which hasn’t been published yet.

They’re asking us, these cyclists who’ve all encountered scary situations, how they can help. The local bike shops want to get involved too.

We went to one of them this afternoon, the ones that were looking for us on Thursday night. They are fed up with losing with losing their friends, worrying about their customers, and making these calls. We listened to them talk about all of it. The stories they can tell. They’re planning a big community meeting, they have the ear of some local lawmakers. Maybe something good will good from this awful mess.

For Johnny and Matty. For our neighbors who ride, from the people we wave at on the road and see on Strava. For all of us.

Friday / Indigo Girls / music / photo / Rowan / swimming / video — Comments Off
30
Aug 24

To the weekend!

I have a new setup in the home office. This is, if you ask me, getting a bit excessive. Also, it probably won’t stay like this for long.

Not pictured is all of my audio gear, which I need to work into this new workflow somehow, and also just use more. It’s sitting to the right, and just out of frame.

The biggest problem is going to be struggling with the new keyboard. My computer is one size, my work computer is another size, and when I go between them I’m always about a key, a key and a half, off as I type. It’s all a work in progress, of course, everything always is. The rest just comes down to how you feel about that.

That “Facing History” feature on the monitor, above? That’s on the Rowan site. Some of the archeologists there discovered, just a few years ago, some Hessian soldiers buried not too far away. It’s a Revolutionary War mystery they’re still trying to unravel. Fascinating stuff.

Today I had my first swim in three weeks. Three weeks of summer swimming I had to give up! Stupid ear.

Anyway, I got back in the water today. I was too nervous to do it yesterday, because my stupid ear has not given me a pleasant experience and I’m in no hurry to repeat that. But, healed up, fed up, and finally just dove in today. I wore ear plugs.

They did not work.

As soon as I popped the plug out of my left ear I felt all of the water that the plug was actually holding in.

It’s OK, though, because my lovely bride got me two other kinds of ear plugs to try, as well.

But I got in a good solid 1,650 yards. The first 300 and change were dreadful, because that’s what its like when you’re forever having to stop something, and then begin again. After a while, though, my arms warmed up and my brain got into that magically meditative state where it doesn’t really think about much of anything and the laps just started clicking by.

Three weeks!

Now I just have to wait a day or two to see if the swimmer’s ear returns, I guess. I poured some of the ear drying miracle of chemistry into it. Maybe I’ll be OK.

(Update: Looks like I got by without any problems. Maybe I just have to be particularly careful about this in the future.)

Here’s the last little clip from last week’s concert. This and “Touch Me Fall,” which I don’t think I’ve seen them play live in a long time, are always going to be the songs that opened my eyes up to what Amy Ray does. I’m going to say that, but if I played their whole catalog, it’s really all of it. And then if I played every CD from her solo catalog, I’d say, “See? See, right there.”

Anyway, this is a tune I think that probably does something different for different parts of your fandom. It literally screams about the being too young, and being too old. I was perfectly middle-aged — but trending, ya know? — before I really figured that out. I find this interesting because they have that now 40-year collection of fans. No matter where you were then, now, or in between, it has a moment for you.

Forty years. That hardly seems right, but they started playing in Georgia in 1985, and most of the rest of us started catching up in the next five or 10 years.

It’s funny, we went to a show of theirs some time back and jokingly said, “Wow, look at this crowd. How old!” Jokingly because we were, too. And that was seven years ago. Caught them three more times since, now.

I hope we get to go, go, go see them again soon.