The road was quiet. Everyone had gotten to where they needed to be.
It was empty enough that when the occasional car came by it seemed to do so apologetically. They knew they were intruding on the empty asphalt and how lonely it should be.
When the hum of the road is your own noise, and yours alone, that’s worth chasing. That’s the moment you ride for.
I woke up hungry this morning, which is how I knew things were looking up. Let’s call whatever moved in on Tuesday night and dominated Wednesday a minor, temporary inconvenience and move on.
There is this, though:
When I was in the third grade I came down with chicken pox during my spring break. I was at my grandparents. They were out in the country enough that a trip into town to see the pharmacist was good enough to verify the pox unto me. The druggist suggested I not travel. I was staying with my grandparents for a few days longer.
This would ordinarily not be a problem, but I’d had perfect attendance in the second grade and made it all the way to spring break in the third grade without missing any school. This was upsetting.
And then the itching really began.
After a while it all became miserable, one of the more painful being a spot right on a biceps tendon, irritated each time I walked. But I was fairly well covered in the horrible little blotches.
The only thing that made me feel better was the custom-ordered and custom-heated chicken noodle soup with crumbled up crackers and tea in the red plastic cup.
My grandmother has always been amused by me, and she’s spoiled me with all of her precious heart. (I was her first grandchild.) And so this silly, pathetic little request was honored for almost every meal for the week or so I fought off the chicken pox. My grandmother has a very giving spirit.
That picture is probably a few years before they realized they’d have to buy me that nasty, soothing lotion.
Some years later, probably when I was in undergrad, I asked my grandmother if she could spare one of those cups. Because I’ve always amused her, and because I am her favorite (and only!) grandson, and because she is very giving, she offered me two of her red plastic cups, which secret a cure-all elixir from their pores when you are feeling bad. They’ve always held a place of honor in my cabinets.
What, your cabinets don’t have places of honor?
They’ve been in use around here the last few days. I still can’t make chicken soup like she can, even though she just pours it out of a can as I do. Also, she is a better cracker crumbler than I. That’s even more absurd sounding, I know, but it is a truth of life: your grandmother is way better than you are at a lot of things. It’s science.
These days a similar cup is called a Koziol Rio Tumbler. I doubt that’s what these cups are. That name suggests a carefully calibrated focus group that was meant to impart sophistication. My grandparents were hardworking country people. My grandfather was a truck driver, my grandmother worked in the textiles. Their red plastic cups have no name or logo on them. Who knows how long they’ve had them, but it is an easy 30 years at least. They probably bought them because they needed cups, and red brings out her eyes. Or maybe they were a gift from an aunt or someone. What matters is that the magic curative powers within these cups are still working.
(And now, some several decades later, during another spring break, this bit of unpleasantness caught up with me. Parallels!)
Elsewhere: I did a few small things around the house to feel productive. I read a bit and wrote about nine pages worth of things. There’s also the new marker entry.
I’ve recently added some posts to the work blog:
The age of mobile has been here awhile, actually
That last one, even if you aren’t interested in anything to do with the general journalism theme on the other blog, could be useful.
Finally, I’ve tweaked the front page to the section on my grandfather’s textbooks. That portion of the site is complete, but it was missing something. And then I found that something — a photograph, the one I have of him as a school boy, even if it is a transfer and his bright young face is in a bit of shadow — tonight while working through a box of things in the office closet.
Yes. As midnight approached I was cleaning off a desktop and working through a box of photographs. I am feeling better, thanks. The red plastic cups do the trick.
Watch the entire video if you like, but here’s the backstory. Samford student Ryan Penney spent a day on Lake Martin with his girlfriend and her family. At Chimney Rock — where thousands of us have jumped and dived for decades — there was a terrible accident. Ryan found himself talking with doctors who were telling the theatre major he should consider another line of work, because he’d never walk again. And then:
The mind and will and spirit are powerful things.
Below are the winners of the 2012 World Press multimedia awards. Brilliant, beautiful work:
Afrikaner Blood: “Kommandokorps in South Africa organizes camps during school holidays for young white Afrikaner teenagers, teaching them self-defense and how to combat a perceived black enemy. The group’s leader, self-proclaimed ‘Colonel’ Franz Jooste, served with the South African Defense Force under the old apartheid regime and eschews the vision of a multicultural nation.”
Half-lives: The Chernobyl workers now: “Slavutych in Northern Ukraine was set up by the Soviet government shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to accommodate people evacuated from the proximity of the nuclear plant. The city was designed to provide the inhabitants with modern amenities and a comfortable life. First people moved in their new homes in 1988.”
America’s Dead Sea: “Salton Sea in the Colorado Desert of Southern California is a former tourist destination that has turned into an environmental disaster. Born by accident 100 years ago when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal, the lake soon became a popular resort. Yet with no outflow, and with agricultural runoff serving as its only inflow, the lake’s waters grew increasingly toxic. Though the resort towns were soon abandoned, the skeletons of these structures are still there; ghost towns encrusted in salt.”
The cycling story you probably don’t care about: One of the little pieces of cycling etiquette we have here is very dangerous. It involves a simple wave off to people pedaling the other direction. I’ve reduced this to a minimal movement, the raising of a flat hand so I don’t have to alter my “form.”
Form in cycling is important. I have none.
So this evening I rode out my three warmup miles. I sailed down the hill, through the neighborhood, made a beautiful turn toward the exit of the subdivision, through the roundabout and up the little incline that is the first minor piece of work of the ride. Only it felt great, the rhythm was there, the incline felt as mild as it ever has, my legs were crisp.
I coasted the last few feet, unclipped from my pedals, to the stop sign. I let the traffic from either side go by. Finally the only other person was another cyclist. And so I pedaled out across his oncoming path, clipping into the pedals, standing out of the saddle, making the long slow turn. Head on, I gave him the flat wave. My bike wobbled badly. I barely saved it. How, I’m not sure, but I stayed upright. In the two seconds of trying to not fall I sliced my pinkie finger on an exposed, sharp point of the bike.
So that hurt. By the time I had everything under control and could look down I was already bleeding off my hand from the meaty part of the inside of my metacarpus. Also, it hurt.
So I returned home, cleaned the cut, which was happily superficial and clotting. Suitably bandaged I went back out. About 22 miles in I forgot about my hand, began gripping the handlebars properly and pulled the bandaid away and reopening the wound. So it bled awhile but there was nowhere to stop. Look at me! A suffering cyclist!
Forty-five miles. It was a great ride.
It was a full and busy day. It started late last night, and a brief nap early this morning notwithstanding, it spun on until about 6 p.m. this evening. It was a great day. A lot of personable people, a class and more than my share of laughs.
And, after all of that, I got to talk to a friend. I got to stand in my yard and look at my neighborhood in the dying light.
It is a lovely life. It is a beautiful place.
Do come back for more fun tomorrow.
Earlier this week campus looked like this:
Today on Talbird Circle, just off the quad, this was hanging over passing students:
I love the spring, the variable of the local weather. It looks like England one day and the Caribbean the next. We can have 40 degree swings. Pollen makes every car look like a school bus. It seems too warm for March, but then, hey, it is March. And spring is just 14 minutes away.
A couple of meetings today. Some reading and critiquing the paper. There was even a little grading. I made good time getting off campus, covering some of the distance in the lingering daylight. As I closed the garage door at home the rain came. It was a day of good timing like that. One person left as another person came along. Everyone I needed to run into I ran into while I was looking for them.
That and spring! What else does one need?
Things to read: Nine visual elements
Stuff from elsewhere:
Branded apps have officially jumped the shark. No, they haven’t.
Ad of the day: The Guardian. Not sure if I like this foreshadowing or not.
The signs are everywhere — the signs of crossover. We’re not there yet, but publishers are starting to sense that the time when their business models become more about digital and less about print gets closer every day.Since the web’s dawn, publishers have lived in a mainly print/somewhat digital world. We’re on the brink of a heavily digital/somewhat print world. The difference means hundreds of billions of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen to content creators and distributors. Get it right, and you win the prize: America’s Next Top (Business) Model.
This is a story from last year, but it is making its way back around today. It is a cute read. Maybe the best part is that a reporter pretended to try to interview a pigeon.
Finally: There’s a new section of the site for Thursdays:
I’m going to pedal around the county and collect pictures of all of the historic markers. That should be a few days of riding and weeks worth of pictures. There’s even an interactive map in the banner!
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