I have not been able to post over the past two nights, the first I was too exhausted, and the second we were in a beautiful hidden valley with no phone service. I will try to summarize the three days now.
We enter the beautiful foothills of the Appalachians and begin to climb into the Blue Ridge Mountains.
On day one we head towards Charlottesville the famous city of Jefferson. For 60 miles and gradual climbs I help a rider in the back of the pack one with a lifelong ambition to make this trip. Living in the flatlands close to the Chesapeake Bay with minimal hill training it is very difficult for her to climb the 3500 feet.
Nonetheless after eight hours of pedaling she is able to complete the task.
We are hosted at a local Unitarian church and treated to breakfast by alumni the next day and then head higher and higher into the Blue Ridge Mountains to the top of the Parkway. At 20 miles sweeping I come across a rider who cannot make it to the top. We stop, I make sure she is safe, and I continue on. The rescue van will come back later to pick her up. Higher and higher I go up to the mountain tops and after 6 hours and 6500 feet I reach the peak of the Vesuvius.
its almost a straight shot down to the valley below and I know that without brakes I could easily reach 60 or 70 mph. Suddenly Angel and Flossia appear to my great relief. Purched on my shoulder and on top of my head one looks forward one looks back. Rocketing down the mountain side I watch closely for gravel and debris and use my brakes sparingly so they do not overheat. I do not look at the speedometer on the way down hill trip but rather concentrate on the 50 feet in front of me with each hairpin turn. Within 12-15 minutes I have sped down what took me six hours to climb on the other side. At the bottom of the hill is our campsite. We are hosted by a local grocery store who allows us to camp outback next to a flowing creek. Under the stars I sleep soundly my tummy full of food cooked by locals to celebrate our safe arrival.
Today we have a 60 mile ride to Roanoke one of the easiest of the trip. It is 90% downhill along streams , creeks and rivers .I am so tempted at times to get off and wade into the waist deep cool waters. Instead I ride on. As I listen to the gurgling water I think to the flow of life.
How gently the water flows around rocks ,boulders, and downed trees little impediment to motion towards the sea.
Today the person I help does not get lost for the first time, climbs all the hills and reaches the end in the middle of the pack. yes it took me 3 hours more than usual… but so what?
I think of some riders who have doubts, uncertainties, and fears, how they look ahead to see boulders rocks and downed trees. It is not easy when one has not done this before to let the water flow ,to glide past to the sea.
Yes it is very exhausting and more work than usual to help others in need but who am I to protest if I can help them reach a lifelong dream.
Angel and Flossie wink at me… “Just go with the flow”.
There is more to us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.” — Kurt Hahn, Founder if Outward Bound
PS . i am taking care of myself… here i am rolling out cramps…
I start at 6:10 AM. Cooler temperatures. As sweeper my duty is to help those who fall to the rear. I help when they get lost, frustrated, anxious. I assure them not to panic… this is America, they speak English and they have cash. Whatever happens they can’t really get “ lost”.
At 35 miles a second sweeper takes over and I can ride on.
It is hot, really hot, I am going through two liters an hour. 50 miles approaches, I have been in the sun 6 1/2 hours.
I am out of water and see ahead a church. It looks as if a funeral will be held in a few hours. More importantly a spout from the ground, fresh well water!
i pull up and whisper a prayer of thanks, open the spout and stuck my head under the near frozen stream. I sit on the church steps and drink my fill.
Loose thoughts enter my head and I wonder what in the world am I doing out here? My brain is too fried to carry on the thoughts.
Refreshed I ride on .
At 62 miles i pull into the rest stop where Dear Cassie is with us ( for a few hours more still).
She smiles and approaches me ” How is it going Nick?”
I tell her I had one of those ” what the hell am I doing here” moments back at that church with the funeral in hand.
Her smile droops but I quickly add. ” Cassie I am where I most want too be. “ The smile returns and I get a welcome hug.
Angel smiles at me ” Yes you are where you belong”
Mists rise from the muddy fields soaked from weeks of rain. The dawn sun peeks through the distant salmon colored clouds over the ocean’s plain… her golden rays carry a promise of warmth.
Am I ready to begin, another trek from East to West across this Great Land?
Pondering the scope of the path I look left but hear behind me…a fife and drums? This early in the morn with no one else around? I turn to see emerging from the mists three groups of soldiers, rain soaked, gaunt, unshaven, weary to the bone. Some clad in faded blue waistcoats, fabric so thin as to show patches of old white cotton next to their wasted skin…some in redcoats nearly as badly worn… some in pale beige linen mud stained in brown. They approach and join standing as one before me…silent…deep hollow eyes wondering at the spectacle before them… a ghost?… bright orange from head to toe, blue reflective lenses covering the eyes, some odd machine at his side…two wheels with bars of metal between. Their muskets hang loosely, some in hand, some strapped over shoulders slumped from years of war. I notice the wood of each stock, worn smooth with time, glistening in the early morning sun. How many times has each aimed and fired a musket ball into the approaching lines?
The grain of the wood is beautiful…I am reminded of a slick, worn bannister in a group home for the young blind…each sliding down backwards… caught in the arms of a loving headmistress … Squeals of laughter… ” Let’s do it again !!! “
Why that thought now on this muddy plain? Who truly understands the Mind?
The soldiers dare one step closer…” Are you one of us? Êtes-vous des nôtres?” “Yes and No… Oui et Non.”. I remove my sunglasses and we connect deeply eye to eye. They look again at the bike but find they are too tired and at a loss of words to ask what, who, when, or why? Instead from the depths of their souls: ” Will this soon be over? Will we be able to go home?” Blue, Red, White is of no concern, only “home”. I hesitate… “ Yes and No…but in the End…Someone will catch you in loving arms…” Silence… eye to eye they measure my response, nod a grateful thanks and turn to fade into the clearing mist, different flags fluttering behind long lines…
I do not have the heart to tell the Blues that in just a few short years their grandsons with musket in hand will be at war again…this time against each other. “ Will this be over soon? Will we be able to go home?” “ Yes and No”.
The sun’s warming rays now point due West and it is time for me to begin. I say a silent prayer for safety and give thanks. I look to see my Guardian Angel smiling…waiting…always ready to catch me… as I slide backwards down the slippery bannister of Life…
I suspect the most comfortable place each of us has been was long ago in our mother’s womb.
Two great novels come to mind as I start this ride in these troubled times.
Tolstoy brought to the forefront in War and Peace the struggles of the common man in the face of advancing history. Over and over again over the past 10,000 years we have seen “leaders” come to power to bring armies of people to slaughter and death. It’s happening now in Ukraine, same place, same forces, same leaders, same common folk dying. The leaders get the credit for forming history while the rest of us prop them up.
Pearl Buck’s Pulitzer winning Good Earth looked past the leaders to the common folk and told stories we have all lived. I have never forgotten the scene of a small frail Chinese woman delivering her baby in the fields and returning to work.
As we read these two stories what comes to the forefront are not the Napoleons of the world but all the rest of us, peanuts by comparison.
We can identify with them through the inherent belief in the Golden Rule.
Kindness is a large component of this identification with our companion souls.
All throughout the ride we will encounter kindness from strangers we have never met before or nor will likely ever see again.
Such kindness has already started on this trip. There is a small store on the railroad tracks just north of the NC border. It has been there for years, the past 20 or so my source for wonderful Virginia peanuts. Each year at Christmas I receive a 25 lb box of their goods from a greatful family I helped take care of a long time ago. Two or three times a year I stop by to refill my pantry .
When the owners found out about the ride the first thing they asked was “ How can we help?” The result …12 lbs of peanuts for the riders about to start.
As we leave Yorktown, the birthplace of America, we will head inland deeper into the womb of the United States. Each day we will find ourselves buried in the kindness of the common man so far away from the history making news. Each day we will be bathed in the warm natural springs of communal humanity and gradually feel that comfort of returning to our beginnings.
We may all be small individual inconsequential peanuts in this world, even those who call themselves “leaders” , but together we are a Family of One.
Golden-tailed Sapphire (Chrysuronia oenone) (♂) Small hummingbird flying and static suspended on a background of green leaves and plants and blue colors, with outstretched wings looking to the right
Each year hummingbirds migrate thousands of miles, some actually crossing the Gulf of Mexico. I have often wondered about this feat.
On a ride once in San Diego I was swarmed by a group who mistook me for a large orange blossom. I asked them how they managed such a trip and to my surprise they said “ Easy, we follow our beaks”…and off they flew…
Two night ago I awoke in a panic about the ride. Suddenly I had great doubts about my ability to complete this trip. Was I too old ( yes, no, maybe), was I in good enough shape ( yes, no, maybe) had I trained enough (yes , no, maybe), did I lose enough weight (no), was I up for the heat and sun of the desert again (yes, no, maybe), could I sleep on hard ground again(no)? At a loss as to how to sort out my woes I buried my head in a soft pillow and faded off to restless sleep.
The next morning I arose at 6 and road 40 miles as fast as I could to prove to myself that I was in fact ready to go.
As I pedaled I thought about previous trips and recalled that each day is a single event, and that in fact each day has partitions…the water stops. A successful rider thinks ahead only to the next rest stop just 20 miles ahead. In this way the magnitude of the ride is less overwhelming. The maps help , each panel no more than 30 miles with a bright red line showing us the way…if only someone had bothered to put that red line on the actual road for us…
Concentration telescopes to a single map panel, the next water stop, and the constant living in the moment so each of us stays safe.
Worries of the total path ahead disappear 10 seconds after the first departure point.
This year ,however , there is an added concern, that of Covid. Organizers of the trip have put in place elaborate contingency plans if anyone gets sick. Campsites and places of worship have asked for modifications in how we camp. Each rider has been vaccinated 3 or 4 times and each tested for the virus before the ride.
The East Coast Riders just completed 2500 miles and luckily none tested positive or became ill with Covid.
As an MD I may be asked to make difficult decisions if someone become sick…but I’ll cross that bridge if and when need be…
As I pondered all this Angel and Flossie appeared, wondering at my deep thoughts. I shared with them my poor night’s sleep and concerns only to have the two of them launch into endless stories about how they lived through the Black Plague centuries ago, Angel ferrying souls up, across, or down on Dantes orders and Flossie calming her bovine relatives who suddenly found themselves alone in the world…their bipods being led off by Angel of course.
Given their great expertise in times of crisis I asked their advice.
“ Well wear your mask of course… and follow the beak.”
Prior to the industrial revolution most babies were conceived between 2 and 4 AM while monks were completing their first set of hymns and prayers…
I have my final three days of training rides starting tomorrow at sunrise, 60 miles each AM. I am often asked if I get bored riding these long distances.
I have walked 4 miles every morning for the past 25 years and ridden more than 50,000 in the past 8 years. I don’t think I have experienced boredom even once.
We divide Time into past, present, and future…it is an irony that of the three divisions only that which is most fleeting is actual, the other two exist only in our imagination yet occupy 99% or our mental time.
The added irony is that of those two which absorb so much of our thought process , one cannot be changed, and the other is guided most often by the whims of chance.
The imagination is a powerful shaper of each of us…the science of psycho-cybernetics….a.k.a…. The Inner Game of Music, Tennis, Baseball…you pick your subject…
Don’t ever downplay how dwelling on the past or future warps our souls…sometimes we each need a rest…
We may spend endless hours stewing over the past, and endless hours worrying about our future yet so rarely do we spend much time where we actually live…in the present. These hours of concern, looking forward, looking back move as slow as cooling lava and consume, literally consume, hours of the fleeting moment…such a loss…
But the present…it moves like greased lightening, like a 99 mile an hour baseball passing over the plate, like a shooting star, like a rainbow in the sky…
Think of times we have been absorbed in an activity of the moment..how often do we look up to see that 1,2,3,even 4 hours have passed when it seems that we just started the task?
How often does a day dream seem to last just a minutes when so much more time has passed?
How often does time with a loved one seems to move so much faster than we like?
Time does not exist in the moment and millions of added moments in the present…the real present, not that clouded with thoughts of the past or future…add up to “ no time at all”…
A careful bike rider cannot afford to live in the past or future…only the present matters…there is in fact only billions of milliseconds of “now” ….
Hence… there is no time to get bored…
There is another time the rider experiences , that being natural circadian rhythms, often lost in the rat race of daily life…
The past and future are psychic, while the circadian rhythm is corporeal
For thousands of years humans have lived and died by this rhythm, one which curiously enough puts us to sleep during the siesta hours and wakes us between 2 and 4 AM. Much creativity has come from these hours early morning hours…investigate when the great musicians, authors, poets, inventors, businessmen, generals, leaders, etc. did their best work. Look to where intimacy between partners was most often likely to flourish. Look to when babies were most often concieved…During these few morning hours post a deep, natural, restful sleep.
All that was changed for the worse by the clock, the industrial revolution and finally by electricity. And of course “schedules”…
On these rides the clock has little meaning, there is no real electricity, and our only schedule is set by sunrise, sunset, and the weather of the day.
Not only has the rider entered a world of living in the pure present for 8 hours a day but so too has the unaltered circadian rhythm been allowed to resume its important place in life. How many times have I come across a rider fast asleep during siesta time?
Boredom cannot exist and natural rhythms resume control. Could it get any better for the soul?
Actually …Yes …because while all that is happening the rider finds themselves surrounded by “Mother Nature” bathing all in her endless Glory day after day after day….
The suitcase lay crumpled in the garbage can…so rank and disgusting in smell, even flies
avoided it…
Having been told by my mother as a young man that cheese could be used as a weapon of
revenge, only then, that day, did I fully appreciate one of her idiosyncratic, but usually valuable
lessons in life. My wife had flown to New York City for a few days and when asked what she
could bring me as a present I suggested she go to Zabars, the famous Jewish grocery store in
Manhatten, and as a treat pick out the strongest, smelliest cheese she could find . After several
hours in her suitcase at the airport and later in the hold of the returning plane it had softened,
permeating its pungency beyond normal human tolerance. Not only was the cheese not edible
but the house had to be aired out and the suitcase was ruined…
Born to older Italian immigrant parents, my mother, a “mistake”, something her mother never let
her forget, was often left to fend for herself in a small village in rural Illinois where Piedmontese,
a dialect of Northern Italy, was the main spoken language. Nearly all the occupants of
Wilsonville were immigrant families who worked the coal mines or farmed the local lands. Her
older brother by 16 years and sister by 14 had little to do with her and found her to be a
bothersome pest. As a very intelligent but unwanted mistake she learned to be assertive, tough,
resilient, resourceful, and persistent in reaching goals far beyond her family’s minimal
expectations.
Such toughness often led to fights at school with children much older in age.
One such altercation, at the tender age of eight, was rewarded with a teacher’s punishment of
” Write 1000 times , I will not fight “.
As my mother trudged home , a mile on foot, she passed the butcher shop, paused, and then
turned back toward the school house casting forth a sly, mischievous grin…
The next morning , arriving at school, she was accosted by the teacher who demanded her
1000 line punishment…out from her cloth bag came sheets of greasy salami wrapping paper
covered in smeared number 1 pencil lead…” I will not fight ” 1000 times. With ginger touch the
teacher laid the punishment in the trash can and ordered her to sit down…
Later that winter, again punished for fighting, Mariarosa decided to up the ante of revenge.
Swiping a chunk of limburger cheese from her mother’s cupboard…now for those of you who do
not know, this is a distinctly rancid and foul blue cheese when warmed… that night leaving her
warm bed, she walked a mile in the dark, snuck back into the schoolhouse and liberally applied
the softened butter like blue cheese to the inner cast iron cylinders of a steaming radiator…
which was…conveniently situated next to the teacher’s desk…
As expected the morning stench was overpowering… and the school room…well… had to be
“evacuated”…
While adults searched for the source of the foul smell, quite well hidden within the radiator
pipes, the children were sent off to play and eventually told to go home…for 3 days…
To the little ones, a Heroine had been born…
Age 16, precocious for her age, she finished high school and left to find employment in St.Louis,
a difficult goal for a young woman with millions of men returning home from WWII.
5 years later through resourcefulness and hard work she had put herself through college (a
waste of time as far as her family was concerned), and had a full time job as a city social worker
(not a real job according to her brother).
A year later she married my father, also of Piedmontese stock, got pregnant, and had a child.
When her young husband parted for the Korean War, she unfortunately found herself again at
home now unable to work with a small child in tow. Unlike hers, my fortunes in life were just to
begin as I was not only accepted but quite loved by her parents, the same two who had all those
years …and even then… shunned her both as a daughter and a person of worth.
A year and a half later transferred to Italy she was able to reconnect with her Italian roots, a
large extended family which lovingly accepted and took her in. It was there that Sabrina, my
sister was born, and Patrick, my brother, conceived.
Many moves and years later my parents divorced…years of struggles, fights, and pains
compounded by his excessive alcohol use and the climb of the military chain with demands on
her to be an military officer’s conforming wife…not her natural style in life…
Suddenly she found herself alone, with three children, no child support, and just a small income
as a state employed social worker. Luckily she did own 20 acres of forest land 15 miles east of
her Fairfax home.
Turning to survival mode she tapped into her childhood strengths and started all over again.
Giving up that plot of land, she acquired two small 3 unit apartment buildings not far from
Arlington Cemetery. With years of hard work as a landlord, plumber, painter, cleaning woman,
and yardman… while still maintaining her “full time job” …she used the rental income to send
three children to college and Medical School before beginning to buy other properties to create
a lasting financial trust for all of her 5 grand children. At the same time she, for herself, finished
a Master’s Program at George Mason University and later a Doctorate of Education traveling
back and forth to San Diego, California.
Misfortune again began to knock at her door in the form of small strokes in her late 50’s. Never
very good at taking her health seriously she finally had to come to terms with her own mortality.
Repeated cerebral infarcts began to slow her down until a major event in late 1999 left her
completely paralyzed on the right side. After a short hospitalization she was transferred to a
rehab unit near Mount Vernon. As a family we met and clustered around her bed to “asses the
situation”. Something seemed not quite right to me…there looked to be a flicker of movement on
her right side. Now there were many facets to my mother’s personality and multiple driving
forces to her day to day life but as her children, we all knew her preoccupation with money…
Before the astonished stares of her doctors and nurses, also gathered round her bed, I threw a
shiny coin on her bare white belly, looked her in the eye, and said ” Mama, get the dime with
your right hand”. Slowly, ever so slowly, she moved her “paralyzed’ right arm, grasped the coin in
her hand and smiled from a supposedly immobile face. I looked up at the medical staff and said
“ She will be just fine, now push her hard, no rehab limits”.
One Dime
6 weeks later she walked out of the hospital and drove herself home.
Over the next 15 years repeated small strokes chipped away at her body but not her soul.
Three years ago , knowing her time was nearly at hand I took her back to Italy to see her family
one last time. We were supposed to pick out a burial plot, but aghast at the cost of a funeral and
stone box in an above ground vault , she quickly rejected the idea of death and decided to live
on.
Even for the strongest of us time takes its toll. Over the past 10 months her health rapidly
declined, due to an unknown heart condition present for many years. As her thoughts turned to
the afterlife and her reunion with passed family and friends, she seemed to postpone death over
and over again, waiting for her grandchildren to marry, for me to return from a cross country
bike ride, and finally for the birth of her great grand son, Leonard Vincent Patrone.
4 weeks ago she told me she was tired and it was time. She went so far as to ask me to take
her to Oregon for a physician assisted suicide…she was just too tired and exhausted to go on.
We compromised… she said she would try to eat better, rest, and think of reasons to live but
her body just continued to wear down…
In poignant conversation she asked permission from me and my sister to be allowed to die at
home in peace… could we as her children accept her decision?
Of course we could, it was obvious the Matriarch’s time was at hand.
Hospice was arranged but she lasted less than a week. As she deteriorated she asked only that
we “ not leave her” and be present at her death. Sliding in and out of a sleeping state she
mumbled her repeated thanks to all of her family who came to say their goodbyes, to all of her
family who accepted her and loved her in her vulnerable dying state. It was ironic, yet fortunate,
that in the end she was finally able to recognize the love and acceptance she had craved all her
life.
Her last spoken words were “ I want to go to church”.
An hour later her forehead was anointed with holy oil and she received a final blessing to allow
the gentle passage of her soul while my sister held her hand.
My family would like to thank the Mormon church for all their help and concern over the past 15
years. A special thanks goes out to all the Missionaries who repeatedly visited her home, to Yen
Zhao and to the Nantos family…all people who added so much to her life.
Finally I would like to propose a toast in memory of my mother. I know that Mormon’s do not
drink alcohol but there are other kinds of toasts. One of her favorite meals was cornflakes and
blue cheese soaked in milk , the blue cheese being a close cousin of the infamous radiator
Limburger cheese. Accordingly I have included on the “After the Service Refreshment Table”
cornflakes, blue cheese and milk. Please do her the favor of tasting this treat, and in so doing,
share in a communal toast to her soul.
So ends the Eulogy of Mariarosa Vigna Patrone.
Amen
P.S. On Janruary 4th, 2016 I will take her ashes home…one half to where her mother and father were each born, at the base of the Italian French Alps from a time not so long ago…
A warm ,dry, Spring day…late afternoon…the scent of Wisteria overwhelms…
…crickets chirp, bees buzz , crows call out to to each other in puzzlement at the cacophony of noise from nearby …
drunk, lodged in the hook of an old oak tree, singing away without a care in the world, her cow, Flossie ,munching away on grass somewhere out of sight….
my mother…after downing a fair amount of her father’s home made wine…
Covid has finally eased itself out of sight and with any luck I soon will again be on a cross country trek. Training is going well, up to 50 miles a day.
Today I realized it was time to go find Angel and Flossie …I need to break the news to them, they too must get in shape for the upcoming ride.
Wondering where they have been over the past two years I think of their significance.
Cassie, my Dear Cassie, goaded me into the second, third, fourth and so on rides by telling me to “get out of your comfort zone”…I thought the first of 4000 miles many years ago would suffice….how wrong I was…
“Getting out of a comfort zone “ is an understatement…it’s more like the scouring of a soul to the core. Each mile strips away more and more of the quotidian veneer until only the “I” is left…
To be alone in 400 square miles of Eastern Montana with 30 mph headwinds and 30 miles to go… to be drenched in cold rain surrounded by crackling lightening and thunder on the Great Plains…to be in the sixth hour of 7 hour mountain climb with no leg strength left to get to the top… to be coming down the other side at 45 mph praying there is no deer or moose just around that curve…
a soul stripped to the core…vulnerable and alone…
Children have discovered a wonderful safe way to deal with being in that state, a “ security blanket”…a cherished stuffed animal, favorite piece of cloth or rag, a shredded multicolored ribbon…
What we may not appreciate is that we never really give up those safety nets as we age…they are just transformed…
In later life the little girl stuck in the tree, whose security blanket was a tin box full of coins,
would often apologize to me for her lack of mothering…it is true, she was not the nurturing type… material goods, money and status were “her thing” …but she , with the help of NUNS, made me who I was to become. She taught me the value of hard work, goals in life and perseverance in the face of adversity to reach those goals.
For that I owe her gratitude.
I often listened to her stories of growing up and Flossie, her cow, seemed ever present…perhaps this beast was something safe for her in her troubled life…a tin of coins was just not enough…
Beside her teaching at home I was sentenced Catholic school at a very young age and partially raised by NUNS. As I grew older I rejected the male dominated Catholic Church and the concept of sin and eternal hell but did retain something from those times…the gift of a Guardian Angel.
I was always fascinated by the idea of a Protector close by and just never let fade the idea of my own Angel …I am not quite sure if Angel is HE or SHE…St Thomas Aquinas argued on how many could dance on the head of a pin but left the concept of gender aside …
As I grew older Flossie, from of my mother’s life, and Angel, from Catholicism, just followed along somewhere deep down inside.
Security blankets are good to have when you are alone…beacons of light to guide you in the darkest of times…
So now I need to go find mine again and get them in shape for the ride since it is they who will protect me over and over again speeding down the curving mountain side…
PS: For my next story I will share the eulogy I read at my mother’s funeral. ..she certainly did mold me to become the person who I am…someone who would dare take on these crazy cross country rides…over and over again…
PPS: For new Readers unfamiliar with Flossie and Angel feel free to peruse stories from previous rides…they can be found by going back in time on this site…
Time Travelling with a Guardian Angel 