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I had every intention of writing in the blog last night, except, well, you know what happened, don’t you? After writing my newspaper story and then my online story, I decided to take a brief break on the sofa. Twelve hours later, I am resuming the task, the better for having slept off much of the fatigue from the past 20 days.
I’ve thought a lot about fatigue, and I’ve probably written too much about it. On the one hand, for a desk jockey like me, going out and riding my bicycle for 4-5 hours each day and then doing journalism for another 10 hours each day was difficult. At age 51, I had settled into a comfortable lifestyle, one that rarely pushed me either physically or mentally. This 20-day trip ripped me right out of my routine.
So this trip was a significant change for me and my tired old body. I think perhaps the most frustrating thing for me was that the creative part of each day – the period from 5-to-8 p.m. when I would be writing – was also the time when I was most fatigued. I had many good things to say, but often I struggled to find the right words.
All of that said, who am I to complain? There are lots of people who work long days and never complain about it. For some reason, every time I found myself feeling sorry for myself I kept thinking of the soldiers in Iraq, spending a month of sleeping on the ground under the stress of war. The soldiers – and the reporters and photographers covering them – now they have long and difficult days, not me.
Anyway, it’s now over. I think back to last summer when I first starting planning this adventure. By last September I had the route all figured out and it’s remarkable how little it changed over the months. I can safely say that this trip dominated my life in big and small ways for an entire year.
There were many times when I didn’t think it would happen. When editor Jan Leach quit the paper in February, I gave it less than a 50 percent chance. She was the one who first suggested a bike-trip project and was the champion of it through a difficult financial budgeting process. With her gone, I was left alone to fight through all the many – and I do mean many – obstacles. Think about it from the perspective of your own experiences. What usually happens to the boss’s pet projects when the boss walks out the door?
Then there were other, more recent, obstacles set before us – placed there by well-intentioned people, many of them people I call friends. From their own, extremely narrow perspective, they thought they were doing the right thing. They ended up making the hill that much more higher to climb – and thus made it that much more satisfying to reach the summit.
They were offset by the dozens – make that hundreds – of people who offered encouragement and assistance both before and during the journey. So many people – some of them friends and some of them total strangers – took their time, effort and money to help make this project happen.
One of the best decisions about the trip, and one of the most difficult to arrange, was the notion that we would spend our overnights with local families. Not just anywhere, but these would have to be people who lived in the 19 places we would be ending up at each night. It turned out to be a great decision to do this. We learned so much from our wonderful hosts; they enriched the experience in so many ways. I now believe I have a network of new friends, scattered across the state. How does one calculate the value of something like that?
Those overnight accommodations happened because friends and acquaintances vouched for us with their friends. That took a lot of trust and effort – for which I am grateful.
I’m sure I’ll have more reflections on this journey in the coming days and weeks, which I intend to share with you in the blog. For right now, here are some random thoughts.
- I wish I had researched architecture a little more. Upon launch, I had little idea of what I would encounter along the way. Turns out, much of Ohio is really old and the preservation – or lack of preservation – of the old houses and buildings became one of the ongoing themes.
- I would have taken two of everything electronic – computers, modems, digital camera card readers, you name it. Our point of most vulnerability came at the end of each day when we were never really sure the fruits of our efforts would make it back to the newspaper or to online.
- I would have packed less. We did laundry every other day – thus, only two days worth of clothing were needed. I had a whole crate of books and Website printouts that I never had time to look at.
That reminds me of an e-mail that I received from Sam Johnson, who I believe lives in the United Kingdom, based on his e-mail address. Anyway, Sam suggested the trip would have been much better accomplished by car, instead of by bike. That way, he said, we would have had more time to go to museums and to check out local historical sites, instead of spending so much time and effort on the bike.
My answer to Sam goes to the heart of this project. This trip was NOT about places, despite the context of traveling around Ohio. We strongly wanted to tell the story of Ohio through people – ordinary people. The kind of people who would see two tired and sweaty bike riders approach them with a request for five minutes and would then gladly give them an hour.
We also wanted to slow down the world by moving through it at the speed of bicycles. You’ll have to believe me on this, Sam, but you see a lot more – more details, more little things that indicate the presence of interesting people – from the perspective of a slow-moving bike.
I truly believe it would have been a totally different experience, and thus a different story, had this been done by car. Besides, the Beacon Journal has sent reporters and photographers out by car around Ohio countless times. I wanted this to be different.
I should say “we” wanted this to be different. Throughout the arduous process, I had a partner who provided numerous suggestions and observations that inevitably turned out to be not only helpful, but in many cases essential to the success of the project. Photographer Dennis Gordon and I were on the same page throughout. When no one believed, he did. When no one understood what we were trying to do, he did. On those hot humid days out in the middle of nowhere when I just couldn’t pedal up another hill – he did. He and I will share memories – of some things I could never write about – for the rest of our lives.
Finally, this was a personal journey of discovery for me. By far, this was the biggest, most complicated, most difficult thing I had ever set out to do. It became a personal challenge, a quest, to see whether it could be done. And I’m really not talking about the bike riding part, the project planning or even the 20 consecutive days of writing. This was about going out on a long and narrow limb, with no safety net, and challenging yourself to not only make it back safely, but to skip along on that limb with confidence and style. That was my goal. And, you know what, I did it. I really did it.
If there is anyone out there who harbors a desire to do something big, who isn’t sure whether the time is right or whether you have what it takes to do it, here is my advice. It isn’t about the destination – it’s all about the journey. You won’t regret the effort; you’ll regret only the lack of trying. Do it. Do it now, before it’s too late.
8:12:01 AM 
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