Commie Plots! Chick Tracts! My Visit to the Global Headquarters of the Sectarian Review Podcast

Danny Anderson meeting Philip Roth

at the celebration of Roth's 80th birthday

Danny Anderson is a professor of literature at Mount Aloysius College near Cresson, Pennsylvania. He grew up near Cleveland in a center of American fundamentalism: the kind of place where Barry Goldwater was considered a Liberal, the Earth was 6,000 years old, fluoride was a Commie plot, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were real, not just a nickname for top-rated defensive linemen. 

And yet, Danny earned a Masters Degree in American Jewish literature, followed by a PhD comparing the Campus as a setting in Jewish film and literature.  So what school could be a better fit for an expert in Jewish literature who grew up Conservative Evangelical than a rural Catholic College that was founded as a convent and school for girls in 1853? 

So many strands of American faith are woven through Danny’s life that he is an ecumenical event when he is eating lunch alone at his desk. 

Actually Danny has two desks in the Homage-to-Hogwarts structure he works in.  The second desk is the studio where he records podcasts.  Danny is the founder and host of SectarianReview, a podcast about Faith, Culture, Music, Economics, Film, History, Religion and Politics.  If that sounds sane, here are ten actual topics:

·      Elon Musk

·      The John Birch Society

·      Spiderman

·      Andrei Rublev

·      Seven Mountains Dominionism

·      Donald J. Trump

·      Oscar Romero and Redemption

·      Science Fiction & Theology

·      Chick Tracts

·      The Wolf Man

From these topics, and from many others, like Alex Jones being banned on Social Media, you could get the idea that Sectarian Review is all fun and crazy. But the most affecting episode for me was “Black Exodus from White Evangelicalism.” I listened to that interview twice and read her article "For Those Who Stay" by Danny’s guest Tamara Johnson the same day the podcast dropped on my iPhone. 

In that episode Johnson talked about her struggle to be part of a white Evangelical congregation and how Charlottesville changed everything for her.  I am struggling with being an ethnically Jewish believer with Black sons and wondering how I can worship with people who drank the full pitcher of Trump Koolaid and continue to be devoted to him after Charlottesville. Listening to Johnson helped me to deal with that conflict in my life.

I was in the Johnstown area Monday, so I took a forty-minute drive northeast and met Danny at his office, got a brief tour of the campus then went to lunch. During lunch we mainly talked about Danny’s research area.  I grew up in a completely secular Jewish home and read very little American Jewish literature. Danny is now my Sherpa on that high mountain. He posted a list of his ten favorite Jewish novels on the Sectarian Review website. During lunch he recommended a half-dozen books and movies I should see and read, with a supplemental list of Woody Allen movies.  I was texting titles to myself while he spoke. It’s a good thing my iPhone has lots of memory.

If you were wondering what kind of person grows up fundamentalist, studies Jewish literature, teaches at a rural Catholic College, Danny is the only one. I cannot recommend the podcast highly enough. I suggest scanning the Sectarian Review website for your favorite conspiracy theory then begin listening, and smiling.    

  Danny Anderson

Sectarian Review is part of the Christian Humanist Network.  

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My Next Race--Fighting Back Against Aging

Riding at Camp Adder, Iraq.

The Army won't deploy a soldier who is more than sixty years old without a waiver signed by a general officer.

I had one of those waivers in 2013 when I turned 60. I was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan with the 56th Stryker Brigade.  But President Obama cut troop deployments to our nation's longest war and I stayed home.

In preparation for that deployment, I went to a three-month Army school at Fort Meade, Maryland.

During the school I was training to do an Ironman triathlon the following year.  If the deployment fell through, I would have a huge athletic challenge. While I was at Fort Meade, I took two fitness tests. I scored 296 and 300--the max.  I completed the Ironman at age 61.

Since the Ironman, I have tried a couple of times to start running again, and could not.

The next year swimming got more difficult. My left shoulder would last for a mile before giving out, then less.  It's a good thing I did the Ironman when I did, because running and swimming got harder and harder in the two years following.

Last year I rode across Eastern Europe.  This year I rode to Boston but I was having knee trouble.

Now, four years after the Ironman, I get knee surgery in three weeks. Next week I get an MRI for a lower back problem and I just got a cortisone shot in my right shoulder.

In 2013, I was ready to deploy to Afghanistan with an infantry brigade.  In 2014 I did an Ironman.  In the coming year I could be getting one or two more surgeries as a result of injuries and a genetic tendency to arthritis.

One of my riding buddies is 71 years old and has none of these problems. He also has no arthritis.  I have an Army buddy who is younger than I am but the cumulative damage of Airborne and Ranger service means his serious workout days are over.

In some ways, I am amazed I could get this far.  Today I rode 10 miles to the doctor to get the shot. On the way back, I met another riding buddy on the road and ended up riding almost 40 miles.

People ask me what my next big event is. My next big event will be getting healthy enough to do another big event.

Unforgettable Moment, B-52s Scramble, Hill Air Force Base, 1974

B-52 Bombers taking off on full throttle on Strategic Air Command alert

I was stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, from 1972-74. Early in 1974, Strategic Air Command stationed a wing of B-52s on Hill.  

My duty station was four miles from the airfield on the north end of the base.  Sometimes I went to the hangar for electronic parts.  On a warm spring day, I happened to be in the hangar when I heard an enormous roar, then another, then another, and another.  

Six B-52s filled the air with black smoke and the howl of 48 jet engines on throttle. The planes took off one after the other less than a minute apart. When all six formed up in the sky above the base, the giant airplanes flew east toward the Rocky Mountains and disappeared.

It was magnificent.

I was 21 years old when those planes took off.  Those airplanes were about my age, first entering service in 1952, a year before I was born. Like me they have had a lot of maintenance, but still have an active life today. Some of them, like me, are in their 60s.  

Fishing My Phone from a Storm Drain

This grabber saved me lots of money 

Yesterday I rode south from Lancaster for about fifteen miles. On the way back I was coasting down a hill on Route 272. I pulled my iPhone from my jersey pocket--and dropped it.

I briefly heard the sound of the phone skidding on the road, then nothing. I looked back and saw the steel grille of a storm drain. I turned around. At the drain, I looked down and there was my phone. It was not submerged, but sitting on a small pile of gravel out of the water.

I rode five miles home, got in my car and drove to a local shopping center with both a Verizon Store and a Home Depot.  The phone was insured, but it would cost almost $100 for a replacement and it would be sent to me. Getting a phone in the store meant buying a new one for $300.  Since it was Saturday on a holiday weekend, it would be 2 or 3 days to get the phone.  And there was a chance I could fish it out. So I left Verizon and went to Home Depot. There I bought a three-foot grabber, the longest they had, and drove back to the storm drain.

The grabber would not reach the bottom of the drain, but there was a gap between the steel drain and the curbstone. I could reach just barely around through that gap. After a few tries, I was able to clamp and lift the phone. It still works.

A few weeks ago I bought a phone holder for my handlebars.  I meant to use, but I am so used to having the phone in my pocket, I did not.  But now I do. Today I rode about 35 miles with the phone clamped on the handlebars.

 Phone clamp on the handlebars of my bike

The phone holder mounts differently on each of my two road bikes, so I will get another phone holder for other bike with carbon handlebars.

And I will use the phone holder instead of my pocket.  By the way, I lost another phone last year exactly the same way--pocket to storm drain. So use of the phone holder is overdue.

Loving the Book is not the Same as Liking the Author

Mark Helprin, I love his books, hate his politics

 My two favorite living authors are very different men. I have read all of the novels of each man and re-read my favorite novel by each. I plan to re-read more and, of course, read anything else they write. C.S. Lewis said “Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love.” He also cautioned that a reader who loves an author’s work should not believe he would like the company of the author.

Kazuo Ishiguro, Noble Prize in Literature, 2017

I started reading Kazuo Ishiguro in 2014 on the recommendation of a good friend. The first novel I read by him was “Remains of the Day.” In January of this year I finished “The Unconsoled,” making my reading of Ishiguro complete. Two years ago I re-read Remains of the Day, still my favorite, although “TheBuried Giant” is a close second. The Buried Giant was published in March 2015. Two months later Ishiguro spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia.  After hearing Ishiguro speak, I was quite convinced I would love to have a drink with him. His Nobel Prize address last year made me even more sure I would love to hang out with him if the opportunity ever presented itself. That address is moving, brilliant and sad, the common threads in everything Ishiguro writes.

In February 1983, when I was still in graduate school, I first read Mark Helprin in the New Yorker magazine.  I read the story “Jesse Honey Mountain Guide” in the last issue of the month.  The story was a chapter in his second novel “A Winter’s Tale” published the following September. I was hooked.  I read his first novel and two short story collections published to that point. In the years since I read every other novel as each published. I have re-read Winters Tale and plan to re-read Helprin’s most recent novel “Paris in the Present Tense” this year or next year. “Paris in the Present Tense” is now my favorite.

I was so taken with Jesse Honey, I wrote paper in grad school about Helprin’s precise use of exaggeration in the story, comparing to the Walter Mitty stories by James Thurber.  

Over the years I read Helprin’s editorials in the Wall Street Journal and other essays. He is a conservative, so I never imagined we could have a totally friendly conversation, but in 2015 and 2016 Helprin spoke out against Trump and seemed to be a Never-Trump conservative.  Maybe we could have a drink?

Alas, that was in 2016. After Nazis marched in Charlottesville in 2017, Helprin wrote in Trump’s defense in The Claremont Review of Books. Next month Helprin is speaking in New York. I have never heard Helprin speak, and I would like to, but I won’t be attending the event.  He is the featured guest at “Socrates in the City” an occasional gathering organized by author and total Trumpian Eric Metaxas. In 2011, Metaxas wrote a biography of a martyr to the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Despite writing about a victim of the Nazis, Metaxas is a full-throated supporter of a man whose campaign was built on the Birther form of racism and spread to every other non-white group as soon as the campaign began.

So I won’t be paying Metaxas to hear Helprin speak. In addition to Helprin, the event is a launch party for a new Children’s book by Metaxas “Donald Drains the Swamp.” Metaxas is a very funny guy. He is one of the creators of the “Veggie Tales” series. But, sadly, in his new book he is not ironical. Metaxas really sees Trump as the savior of the western world. The irony runs the other way though: no one in Washington has ever been more corrupt than the Swamp-Creature-in-Chief. 

When I think of Veggie Tales now, I imagine Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber being thrown into a Black Car driven by the Veggie Gestapo. Bob and Larry plead that wanted to salute The Orange Fuhrer, weakly protesting, “But we don’t have arms!”

Larry and Bob

I will keep reading Helprin, because the things he writes, like all creations, are from, not of, the person who created them.  And 70-year-old conservatives can become cranky—at least that’s what I’ve heard. 

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Military Movies and "The Rule"

Dick Winters, inspiration for the book and video series Band of Brothers

The world is full of good, great and terrible things to watch: movies, TV, and videos. To figure out what to watch, I have The Rules.

The Rule is, I won't watch anything about which I know technical details. Of course, I have exceptions, but in general, if I want to be entertained, I stay away from subjects that are part of my actual experience. I watch car racing; I don't watch car racing movies.

Next on my suspect list are war/military movies.  Even when I like part of a war movie, I know I am going to hate part of it too.  For instance, the first half of "Full Metal Jacket" is amazing. The second half is so predictable it could be a John Wayne movie.

I loved the movie "Fury" which was so right about procedures inside the turret of the tank. But, as with Full Metal Jacket, the final 30 minutes would make John Wayne blush.

And speaking of John Wayne movies, is there a veteran anywhere who does not think "The Green Berets" is the worst war movie ever made? In 1977 in the dayroom of Bravo Company, 1-70th Armor in Wiesbaden, West Germany, that movie came on the one TV channel we had--Armed Forces Network. Half the company crowded into the dayroom throwing rolled up socks and popcorn at the TV and howling about how bad that movie is.

Using The Rule, I will happily watch shows and movies about Secret Agents, Drug Dealers, Mobsters, Undercover Police, Surgeons, and Pirates.  I have no experience in any of those jobs, so when the they get the technical details wrong, I don't know it.  I have watched medical shows with real medics.  That's a hoot, listening to them flare up and yell, "No way! No one does a tracheotomy that way!" I have not had the chance to watch "The Sopranos"with a mobster or "Rome" with a Centurion, but that would be fun!

Just as an aside, I enjoyed all five seasons of "Breaking Bad" until the final episode. I know nothing about teaching high school or cooking meth and the series was brilliant. But when the star of the show welded a remote controlled M-60 machine gun into the trunk of a Cadillac and fired it with a key fob, killing a half-dozen Neo-Nazi drug dealers: "That's Bullshit!" was my reaction.

That's how I acted at the end of "Saving Private Ryan" when the German tanks went into a built up area, just so they could get blown up. "No armor commander would be that stupid" I spluttered in the theater eliciting glares from those around me.  I calmed down, but when I left the theater I called an old friend from 70th Armor and said, "The end of that movie is bullshit....." and we laughed about all the movies we dissed over the past two decades.

The glaring exception to my criticism of military video is "Band of Brothers." I found nothing to criticize in that amazing tribute to Major Dick Winters and the paratroopers he led from D-Day to VE Day.  When I re-enlisted and went to Iraq in 2009, I found many fellow critics of military-themed movies, but I never heard anyone criticize "Band of Brothers."

Next on my "To Watch" list is a video series: To Watch is a real list I keep in the Task List of Google Calendar. When I hear about something good to watch, I add it to the list.  Anyway, next is the final season of "The Americans" on FX. What a great show. I know nothing about being a Russian sleeper cell secret agent.

The Painting in My Living Room by a Prisoner of War

 A Picture of Bavaria on My Living Room Wall

Painted by an Afrika Korps Prisoner of War

When I look up from reading on the couch at night when the house is quiet, I see this painting. It was painted by an enlisted man serving in the Afrika Korps who was a Prisoner of War of the American Army.

The POW camp he was a prisoner in for more than two years was in Reading, Pennsylvania. The site is now the Reading Airport.

The painting was a gift from the prisoner to the camp commandant, my father, Capt. George Gussman. When my father took command of the camp in 1944, most of the prisoners had been there for more than a year.

On the day he took command, my father lined up the officers to introduce himself and let them know what he expected from the prisoners. One of the officers whispered that my father was a Jew. Which is true. He was also a ranked middleweight boxer before he enlisted. He called the man out of formation and hit him hard enough to lay him out cold in front of the other officers.

Dad then sent his guards into the barracks for and inspection that led to confiscating hundreds of Hershey bars the prisoners had bought with the money they earned in work on local farms.  These candy bars became my mother's engagement present from Dad.  That story is here.

My Dad never went overseas in World War II. He enlisted before the war started at 34 years old. As a rule, the Army did not send soldiers that old into combat during World War II.

After the initial drama, Dad had no more trouble and got along well with the prisoners.  The prisoners were repatriated several months after the war ended, and few applied to stay in America and pursue citizenship.

The painting reminds of the ironies of war--that soldiers from the country that killed millions of Jews would be prisoners in a POW camp run by the son of Jewish immigrants.  I keep that token of respect and affection on my wall. It hung on the wall of the home I grew up in. I will pass it to the next generation.

The prisoners my father was in charge of were captured far from home in a war that was already going against Germany. Prisoners of War in any Army are brave men who faced the enemy and death and survived.

Reality Catches Up With Fiction 70 Years After World War II

B-25 Bomber Pilot 1st. Lt. Bernard "Bernie" Steed Receiving 

the Distinguished Flying Cross for Bravery 

on a Mission over Avignon, France.

Last month a friend started a Facebook discussion about the worst book we ever read. One of the books that came up was Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Published in 1961, the novel was based on life in an Army Air Corps bomber squadron flying B-25 "Mitchell" medium bombers over Italy, Southern France and across the Mediterranean Sea.

B-25 "Mitchell" Medium Bombers

I jumped into the discussion saying Catch-22 was one of my favorite books. I put the comment on my own page and one of the responses was from a guy I worked with almost 20 years ago.  Joseph Steed’s comment:

“My Dad literally lived Catch 22. He was assigned as a pilot to his bomber squadron in Europe within a month of the arrival of a young bombardier from New York City named Joseph Heller. Heller flew as Dad's bombardier on several missions. In the Avignon mission which was a significant scene in the book, like the author, Dad saw one of his friends shot down for the first time. On the same mission, Dad's plane lost an engine and he had to ditch it in the Mediterranean. Dad had told me about the ever-increasing number of missions required before being allowed to leave (he flew 66), and about the one guy in their unit who refused to fly again after reaching 40, the latter becoming the model for the guy who claimed he was crazy to avoid flying but whose sanity was proved by his not wanting to fly -- the original catch 22. When I discovered the Heller connection, Dad was in his 80s. He had heard of the book, but was not aware it was written by one of his bombardiers about their shared time in Europe. We looked up an old picture of Heller, and Dad remembered him as a little guy always running around with a notebook in his hand and writing things down. I got a copy of the book for him, but he made it only a couple of chapters in. He couldn't deal with being satirical about the experience.”

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Joe’s Dad, Bernard “Bernie” Steed was drafted in 1942 at 19-years-old. He qualified for flight training and within a year was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and training to fly B-25 “Mitchell” twin-engine bombers. These planes were made famous in the “Doolittle Raid” in which the big planes flew from aircraft carriers and bombed Tokyo in 1942. Bernie Steed’s life included the terror and humor of war. While still in pilot training in Georgia, shortly after landing in his trainer plane from a routine flight, a second plane’s propeller began chewing through their plane’s tail section, destroying it most of the way to the cockpit. The guy never saw them until he hit them. “Pilot inattention."

Bernie Steed in pilot training

By May 1944, Bernie Steed was 21-year-old pilot flying bombing missions from a base in Corsica across the Mediterranean theater of operations. On one mission Steed lost an engine, but managed to land the plane safely in the sea and get all of his crew into the life raft. They were rescued by a seaplane just a few hours later.  Bernie Steed earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for that mission and earned many other awards and decorations for flying 66 combat missions.

Joseph Heller was from Brooklyn and was a year younger than Bernie when he was assigned as bombardier in the 488th Bombardment Squadron in May 1944. He flew a couple of missions as part of Bernie’s six-man crew.

Joseph Heller in the Bombardier Compartment of a B-25 Medium Bomber

The characters in Catch-22 were composites of more than one person, Heller said. But about the action described, he said, “All the physical details, and almost all of what might be called the realistic details do come out of my own experiences as a bombardier in World War II. The organization of a mission, the targets—most of the missions that are in the book were missions that I did fly on.”

Thanksgiving Dinner, 1944, on the 488th Bomber Squadron Base, Corsica

A month before I learned about Bernie Steed, I saw a copy of Catch-22 at a book sale and bought it, thinking I would like to re-read it. Now that I know more about the author and one of the heroes in the squadron the novel is based on, I will definitely be re-reading the book.

Riding 400 Miles to a Picnic, Part 2: The Picnic

Charles River Bike Path

I rolled up to the Ig Nobel Prize picnic after a seven-mile ride from the east side of Cambridge.  Part of the ride was on the wide, paved bike path that follows the south bank of the Charles River.  On the short ride, I travelled on Route 28, Beacon Street, a scenic bike path and a quiet residential neighborhood.  Boston beauty.

Maria Ferrante, director of "The Broken Heart Opera," on the Snders Theater stage.

When I arrived, most of the people at the picnic were gathered around the piano in the basement.  Each Ig Nobel Prize ceremony since 1996 includes a comic opera that starts and stops and starts again between the awarding of the prizes.  This year will be the premiere of “The Broken Heart Opera.” Leading the practice for this year’s opera was Maria Ferrante, the director, and an accomplished soprano who has performed in Grand Operas.  Maria had to leave early, so practice was already in progress.

At the piano were two young players, Ivan Gusev from Kazakstan and Yulia Yun from Uzbekistan.  They sat together, one playing, then the other, and sometimes they played four handed.  They were fun to watch, both as brilliant musicians and the way they interacted as they played.  At one point they played “Sheikh of Araby” . Ivan and Yulia played their parts sometimes reaching across each other. At one point Ivan reached too far and Yulia pushed him off the left side of the bench. Ivan rolled onto the floor, and quickly got back onto the piano bench.

Ivan Gusev

Yulia Yun

Marc Abrahams, the emcee of the Ig Nobel Ceremony, stepped to the side of the piano as Ivan resumed his seat. Marc said, “If that should happen during the performance, just keeping playing.”

Marc Abrahams, Emcee, Impresario of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, with an actual Ig Nobel Prize

Practice continued another 15 minutes, then Maria was off to her next event. After the practice Marc suggested that Ivan and Yulia watch the video of Stephanie Trick and her husband Paolo Alderighi playing “Sheikh of Araby.” It’s really good. The four-handed playing begins at 3:30. 

Next we moved to the patio, where I met John Barrett. He has been the referee of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony for more than twenty years.  John keeps time, making sure the 24/7 Lectures, 24-second talk followed by a 7-second summary, do not go over time.  John is a veteran. He enlisted in the Army Reserve in the 1950s at age 17, then went to Harvard after he came home from Basic and Advanced training.  He told funny stories about being in the band during his brief time in the Army.

John Barrett, referee, action shot

After talking Army with John Barrett, I talked about Gilbert and Sullivan, serious and comic operas, and life in Massachusetts with John Jarcho and Jean Cummings. They are both singers in the opera. John went to medical school at the University of Utah around the same time I was stationed in Utah on Hill Air Force Base. John and Jean and I were joined by others in a discussion of whether Utah street addresses were the best or the worst addresses in the country. If you have never lived there, I once lived at 2321 West 5900 South.  There are no street names, just numbers on a grid. In Salt Lake City, the addresses run into the ten thousands radiating out from the Mormon Temple. John likes Utah addresses, Jean and I like streets with names. Then Jean and I talked about how crazy it is that people can misspell four-letter names like Neil and Jean. 

I have been a volunteer at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony since 2010, but this is the first year I was able to attend one of the picnics. On the day of the event, there are so many things going on that I see people but never get a chance to talk with them, especially about important matters like Utah addresses, or misspelling names. I will definitely try to get back next year.

Volunteering at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

In the middle of every Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony the audience 

launches hundreds of paper airplanes toward the stage.

The Ig Nobel Prize ceremony is held every year in Sanders Theater on the campus of Harvard University.  This year’s ceremony will be held at 6 p.m.  September 13, and webcast live. Since the first ceremony in 1991, the event always occurs before the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. The ceremony gets press coverage in countries around the world, especially those that are home to Ig Nobel (and Nobel) Prize winners.

Channel 1, Russian Federation

Every year one or more US-based TV crews from Japanese TV stations show up.  Crews from France and Russia are also annual attendees.  One of my volunteer jobs for the past seven years has been to keep the Russian crew from Первый Канал (Channel One) within the limits for press people. The names of the prize winners are embargoed, and the rules of Sanders Тheater mean the crews have to share the platform where cameras are allowed, so they can only film during specific parts of the ceremony.

The Russian crew is not very good at obeying the rules.  Since I am the only press volunteer who is also ex-military, I volunteered to escort the Russians.  It will be fun to meet up with Channel One cameraman Boris again (that really is his name).

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Riding 400 Miles to a Picnic

In the second week in July, I took a bike trip to Boston.  Actually, it was a trip with a bike more than a bicycle trip, sort of like the trip I took last year across Eastern Europe. I rode the bike, rode trains, took a ferry from Orient Point, Long Island, to New London, Connecticut, and in between met friends and rode in some of my favorite places. 

The reason for the trip was to attend one of the pre-event Ig Nobel Prize picnics for volunteers.  I have been a volunteer for the Igs since I returned form Iraq in 2010. As it turns out, I was not the only person to ride to the picnic, but the other guy rode from across town. I will say more on the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and the picnic in the next post.

When I got back from the trip to Europe last year, I continued to ride long distances. I rode to Philadelphia and New York, but I did not meet people the way I did in Europe. I wondered why.

The reason became clear when I looked at how I rode: in America I ride with a goal. When I stop to eat I eat fast then get back on the bike and ride.

So this trip, I stopped to see friends and I talked to people when I stopped. On the first day, rode as far as Paoli and got on a regional train to Philadelphia.  I met a Marine and his grandson and had a real conversation, written here.

On the first day, I left the bike in Philadelphia, went home for the night and started from Philadelphia the next day.  Late in the day, I got on New Jersey Transit so I could meet up with my racer buddy Jim and ride from Times Square to Fort Lee, NJ.  We rode part of the way on the west side bike path which has new barriers every place that a vehicle could get on the path. Pairs or parallel concrete barriers make sure the path is closed to cars since the terrorist attack in the Spring. 

The next day I rode with Jim in the morning from NJ to Times Square, then met a political activist friend for lunch in Manhattan. After lunch, I went to the Holocaust Museum in BatteryPark, then rode through Brooklyn and started the ride across Long Island.  I was almost halfway up the island when I stopped. 

The next day, I rode to Orient Point.  When I stopped to eat, I talked to a couple who wondered what it was like to ride across Long Island.  I could tell them that the east and west sides were completely different.  The east end in Brooklyn up to 30 miles from NYC is traffic and busy, though not narrow, roads. Then just about half way, the island becomes rural. Farms, trees, and fields are the landscape from mid-island to the east extreme at Orient Point. 

When I rolled up to the ferry terminal I saw lines of cars waiting to board. From my experience with customs in Eastern Europe, I rode past all the cars right up to the boarding ramp.  The guy at the dock told me where to get a ticket.  I rolled onto the boat and went straight to the other end with the first cars off.  When I stopped, a guy with a Battenkill t-shirt walked up and introduced himself. He had done last year’s Battenkill race, a classic race in upstate New York. I raced in 2016. We shared stories about 68 miles of pavement, dirt and steep hills up and down. 

After the ferry, I rode northeast out of New London. It was almost 5 p.m. when I rolled off the big ferry. I planned to ride till dark and see if I could get close enough to Providence, Rhode Island to take a train to Boston that night—or ride the next day.

I made it Wickford Junction, the southernmost train station on the MBTA Providence line. It was a long ride in sweaty clothes to Boston.  But taking the train tonight meant I could stay in Cambridge and ride to my home in Stoneham the next day and still get to the picnic. I got up late, rode to Stoneham and visited my parents’ grave.

After the visit, I rode through the cemetery to the upper entrance for pedestrians.  Lindenwood Cemetery is on the side of a hill.  Narrow steep roads curve up and down in serpentine paths from the bottom to the top of the cemetery.  When I was in the 4^th and 5^th grade at Robin Hood Elementary School in Stoneham, one of my friends was Bobby Sweeney. He was fearless on a bicycle.  We would race down those hills skidding, sliding and occasionally crashing into headstones. Bobby almost always won the races and he crashed more than any of us.

After I left the cemetery, I rode to City Cycle on Main Street near the corner of Montvale Avenue. The bike shop is in the same location it was in 1959 when it opened. I talked to the owner, Eric Barras. I bought the last bike I owned as a kid at City Cycle. It was a green Schwinn Varsity ten-speed.  I bought when I was 12 years old in 1965.  I worked full time in the summer since I was 12, but I had Monday off and would take long rides on this bike. On summer day in 1966, I rode to New Hampshire and back. The 112-mile round trip was the longest one-day ride until almost 30 years later, when I got addicted to cycling again.  That Schwinn got stolen not long after my ride to New Hampshire. I gave up cycling for almost 25 years after losing that bike.

Eric is 79 and still fixing and selling bikes at City Cycle. He grew up in Lynnefield, but has worked at City Cycle for nearly six decades. 

After City Cycle, I rode through Stoneham Square and back to Cambridge, then to the Ig Nobel picnic in Brookline.  This picnic was my reason for the 400-mile bike, train, boat ride to Boston.  I was one of two people who ride to the picnic, but the other guy did not ride quite as far. 

Continued in the next post