Fewer Miles, More Challenge and Beauty on Walks

The Brooklyn Bridge, empty in the middle of a beautiful summer day

In the past week I walked fewer miles than the week before: this week was 67 miles, the previous week was 91 miles.  But I walked in some beautiful and challenging places.

Yesterday I walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Completed in 1883, it was the longest bridge in the world until 1903--nearly 6,000 feet or 1,825 meters from Manhattan to Brooklyn crossing the East River.  

I loved this bridge from the first time I walked across it in the 90s.  When I returned from a year in Iraq in 2010, I went to New York City and one of the first things I did was walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  After so much ugly I wanted to be in civilization in a beautiful place. Here is the blog post from that day in January 2010.

Earlier this week I walked across the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, another beautiful bridge. The span across the Delaware River from Philadelphia to Camden was completed in 1926. At 9,500 feet or 2,900 meters it is almost a half mile longer than the Brooklyn Bridge and rises 150 feet above the Delaware at the center of the span.  

On Sunday last week I walked up Indianhead Road in Lancaster County. This rural road that runs parallel to a busy road has an average grade of 11% but near the top the grade is 20%.  So it's a good workout even walking.  

In the coming weeks I am planning to cross more big bridges.  One of them is the Tappan Zee Bridge--3.1 miles or 5km across the river--a six miles round trip.  There are many bridges to cross in New York City including the 1.5-mile Queensborough Bridge.  

I am also going to walk some of the 5-mile hills in Western Pa. and Upstate New York. I will be off the bike for a while, but I can still get a workout.

Wives and Mothers Will Rip Trump a New Asshole

Trump has dodged many bullets in his deplorable term as President, but he won't get out of this line of fire.  Military wives and mothers and fathers are asking for answers about the Russians paying bounties for dead Americans.  Trump can tell another hundred of his 20,000 lies denying he knew, but he now has an enemy that will not give up.

In 2011 and again in 2013 I was on a roster to be deployed to Afghanistan. In both cases I did some pre-deployment training. The first time I was cut from the roster when the deployment was reduced in size, the second time the entire deployment was cancelled.

If I had deployed, I planned to blog every day if possible.  And if I did, I knew that my main audience would be the wives and mothers and other family members of the soldiers in my unit.

When I deployed the first time and blogged every day, I thought my audience would my friends and family and maybe those who were curious about military service. They were my audience also, but most of the comments I got were from wives and mothers who heard little or nothing from their soldier.  They really wanted to know what we ate, where we slept, what we did night and day. 

The most popular post I wrote the whole year was about the containers we slept in. 

The wives and parents wanted to know about everything and they worried over every news report. If a base was attacked 200 miles away, someone would ask me what happened. I would answer that the attack was 200 miles away. The response would be some variation of, "No one tells me anything."

With more and more reports coming out confirming that both Pentagon and intelligence leaders knew the plot to be true, military wives and parents will demand answers until they get them.

No amount of bullying or whining will make this crisis go away. A grieving parent who feels betrayed is an implacable enemy.

          

                                        

Eight Differences Between Walking and Riding; and One Similarity

Walking is so different than riding

I made an abrupt switch from riding every day to walking every day. A smashed elbow and surgery took me off the bike.  Just as when I broke my neck, daily walks became the only workout option possible.

Here are the differences:

1. Speed:  The speed of the bike and walking is so different.  Today, I turned onto Harrisburg Pike. A man 50 feet in front of me was carrying a backpack on one shoulder and a black trash bag on the other shoulder. As we neared Charlotte Street, he started dragging the trash bag.  He turned the corner and stopped in the shade.  I live a couple of blocks away. I walked home and got a big roller suitcase that we were going to get rid of.  I wheeled it back and offered it to the guy who was sitting in the shade eating. He said thanks and I continued my walk.

If I were riding, I would have passed him while riding on a busy road and kept going.  I would have gone by fast enough that I may not have noticed him and would not have thought what I could do to help.

At walking speed, I see people for minutes, not seconds, so I can think.

2. Talking:  I can also talk. I can call friends and family and make other calls because I am only going three miles per hour. I can't talk on a phone on a bicycle. I can also talk to someone I am walking with. It is possible to talk on a bike, but never much deeper than a cookie sheet. Riders always have to be alert for hazards and traffic.

3. Space-Time: In Pennsylvania the rolling hills usually allow a rider to see a half-mile to a mile ahead.  The thing that comes into view a mile away is three to four minutes away depending on how fast I am riding.  When I see a mile ahead to a hill crest or a bridge when I am walking, it will be 20 minutes until I pass that spot.  When I walk to a place three miles away I need an hour. The world looks much bigger walking.

4. Other Walkers vs. Other Riders:  Bike riders wave or nod their heads when they pass each other as a rule.  There is a fellowship of those who ride in traffic.  It was the same when I rode motorcycles.  Although in the 1970s, Harley riders did not wave at riders on Japanese-made bikes we riders of the reliable bikes waved at each other.  But walkers only acknowledge each other if they recognize each other or are close together, like passing on the same sidewalk.  No one nods or waves across a road.

5. In Lancaster Walking Stops at the City Line: I have walked outside of the city to the north and west. When I leave the city limits, I am the only walker. In six weeks I have not passed another person walking on a road.  I mostly walk on major roads, so there are surely people walking somewhere outside the city, but I don't see them.

6. I Understand Why Some People Hate Bicyclists:  I do not see walkers outside the city, but I see bicyclists everywhere.  I see people who seem to know how to ride who are riding on sidewalks. There is no reason for a bicycle to be on a sidewalk.

7. I Can Think When I Walk:  On a bicycle speed and traffic make thinking as shallow as talking. I sometimes have an idea come into my mind, but then it floats away.  Walking on a sidewalk or the shoulder of a road, I can actually think for a reasonable amount of time.  It's much better than swimming in that way. Swimming is also slow, but I had to make the turns at each end of the pool.

8. I Do Not Compete with Other Walkers: Sometimes when I see other riders ahead of me, especially on a hill (up or down) I will try to catch them and feel a rush as I catch up to them even if they are not trying to go fast.  I don't ever compete with other walkers. I am moving so slowly that competition does not occur to me.

And the similarity:
I Can Be Obsessed with Any Activity. In 2007, I walked three miles every day, sometimes a little more, but not much.  This time walking has become a very slow sport.  Since the day I walked home from the hospital six weeks ago, I have been walking more each week: 43 miles the first week, then 52, 64, 73, 81 and this week 91 miles.

Meeting an Old Friend from Iraq

Staff Sergeant Jeremy Houck

Today I walked home from Physical Therapy along the Fruitville Pike. As I crossed the big Belmont Square intersection, a broad-shouldered, bearded guy in a hard hat, reflective vest and military sunglasses strode toward me and said, "Neil!"

It was Jeremy Houck, my squad leader when we were in Oklahoma training to deploy to Iraq . Jeremy was amused at being in charge of a sergeant almost twice his age and helping me to re-acclimate to military life. Jeremy helped get me through urban combat training and with becoming a ground mechanic. Jeremy worked as an electrician and had an associates degree in electrical engineering.

He now owns a company that subcontracts installing communications cables. He was supervising his crew when we met up on the Fruitville Pike.

After we returned from Iraq ten years ago, Jeremy deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately. He eventually had five tours as a soldier and a contractor before leaving to run his own business. He now has a fleet of trucks working across the Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Here's more of his story from a decade ago. He was dressed differently today, but the shades were the same       .

At the good-bye dinner in late January 2009, the night before 2-104th board the planes to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, my family and I sat with...

New Life Begins: Osteoporosis Confirmed

Yesterday I got the reading from the Dexascan bone study I had almost two weeks ago.  I have osteoporosis in both femurs and in my lower back.  I also have arthritic degeneration in my wrists and ankles and the knee that was not replaced.

So, as I wrote two weeks ago, a new life begins now. My family doctor is an avid cyclist and half my age.  He said, "Once you recover from the broken arm, maybe you could ride more--well--no more fast descents." If I thought I was good at moderation, I might consider riding, well, moderately.

But I am not.  I ride for the sensation of turns and descents. And my most recent crash was at less than 10 mph on a closed bike trail, a freak occurrence--a stick in my front spokes.

So I will do whatever the doctor says and if I can restore bone density, I may consider riding again, but for now, it's moot anyway.  My splintered elbow will not sustain any sort of shock for two months or more.

I am still hoping to visit Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2021. And in the coming years, I want to return to my favorite cities and walk them. 

Watching All of The Jason Bourne Movies

My son Nigel Gussman and I just finished watching all five of the Jason Bourne movies, in a week. In the first movie, the Bourne Identity, Matt Damon was 31. By the fifth film he was 46. And now Nigel and I watched the first hour of "Ford vs. Ferrari" in which Damon is 49.

Since I had never seen Matt Damon in a movie before I saw Ford vs. Ferrari last November, it was interesting to see him age in the Bourne role and then be firmly in middle age as Carroll Shelby.

The Bourne movies are a Cold War relic even though they are set in the 21sr Century. They trace a nearly perfect assassin through the awakening of his conscience, plus he uncovers the deepest of Deep State conspiracies!!

My friend Cliff is also watching the movies. He will watch the last one this weekend. We were Cold War soldiers so the conspiracy culture is home ground for us. Cliff was most disturbed by movie four, "The Bourne Legacy." Matt Damon is not in that movie. Bourne is a tough Army Captain recruited to his role as an assassin. In the Bourne Legacy, Jeremy Renner plays Aaron Cross, a recruit who could not meet the minimum aptitude requirement and is give pills to make him smarter while he also takes pills to make him a physical marvel.

We both disliked the Frankenstein aspect, the idea that people could be engineered not only to superhuman strength but to superhuman intelligence. And if you miss the pills, you become weak and dumb. And the whole idea that the Army takes men who can't meet the minimum standard, sneaks them in and turns them into supermen is a sad view of the military.

On a lighter side, if you like car chases, the Bourne movies destroy dozens of cars from around the world. The Moscow chase scene smashed a truly international array of autos. And in Vegas, a murderer in a stolen SWAT vehicle plows though traffic like a snowplow, upending dozens of cars in a minute on the Las Vegas strip.

Old Age is a New Adventure

Two weeks ago, surgery restored my smashed left elbow to something like its previous shape. The next morning, after surgery, another doctor gave me some stunning news: I needed to start taking large doses of Vitamin D right away and when I get home, call the hospital and come back for a Dexascan.  The doctor said I had low bone density, a significant Vitamin D deficiency and said I should join an osteoporosis support group. 

Wow!!

I knew this day was coming. Someday my bones would be frail enough that it would be stupid to ride a bike.  I did not know the day would be so soon. 

The strange thing, from inside my mind, was my feelings of excitement—not loss or panic.  Since the early 90s when I became bike obsessed, every day, every trip, every vacation, and all future plans were built around riding.  I took two bikes to Iraq on deployment. I took a bike with me on more than 30 business trips in three years between 1998 and 2001. 

One of the first things I thought about was how different the world would look if the bike were not part of the trip. I have been to Paris two dozen times in the last two decades. I have never been to The Louvre.  Because visiting the premiere museum in Paris takes all day and when I am in Paris some part of every day, I ride with the racers at the daily training race at L’Hippodrome in Bois de Boulogne.  One way or another, The Louvre never happened.

I then imagined myself walking across every bridge from the Eiffel Tower to Ile de Cite because I would not feel the need to ride. 

As I healed from major injuries several times over the last 30 years, my focus always was getting back on the bike.  When I broke my neck, I spent 90 days in the neck and chest brace. On the 91^st, I rolled down the hill I crashed on.  Now, I was oddly delighted that I would not be focused on getting back on the bike. It was a relief.

I knew Old Age would impose limits on me, like not riding, but I expected the limits to feel like fasting or waiting in line—deprivation.  But against all my expectations, I feel excitement. I have a new frame to view the world.  I started thinking about moments over the last five years when I began to deal with the effects of change from aging and other causes.

If I had to date the beginning of Old Age, I would say it was July of 2015.  On June 30, 2015, I retired. I had worked summers and Saturdays and sometimes after school since I was 12. I had a full-time job from my 18^th birthday until the day I retired. I have not worked a day since.  I have not missed it.  In June of 2015, I went on my last Army training exercise and took the Army fitness test for the last time.  Soon after, I left the Army. With the rise of Trump and his popularity among soldiers, I was glad to be gone.  It was a big change to no longer be a worker or a soldier, but after a half-century of defining myself as both, I was neither and I was unexpectedly happy.

I started meditating. I started taking Yoga.  After years of resisting both, I was open to both and began practicing. I am currently not doing Yoga in part because of COVID-19 and now because of my injuries but have been meditating daily for years.

Also, in 2015, my workouts changed.  The swimming and running that carried me through an Ironman race in 2014 were history for me.  Both shoulders had torn ligaments. My left knee ached and would be replaced three years later.  No more Army fitness test meant no more pushups.  The bike was my only workout besides yoga. 

And coincident with my own advancing age, in 2016 America became senile. America elected a racist who wanted to make America white again.

Since 2017, much has changed in my thought and spiritual life because America is in rapid cognitive decline. More on that soon.