Trip Log – Day 252 – Hartford CT to Danbury, CT

Posted on July 17, 2016 by paulefallon

to NewtownJuly 14, 2016 – Clouds, 85 degrees

Miles Today: 79

Miles to Date: 13,085

States to Date: 33

My navigation strategy – plotting a route on goggle maps for bicycles the night before, writing it down in my small pad to cement it to memory and provide a written reference as I ride – works pretty well everywhere but in the Northeast, where traffic on the main roads is fierce and unmarked side roads twist upon themselves like wisteria vines. I left Hartford with four pages of directions, and knew it would be a day of constant reference to my pad and my phone as I missed turn after turn.

IMG_6836I visited several more post-industrial cities in this land of bygone manufacturing. Waterbury, the Brass City which I explored in depth for my novel, Weekends in Holy Land, is toothless as the glazed over people with bad teeth wandering its streets. The drug problems here are immense.

I rode to Newtown for the incompatible objectives of visiting Sandy Hook Elementary School and eating at the Blue Colony Diner, one of my all time favorites. Unfortunately, I hit so many snags on my route I couldn’t stall my hunger that long. I ate lunch on a bench along the bikIMG_6838e path in Middlebury, but held out for an awesome Blue Colony dessert when I got there about 3 p.m.
A light rain began to fall by the time I got to Sandy Hook, which has been renamed and has no reference or memorial that I could decipher. A full-blown thundershower followed. By the time I got to Newtown Center, I was drenched. Then, the sun came out. I wrung everything out and dried off during my final ten miles to Danbury.

My host, Rick, is a chef. After a shower that washed away the trials of travel, we enjoyed a superb dinner, including homemade brew. Good food and good company evaporate hardship.

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Responses – How will we live tomorrow?

Posted on July 17, 2016 by paulefallon

HWWLT Logo on yellowHow will we live tomorrow?

“We need more respect. We need respect for our President, no matter what you think of his program. I’m hoping people will wake up and take care of what’s around us. We need the UN to be stronger, to work toward one world. People have so much prejudice and ignorance, which is the same thing. Trump goes off, then thinks better of it and apologizes. You can’t do that as President. If you’re going to criticize the Pope, how are you going to deal with Putin?”

Gene Broussard, retired from Shell oil, Jeanerette, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“I was so responsible in my twenties. Then I said you have to fun every day. You live each day, as the cliché says, like its your last. You enjoy every moment with nature and interaction with people.”

Angie Troutman, skydiver, Ocean Springs, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“We are planning Mississippi’s first dragon boat race: one drummer, twenty rowers and a guy on the tiller.”

Charlie, contractor, Ocean Springs, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“We need to get back to conversations. Texting and social media have cramped our social ability. You can spin everything.”

Diane, coffee drinker, Ocean Springs, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“We need a balance between introverts and extroverts. Our society has revered extroverts for too long.”

Sue, self-described introvert, Ocean Springs, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“You have to live for today. You have to have goals for tomorrow. The goals have to be achievable but you have to work toward them.”

Diane, iPhone expert user, Ocean Springs, LA

How will we live tomorrow?

“Everything we do is empowering communities to a lifetime of service with the homeless. We are not transactional. We are about community. Communities create relationships, which restore dignity. It’s a messy business.”

Thomas Aitchison, Community First, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“Very carefully if we don’t shape up.”

Bobby Sapers, Community First carpenter, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“My biggest worry is the political realm. It’s a bunch of crazy people. They are batshit and yet people are listening to them.”

Cynthia Beeman, Historian, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“I want to be more positive and more open-minded to other people and other people lives.”

Max Anderson, cyclist, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“I will live with great sadness in my heart, but I am grateful to be here. I am grateful for life. I hope that one day I will not be sad, but I don’t know when that will be. My dad died in 2007, my brother in 2013, and I never allowed myself to be sad for them.”

Mita, whose mother recently died, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“Similar to how we live today, but little more friendly.”

Carlos, Deepak Chopra devotee, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“This craziness we are seeing is a chaotic transfer to a new level of understanding.”

Steve Paul Stamos, juice lover, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“From my world, I am going to live as I do today. I have a work I like. I have a family I look after. As time goes by I might take up other things I enjoy. I shepherd my family as much as I can. As far as the world is concerned I’d like to live in a Bernie Sanders world with political power. I want our social world to be more open than it is now.”

Mark Burr, physician, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“I live for today. Tomorrow doesn’t exist.”

Sam Burr, student, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“Community is important. My world of work dominates my life. They’ve downsized and we have less free time. I’d like to go back to Haiti, to be freer, to be more of a free spirit.”

Lisa Burr, clinician, Austin, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“Scares me to death. Not for me, I’ll be dead. I worry for my grandchildren.”

Mary Smith, volunteer, George Bush Library, College Station, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“What’s on my mind is to acknowledge truth in biology and algebra, my favorite subjects. I struggle with English because I am challenged by syntax intense. We need education to create a better tomorrow.”

Tommy Hudson, ninth-grade students with cystic fibrosis, College Station, TX

How will we live tomorrow?

“I am going to follow my artistic pursuits.”

Dave Hudson, landscape architect, College Station, TX

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Trip Log – Day 251 –Mansfield, CT to Hartford CT

Posted on July 16, 2016 by paulefallon

to HartfordJuly 13, 2016 – Sun, 90 degrees

Miles Today: 36

Miles to Date: 13,006

States to Date: 33

IMG_6808The only thing better than a solid breakfast – is two solid breakfasts. My vegan host Tony made me an awesome smoothie with so many ingredients I can’t begin to recall: thick and creamy and just a tad chocolaty. Then I pushed myself over one hill to enjoy another breakfast with an immigrant mom and her daughter at the Thread City Diner in Willimantic, which makes the largest and tastiest pancakes anywhere.

imagesBy the time I rolled out of town the day was already hot, so I opted against the paved route along US 6 for the gravel bike path through Bolton Center. Not speedy, but shady and cool. I persevered East Hartford and took the snazzy pedestrian bridge over the Connecticut Rive to downtown Hartford. I had an afternoon appointment at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, which is unique among house museums in having a strong focus on social justice and putting the author and abolitionist’s work in today’s context.

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Trip Log – Day 250 – North Kingstown, RI to Mansfield, CT

Posted on July 15, 2016 by paulefallon

to WillimanticJuly 12, 2016 – Clouds, 75 degrees

Miles Today: 63

Miles to Date: 12,770

States to Date: 33

I thought today was going to be about hills, but it turned out to be about Pokémon Go and Rumanian moonshine.

IMG_6784I faced a half-mile of vertical rise over sixty miles; a good workout on a clear, warm summer day. Riding west in this land of north/south valleys means hill after hill. In the middle I did have seven beautiful miles on the Coventry and Trestle bike paths, but even they were a solid upgrade.

Rhode Island must have been unhappy I only planned one day there; I got massively lost searching for a bike path that didn’t exist, and spun another five miles in Little Big Rhody before reaching the Connecticut line.

IMG_6789I needed a serious lunch, so camped out in Riverview Restaurant in Plainfield. A big fried chicken sandwich with French fries served up with loud country music. Then I pedaled twenty more hard miles to reach Willimantic by four, where I talked with the General Manager of Connecticut’s largest coop about how will we live tomorrow.

By the time I reached my warmshowers’ host in Mansfield, the preliminaries of day were over and party time began. Tony Malloy, a vegan body builder and IT guru for UConn Library, invited several friends for some of the best food of my trip. This vitamix magician made a great Mexican dinner of gazpacho, lentil/walnut/tomato paste as a hearty meat alternative, and all kinds of toppings, plus Corona, Modelo and Plum Palinka, a Rumanian liquor so strong the vapors alone knocked me back.

IMG_6795Although our dinner conversation kicked off with a typically academic discussion of the value of ‘Open Education’ textbooks, we soon got to truly important stuff, like how Pokémon Go has captivated the world in five short days. Even me, on my bike, had heard of it and seen people wandering aimlessly with their eyes glued to their phone. Two people in our group downloaded the app then and there and proceeded to ball toss the imaginary Pokémon who appeared on the dining room table and in the corner of the kitchen. Anyone feeling Alpha male barked at Tony’s Amazon Alexa, who could play any song we could think of at any volume, and seemed pleased to be yelled at.

Quote of note: “Cats are good practice for dealing with people on their own terms.”

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Trip Log – Day 249 – Berkley, MA to North Kingstown, RI

Posted on July 14, 2016 by paulefallon

to WarwickJuly 11, 2016 – Clouds, 80 degrees

Miles Today: 47

Miles to Date: 12,707

States to Date: 32

 IMG_6764I enjoyed another fifteen miles of bucolic Southeast Massachusetts before landing – kerplunk – on the hot streets of East Providence, a hard surfaced Italian community bisected by I-195. The new pedestrian / bicycle bridge over the Seekonk River is a terrific addition and makes getting into Providence very easy.

 

IMG_6766I pedaled through Federal Hill and Brown University. Brown caught a wave of publicity as few years ago, both positive and not so, when it addressed how the slave trade benefitted the university. One upshot was the creation of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. I contacted the group but, alas, academicians are pretty much gone in July. I did seek out the slave trade monument, which includes a tablet that describes Brown’s relationship to the slave trade. It concludes, “Brown University was a beneficiary of this trade.” I am not sure of the impact a monument like this has, but applaud its attempt to link past grievances with current reality. The university also has a simple, but very effective monument to alumni war dead. I liked that balance as well.

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None of the ‘official’ connections I tried to make in Providence panned out, so I spent the afternoon outside Serendipity Gourmet, where I met all kinds of locals, cafe style. Providence is a livable city with a good urban feel. And lunch costs about half of what it would in Boston.

There is a great bike path that leads out of town. I cycled most of the way with a friendly commuter. Then seven miles on US Route 1, which was not the most fun part o the day. It’s been more than a year since I was on US 1 in Maine. I imagine I will be on it many more times as I head down the East Coast.

images IMG_6781

My host for the night, Sharon Pickering, lives in Wickford Point, a ‘New Urbanism’ development with charming houses that sit quite close and share amenities like a dock and beach. Sharon moved there from a big house on two acres in Massachusetts. I am always interested in people who choose to live closer to others. Wickford Point is hardly dense, but it is very well designed to support community while maintaining privacy.

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Trip Log – Day 248 – Onset, MA to Berkley, MA

Posted on July 13, 2016 by paulefallon

 

to BerkleyJuly 10, 2016 – Clouds, 60 degrees

Miles Today: 36

Miles to Date: 12,660

States to Date: 31

Southeast Massachusetts is probably the least appreciated sector of my home state. Fall River, New Bedford, and Taunton are often considered maritime has-beens, currently home to Cape Verdeans, Portuguese, and other immigrants. The countryside is considered less vibrant than Cape Cod, less dramatic than the Berkshires, and less tony than the North Shore. Like all stereotypes, these are incomplete truths.

IMG_6756 IMG_6757 IMG_6759

I started the day with a morning walk through Onset, which has all the enchanting light and mood of the Cape without having to cross those dang bridges. I spent the day traveling obscure country roads past soggy bogs, pristine period houses, and a good deal of funk. Since Southeast Massachusetts is much less expensive than the rest of the state, the counter culture element is more real than imagined.

By the time I reached Berkley I had traversed into another geologic zone. Onset is a sandbar with houses a few feet above the water. Berkley sits on one of the many granite ridges that define New England’s mainland: long peninsula’s separated by deep rivers run north/south, as if scratched out of the land like giant fingers squeezed down on a chalkboard. My friend Ted lives high above the Assonet River: 68 granite steps descend from his house to his boat.

IMG_6760 IMG_6761

 

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Profile Response: Jesse Florence Zenor, Ocean Springs, MS

Posted on May 23, 2016 by paulefallon

HWWLT Logo on yellowJesse Florence Zenor wants to make a difference. After completing architectural studies at Auburn, she moved to the Gulf Coast to do Hurricane Katrina relief work. She stayed. After the cleanup and a stint in an architectural design firm, Jesse craved a deeper community connection. She opened The Greenhouse on Porter, a coffeehouse in the small town of Ocean Springs.

The coffee house is located in a former greenhouse that had been empty since Katrina. The menu is simple: hand cut biscuits and coffee and beer. The social itinerary is more complex. The coffee house sponsors Saturday morning bike rides, musical events, lectures, and art shows. This week it got a ”takeover” by a group of high school girls who coordinated music and art to an Instagram feed.

IMG_6436 images-1 images

The night I arrived in Ocean Springs, Jesse took me to a dinner party: four women and six men, only one of whom had gray hair. Some were single, some coupled. They worked a variety of occupations, from shipyard worker to State Department official, school administrator to hurricane chaser. The group meets every Sunday for potluck. “What we have in common is no children.”

imgresThe potluck group began as a social activity. However, they have developed a vested interest in local issues. They regularly attend city council meetings, where they tweak the established powers. They organize community forums to surface and debate local concerns. We sat on deck raised over a swamp discussing the stuff of Mississippi life: wind and flood insurance premiums that exceed monthly mortgages, the resurgence of otters, the demise of Lightning bug’s. These folks know a lot about snakes.

How will we live tomorrow?

“Free.” – Charlie

“As a scientist I think we have two change many things in our world. I hear the stories my father told me about how things were when we were young. So much of that is gone. What will I have two give my children that’s valuable, that’s still left? That’s why I do what I do.” – Charles, Oyster Researcher for State of Mississippi.

IMG_6437“Brewing and bonding. The way the world is changing requires us to be able to change and accept change. I think the enthusiasm over Wal-Mart and McDonald’s is turning around and we are returning to small-scale, decentralized commerce.” – Jesse

“Without pressure.” – Ali

“I suppose ultimately everything we do is based on experiences we’ve already had. Tomorrow, we will make decisions in the moment that will determine what we do. No decisions are made without prior information.” – James

 

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Profile Response: Gina Champion & Phyllis Wursteisen, New Orleans, LA

Posted on May 20, 2016 by paulefallon

HWWLT Logo on yellow“So, you want to interview me to see if I have an acceptable place to spend the night?” Gina Champion met me with worthy skepticism. Shannon Weber, whom I met in San Francisco, suggested I stay with Gina when in New Orleans. Gina and I had exchanged emails. She offered me a place for the night, though she was going out. I suggested we meet late afternoon, as I don’t like to stay in the homes of people I haven’t met. The point of my adventure is to meet people, not snare free digs.

Although our messages communicated accurate information, they lacked warmth. Fortunately, within ten minutes of sharing beers on Gina’s porch, our affinity clicked. Gina laughed when she understood I was not interviewing her to vet a place to stay. I immediately accepted her invitation to join Gina and partner Phyllis for a female-dominant evening at a Canal Street club; not an invitation she was inclined to make an unknown man until she discovered we were GBLTQ related.

imgresGina and Phyllis are Crescent City natives. Gina was briefly married to a man and has a 26-year-old son; she and Phyllis have been together over twenty years. “People from New Orleans never leave, but we had this urge to explore.” They moved to San Francisco in 2008. Two years later they put everything in storage and travelled the world. Phyllis said, “All my people are here. When we said we were moving to San Francisco, both families thought we were crazy. When we said we would travel the world, they thought we were off our rocker.” Their plan was to be gone a year, but after spending five months in Asia and Europe, family needs pulled them back to New Orleans.

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The best adventures expose us to new people, new ideas, and help us better appreciate our homes when we return. “We didn’t realize how racist New Orleans was until we lived in San Francisco. This is a gay friendly city, in pockets, but about a year ago we had a series of gay bashing incidents.” Still, The Big Easy’s problems cannot eclipse the city’s charms. “There is a soul in this city. How can we get that good news out?”

How will we live tomorrow?

Screen Shot 2016-04-20 at 11.23.11 AM“I am a pessimist. The country is going to shit. The going to shit of America will lead us back to provincialism. That will return us to community. Will it also reinforce bigotry and prejudice?” – Gina

“When we first moved back to New Orleans, we lived in an area where people were petty and ugly. When we moved to this neighborhood, those people were surprised. All of our neighbors here are black. I like living in a black neighborhood. They mind their business, I mind mine, but we keep our eye on each other.” – Phyllis

 

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Profile Response: Dave Culpepper, New Orleans, LA

Posted on May 19, 2016 by paulefallon

HWWLT Logo on yellow“Louisiana has one of the highest rates of relative sea level rise in the world. Fifty years from now, New Orleans could well have a smaller footprint and a higher levee. The city is trying to develop more water features to prevent flooding.” Dave is concerned we may not have the political will required to rebuild our city if it gets flooded again.

Dave Culpepper is a geoscience consultant who specializes in groundwater issues. His clients include government agencies, such as an NOAA, as well as oil companies, including BP after the oil spill. Dave often serves as an expert witness in lawsuits involving geoscience issues. Since he started in 1981, there are more geoconsulting firms. “I used to do work all over, now I mostly work in Louisiana.”

images-5Fortunately for Dave, if not the rest of us, there are plenty of geological challenges in the Pelican State. “The deltas have giant faults; perhaps 80% of our coastal land loss is from subsidence and development can accelerate subsidence. As organic matter deteriorates, the land compacts. It’s gradual in some areas, others are losing several inches per decade.”

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“If we look at a map of the United States with one or two feet of sea level rise, we lose a lot of land and a lot of cities. One study from NASA shows more soil absorption in the mainland. Another shows ice caps melting faster due to warm water beneath ice flows. What will the United States look like? Much of the sediment in the Mississippi River is now flowing off the continental shelf. Ile de Jean Charles recently got a grant to move the entire village to higher ground. We are going to fortify and retreat. Are the financing mechanisms taking this into account?

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Dave was in Amsterdam when Katrina hit; he questions the idea that hard barriers, like the dykes that protect that tiny country, are applicable here without a better understanding of the geology beneath us. “They don’t get hurricanes. We’ve done a lot of good work since Katrina, but we can’t control the area we now try to keep dry. We have a 100 year flood risk area that will get less protective every decade.”

images-7Despite the wake-up calls of Hurricane Katrina the BP spill, and their subsequent cleanups, Dave doesn’t believe we’ve made any fundamental change that will retard the encroaching seas.

 

 

How will we live tomorrow?

IMG_6410“I think we’re going to have to live with a lot more changes. I have grandkids. What will it be like for them 100 years from now? It’s the most drastic change in recorded history. I have no doubt humans will adapt, but at what cost? We survived the Ice Age. We will survive high water.”

 

Note: This profile was first published on May 19, 2016 and revised on June 11, 2016 in conjunction with Dave Culpepper.

 

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Profile Response: Elyse and Roger Hackett, New Orleans, LA

Posted on May 18, 2016 by paulefallon

HWWLT Logo on yellow“We are quintessential audience members. Elyse is the first to dance and break the ice.” From this Yankee’s point of view, Elyse and Roger Hackett are textbook New Orleanais. Elyse greeted me in a breezy shift printed with a map of the Crescent City. Roger wore a brim hat. Born and raised here; Elyse’s father was a musicologist who arrived in the early 1950s, Roger’s father was an Alabama jazzman who came in the 1940s and helped start Preservation Hall. Elyse and Roger have lived in a century-old frame house in the Carrollton District, five blocks from the Mississippi, for the past 24years. We began a leisurely afternoon visit on the back porch, but when the sun shifted, we moved to the shadier front side, beside a fragrant, overgrown Angel’s Trumpet.

IMG_6398Elyse is an artist who works in acrylic and glitter. She applies paint to objects, often shoes and clothing, and adds glitter while it’s wet. Elyse sells her artwork at festivals and events. Roger boasts, “My job is to be her canvas.” When not sporting his wife’s art, “I am a computer guy. I spent many years providing Unix support for oil companies. We are in a period of oil company layoffs, so I am going to Oshner Healthcare to do disaster planning.”

 

Elyse and Roger share two things common to all locals: Mardi Gras and Katrina.

IMG_6401They are strategic revelers. “These days, all Mardi Gras parades follow the same route. There can be three parades in a row, from 5 PM until 11 or so. The routes are five or six miles long. You develop a relationship with the people around you; you become friends with the folks nearby.”

This year, their son Robin’s girlfriend came from Portland Oregon for her first Mardi Gras. “The first night of parade is Muses’ Night. Participants create beautiful glittering shoes and to bestow amIMG_6407ong watchers along the route.” Unlike the tradition of tossing beads, which are plentiful, most marchers have only one or two pair to give away. It is an extraordinary honor to receive one. “Robin’s girlfriend approached a muse, explained that it was her first Mardi Gras parade and how much she would like to have a pair of shoes. She got one.”

 

After Katrina, Elyse and Roger stayed with a variety of family and friends. “I call it our Katrina Tour. We started in Memphis and wound up in New Jersey.”

How will we live tomorrow?

IMG_6405“I am going out to Tipitina’s tonight but I am going to behave well since I have a walking tour tomorrow.

“I am not going to get into the whole climate change thing because I can’t do anything about that. I think we need to get more compact. We are planning to turn our upstairs space into a studio apartment to rent to someone who can become part of our community, our immediate community of running this household. I see us in coops, with growing our own food as much as possible. My sister has an immense lot. I suggested she lease part of it to urban gardeners.” – Elyse

IMG_6402“Immediately here, I am pleased that we are making progress in managing water without dykes and levies. One of the wetlands groups that came out of the BP spill has made progress in wetland creation. We have to balance dykes and levees with wetlands. We have the first project underway in Gentilly.” – Roger

 

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