See you soon

Dear blog reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. As my dear father and his many hard living relatives used to lament, I am a bit stoved up. What does stoved up mean? In the Sharritt lexicon of common ailments, it means that you are feeling off of your game. You are a long way away from a debilitating injury but you are going to be limping for a while.  The stoved up markers inclued a face set in grim determination and a slight hunch to there shoulders.

You might ask how is that different from how Sharritts look in their natural happy state. You have seen the old black and white photo, standing out by the garden, the clothsline, the fence by the pasture field screened by a stand of pink and read hollyhocks. Yep, it is a collage of grim faced hunch shoulder folks.  You need one more ingredient for proper stovage. You have to get the Sharrit to concede that they aren't feeling up to snuff.

It appears that my hard riding across Iowa and through Brown County on a tandem with the lovely Miss Beverly has taken a toll on my sciatica nerve on my left leg. It has caused enough distress that I have taken a week off from riding. Yes it is that serious.  I am jonesing get to get on a bike for my daily 18 mile ride.  This too shall pass. I am on the mend.  The numbness in my leg has been chased down to the ball of my foot and on out to my middle three toes.  Any time that I have to give up biking for a week, it is a defacto admission that I am stoved up.

What does one do when they are too stoved up to ride a bike or hoe a garden? The lovely Miss Beverly and I fired up the Subaru and headed to East Lansing, Michigan to visit the lovely Miss Grace and handsome Chris Kozak. It had been too long for me. I had seen plenty of Chris on RAGBRAI. However, I had not seen Grace since May. She had been in Washington DC for an internship. School is almost back in session. She has returned.  The young couple has moved from Ann Arbor where Grace is enrolled in Social Work to East Lansing where Chris is learning to be a lawyer. She will get on a bus and commute daily to Ann Arbor for the fall semester in the opposite direction that Chris commuted daily his first year of law school. It is a complicated life. They seem to navigate it with aplomb.

I like East Lansing more than Ann Arbor. It probably has more do with the fact that the Kozaks will reside there for the next two years. Why spend time falling in love with a town when you are going to leaving soon. Ann Arbor was a very good town to satisfy your culinary desires.  All of that disposable income refreshed each fall by a new crop of freshmen and the restrantuers decended in droves with lots of variety and good food.

East Lansing is no slouch. We ate at a place called Meat. No further explanation is required.  In the evening, we went to the Michigan State ice cream store. Why doesn't Purdue have such an animal; Land Grant School, Dairy Farm, Food Science department, all of the ingredients. Another piece of low hanging fruit when I become a Purdue University Trustee.  I will propose a winning football team and an ice cream shop on campus. I may go down in Trustee history; noted for my foresight and bold plans of action.

I do have a bone to pick with the Michigan State ice cream shop.  They have Illini icing, Hoosier hash, Terrapin Toffee, etc.  I was ready to order the Boilermaker Tracks. I got to the counter and ordered the Boilermaker flavor.  The deer in the headlights behind the counter had no IDEA what I was talking about. What has happened to the quality of higher education when we don't expect underclassmen to know the names and mascots of all of the Big 10, no 11, oops 12, make that a baker's dozen, crap Big 14.  I take that back poor confused coed. It is hard to keep track without a program. However, don't think that I am letting you off of the hook Michigan State. Let's make things consistent; either all school names or all mascots. Don't leave Purdue out there like the answer to some arcane SAT test: Which of these do not belong; wildcats, Illini, Hoosiers, Buckeyes, Terrapins, Cornhuskers, Purdue? Answer: Purdue; it is the only one to offer a higher education.

We rounded out the weekend with a fantastic growers only farmers market and lunch at a fantastic, soon to fail restaurant in a small town up the road: pearls before swine. 

It was a weekend about other things besides seeing Grace and Chris. We were kicking the tires on a new chapter in their life, looking in the nooks and crannies, checking the foundation, letting go. Again.

You all know about that. You are taking kids to college, the marines. You are going to help out with the new baby, or help with the move to that new job across the country. We have had a lot of practice; preschool, 1^st day of kindergarten, camp. The list goes on and on. It gets easier but it still is not easy enough and some times it makes me feel a little crazy.

 Letting go is like peeling an onion; there are many layers and peeling them back can make your eyes water. It too can stove you up.

Take care.

Roger

A list of all of the limerick submissions

Bev Sharritt

At the Ijamsville railroad tracks site,
I picked berries with Grandmother White.
In the briars and heat,
She instilled the mystery of delight.

Like · Reply · 6 · July 27 at 4:00pm

Chris Kozak

The crowds, the fatigue, and the heat,
Made biking the plains quite a feat.
But we were revived
By Rathmacher pie,
And pedaled 'til RAGBRAI was beat.

 

Berta Winiker · Friends with Noelle Fell and 4 others

A gift for the Barnard boys
Mom collected their culinary joys
into a cookbook recipes were bound
For when the urge to cook was profound
Will they, or not, embrace bok choy?

Roger Sharritt

Once again I get to be judge
No room for wiggle or fudge
But if you want to win
It won't be a sin
If you want to give me a nudge

 

Joyce Young

Dad taught us some colorful words,
While sneezing or milking his herds.
A belch of retreating
From all of the eating
Maggot meatballs and elephant turds.

 

Jim Hill ·

The lady was asked to make and deliver,

A Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving Dinner,

The sugar was forgot,

But the salt was not,

And the pie was hardly a winner.

 

Patty Rathmacher

Dear daddy Doyle was great with a plow
Rain on cut hay would sure make him frown
Milking Holsteins to him was a hoot
Lots of manure he did everyday scoop
Or should I say fresh pie from cows

 

Denae Skaar

I ran to the barn across the lot
That darn rooster would let me not
Grandpa’s boot went up its a$$
He disappeared with a feathered mass
That night, Grandma’s fried chicken hit the spot

Bill Hoover

The Sista's were all in 4-H
and sometimes my tummy would ache
could it be the yeast rolls
had taken their toll
or 4 pieces of warm wacky cake

 

Bill Hoover

Mix sugar eggs cream salt and ice
it doesn't sound tasty or nice
separate properly and spin
crank by hand such a din
Oh the joy fill my bowl at least twice

 

Judy Boggs

Those Do De Ho kids are a hoot
I don't know for which I should root
They all have a time
Putting words to a rhyme
Tween the maggots and turds. . . .think I'll scoot

 

Bev Sharritt

My Mom was a short order cook
But not in a diner or nook.
Eight kids round the table,
as soon as we were able,
She said, “Here’s the recipe book!”

 

Bonita Rogers Hoover

When snow would block 500 east .

 It was time to get out the yeast.

 Cinnamon rolls we would bake

or maybe coffee cake.

With milk from the tank we would feast!

 

Bonita Rogers Hoover

 It wouldn't be a Hoover Doo without a great big dinner
The pies desserts and such were better than state fair winner.
Aunt Doris's chicken and noodles .
Mashed potatoes (always oodles)"
I wondered why they were all thinner

 

Patty Rathmacher

 Baling hay I could get a great tan
Hot days in the parlor required a fan
Black and Whites gave milk a plenty
Twice each day in pounds; about 70
Butter by the case came from the Milk Man

 

Alison Heinhold Melley

 A memory from when I was two
In the garden with sis and the dew
A taste super sweet
It will never be beat
Snap peas some for me some for you

 

Cindy A. Pyle

Cathy would try her best
To put brother Bill to the test
As hard as she tried
The cookies she'd hide
He'd find them under dad's desk

 

Garrett Skaar

This Hoover Tradition's a hoot
Just like a 2nd grade toot
So as a rookie
I'll just ask for a cookie
And hope that I don't get the boot.

 

Charles Barnard

A young Charlie feeding the pigs he tries

Lugging the slop with grunts and sighs

The city slicker catches a sight of a sow

Climbing into a pen of another and learns how

A four hundred twenty pound pig can fly.

 

Bill Hoover

 I had the same problem first try
no shift enter had sent me awry
limerick writing is a chore
with Facebook as its core
technology sometimes make me cry

 

Bev Sharritt

 Brother Bill is as smart as a prof.
Of his rhyming brain we shouldn't scoff.
Meta-limerick 'bout keys
Penned with obvious ease?
Well, now you are just showing off!

 

Joyce Young

Today is the day he would be eighty-four.
He had two hollow legs to fill with still more.
Pork chops and gravy bread,
“Didn’t come out even” he said.
Plate spun and clattered causing ears to be sore.

 

Bonita Rogers Hoover

On my sway into town he would wave
Drive in and pick up Mr. Dave
An educated burger
French fries in the merger
Oh great, the time it would save!

 

Joyce Young

In from the barn at the counter he stood;
Mom had cut them in squares just as she should.
Pan of Mirro Joes,
Precisely in rows.
He gnawed fork in hand as a rabbit would.

 

Paula Sunderwirth Guernsey

 Our meatloaf was ground pork and ham.
Four sisters were a happy fam.
Casserole, broccoli,
And snowball cookies!
Dearest Mom, we still say, “Thank you, Ma’am.”

 

 

Judy Boggs

There once was a gal named Bonita
Who never had seen a fahita
But glasses clicked high
When she brought out her pie
To a crowd shouting. . . .Bon Appetita!!

Denae Skaar

Sunday’s after church, we’d go to KFC
To pick up a bucket of chicken with oh-so-much glee
We’d head out to the farm
To watch Peyton in all his charm
Only to fall asleep on the shag carpet by three

 

Patty Rathmacher

Old school Disney with Tinkerbell in flight
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom fright
Dad in his chair, kids on the couch
Brother Bill would punch and we'd scream "ouch"
We had popcorn for supper on Sunday night

 

Jake McKowen

 It was a cookie cook-off.
To Janie Sharritt my had did I doff.
I thought I would win,
But my hopes hit the bin,
When James said "I can't piss Mom off!"

 

Charles Barnard

 A bucket of corn flakes.

Then bacon and hotcakes.

Milk from the cooler.

Can he get any fuller.

For Uncles breakfast that's what it takes.

Unlike · Reply · 4 · July 31 at 1:15pm

 

Jim Rogers

There once was a whole clan of cousins
At Nettie we could number in dozens
in Sam's garden we would munch
on his tomatoes for lunch
in hopes he didn't notice the abductions

Unlike · Reply · 7 · July 31 at 2:10pm

 

Roger Sharritt

 I think you know what I mean
The competition is still quite keen
It is no joke
I have not misspoke
You guys are a writing machine

 

Pennie Hoover

Come and meet my sisters penny
Oh, my there are so many.
They're lots of fun
In snow or sun,
And, wonderful cooks you'll agree.

 

Bev Sharritt

Green beans growing, velvet and thick.
An eternity row, pick. Pick. Pick.
Work's good for the soul,
But my musings, on the whole:
Ben and Grace, aren't you feeling homesick?

 

Joyce Young

 The hay help was always so cute,
Sending bale after bale up the chute.
Hand-mixer set to whirl,
By the crush of a girl.
She delivered cookies to each batch of brute.

 

Janice Hoover Stilger

 He would drag her out of bed before dawn,
to the barn she would head with a yawn.
But what she loved most,
was the bacon egg sandwich on toast
that was delivered before the cows were all gone.

 

Roger Sharritt

 Hey you poets who still ride the fence
You too can add your two cents
It won't take long
Like writing a song
Tomorrow let judging commence

 

Patty Rathmacher

Not many stitches as kids cuz' their skin was so thick
But some, would eat too much pie and get sick
Cyndi the oldest then Jacob comes along
Renea , Lily and Amy always whistling a song
Could just one of you Rathmacher kids write a limerick ?

 

Janice Hoover Stilger

One of the Stilger kids heads to college this year.
Will the other two even shed a tear?
He hopes his mom’s on the level
Promising care packages of chocolate bars he will revel.
While dad celebrates with a beer.

 

From Amy
My mother insisted I write a limerick and rhyme

I thought it would be a waste of my summertime

I would get any kind of pie that Aunt bev could bake

So I might as well write for my dear mothers sake,

As long as I got an iPhone in the meantime?

 

Cyndi Rohlf

There once was a Rathmacher mother
Who favored her son like no other
Maybe football is more fun
Than daughter number one
No sister can live up to my brother

Grace Kozak

 Freshman year he was a boy on my floor
Who I grew to love and adore
So for his birthday I baked
A great big chocolate cake
Now we're together forevermore

 

Roger Sharritt

There once was a winner named Danielle
They said could write very swell
We thought she ought
But then maybe not
You see she's a newly wed. Oh well

 

Cindy A. Pyle

Milking cows was quite the chore
Up by five and out the back door
"Got Milk?" You ask
With your white mustache
Did you think it came from the store?!?

 

Kim Pyle

Too many holiday favorites to list.
If they aren't on the table, they're missed.
Honey twist bread made from dough.
But that Macaroni and cheese though...
Those cooks deserve to be kissed.

 

Joyce Young

Some pulls of a knob set the auger to rumble
Cow vittles called silage magically fall and tumble.
Rythm of each heap
'Bout put me to sleep
Arms wrapped ‘round the knees of a man tall and humble.

Joyce Young I know it is too late for the contest, but this just popped into my head while taking Sam to school this morning and so it must be shared.

Swiss steak for dinner or even French toast and bac’n
Scarce were the times we didn’t like what she was makin’
If there was a whine
As we began to dine
She pointed to a placard saying “kwitcherbelyakin”.

Bev Sharritt This just in from Cathy! She had some technical difficulties in posting.
It's been so amazin'
That we're all praisin'
The wonderful times we all had
With our great dad
Out on the hay we were raisin.

Winner of the annual limerick contest is announced . . . late in the blog

 Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Yes, it is that time of the year again. Those dog days of summer passing. It has changed through the years. Rather than spending these hazy, lazy, days at the pool or the shade, we have shipped our young charges off to the big air conditioned schoolhouse. I am thinking of introducing legislation to move Labor Day up to the first Monday in August. If you can’t beat them then join them. Declare summer over with a three day weekend and bring on the learnin.

The other big annual event is the annual limerick contest. Yes this is the third year since the Lovely Miss Beverly came up with the great idea of challenging all of the family and friends, and assorted outlaws within earshot on facebook to put on their literary hats and put together their five lines of rhythm and rhyme in memory of Doyle who loved a good limerick. While the memories of those rhymes were released to the winds as they were spoken, the legacy lives on in the talented musings of his offspring and those who have tagged along over the years. Any contest that produces two shout outs to maggots and turds is an American treasure that will be continuing for many years to come. If you want to read all of the limericks, they will be posted on the blog in a few minutes. It is a challenge to pull items from a Facebook feed and put them on the blog. We think that they are all there.

A big thank you to all participants in this year's limerick contest. We had over 40 entries  written about food and family, the 2015 theme. We've been deliberating for a couple of weeks now, hoping someone might stoop to bribery--perhaps sweetening the deal for the judges by sending a real food sample mentioned in your clever entries. No grease stained packages or grease stained $100 bills arrived, however, so we read them all aloud on our drive to a late summer bike ride in Brown County.

The Lovely Miss Beverly helps me narrow the field. She reads them and we agree on a rating for each from 1-5 in four categories: rhythm, rhyme, theme, and emotional appeal. Sometimes the categories overlap, like when the rhyme of "ache" with "4H" caused a pang of angst for Roger, whose childhood issues with that organization have been well chronicled in previous posts. So in that case the rhyme multiplied the emotional appeal. Subjective, I know, but absent bribes, we're gonna feel what we feel.

Food has some powerful connections to our hearts, as mentioned by you all: fear of the dreaded rooster, disappointment of a failed holiday pie, love delivered with cake, sibling rivalry (Cyndi Rae--have you scheduled sessions with a counselor yet?), and the sweet joy of a first taste of sweet snap peas, or wild black raspberries. So the emotional appeal ratings were almost all 4's and 5's.

We had some stellar rhymes this year too. From "rookie" limerick writer Garrett who only wants a "cookie" (adorable) to the delightfully fun near rhyme "burger" with "merger" in a limerick about food and marriage by Bonnie. When Bev heard the word "couch" in Patty's entry about Sunday night popcorn, she knew the rhyme would be "ouch". Another nice emotional “punch”.

If we had a category for "most mouth-watering" it would have been impossible to choose a winner. Here are some highlights:

*Chris' Reviving Pie (bonus emotional points from Roger for mentioning cycling AND bonus from Bev for mentioning pie)

*Charlie's cold milk straight from the tank
*Bill's limerick that made us all want to scream for ice cream without actually using the phrase "ice cream"
*Jim's garden tomatoes
*Paula's snowball cookies
*Bonnie's warm cinnamon rolls during a blizzard and oodles of noodles made by those mysteriously skinny aunts. . .
..... all make us wonder at the connection between good eating and creativity.

Thanks for the glimpses into the windows of your kitchens and relationships. Bev's ratings were certainly skewed towards any favorable mention of an Auntie's cooking skills (see Kim's entry re: honey twist bread and Amy's pie mention in her plea for an iPhone--way to work it). We loved Jake's 5 line story limerick about walking the line of food diplomacy. Berta penned a mother's hopes that her recipes will live on into the next generation. Bev's limerick about her Mom's admonition for independence assured us that they will. Janice voiced the universal mother-strategy of luring our kids back to the nest with food. Pennie sweetly reassured a cursing niece in limerick form.

What limerick contest among the offspring of a dairy farmer wouldn’t comment on the harsh character burnishing exercises of morning milkings, hunky farm hands and a nod to the Got Milk Stache? This one did. It makes me wonder if our offspring will be able to write limericks of memory about their trying times playing Super Mario Kart.

It is a contest. No matter how good all of the entries someone had to win. Our winner leapt off the page in all four areas.

From Aunt Judy Boggs:

 
There once was a gal named Bonita
Who never had seen a fajita
But glasses clicked high
When she brought out her pie
To a crowd shouting . . . Bon Appetita!!

This one made us both, literally, exclaim, “Wow!” Bonita, fajita, Bon Appetita? Brilliant rhyming. And the image of us all toasting Mom’s pie. . . deliciously on the money! Judy, Let us know when you can stop by for pie.

 

Take care

 

Roger and Bev.

 

 

What you find on the road at 6:00 a.m.

Dear Blog Reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. It leaves my hand doing better all of the time. The exercise of riding across Iowa took it out of me a little. My rump was sore. It is getting better. My lips were so chapped that it scared the dentist during my check up a week after RAGBRAI. I don’t know why he cared. He was wearing glove and a mask. How many of you remember the good old days when we drank out of garden hoses and the dentist dug around with bare hands. Any way my lips are healed.

I must say that the other reality that the passage of time has brought has not been as welcomed. Before RAGBRAI, I was getting a little bit of time in the sun during my ride. The last half hour had a promising glow followed by the first shafts of sun light fighting between the trees along my path. It has been fun to not worry about pot holes, or road kill or the occasional skunk. Suddenly, the light is fading fast as our half of orb we ride on is deciding to turn a cold shoulder on the love of its life. I now get just the faintest of glows in the eastern sky on the last two miles of my ride.

Soon, I will be sharing the dark with those holes, the road kill, and occasional skunk. Then just this past week, a new nocturnal creature has been joining me in the dark. I was powering through the last 2 miles of my ride on Wednesday. As I looked out across the yards up the road a pale, drawn, shape started to materialize in the gloom. Driveway after driveway was populated by the brooding shapes. Yes, school had started and the youths of America had been jettisoned from their warm beds, slipped on some cloths and made their way out the door to start their hour and 15 minute commute.

Now I used to walk up hill both ways to school in waist deep snow without shoes. In spite of these obvious hardships, I count myself lucky that I didn’t have to get on a bus at 6:00 a.m. to be at school by 7:30. What are people thinking? Did anyone in education read Lord of the Flies? Did they just assume that William Golding was an old curmudgeon who had it in for the school kids that walked across his yard and teased his dog in the back yard? Did they assume that he had no insight into how kids would behave unsupervised?

Let’s face it kids on the bus are unsupervised. Sure Jack Lovell would give us the evil eye watching us like a hawk while keeping one eye on the road hoping to stay out of oncoming traffic. Sure, we were threatened with “I’m going to tell your dad at lodge on Tuesday night if you don’t start behaving.” Mrs. Browning had a no talking “rule” as her nerves started to fray in the January ice and snow. But we were 20 feet behind them. They had a 2 feet by 6 inch mirror and 3 tons of long wheel base to keep on the road. Of course, we were unsupervised.

There were ears to be flipped. Spit wads to propel through our covertly smuggled straws. There was band candy to eat. Whose paper wrappers were casually crumpled and thrown on the floor 5 rows up so Missy Chesterton would be blamed for eating the contraband under the noses of “supervision.” We did all of that on a half an hour bus ride. Who knows the trouble that I could have created with 2.5 hours a day to work on it?

I usually have a solution. However, this time the bus has left the station so to speak. The battle was lost when we consolidated schools and abrogated parenting to the schools in many cases. I do not feel like railing against that lost cause tonight. It is what it is.

And what it is; is getting on a bus at 6:00 a.m. for an hour and fifteen minute bus ride does no one any good. The only thing that should be on the road at 6:00 a.m. are crazy bicyclists, pot holes, road kill and the occasional skunk.

Take care.

Roger

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and ?????

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. I am recovering nicely from the Register’s Annual, Great, Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Didn’t the lovely Miss Beverly expertly keep you abreast of the comings and goings, the hospitality of the magical Miss Patty, and the myriad of options provided by Pie-owa as the guest blog writer?

I must confess that I have been at a loss for words to describe the week. Actually, I have too many words to describe what happened. I have started the blog three times (now four) and had to abandon the efforts. There was just too much to describe. I have had to return to the cutting room and lop off this or that. While interesting, it is superfluous to the experience.

So I have worked to distill the week and 482 miles to one experience. So hand your device to a loved one, (preferably one who is always too busy to read “You said what; Roger?”) Sit back on the couch. Close your eyes and listen as they read. I will try to paint a word picture and show you what RAGBRAI meant to me.

It is Tuesday morning. We have been riding for 3 hours. The relief from the rain the night before is keeping the temps in the low 80’s with low humidity and light westerly breeze pushing us along. Riding into Alden, Iowa, the lunch town, the brick faced store fronts are festooned with streamers. The organizers have combed through their garages and found those bikes that will never be ridden again. They have painted them yellow, orange, green, and red and bolted them to light poles up and down Main Street. It must have been a shock for the town workers who had previous decorative duties was to hang tinsel and garland for the coming Christmas season. But there they were sporting 20 year old Schwinn’s and Huffy’s in a rainbow of colors.

In the middle of 5000 bike riders, who are in lines buying all manner of refreshment, listening to live local entertainment, and hunting a softer seat, is a 8 year old girl sitting on top of the town’s fire truck; sitting right there on top of the light bar, holding a bottle of bubbles, blowing gently through the wand, covering us in bubble blessings as we make our way through town. The bubbles are cascading out of her wand, catching the light breeze, hovering for a moment over our heads and then spiriting away to the East toward our final destination; the Mississippi river in Davenport.

Go ahead open your eyes. Take back your device. That town, those riders, the girl, the fire truck, the bubbles are were part of what made RAGBRAI so special for me.

RAGBRAI is so many things to so many people.

To those of us who just want to ride, it is 482 miles of sometimes challenging, sometimes easy riding.  Everyone who heard me talk about the ride, suggested how flat it was going to be. There were two days of flatness in the middle; heading East on a board flat ribbon of 2 lane highway between two fields of corn or beans. However, the first day had more climb than the Hilly Hundred at 4900 feet of elevation. We went down a hill into Washta going 45 miles an hour; a personal best for me. The hills were called rollers. At one point while rolling upward toward a town, we passed a mile marker declaring our goal was 5 miles away. I could look ahead and see that I was at the bottom of ever increasing humps that did not crescendo until they crested at the base of a water tower in the town of our goal way up the road. I heard a groan go up around me as we shifted into an easier gear and prepared for the unending crest in front of us.

For those who wanted to participate in the great rolling party called RAGBRAI, there was each day’s first stop with Bloody Mary’s a few miles down the road. Several stops had free beer. We know that contrary Mary’s garden grows with silver bells and cockle shells. It appears that gardens in Iowa grow with beer. Every wide spot in the road had the last beer garden until the next wide spot in the road. One vendor made a deal with seven farmers, each about 5 miles away from each day’s stopping point. Consequently, they offered the last beer of the day. If a beer every ten miles was too far between refreshment, some enterprising vendor had developed insulated bike bags so you could keep your beer cold and with you in case of emergency.

For those who wanted to spend times with friends, telling stories and creating memories, there were teams of all sorts. From buses with bike racks on top that could hold 50 bikes to the family Subaru with a roof rack for tents, and a hitch rack for three bikes, tribes roamed the prairie once again. There was team Shagbrai, Team Wind, Team Liverstrong (they had a T-shirt with a drawing of a liver on it and a tap dispensing beer), Team Hee Haw, Team Good Beer, and team Grin and Sharritt just to name a few. What were my favorites? The Donner Party (slogan “we eat the slow ones.”) Team Air Force; this team of around 40 active air force members, took it upon themselves to be a rolling bicycle shop for stranded cyclists. Every time that I saw a cyclist with a flat tire or broken spoke, a gaggle of Team Air Force  would surround them and get their bike going again.

The introverts were well represented also. You could see them with bike trailers pulling their tents, bags and gear behind their bikes all 482 miles. They would be up early packed and ready to go on their lonely trip across Iowa with 20,000 people surrounding them. None of them were riding tandem bikes.

For the 48 small and medium sized towns across Iowa, they were the center of the recreational bicycling universe for a day. I am guessing, that on average, $250,000 was dumped on each of the towns that we stopped in. For that kind of economic development, I would find old Schwinns and Huffys to donate for the cause also. Vendors were so thick in the streets that the bikers would have to get off of our bikes and walk through downtown, emerge on the other side, climb back on our bikes and pedal slowly out of town.

For the Iowans, sitting in their lawn chairs under a shade tree, RAGBRAI provided a spectacle. While watching it pass by, they provided a children to spray us down on a hot and humid 92 degree Saturday. They were reminded that their rural Iowa home provides a tableau that defies the fly over naysayers. People from all 50 states and 13 countries rolled past their driveways. They watched people slam on their brakes when offering free apricot date cookies at the end of their long old farmstead driveway. They asked for our state names while filling out their 50 state bingo sheets. One couple knew that they had the most beautiful cut flower garden I have ever witnessed and didn’t mind when we laid down our bikes for a brief walk through the beauty. They heartily cheered after watching recreational bikers climb to the top of another hill near the end of a day’s ride not for the first or second wave but for us slow ones near the end.

For me, it was the trip with Ben, Chris and Bev, inspired by a niece named Renea, supported lovingly by Miss Beverly and graciously by Miss Patty. A trip that if praised enough and the timing is right will take other family members in the future. A trip of a thousand instances and moments that spun past with each turn of the crank and coasting down the next big hill. I can’t wait until next time.

For the girl on top of the fire truck in Alden, Iowa, it was a day when the world came to her door and she was able to bless it with bubbles borne on a gentle westerly breeze marking the way home.

Take Care.

Roger