Paul E. Fallon's Blog, page 40

October 26, 2016

Trip Log – Day 353 – Fort Worth TX to Dallas TX

to-dallasOctober 23, 2016 – Sun, 75 degrees


Miles Today: 49


Miles to Date: 18,421


States to Date: 45


The United States is emptier than most people think. When we drive freeways at rush hour, fill up mall parking lots on weekends, load warehouse goods in the morning, or descend on baseball stadiums for a night game, we populate places for a particular activity. We associate them with bustle and crowds. But there are hours, days, entire seasons when these places sit unused. The inevitable result of an environment cordoned into specialized zones in a nation of excess, if ill maintained, infrastructure.


I spent a Sunday pedaling from Fort Worth through Arlington, Grand Prairie and Irving to Dallas, aka The Metroplex. What does the fourth largest SMSA (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area) in our country (after New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago) look like on a mild autumn afternoon? It’s mostly empty.


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Arlington is the sports and entertainment center of the Metroplex, home to Six Flags Over Texas, Ranger Stadium, and Cowboy Stadium. But the city’s main street is a former US Highway whose traffic has shifted to the nearby Interstate. What’s left are used car lots, repair garages, pawn shops, fried chicken in any shape, and budget motels.


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The industrial zone is a no man’s land.


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Houses in Grand Prairie have designer grates that hide any life within.


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On a perfect cycling afternoon, even the bike path in Irving is empty. Most Americans are watching their favorite football teams. The only humans I saw were Indians playing mad cricket.


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Downtown Dallas is full of vacuous plazas where groups of poor people huddle in shade and a guy with a megaphone barks the Gospel. I.M Pei’s City Hall is brutal modern architecture with the subversive message that government could topple and crush us. Another example that just because we have the technical capacity to build something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The First Baptist Church complex is also a hodgepodge of meaning. Yes, there’s a cross. But everything else looks mighty corporate to me.


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I really loved the cattle sculpture stampeding through Pioneer Square. There were more of them than humans. Actually, I rather liked the entire day. I got to pedal through every kind of landscape: residential, civic, industrial, retail, natural, without having to bother with any people.


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Published on October 26, 2016 14:41

October 25, 2016

Trip Log – Day 352 – Weatherford TX to Fort Worth TX

to-fort-worthOctober 22, 2016 – Sun, 75 degrees


Miles Today: 45


Miles to Date: 18,372


States to Date: 45


Pete Parsons, a Texas gal of supersize personality, has put me in touch with fascinating people all across my journey. She outdid herself in setting up a meeting with Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, a cycling enthusiast and health advocate. Mayor Price and I met at the Blue Zones Project Festival at Bluebonnet Circle near Texas Christian University.


img_8081A number of cities across the United States have initiated Blue Zone Projects to encourage people to make choices that extend life and health according to the precepts of the world’s Blue Zones. There are about thirty communities in the US with active projects supported by local non-profits and foundations. Fort Worth is the largest city to fund a Blue Zones Project. The city monitored its relative health by several parameters before the project started, funded the initiative through 2018, and will assess them at the completion. The project works with individuals to take the ‘Blue Zone 9 pledge’, employers to incorporate movement and mental release in the work place, and educational groups to spread the message. Fort Worth hopes to become a designated Blue Zone City, for improving Blue Zone attributes (which is not the same as being a Blue Zone; that represent generations of behavioral traits).


screen-shot-2016-10-23-at-4-49-05-pmSteve, my host for the night, took me to a feast of barbeque ribs, cheese biscuits and local beer with his Marine buddies. Not exactly Blue Zone food, but there was a pan of green beans for color and we passed around a salad, sort of like swilling the vermouth bottle over a martini. Patrick asked if I was Steve’s dad, so everyone called me dad all night. Ryan, who served with Steve in Iraq, is a founder of the Decentralized Dance Party movement. DDP orchestrates massive public dance parties; 63 cities around the world so far. Tonight we did something smaller but equally thrilling: banana pedaling through Fort Worth’s downtown.


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img_8093Three active duty marines, two retired jarheads, two girlfriends, and me slipped on banana suits, drove downtown, and rode our bikes through the city streets on a busy Saturday night. Dance tunes blared from the suitcase turned boom box strapped to Ryan’s bike. Fort Worthian’s high fived and fist pumped us as we slipped along the sidewalks, circled the convention center plaza, and sped down the ramps of Tarrant County College. We ran into a group of skateboarders in an empty parking garage, rode up to the top and careened down seven floors of concrete ramp. I was last in line when an elegant woman outside of Circle Theater asked if I was their chaperone.


img_8101Truth is, I did tire first. Despite the exhilaration of the night breeze and downtown lights, by midnight I was keen to hit the sack. The sound system broke down a half hour later. Ryan was bummed but I was ready to call it quits. We got to bed just before two. If the tunes kept flowing, who knows how long we would have cycled downtown Cowtown?


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Published on October 25, 2016 14:56

October 24, 2016

Trip Log – Day 351 – Breckenridge TX to Weatherford TX

to-weatherfordOctober 21, 2016 – Sun, 75 degrees


Miles Today: 86


Miles to Date: 18,327


States to Date: 45


screen-shot-2016-10-23-at-3-50-21-pmThe wind took a vacation day, and so I got one as well. Rare in this part of the world to have no wind, but incredibly easy to ride when the sky is calm.


Texas has perhaps the least bike-friendly drivers in our country. Riding in any city, from Port Arthur to El Paso to Muleshoe, is precarious as Texas streets paved concrete with integral curbs. There’s no place for me to be except in the traffic lane, which annoys the pickups. Fortunately, the highways are another story. Texas has wonderful highways, with wide shoulders and rumble strips. There’s plenty of space. Everyone gets along because we don’t have to interact. Robert Frost wrote that good fences make good neighbors. In Texas, distance makes good neighbors.


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img_8058Mineral Wells is a peculiar place. The massive abandoned hotel from its early 20th century days of healing waters hovers over the near deserted downtown like a mirage from The Shining. East of town I came upon the National Vietnam War Museum, which is seriously less official than it sounds. Not a soul at the place, no staff, nothing. There’s a plywood replica of the Vietnam Memorial in DC, a stucco replica of a Vietnam camp’s honor wall, a helicopter with propellers fabricated in Mineral Wells, and well tended gardens. The big picture eluded me.


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img_8067Weatherford may possess the most attractive courthouse in a state whose 248 counties include many contenders. It sits on the axis of the city’s main streets and commands attention from all directions.


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Published on October 24, 2016 14:57

October 23, 2016

Trip Log – Day 350 – Abilene TX to Breckenridge TX

to-breckenridgeOctober 20, 2016 – Sun, 75 degrees


Miles Today: 61


Miles to Date: 18,241


States to Date: 45


img_8021Grinding against the wind! The only constant is change. That applies to the wind as much as anything. It took me more hours to grind out fewer miles today, thanks to a wind shift that brought steady gales from the northeast. Still, it was a gorgeous autumn day and I had lots of time to savor the saving grass and golden sage flowing against me.


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I am no longer in West Texas. The high plains gave way to brush and then creeks and finally across the causeway of a big reservoir; more water than I’ve seen in a month. I was happy to pedal up the last long hill and see my motel. A bucket of fresh ice, a hot shower, can almost make a body forget about the wind. Almost.


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Published on October 23, 2016 14:10

October 22, 2016

Trip Log – Day 349 – Snyder TX to Abilene TX

to-abileneOctober 19, 2016 – Sun, 80 degrees


Miles Today: 77


Miles to Date: 18,188


States to Date: 45


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Flying with the wind! I pedaled through the largest wind turbine farm of my trip today, hundreds of turbines north of Roscoe spread out for more than ten miles. While they generated energy, I made time. A mid-morning wind shift that gave me a tail boost all day; I arrived in Abilene by 2:30 p.m.


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I had plenty of motivation to ride so fast. My host Cara, a designer and local artist, invited me to participate in a design charrette, downtownABI, where over a hundred people weighed in on how to improve the city’s core. Depending on your point of view I was either a ringer, since I’ve done dozens of similar exercises; or an interloper, since I’d been in Abilene all of three hours before the event began. Still, my impressions of the city were positive since Laura Lee, Cara’s mom and co-host, gave me a tour in her 1966 Mustang convertible.


img_8034Downtown Abilene has seen better days, but it has more going for it than most small city downtowns: a handful of beautifully restored buildings, a linear green space along the railroad, whimsical sculptures that reflect Abilene’s home to the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature, and a handful of cool new bars and restaurants. Abilene is half the size of Lubbock, but it’s got twice the downtown.


img_8037After the charrette we all ate and drank at Vagabond’s and then continued our far-ranging discussion at home well past midnight. The people I meet make places memorable; Abilene etched a generous niche in my mind.


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Published on October 22, 2016 14:11

October 21, 2016

Trip Log – Day 348 – Slaton TX to Snyder TX

to-snyderOctober 18, 2016 – Sun, 80 degrees


Miles Today: 75


Miles to Date: 18,111


States to Date: 45


Any day that starts with two mugs of black coffee and two helpings of sour cream and Sprite biscuits baked in a butter basted iron skillet heaped with sausage gravy is going to be a good day. My longtime West Texas friend and overnight host Leanne is a phenomenal cook.


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It’s cotton harvest time on the South Plains. Modern-day cotton pickers are GPS guided machines that remove the bolls off the plant and mechanically separate the seeds, hulls, and lint. One farmer told me, “I just sit there and play on my tablet, then turn around at the end of the field.”


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The plains end abruptly at the caprock. The earth drops 300 feet within a mile. I’m back in the land of sage and buttes, riverbeds, and oil wells. Despite the strong wind, the air is thick and stinks of tar. Post displays a sense of humor on its wells. The town’s founder, cereal magnate C.W. Post, spent over $50,000 in the early 1900’s trying to dynamite the atmosphere to produce rain. To this day, not much falls.


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The string of windmills that line the edge of Llano Estacado remind me of Calvary, in a land where Christian crosses are plentiful.


img_7991Snyder, Texas may have the single most inappropriate piece of architecture I’ve seen on my journey. A box of courthouse proportion sits in the middle of the town square. Its granite facade has no windows – none. On the center of each face is an entry door guarded by three security cameras. A brutal interpretation of ‘of the people, by the people, for the people.’


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Published on October 21, 2016 13:20

October 20, 2016

Trip Log – Day 347 – Lubbock TX to Slaton TX

to-slatonOctober 17, 2016 – Sun, 90 degrees


Miles Today: 27


Miles to Date: 18,036


States to Date: 45


Llano Estacado, the Palisaded Plains, also known as the Staked Plains because early Spanish explorers drove stakes to mark their route through the featureless grassland, has been geologically stable for ten million years. Larger than the state of Indiana, this flat land in western Texas and eastern New Mexico tips ever so slightly to the southeast. The Commanches called it ‘the place where nobody is.’ People passed through it for thousands of years; water was available from a series of springs that follow a line from present-day Lubbock to Portales NM. But nobody lived here permanently until the 1880’s, and meaningful settlement didn’t occur until after the First World War, when we developed mechanical methods for drawing water from the Ogallala aquifer.


img_7961To get an idea how flat this place is, consider that I have not crossed a bridge in five days. There are no rivers, even dry ones, on the Llano Estacado.


In less than a hundred years this area has become home to over a million people and an abundant source of cotton, sunflowers, sorghum, and watermelon. Lubbock is the defacto capital of Llano Estacado, home to a quarter million people, major hospitals, Texas Tech University, railroad hubs, and epicenter of rockabilly musical talent.


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On a Monday afternoon, downtown Lubbock is a windblown, lonely place. But its most famous son stands tall against the West Texas Music Walk of Fame. Buddy Holly in his thick glasses. That’ll be the Day.


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Published on October 20, 2016 13:22

October 19, 2016

Trip Log – Day 346 – Lubbock TX

to-lubbockOctober 16, 2016 – Sun, 85 degrees


Miles Today: 9


Miles to Date: 18,009


States to Date: 45


When you travel so slow for so long ideas percolate over time until, one day, you meet a person or encounter a situation that illuminates a larger concept. All over our country people are wary of the government: almost always referred to as ‘the’ as opposed to ‘our’. They want less of it, and they want it to be more local. Yet, our government keeps getting bigger and reaching into more precincts of our lives. Why is this?


screen-shot-2016-10-17-at-4-23-02-pmOne answer can be distilled from a small building I passed in Levelland, TX: ‘South Plains Senior Companion Program.’ Forty years ago we began providing services for the elderly of this area. A few people had died in their homes and were not found for days, so we started phone trees. Some were not getting proper nourishment, so we started meals on wheels. We offered rides to doctor appointments, we insulated drafty houses, we opened senior centers to promote socialization. We did this mostly with federal block grant money, though what we provided didn’t need to come from the government at all. These services were not complex. They could have come from extended family, neighbors, churches, or civic groups. But they didn’t. So our government stepped in to provide.


The progression goes something like this. Some people in our communities don’t have family or neighbors to care for them. We create programs to fill the gap. The programs become the norm. Families and neighbors feel less responsible. More people need the services. Programs get larger, institutionalized. They develop bureaucracies, advocates, agendas; they take on lives of their own. As they grow, our sense of community shrinks.


There’s nothing wrong, in theory, with organizing society along institutionalized care and support, except the American duality of individualism and compassion renders us uncomfortable with centralized social services. We think people should be independent, and when they can’t be, we want them to be cared for locally. But families, neighbors and churches don’t have to serve everyone – only our government has that mandate.


imgresIt’s a long stretch from a federal government formed to provide for the common defense to one that provides senior companions. But until everyone is cared for locally, our government will step in, and it will continue to get bigger. We could get comfortable with that idea and stop bellyaching about the size of government. Or we could shrink our government by tending to our communities ourselves. Most likely, we just keep complaining.


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Published on October 19, 2016 13:27

October 18, 2016

Trip Log – Day 345 – Levelland TX to Lubbock TX

to-lubbockOctober 15, 2016 – Sun, 85 degrees


Miles Today: 39


Miles to Date: 18,000


States to Date: 45


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Nothing wilts an experience quicker than expectations. For months I’ve looked forward to returning to Levelland. Over the past week I’ve spent more time trying to connect with people related to my time here than in any other place on my trip. Howard Maddera, my mentor at South Plains Community Action, died in 2003; neither his predecessor nor his two daughters responded to my overtures. Emmer Lee Whitfield, who taught me about poverty and dignity, was killed in a car wreck in 1996; her daughter did not respond either. Ray Bradley, my Jaycee buddy, moved to Waco; his younger brother Hugh runs the family insurance agency. Duane Beachem, the dynamic young pastor of our church, cannot be found.


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I woke to a grey sky, blank as my agenda. The haze burned off by ten. I pedaled out to revisit this geography of my past since I could not find any of the people that made it memorable.


Levelland hasn’t changed all that much, but it sure is different. In 1978, 12,000 residents were split in thirds: Black, White, and Latino. North of the tracks was the Black neighborhood. Despite paving all the dirt streets and renaming one Martin Luther King Blvd., the north side is a shadow of its former self. Industry, commercial, and garden apartments have replaced the shacks I used to visit. Emmer Lee Whitfield’s house is gone.


screen-shot-2016-10-16-at-2-35-34-pmI crossed the tracks and to the White part of town; now it’s Hispanic. The grid of numbered and lettered streets looked vaguely familiar, but nothing triggered specific memory. The SPCAA offices are the same, though they look smaller. Furr’s grocery has become a funeral home. The storefronts on the courthouse square are occupied by third-rate enterprises. A new supermarket and McDonald’s are out on 385; there’s a Super Wal-Mart just beyond city limits. The cluster of stucco apartments at Ninth and Avenue I where I lived among migrant workers has been demolished. The concrete slabs and sewer pipes are still there, the only testament to morning I woke up clutching the toilet after my first tequila encounter.


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Enough of the pity party, I needed to talk to people. Mario, who runs the carnacerita around the corner from my old place, gave me a bag of cookies and lifted my spirits. I chatted with local college students, evangelicals, and went to Tienda’s for a burrito. Petra, the weekend waitress, also works at SPCAA. We shared common connections. Still, I left feeling only partly nourished. I wanted more from my homecoming.


img_7906I headed east to Lubbock; the day turned summery. The east side of town has gotten fancy: $800,000 houses where white folks can hide in mansions with four zones of air conditioning.


My Lubbock host asked me to arrive by five. Grant and his friend Shane explained we were going shooting. We loaded guns and ammo in Grant’s SUV and headed to their friend Lance’s ranch west of town. The trio use a VW microbus as staging area for target practice in a field of winter wheat. They shot hundreds of rounds at dangling targets, clay pigeons, and old records tossed in the air. I shot a pistol and a rifle. On my third round I hit a clay pigeon and retired in victory.


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After sunset we retired to an old motorhome someone gave Lance to drink beer and vape. Toward eleven we drove back to Lubbock and stayed up a few more hours drinking Grant’s excellent home brews. A night of driving and shooting and drinking and carrying on like Willy and Waylon and the boys. Just like we used to do in Levelland, where I shot a gun for my first and only time in 1978. My hunger to recall that life, albeit with a different cast of characters, was fully satisfied.


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Published on October 18, 2016 13:46

October 17, 2016

Trip Log – Day 344 – Clovis NM to Levelland TX

to-levellandOctober 14, 2016 – Clouds and Sun, 70 degrees


Miles Today: 89


Miles to Date: 17,961


States to Date: 45


img_7859After college I served as a VISTA Volunteer in the South Plains of Texas, an area most people would call West Texas, but locals insist is different. The South Plains are broad and flat: I did not cross a single river today. The area was mostly uninhabited until the 1920’s, when we figured out how to tap the Ogallala Aquifer and grow cotton, soybeans, watermelon, and sunflowers. By the 1970’s early settlers had become the areas first generation of senior citizens; I worked at South Plains Community Action Association to establish senior programs: meals on wheels, medical transport, and home repair. I traveled about 2,000 miles a month across thirteen rural counties to help elderly folks get new roofs, insulation, and indoor plumbing. It was gratifying work.


img_7866Today I cycled through a swath of that territory, from Muleshoe through Littlefield to Levelland, under a grey dome that didn’t turn sunny until mid afternoon. I look for buffet lunches on long travel days; the Dinner Bell’s Friday catfish buffet hit the spot. Fried okra, fried fish, fried popcorn shrimp… do you spot a trend? Seems I was the only patron who ate the sautéed fish. Then again, I was the only one lacking a big belly and a bigger hat.


img_7868One thing I did not eat was the pink gelatin. My year of senior citizen lunches forever ruined my appetite for any dish with marshmallows or suspended in Jell-O.


The irony of riding down Littlefield’s near abandoned downtown is that the largest occupied building is the senior center, as it is in so many small towns. In less than forty years a group that was an emerging demographic has become the dominant one.


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So far, The South Plains has weathered rural decline better than most areas of the Great Plains, Muleshoe, Littlefield and Levelland all have just about the same number of residents today as they did when I lived here. Commerce has simply shifted from downtown to the highway. In another forty years, who knows how many will remain.


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Published on October 17, 2016 13:26