My 1986 Kuwahara reminds me of previous trips we have taken. I rode that little stump jumper from Jasper, Alberta to Yellowstone, from Montreal to Halifax and back to Quebec. It’s been on the backroads of Yellowstone during the Great Fire of 1988. It’s been to Boulder and back a few times, and all around Wyoming. None of these rides asked as much, nor delivered as much, as the most recent journey.
Earlier trips were vacations, escapes, a hoot. The trek across the country was a quest… to
see what was going on in our country , to be sure. But it was also to find out who I was after
years of submersion into grievous overwork.
I had trouble seeing my personhood separate from my work. Even though it was killing me, I couldn’t
find a way to reduce it or make it relent. The only
thing I knew to do was something completely different.
Now that we are back, we cannot
perceive what our life will be like in 6 months. We are still in the sacred space of the
trip, telling its tales and trying to mine its teachings. As we wound through central New York, we
thought we were on the downward slope, and getting close to that victory
dance. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There was still plenty to learn about
persistence, commitment, and dumb luck.
The first teacher was the little town of Fulton.
Mile 3695, Fulton, NY
We ride into Fulton and the first thing we see is a pretty lake. We go over to it. The next thing we see is a huge warning sign,
“NO SWIMMING, NO WADING, DO NOT EAT FISH FROM THIS LAKE. If you get lake water
on yourself, rinse immediately.” It
doesn’t say what the toxin is or what caused it. We wonder about the flocks of geese and ducks
paddling about on the lake. Are they
being poisoned?
As we leave the lake, we look across the street and
immediately see a big Wal-Mart. As we ride into town, we
start to see the tell-tale signs of economic distress: empty buildings,
abandoned homes, beater cars, pay-day loans, houses that haven’t been painted,
faded For Sale signs, rusty fences, hand-made business signs. At one of these handmade business signs
on a faded old house, we stop. The sign
says “No Biggee Coffee House” and something about its home-grown look is
appealing to us.
As soon as we step in side, we are warmly greeted by the
proprietor. She is a European American
woman, with faded blonde hair, strong arms, and snapping, bright blue eyes. We look around for a place to sit. In the former living room, there are a series
of second hand lounge chairs and saggy couches nestled around a makeshift stage
sporting handmade signs announcing Game Night and Open Poetry Night. We find two chairs around a well-used wooden
table in the former dining room.
We go to the handmade wooden counter and ask about latte’s. They don’t have that kind of a machine. How about some regular coffee? Fine. She pours us two big mugs of coffee from the domestic
drip coffee maker. “Those are 50 cents
each…so $1 dollar, please.” We are surprised at the low price. Well, we better get a pastry, too. “They’re all home-made,” she offers. Wes gets the coffee cake, and I get the
cinnamon roll. Mine is delicious, but
Wes’s is very dry. “That’ll be $1 dollar each, and they come with coffee, so
you owe me another dollar.”
We are seated next to a middle aged couple who look like
they just came off a 1950’s farm. She
has dyed blonde hair in a soft bouffant and is wearing a cotton shirt with
small flowers. He could stand to lose a
few pounds, but has a round, open face with his short hair carefully Bryl-creamed
into place. They smile at us and say “Hi.” This group is joined by a young woman,
perhaps 17 or 18, who might be the daughter? niece? guardian? of the
proprietor. She is all excited about a
fund-raising effort she is doing for a school club that will use the funds to
visit colleges. She is taking orders for
pies. She makes a sales pitch at the
couple’s table and at ours. We explain we
are just passing through; the farmer’s wife says they are too expensive at $22
a pie. The farmer says he doesn’t thinks
schools should be promoting the eating of sugar.
About that time a rather round young man comes in. He is a regular. The proprietor asks if he wants his
usual. He does. She fixes him some sort of big sugary drink,
which excites a comment from the farmer sitting next to Wes. “See... this is what’s wrong with the American
diet…too much sugar…too much wheat. It
just stimulates the production of bacteria in the gut.”
The young man is blissfully sucking his drink through a
straw, when a handsome, slender, dark-skinned African American man comes into
the coffee house. Everyone greets
him. “Hey, Lionel!” He goes over and gives the proprietor a big
hug, “Hey, baby.” The farmer’s wife
leans over to us and whispers confidentially.
“They’re newly-weds…aren’t they cute?”
The young man with the drink goes up to Lionel and stops him
in his tracks by saying, “I sure was sorry to hear about your son. It’s real bad when someone so young dies, isn’t
it?” There is silence in the room. Lionel finally smiles at the young man who
seems totally unaware of his blunder. “Thanks
for your condolence.” The farmer
whispers to us that the son had died of a heart attack, even though he was just
a young teen. He gestures to a sign
announcing a chicken dinner benefit for the family to help pay for the costs.
Lionel extricates himself from the young man, and scoots
behind the counter to grab the coffee pot and re-fill everyone’s mugs. We offer to pay for the re-fill, but… “Oh, no, refills are free.”
About that time, we are joined by another 30 something woman,
who has bangs and long blonde hair curling around her stout shoulders and thick
back. The teenager immediately accosts
her with the pie sales pitch. Ms Bangs
looks at the prices, blanches, then declares, “I make all pies myself…bread,
too, pasta, even. All that store bought stuff is no good…too expensive and full of all kinds
of junk.” This statement is confirmed by the farmer. “See that’s just what I’m saying!”
The teenager is none too pleased by her sales failure and
she wails, “How am I ever going to go to college if I don’t make my sales.” Her mother/aunt/guardian offers, “I don’t
know how you will afford to go college. Period.” The teenager offers, “I could get a job.” Lionel asks, “What kind of job can you get?” Teenager, “I could get one like yours.” Lionel, “You have to have a car.” Teenager, “You have to have a car to work at
Domino’s?” Lionel, “How else are you
going make the deliveries?” Teenager: “They
don’t give you one to use?” The whole
room laughs. The Mom? asks, “How would you
get a car?” Teenager, “I don’t know. Why is it all so hard!?” Ms Bangs, “That’s just the way it is. Nothing is as easy as you think.” Whole room: “Boy, ain’t that the truth, That’s right, mmm-hmm.”
At that point, Lionel announces he has to get to work. He goes over to hug his wife. She asks, “That’s all?” He glances around, decides to take a chance,
and gives his new wife a nice big kiss.
As he exits, he says, “I’ll be back after a while to help you clean up.”
Wes and I decide we best be moving on, too. At that point, the farmer pulls out a folder,
reaches in, and gives Wes a flyer telling about a website and some products
he is promoting. It is promoting a wheat
and sugar free diet, and he is selling some amino acids to promote better
digestion. He says, “I lost 40 pounds
since I started following this diet and using this stuff. You go on the website and you can find out
all about it.” Wes takes the paper and
prepares to leave. The proprietor has
stepped away, so he just leaves a $5 dollar bill on the counter, hoping they
will take the hint about their prices.
As we ride away, we can see that the town is hanging on by a
thread. The downtown businesses are
mostly closed. We decide to push onto
the next village just six miles away, where there is supposed to be a small motel. As we walk
our bikes up the hill (my knee still complaining), we talk about whether No
Biggee can make it. We hear a lone saxophonist
practicing jazz in a small house across the highway. The player would play a bit, stop, then try
again, this time a little better, a little stronger. By the time we had cleared the hill, s/he was
able to play the whole phrase. That’s our wish for the folks at No Biggee—that
they’ll find a way to keep doing just a little better until they can do all
right.
We make our way to the hamlet of Volney, where we cannot
find the motel. I call the number a few
times. It rings and rings. Finally, we go into the Ace Hardware and ask
about the motel. The young man working
the counter has never seen or heard of this motel. Just at that moment, a customer with a
prominent bandage on his neck comes the counter. The counterman asks the customer about the
motel, who immediately asserts, “Naah, that’s been out of business for a long
time.” Are there any other motels
about? “There’s one Fulton.” We just came from there, we’d prefer not to
backtrack. This causes a great deal of
consternation and “Is there one in…? How about in….? There’s definitely one in
Oswego.” We’re not going that direction.
After much back and forth, checking the computer, contemplating routes…nope, we
have to go back to Fulton and stay at the Riverside Motel. Sorry.
On our way out, we ask the young man about Fulton. It seemed very depressed. He says, “You shoulda seen it before. Man, it was something. We had Nestle’s, Birds Eye, and Miller. Everyone was working and the town was just
humming. Did you know that Nestle’s had
its first factory in America here in Fulton?”
We ask if there are is any signs of rebirth. He shakes his head, “There’s some talk of
Birds Eye starting something here again, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”
We make our way back into town, past the abandoned Nestle
factory to the Riverside Inn. Once, it
was a standard bearer. Now it is showing
its age with stained carpet, peeling wall paper, and a rutted parking lot. We ask the young man serving as the desk clerk
about the town. He replies, “It
sucks. I can hardly wait to get out of
here.” Thinking of our encounter at No
Biggee, we tell him we have met some nice people who trying to get things
going. He snorts, “Nice people! Not too
many of those around here, if you ask me.”
The room is not at all expensive, but is full of all sorts
of extraneous furniture like a couch in the entrance and a storage chest along
the wall. It is crowded and a bit
dank. The restaurant is closed, but they
have some food in the bar. It’s 10 wings
and 2 beers for $10 night and there is a small crowd. The
waitress has her small son and infant in the bar and steals moments to attend
to their needs. The next morning, she is
working the front desk and the tall man who was in the bar is serving as
manager/maintenance/whatever.
A full hot breakfast comes with the room. There is one waitress, who is working hard,
especially for a group of what appears to be construction workers, who have her
coming and going, getting more food, more drinks, on and on. When they leave, the table is a mess, there’s
a lot of uneaten food, and they have left no tip.
She says to us, “Those guys do that every day. Never leave a
tip. Ask for everything. I’m only getting $7 bucks an hour and
working 14 hours a week. I need the
tips, but they don’t give a damn.”
We have decided to make the best of this rest day by doing
laundry, correspondence, and dealing with Wes’ broken Go-Pro camera. This gives us another view of this broken
down town. The laundromat is crowded. We are greeted by a man who yells a story at
us that makes no sense. When he goes
into the Laundromat, he is scrupulously avoided, even when he directly speaks
to someone. There is a large group of
young Spanish speaking men, who point at our bikes, especially the bike
trailers, but do not speak to us. An
older man with Downs, who may be at the Laundromat in some official capacity,
goes from person to person, wishing each one well. A tired looking woman with an adult son,
cleans and sorts and stacks an enormous pile of laundry. She apologizes to us, saying, “My washing
machine broke down. Don’t know when it’ll
be fixed.”
Wes has spent hours on the phone with the Go-Pro camera
people because this nearly new camera will not turn on and will not
charge. After a series of tests, which
the camera fails, they tell us to send the camera back and they will issue a
new one. That’s great, but how can we
get while we are on the road? There are
multiple confusing phone calls as Wes tries to work out the logistics. Long story short, we have to send the camera
back and they will send the camera on to one of our future destinations.
There is no UPS or Fed-Ex store in town--closed. There is a mailbox place that can send
it. Ok, back across town with all the
information. Wes asks the woman if she
can print the mail label from the email Go Pro sent. “Oh, no. We don’t have any email access at this store.” "Well, if I pull the email up on my computer,
can we use the printer here?" I ask “Oh,
no. That’s not allowed. You have to go over to the library.”
Back across town again.
The library is next to the post office.
Wes will mail some letters, while I go start printing the labels. Oops, bad plan. I go the library and realize I have neither
lock nor money. I have to wait until Wes
comes before I can start. There is
another young woman waiting just outside the library. She is morbidly obese, and on oxygen. She can only move a few feet at a time,
before she has to sit down on her walker.
She calls for a taxi, then makes another phone call while she is waiting.
The conversation grows more and more heated.
She is quite upset because a former roommate came into her apartment
while she was gone and took something.
The person on the other end apparently didn’t think the offense was so
bad. The conversation becomes ever more
heated until the young woman screams into the phone, saying, “I don’t know why
you are trying to stress me out. If you
don’t watch out, I’ll have a heart attack and just die!”
I am relieved when Wes returns and we are able to print the
labels. There is one librarian in the large 1900's edifice. He is running around
like mad, helping people with computers, answering reference questions,
checking out books. Back at the mailbox
place, the clerk easily prepares the camera for shipping. We ask her about the local economy. She says it bad, really bad, but maybe the
Bird’s Eye thing will help some. I say I
think it makes sense for Fulton to become a processor of the local apple
harvest. She says, “Oh, no, I don’t
think there is enough apples to do anything with them.” We say we just rode through miles of
apples. She insists there’s nothing to
be done.
We stop at a shop on the way back and see that it has
notices for 4 chicken dinner benefits for people experiencing some sort of
crisis. We have been up and down, back
and forth in this town. The signs of
hope, local organizing, urban agriculture, or maker-space entrepreneurship, so
common in Detroit, are nowhere to be seen in this little town. We have seen a lot of despair, too much
negativity, and a fervent belief in future negative outcomes. It makes us sad and makes us want to
leave. Sore knee or no, we’re heading
out tomorrow.
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posted from Centennial, Wyoming
