Last night I had an unusual conversation as I walked back to my hotel after dinner here in Mobile, Alabama. There was this homeless guy walking around sort of talking to people. He was obviously on something and most of what he was saying was coming out mumbled and hard to distinguish. Naturally he latched on to me and gave me a series of intructions on where to go to get a feed on. I guess there was a soup kitchen or something nearby. But I told him I was full because I just ate so he just kept rambling on about this and that while I did my best to throw in a 'oh yeah?' or 'uh huh' or something that I thought best complemented matched the tone of his muttering. After a block or so I began to pick up on his dialect. (Before anyone starts to worry I'll add that it was only about 8:00 and the streets were pretty busy.) He started telling me about how he was the best guy in Mobile to have show you around and that it I lucky he was with me because back there 'John' wanted to jump me. We were walking through a more upscale part of the downtown and I'd watched him for about two blocks as he harassed dinner goers before we started talking. There was clearly no 'John'. But he continued on in his semi-coherent state about how I was lucky and how there were some bad mother fuckers around here until eventually we got back to my hotel. So I said goodnight and told him I was going to sleep because I had to wake up really early in the morning to get on the road. This was in no way I lie, I've been getting up with the sun most days, but he started going on about how I didn't trust him and how all he wanted to do was to come in a watch some TV, man. He pulled out the race card and was doing everything in his drug induced power to make me feel sorry for him, which I did. He even pulled his toothbrush and toothpaste out of his pocket to show me just how homeless he was. So I gave him two dollars thinking that his whole routine was to 'follow the white guy around until he feels bad enough for you that he gives you a couple bucks and then leave him alone', not that I wasn't enjoying his company. To my surprise, not only did he look at the two dollars in complete disgust, but he called me cheap and asked for a twenty. I almost laughed in his face. I have great sympathy for the homeless and try my best to treat them with compassion, hell I just listened to a junkie's nonsensical rambling for seven blocks, so I told him I would take the money back if he didn't want it. But he decided that two dollars was better that no dollars, grudgingly wished me a good night, and went on his way. His name was Derek.

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY

It's a well known saying for a very good reason. The past two nights, when the sun started to get a little too low for comfort, I've stopped at completely random houses to ask if I might be able to camp on their front lawns for the evening. Naturally I expected to get some odd looks and a rejection or two at first, but being quite used to both gawking and denial I asked away making sure I had my best friendly-Canadian face on. Here is what happened.

The night before last I was just south of Greenville, Alabama when I decided I should call it quits for the day. I rode down the road sizing up the various trailers, houses, and cabins, trying to decide which door to knock on. I passed a house with a elderly looking gentleman cutting his grass atop a riding lawn mower. "He looks like a grandfather," I though to myself as I doubled back towards their driveway.
While pushing my bike across the gravel, taking off my sunglasses and trying to look as harmless as I possibly could, a woman who I assumed to be his wife came out the front door and sort of intercepted me. I greeted her and asked if she would mind if I camped on their front yard for the evening.
"Oh of course," she said, "just set up where ever you like." And she waved me off to whatever part of the yard I liked.
Stunned at how instantaneous her acceptance was I wheeled my bike over beside a large oak tree well away from the house and started to unload my stuff. In the midst of my unpacking I the sound of the mower grew louder. I figured that she had mentioned me to her husband and he was coming to kick me off his property or more simply just run me over. I turned around as he pulled up behind me and cut the engine. But he wanted nothing more than to size me up and soon we were talking about my ride and how bad the roads were and how people drove too fast. His name was Lomax (awesome) and his wife's name was Deborah and they were semi-retired living out here outside of Greeville, he a brick mason and she a teacher. Eventually he went back to cutting the lawn and I resumed setting up camp. After I had the tent set up I sat down to eat some dinner. As I started to eat handfuls of the same damn trail mix I'd been eating for the past 4 days Lomax came out of the house and walked over to where I was sitting.
"I hope you eat chicken," he said as he handed me a styrofoam tray of chicken, scallop potatoes, coleslaw, BBQ sauce, a pudding cup for dessert, and a cup of ice tea to wash it all down.

He told me that when I was finished eating I was welcome to come on inside and grab a shower if I wanted to get cleaned up. I almost started crying as I did my best to express what this sort of kindness and generosity meant to a weary traveler such as myself. He assured me that it was nothing but leftovers from a gathering they had had at their place the weekend before. Leftovers never tasted so good. After I'd gone inside to shower up I again tried to thank them enough. I made sure I got their address as well so that when I get home I can send them a big can of Canadian Maple Syrup. Beautiful people.


Last night I was biking through Canoe, Alabama as the sun started to dip low. I picked a house with a basketball net hoping that I would remind the resident of one of their children, parental instincts kicking in, and agree to let me sleep in their yard. The door that I knocked on was open by a forty-something year old woman and upon my request she reacted much the same way that Deborah did the night before. Shocked again by my uncanny ability to pick houses inhabited my saints, I headed over to the side yard to get ready for nightfall. Again, sitting in my camp chair eating that stupid trail mix, I was approached by the man of the house. "Well, my luck had to run out eventually," I thought.
But, he shook my hand and introduced himself as Chris and we proceeded to have a very very long conversation about everything from post secondary education, to the new medical reforms in the US, to hurricanes, to his kids, to insurance of both the medical and proprietary varieties. We must have been chatting for well over an hour and it was almost dark before he said that he should head inside to see what was going on but that he would "holler at me in a bit." I sat down again to choke back some boring camp food. Not 5 minutes later he emerged from the house with a massive plate of homemade lasagna, garlic bread, beautiful cookies made by his wife, and some more ice tea. He even brought out a phone in case I wanted to make any calls.

I was overwhelmed, quite literally in shock, and probably sounded like a bit of a stuttering idiot as I again tried to illustrate my mountainous amounts of gratitude. He waved it off and told me there was a shower inside I could use if I wanted to. When I was about halfway through my delicious plate of food Chris came back outside to introduce his youngest son to me and tell me that he was off to help with the prom decorations over at the local school. And so I ate and read and took a makeshift shower in their backyard with a garden hose and one of my t-shirts and a couple hours later Chris returned to ask if I wanted to come see what was going on over at the school. I hastily accepted and hopped into his massive toy-truck of a vehicle. As we headed over he explained that this was a private school that he himself had graduated from when he was a teenager. The auditorium was part of a beautiful old schoolhouse and once inside I was very impressed by the effort and design that had gone into the decoration of the room. After meeting some of the local kids helping to decorate Chris showed me some of the athletic facilities they had. A massive, gorgeous gym dedicated to basketball, a recently re-sodded football field with an equally recently renovated change room (complete with an impressively large school mascot tiled masterfully into the floor), a fully functioning track, and a baseball diamond fitted with a brand new lighting system. I was very envious of the gym in particular. The floor looked newer and nicer than anything I'd been on in my six or so years of playing basketball. We headed back to the house where I met his two eldest sons who had just returned from a Brazilian Jujitsu mixed-martial-arts training night. His eldest son's bicep was the size of my thigh. They asked my some questions about Canada that I did my best to answer and then I went back out to my tent. In the morning I woke up to the sound of cars leaving and crawled out of my tent to what I thought was an empty house. I got my stuff together and as I was leaving Chris came outside to wish me farewell. He shook my hand and handed me a big ziplock bag of his wife's exquisite cookies. Beautiful, beautiful, people.

So I'm in Montgomery Alabama right now sitting in their public library taking advantage of their tax dollars. Here are some of my pictures from Atlanta, which is a really great city by the way.

This is where I constructed my bike after I got off the Greyhound. A young kid on a bike stopped to ask me if I needed a hand.



So I cut my finger really badly when I was working on my bike at the Sopo bike co-op in East Atlanta later that night. Great way to start the trip. I don't think I've ever cut myself that deep before. Probably should have got stiches but I had to finish working on my bike seeing as the co-op was closed the next day and I wanted to leave the day after. Luckily, one of the shop's founders helped me out. Great guy. Even helped me get back to the hostel. Just goes to show you that vegans are the nicest people in the world.

I decided to play doctor. Looks pretty good doesn't it. The black stuff around the gash is chain greese and that stuff is really hard to get off.

The next day I went to the Museum of the Puppetry Arts. Way cool. Saw some pretty famous puppets and learned all about the different kinds that there are. Later I went to Piedmont park in the middle on the city. Yes, that is where I am in the picture below. Totally beautiful and right downtown.

The biking so far has been pretty rough. There is more often than not an unsettling abundance of trafic and in Alabama they have yet to discover the 'shoulder of the road'. Or if there is a shoulder it is covered with massive rumble strips. I get really stressed when I think about having to get back out on the road. Ugh. But I'll get through it.

April 7, 2010

Near delirious writing from a three hour layover in Cincinnati, Ohio at 4:00am.

I have had more doors held open for me and seen more courtesy and kindness in the last twelve hours here in the US than I did in the two weeks I spent traveling back from Banff. Now the interesting thing I've noticed is that of the six standout acts of kindness, 5 of them were done by African Americans. Solution? Mandatory social etiquette classes to be attended by asshole honky bitches. Teachers? Any of the 4 'thugs' I saw be better humans than I've been from time to time. This guy woke up a complete stranger to make sure that the bus about to leave wasn't the one he wanted to be on. It was.


A wonderful Greyhound conversation.


Bus Driver: Hey Trevor, you busy?

Trevor: What can I do for you?

Bus Driver: This lady says the uh... bathroom door is locked.

Trevor: You want me to unlock it for you?

Driver: Yeah. Please. God damn rickety buses.

Trevor makes his way to the back while the driver starts getting the microphone ready for the pre drive announcements.

Trevor: It's unlocked.

Driver: Oh. Thank you.

He tries to make his annoucemnet

Driver: Oh damn, this microphone is broken. Damn rickety bus.

Trevor: I think there's one on the desk inside.

Driver: Yeah that one's broken I think.

Trevor: Want me to find you another one?

Driver: Yeah sure. Please. Maybe go take one from one of those rickety buses over there.

Trevor makes his way off the bus.

Driver: I'd be complaining about these rickety buses if I were you man.

I've been giggling this whole conversation and the driver seems to have taken notice.

Driver: It's not funny man. They not going to do nothing if no one complains

Sean: You should see the buses in Canada. The buses here are nice.

Driver: No way, they're sending all those new buses up to Canada. They don't want to let us on them, they think we'll tear them apart.

Sean: No they aren't. That one right there (I point to the new bus we came in on) is the first one I've seen and I bus around a lot in Canada.

Trevor gets back on the bus and hands the driver a new microphone.

Driver: Hey Trevor, that true?

Trevor: Is what true?

Driver: This kid says the buses up in Canada are all rickety buses.

Trevor: Hell, I don't know.

Driver: Alright then, well all I'm saying is we got some rickety buses down here man. Ok everybody can I have your attention for a moment. Uh, I run a quiet ship here. I don't drive with a lot of noise. So put your cell phones on vibrate. Please. You can talk, I don't mind you talking, but talk low. People are trying to relax sleep (he actually said relax sleep) If you're going to listen to music, keep it low so you can enjoy it, but I don't want to. (There are murmers in the back) Is there a problem young man? Naw, if you got a problem then say something. (silence) Alright then. Thank you for going Greyhound.

I am officialy on the road and looking rather daper with the new haircut that I gave myself. There's beard hair in that pile as well. I made a toupee out of it.

I happily announce that I no longer have a cell phone. sean_king_@hotmail.com is how you can reach me. If that's too much effort then go suck a lemon.

On a much long needed reunion tour
I passed through Ontario's Muskokian allure
It made me smile, it made me laugh,
To drink with friends on different paths
But it made me sad to see the Sound
Struggling to deal with the corps. in town
Walmart having pulled out the stool
The downtown's dead, the south end's cruel.

Onward down through the GTA
Toronto's smog a chemical haze
In St. James Town it was refreshing to be
A blatant minority, the token whitey
More good times with friends not usually seen
We walked through Cabagetown where my childhood had been
I thought as I left, "Toronto's that friend,
After four years apart it's like old times again."

The Hammer they called it as industry boomed
While these days the downtown's a working class tomb
But the drab and the dreary have no effect over me
The nostalgia of the streets warms my head to my feet
There are few that I like to converse with more
With my great uncle Don, chatter's never a bore
Thomas I've know since I was just 5 weeks old
23 long years later, we're still living gold.

Brantford.
It was hot.
The Maple Leaf factory smells like deep-frying rancid deep-fried meat.
Pray the wind blows not in your direction.

Home at last, not a day too soon
No containing my joy, I'm over the moon
We walk through the market, watching the red plates go by
The revamped library stabs into in the sky
On two wheels I speed down the unkempt old roads
While Gabby sits at home with a swollen lymph node
Sick for 6 days, now she's off on her way
Not too many more and I'll be biking all day.