💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › fun › CAA › gecaa-11 captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:34:10.
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-10-31)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:19:01 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-11
Strangeness and Halloween
#11 in the second online CAA series
by
Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
Eugene, OR; 612 miles.
November 6, 1986
It's odd sometimes, living this lifestyle sampler. In Salem -- after a
brutal 55-mile day of headwinds, rain, and shoulderless darkness -- we settled
in with a delightful couple who had sent an electronic invitation via
CompuServe over two years ago. Huddling in a phone booth, I queried my
database for contacts; within the hour we were warm and dry, blinking in the
light, legs quivering from one of our hardest rides yet and bodies numb from
exhaustion. (Welcome new GEnie user D.MACMILLAN.)
Before long I was alone in the house -- as Maggie, David and Lois went out
to shop for Halloween dinner. I wrote quietly by the woodstove, jumping up
every sentence or two to hand carob-coated fruit crunchies to the costumed
children of a town I'd never seen. Unlike the mischievous rampages of my own
childhood, this night was tame, almost depressing: every group was shepherded
by a bored but watchful adult, waiting on the sidewalk with a flashlight. Some
people, it seems, have found it amusing to give poison to children. The
holiday continues, emasculated.
This is strange. EVERYTHING is strange. As I step outside of society
(yet move intimately within it), American behavior seems progressively more
bizarre until I find other humans at least as fascinating as they find me.
Lift yourself out of your normal context and think about a few things for a
minute -- as if you ware studying an alien culture...
Consider the "business crowd." They swarm the restaurants at noon -- the women
painted and garbed in restrictive clothing, the men identical in uniforms
characterized by strips of colored fabric tied about the neck. Most (even the
brilliant ones) work hard for decades to support a lifestyle whose primary
functions are stability and the consumption of expensive goods -- a lifestyle
that takes on a life of its own to the extent that many are unable to change
their course even when they finally WANT to... as many eventually do.
Giant billboards promote addiction to tobacco smoke, with sexy people ("Alive
with Pleasure!") smiling over a notice that reads: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING:
Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate
Pregnancy." In many parts of America, cigarette smoking is actually considered
attractive -- despite the fact that it stains teeth, releases dangerous fumes,
and threatens health.
Humans put a lot of other strange things into their bodies (even ignoring
drugs). Food, for example, is routinely laced with chemicals, antibiotics,
coloring agents, sweeteners and random impurities -- spawning a whole
subculture of people who prefer to eat products "close to the source" instead.
But these natural foods typically cost half again as much as those that have
been subjected to extensive processing. When you're a human engine consuming
5,000 calories a day, such matters take on paramount importance.
The males of this species gather across the land and earnestly discuss
"football," a ritualized proccess in which regionally- identifiable teams of
powerful men rumble hairily across large fields, slapping each other's bottoms
whenever they manage to relocate an oblong leather ball in a fashion contrary
to the intentions of their opponents. This national obsession (at least as
pervasive as religion, and in many ways comparable) provides a safe yet
controversial topic of conversation -- a sort of macho safety valve.
Across the earth's surface are invisible random boundaries that define the
geopolitical limits of human cultures. People crossing these lines are subject
to search, personal scrutiny -- sometimes even arrest or death. Some of the
larger regions have declared themselves "superpowers" and devote a major
percentage of their resources to the creation and maintenance of weaponry
capable of killing everybody else on the planet (as well as themselves) some 40
times over. Though it has been pointed out that such activity may quickly
destroy human civilization, there has been no serious attempt to reverse this
behavior.
Few humans think in terms of a planet, in fact. This is a very odd species:
nuclear waste has to be stored for a time longer than all of recorded history
before it ceases to be deadly. Pets eat better than many children -- who have
been behaviorally conditioned to crave such delicacies as Apple Jacks (a
breakfast cereal that is 54% sugar). Skin color is the basis of a caste
system, offically or otherwise. Leaders are chosen on the basis of charisma and
marketing ability, not intelligence. Success is measured by dollars, not
happiness. Some fatal diseases are too profitable to eradicate, while others
are considered blessings by a few who see them as God's way of eradicating
people who are different. The list goes on and on.
When viewed from the perspective of an incoming starship, in fact, much of
human behavior seems absurd -- even though there is no serious shortage of
intelligence, creativity, awareness, and love.
Somehow, living on a bicycle intensifies all this. My little starship --
my Loony Excursion Module -- is connected yet unconnected, a rolling platform
from which to view the world at close range. And the closer I get, the more
remote I feel. Do you see why I keep calling this strange, even though it has
become my normal life?
* * *
In other news: The ride from Salem to Corvallis was flawless -- 42 miles
of a cool, sunny tailwind; good conversation on the radio; energetic music
(Level 42) on the cassette deck; perfect. We arrived under a peach-colored sky
show, the afternoon sun setting autumn foliage ablaze over a campus still
sleepy from the aftereffects of Halloween night (college style). We meandered
about until dark, then headed for the home of our first hostess.
Waiting to cross a street, I fell over. Now, this is not my usual style,
nor it it considered healthy behavior on a machine that weighs about as much as
the average medium-sized Honda. As I struggled to wrestle it back up, the
handlebars fell off.
Red alert!
My life was suddenly immobilized -- with no repair part available anywhere
in the world. I sat by the road in the dark and stared numbly at the fractured
bearing mount, machined long ago from an inappropriate chunk of cast aluminum.
This would take a machine shop, a hunk of 6061 or 7075, and someone deft with a
mill. Lacking all three in this unfamiliar town, we parked the bikes and
strolled to dinner at Nearly Normal's -- a place that conjured 60's images
while tickling the palate and pleasing the ear with classical guitar. I needed
a break.
Oregon is an interesting place. People seem alive, involved, interested
in others. Perhaps that has something to do with the demographic filtering
that results from my bizarre appearance, but the net effect is easy connection
-- and before long we were standing in Griffo Brothers Ironmonger Works, a
garage shop par excellence, watching Mark the metal wizard at the helm of his
Mazak numerically controlled milling machine. Color graphic definition of my
steering part in, finely-honed aluminum out. Ain't technology wonderful?
Rolling again, we spent two days with Hewlett-Packard, the reason
Corvallis had come to seem a sort of mecca. Media, brown-bag lunch with 200
employees, still more new friends. And when the Portable was taken away for
upgrades, the lobby suddenly felt like a hospital waiting room: we sat in our
little sea of clutter, clad in T-shirts ans sweats, catching up on
correspondence and looking up expectantly every time someone in a tie walked
through the room. "How is she?"
We're in Eugene, now -- getting ready for the 96-mile mountainous ride
(with no services) that will land us on the coast. In the meantime... still
more new friends, still more bike tweaking, still more adventure and food and
rain and coffee and conversation. Always the same, always completely
different. This is the texture of our life, the internal decor of a Winnebiko.
And the next time you hear from me, it will be from the Pacific.