PEDALING ACROSS AMERICA, you
have plenty of time to think, and you can learn something new every day. Today
I learned that you cannot break a fall by landing on a camera.
This morning, I have the ugly bruise and malfunctioning camera to prove it.
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Me in red, Joe Ossmann in blue. |
My “domestique.”
Other than taking a hard spill,
however, yesterday was one of my best days yet as I was joined by a gentleman
named Joe Ossmann. I met Joe last summer when my brother (Tim) and I planned to
ride with Joe, Chuck Boehme and Rich Fowler from San Francisco to Yellowstone. That
ride ended for my brother after three days when he took a fall (we brothers
fall a lot on bikes) and since I didn’t know the others and he did, I decided
to pull out and ride this summer for JDRF.
At that time, the idea that my two youngest daughters might want to go along
this summer was also a major factor.
Joe and Rich went from coast to coast themselves, so they’re serious riders
(and so is Chuck who did “only” 1,300 miles); and since Joe was going to be
visiting friends in Iowa, he said he’d have his wife drop him off one day and
he’d ride with me. Joe did more than just ride “with me,” he led the way almost
the entire way, 86 miles, cutting through the air and making my job much
easier. It’s the same idea as the Tour de France where team riders shield their
leader and help him conserve strength. In fact, Joe kept referring to himself
as my “domestique,” as they call support riders on the tour. And with a good
tailwind we did make great headway, from Bellevue, Iowa on the Mississippi
River to Strawberry Point, 86 miles away. Joe’s wife, Kathy, joined us at the
end of the day for a good supper (and showed me scrapbooks of Chuck, Joe and
Rich’s ride, which she and Rich’s wife Cindy and Chuck’s wife Janice
supported).
And then the Ossmanns also paid the dinner bill!
The good news today is that it’s fairly cool here in Iowa. The bad news is it’s
cool because it has been pouring rain again. Dubuque, over on the river, got
fourteen inches last night, I’m assuming an unheard-of record for the city.
Strawberry Point got about four; but I was lucky to be in a motel undercover.
When I got up this morning, it was sunny outside and prospects looked good.
Then I noticed I had a flat rear tire, the third flat in the last three days).
I spent half an hour patching all three tubes and trying to find any hidden bit
of metal or piece of wire that might be puncturing all the new tubes. Couldn’t
find a problem. Had another huge breakfast.
And we’re off!
One mile out of town I notice a huge wall of black clouds ahead. I consider
stopping. No, the rider must go on.
Three miles out the cloud begins rumbling and flashing and the wind roars and
the cloud breaks open and it feels like I’m getting hit with hail. The rider
realizes that discretion is the better part of valor and takes cover under some
trees.
“She
fought like a tiger.”
So here I am, waiting out a
little precipitation in Oelwein, Iowa, which means I’ve been rained on 15 days
on this trip already. But I can’t complain. The people I’m meeting are
universally kind, whether it’s Joe and Kathy or the host couple at Starved Rock
State Park a few days back, in Illinois. Bonnie and Phil Lyerla let me set up my
tent on their lot and didn’t charge when they heard I was riding to raise money
for JDRF. The next morning Bonnie served me an omelet and toast, and I got to
watch Phil feed the wild turkey that visits him mornings.
Later that day I stopped for a drink and some pastry at a little shop in
LaSalle, Illinois. I had a brief talk with a gentleman at the next table, and
he loaned me the front section of the day’s newspaper.
The question came up, where was
I going. California, I said, riding for JDRF.
We talked for a while and he told me about family hiking trips he, his wife,
and two kids had done and talked about a vacation they took to Denali. Then he
called the local paper, and they sent a reporter over to take my photo.
I hope the photo didn’t make me
look fat.
Finally, my kind friend rose to pay his bill, stopped by my
table to wish me a safe trip, and handed me a check made out to “Juvenile
Diabetes” for $100. His name was Doug Gift – and his check says he’s an
attorney at law.
Later that same day I took a wrong turn trying to find the library in Peru,
Illinois and ended up staring at my road map in front of Mike Frizoel’s house.
He called out and came over to help. Then he noticed my JDRF shirt and got
excited. His wife Kathy is a type-1 diabetic, and he said she’d love to meet
me, but said she was at her doctor’s appointment. I said I could stick around.
Kathy has been type-1 for forty-eight years, since age eight, and has all kinds
of medical problems, some related to diabetes and some not.
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Mike and Kathy. |
What Kathy DOESN’T have
is the quitter’s mentality. She’s a deeply religious individual and believes
God uses her for His purposes. When she was battling breast cancer a few years
back, for example, her experiences helped her convince others to get check-ups,
including one good friend who caught a serious condition just in time. Kathy
has also had eye surgery on both sides and recently got a kidney transplant,
and she has titanium rods in both legs from a serious car accident. Mike
interrupted at one point and said they sometimes meet little old ladies, who
hear about his wife’s problems, and go, “Oh, sweetie...”
Like THEY feel sorry
for her.
Mike’s a funny guy, who knows all the neighborhood kids, and says he gets along
with them all because he “hasn’t ever grown up.” Then he tells me how he and
Kathy first met. Mike was out bicycling, and Kathy was sitting out in front of
her apartment high-rise. “I felt like a teenager,” he told me, and said, “I
thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” (Kathy later admits
that she liked Mike from the start, too, with his gentlemanly manners and
remembers thinking, “Wow, he likes me and he has just gorgeous eyes.”) Mike
says he sat down in front of her and asked, “Would I be totally out of line if
I asked you if you have a boyfriend?”
The answer was no, and they’ve been together since, four years.
I asked Kathy about her diabetes. When she was a kid, her blood sugar
level hit 890, and she went into a diabetic coma and didn’t come out for ten
days. She kept thrashing about and pulling at various tubes and wires, and when
she finally recovered, her doctor told her mother “she fought like a tiger” and
that nickname stuck.
Mike shows me his tattoo of a tiger on his back in honor of his wife – but I
don’t think to ask him why he has a picture of Jerry Garcia.
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Jerry and the tiger. |
The Frizoels are on a fixed income, so they aren’t rich, and all her medical
problems have left Kathy in a wheelchair at this point. So she doesn’t take
anything for granted. But she says the same prayer every morning, “Use me
today, Lord, for whatever you need.” I ask them what they both want out of life
in the next ten years.
“Mostly enjoy life,”
Mike replies.
“Take a cruise,” Kathy says.
Eventually, I pedaled away, happy to have had the chance to talk to them both,
and I rode another fifty miles.
Raygan doesn’t always have people she can talk to.
In the afternoon, I ran into Pam Cromwell, a single mother with a type-1
daughter, Raygan, age 10, a left-handed young lady who swims and plays soccer,
baseball and volleyball. Pam remembers thinking “my life was over” when Raygan
was diagnosed. But care is steadily improving, compared to when Kathy first
showed symptoms. She remembers boiling syringes and needles to keep them clean.
Now Raygan can wear a pump and still engage in sports.
Mom says Raygan works hard in school, but doesn’t know any other diabetic kids,
because they live out in the country and Raygan’s entire school only has a
hundred students. (There’s not even a school nurse.) Pam tried to get her into
a camp for diabetics this summer, but all the openings were filled. So, Raygan
doesn’t always have people she can talk to who understand what she deals with
in daily life.
If anyone reading this blog might like to say “hi” to Raygan, here’s
mom’s e-mail address:
