Chapter 11: Strangeness and Halloween
© 1986 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Eugene, Oregon (602 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.
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 are 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 process 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 thus 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, officially 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 is 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 and 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.