Chapter 33: Notes from Ohio
© 1987 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Pymatuning Lake, Ohio side (2,819 miles)
August 1, 1987
The most effective way to make it rain is to pitch camp. For eight
riding days, the sun has baked our hot flesh into sweat-glistened tan,
streaked with the stark white of belly wrinkles and tinged daily with a
hint of fresh pink. For eight days we have gulped hot water from
plastic bottles, rested in odd patches of roadside shade, and nodded at
the obligatory “hot enough for ya?” from those who stop to gawk.
But now we’re camped at Pymatuning, our last stop in Ohio—the northeast
corner. All the equipment is linked together into a single massive
human-powered motorhome: the bikes side-by-side under a dripping brown
tarp; the trailers behind them disappearing into the rear vestibule;
the tent itself, grand and imposing, issuing staccato rainsounds and
billowing gently in the breeze. Inside, I lean back against my trailer
(the parking brake locked) and patter droplets of text into my trusty
HP, perched on a camp stool.
Outside, we have the usual demographic mix of alluring and depressing.
Right next door, a pleasant family with more camping gear than many
young households wakes us with artificial kid-oriented enthusiasm. Dad
does the talking: “Oh boy! That’s a good one. OK, 1-2-3-4, yayyy! Wow!
Alright, would you stay in the car with the doors locked, say ‘no thank
you’ and walk away, call 911 for help, or—what? No honey, you have that
one. Right. Now remember, the first one home wins. It’s your turn...”
The blonde girl looks around, a plea in her pretty brown eyes, sees me,
smiles.
Across the street is mini-Rambo, a blond guy who walked over, offered
to help with the tent, then said, “well, I just wanted to look at the
bikes anyway.” On his belt is a 9-inch killing knife, very
businesslike. I comment on this. “It’s the same one they used in the
second movie,” he says. The second movie? I ask. “First Blood, part 2.” He edges his
voice with reverence. “Sylvester Stallone touched this knife, man.”
His sweet little sister, 13-going-on-6, seems a little slow—but she’s
tan and beautiful with honey hair and wide lips, as charming and
innocent as a kitten. Maggie saw her in the shower building, smiling
dreamily, standing in a puddle drying her feet left, right, left,
right, left, right...
In the other direction, scowling this way and that, is a dark,
ponytailed guy with scars, muscles, tattoos, and an oilhaired kid who
never smiles. When he shakes water from his hands, it looks like a
karate chop. I try to imagine the lessons he passes along... “the only
way to make it in this world, boy, is to kick ass.” Late last night,
after everyone was asleep, they rolled in and pitched camp, loudly
hammering stakes and clattering poles with no interest in becoming good
neighbors.
(There are some four-legged skunks too—soft, tame little beasties who
amble down the lane and nose about the campsites for food. I catch
myself nodding a subtle hello on the assumption of sentience, just like
I do with dogs. But with humans I’m more careful, for a wave or smile
is an implied invitation. Time! I want to write; everybody wants to
talk. Ever notice how much of a door-opener a laptop computer is? I
suppose I shouldn’t complain... that’s how I met Maggie.)
Let’s see. Next to mini-Rambo and his clan is a good-looking group, the
women leggy, the guys cleancut and healthy. They’re Cleveland yuppies,
friendly folks, too much like my old friends and neighbors to make a
colorful story. They got almost-busted for exposed beer: it’s OK to
drink here, but not if the cops’ supervisor can tell. Kids skip rope,
pedal, or run around the campground. A fat guy in a hammock has a
glittery T-shirt that says “Rocking Wrestling Connection”; his son is a
perfect miniature of dad. A pleasant family from the Twinsburg area
visited us last night, passing along tidbits of the region and
subscribing to the Journal...
and an endless stream of traffic flows
into the campground, for it’s a weekend and people are determined to
have a good time come hell or falling water.
Yep, we’re on the road. 312 miles since Columbus, eight different beds,
a slowly evolving Ohio from flat to hilly... then back to flat...
and back to hilly. We’ve been through Amish country, farm
country, and the linked bedroom communities of Cleveland. We just
missed Climax, scanned the To Do list in Reminderville, and visited two
Claridons. We’ve had unexpected 14% grades, roadside sweet corn, 429
mosquito bites <slap!> make that 430, and answered a thousand
questions ranging from the clever to the staggeringly naive.
It’s difficult to capture Ohio culture for you... for unlike the wild
west, nothing around here seems exotic. But that’s entirely subjective:
if I had spent my life in California, Ohio would seem fascinating,
alien, and full of curious twists. I think it was Gilbert Keith
Chesterton who said: “The purpose of
travel is not to set foot on foreign land, but to set foot on your own
country as foreign land.” So let me tell you about this exotic
northeastern quadrant of Ohio.
Corn.
It’s everywhere, rolling over hilly fields, a uniform seven-foot layer
of vegetation that blankets all available land. The tassels, bronze in
the sun, take on a burnished look at sunset like waves of gently-moving
metal, a husky armor on the smooth body of earth.
Clearings in the cornfields harbor oil wells, cemeteries, and houses
with crudely lettered SWEET CORN 1.00/DOZ signs. A ramshackle shack
selling fish is called “A Taste of Class.” (Hey—could a
password-protection scheme for computer memory be called a ramshackle?)
Anyway. The towns are small, some only crossroads with a slightly
higher population density than the surrounding land. Linking the named
places are the roads we’ve chosen—tiny farm lanes with ragged surfaces,
tar and chip, potholes, asphalt ravaged like teenage skin by the
freeze-thaw cycles of Ohio winter. Our maps, detailing all this, fail
to mention road closures, gravel, and rough grades—making the eventual
route a convoluted thing indeed. Most of the direct alternatives, of
course, involve heavy traffic—especially near Cleveland where the
volume of urgent commuters is enough to cause frequent panic.
It’s no wonder, then, that we reacted with delight upon finding a bike
path around the city. But even that turned out to be impenetrable: the
gate, designed to keep out motorized vehicles, also manages to keep out
recumbents, loaded touring bikes, trailers, and fat people. The cycling
community has a long, long way to go...
I suppose it IS possible to wax poetic about Ohio, my last chapter's
rantings about Columbus notwithstanding. As we pedaled northeast, the
land gradually evolved from changeless to picturesque. (Picturesque...
think about that for a second. When reality is spectacular enough, we
compare it to a reflection of reality.)
It was lunchtime in Hayesville, fresh from a boiling 300-baud pay-phone
upload in the hot sun. A woman in her 90’s walked over. “I’m just
fascinated by your motorcycles.”
“They’re bicycles,” Maggie told her with a smile.
“Ohhhh, then I’m even more
fascinated by your bicycles!”
North. Next stop was the home of the Rooks in Spencer—about 25 miles
from Akron. On the road, the family of a friend feels like a family of
my own, and within minutes we were relaxed and comfortable in this
country home. Edith is an artist in the kitchen, and we sat in the
sweet torpor of hunger eloquently fulfilled and swilled coffee,
swapping tales of life, kids, and the nearby Amish. In the garage the
bikes stood at the focal point of obsessive neighborhood curiosity—for
in a small town like this, people take the time to know each other’s
business. By the time we left the next morning, Spencer felt warm and
cozy: one lady, hugging us good-bye, was on the edge of tears.
Yes, Ohio does have its moments. We pedaled slowly through miles of
Amish country, riding up Firestone Road in Medina County along with
horse-drawn buggies—watching women in long dark dresses working around
farmhouse yards, men in traditional hats and long beards practicing
1900 farming techniques. Yet... none of it is for the benefit of
tourists, though at first glance the Amish seem too culturally pure to
be anything but a re-enactment of an earlier time (a strange commentary
on life in America). Their technology is frozen in the past, quite
capable of outliving ours but startling in its blatant denial of
available tools.
The effects can be extreme. When the Amish buy a house, they pay off
the mortgage and then rip out the electricity and water—along with all
connected frivolities like washing machines and trash compactors. I
tried to grasp the spectrum defined by the extremes of my Winnebiko and their stylized farms,
tried to imagine how they would react to the HP computer, the network,
packet radio, and my tiny TV set. Then I realized that I couldn’t
bundle oats in weather-resistant shocks any more than they could type
in ASCII... nor would either of us particularly care to swap idioms. We
are aliens, representatives of cultures that can, at best, only eye
each other in disbelief.
Onward. We rode with a Medina friend to our second hostel since
Columbus (the first being Malabar), a classic old farmhouse north of
Peninsula. Needing a break, we took a dip in yet another unfamiliar
culture...
I lay on my back, half-naked, clutching a foam pad around my body as
cool water washed over me and threatened to carry me away. “Five!”
cried a bikini-clad girl on the tower, her amplified voice echoing from
concrete and trees.
This was my cue, the number emblazoned in black on the wall beside my
head. Heart pounding, I pushed off, watching wide-eyed between my legs
as the blue chute swallowed me like a coin in a vending machine. On the
first turn, I whipped against the sidewall and loosed a startled shout;
on the second, my knee touched dry fiberglass and instantly lost a
square inch of skin with a burning screech. Faster. Left, right, losing
track, my body flying luge-like through wild curves, brain locked in a
sort of terrified glee until the final plunge swept me
underwater—losing the mat, losing all perspective, sputtering to the
surface with a laugh and a shout to find Maggie giggling at the
ludicrous image of her man totally out of control.
After the Dover Lake water slides, we pressed on. The Chaneys in
Chardon, cycle touring in their 70’s, activists in cyclists’ rights.
East, east, sensing change, past a township hosting both a tent revival
and a psychic fair on the same weekend. Onward through Montville, where
an ancient black man pumped my hand and exclaimed in a thick accent: “I
seen you on TV, but I never dreamed you’d come through Montville!” And
finally... here... the Pymatuning terminus of our Buckeye meanderings,
a confusing swirl of campground humanity ranging from the despicable to
the delightful. But everyone is good-spirited and of a mind to play.
And that’s what it’s all about. The only people who scare me are the
ones who never take a break.