Yesterday I promised I was going home and that I’d leave you alone.
My apologies but before I do, I want to talk about Ursula again. (I wrote about her a few days ago, the post is still up.) A friend messaged me and asked me if I liked her. He shouldn’t have had to ask. That he did is my fault. My bad writing. I wanted readers to like her. I like her very much. More than that, I admire her.
Ursula is not a victim but she is a sympathetic character. Her father abandoned her when she was in high school, married her off when she was sixteen. The first marriage went bad and she kept trying. In her third marriage, she was physically beaten. Using nothing but wits and grit (those quintessential American values we all pride ourselves on), she’s assembled an enviable life, a life of tranquility and peace surrounded by the animals she loves and trusts in a beautiful place. Finally, she’s safe.
She’s a born-again Christian and has those insufferable beliefs. But why wouldn’t she? The Christian right has aggressively courted her. They’ve given her difficult life context, a belief system, they’ve made her important. What have we, the liberal left, done for her? We’ve been failing for decades, abortion is irrelevant to her life and we lost that one anyway. Guns, she’s a woman who lives alone in the country, she has guns. Minimum wage, we haven’t touched that since what, 2007? What good have we done Ursula?
We don’t even talk to her. Remember, we’re democrats, we’re the “professional class” (thank you Bill and Hillary). Too bad there are not enough of us “professionals” to win elections. But no, Ursula is not our type and we’re going to criticize and belittle her until it’s we who are no longer relevant. Because Ursula is much of America today. She’s looking for a belief system because she needs one (we all need one). And because we on the left failed to provide one, she looked elsewhere. And we have the gall to call her a hypocrite for taking a few dollars a month in disability? That’s the least she deserves. After all, it’s we who abandoned her.
In our condescension, we imagine ourselves to be the intellectual elite, the smart people calling the shots and charting direction for the good of the little people. And the little people are sick of it. Because we’re not good at it. We don’t honor them or value them or, as I wrote above, even talk to them. We don’t provide aspiration and vision, we don’t project optimism and hope, we don’t paint a picture of a better tomorrow. And worst of all, we don’t deliver on whatever modest aspirations we do articulate. We’re losers. And nobody wants to be associated with losers, no matter how smart we imagine ourselves to be.
Reconsider your thoughts on Ursula. I’ll try to be a better writer.
Headed home. Before I do, I want to talk about my motorcycle, the Revival.
The Revival is a 2021 Harley Davidson motorcycle, a remake of the iconic 1969 Electra Glide, the classic Hog. Harley Davidson made 1500 of these bikes. Mine is number 1307, Lucky 13.
It’s a horrible touring motorcycle, it’s astonishing how bad it is. The seating position is that of an old-fashioned wooden school desk; feet flat, back straight, 90-degree angles at hips and knees. The impact of any and every pothole, expansion joint and lousy bit of asphalt is transmitted directly up your spine. And because your feet are forward of your hips, you can’t use your legs to protect your back. Bumps hurt.
It weighs 864 pounds. (roughly twice the weight of my BMW touring bike). Maneuvering the bike in and out of Waffle House parking lots and around gas pumps is risky and slow (and they’ve got those big plate glass windows at Waffle House so you’ve got an audience). And you can’t get off and push it around, as I routinely do with other motorcycles, because once that 864 pounds starts to shift from vertical, it gets heavy fast and you want a leg on either side to catch it.
It handles like the hog that it is; as you set up for a turn — freeway on-ramp, one of Tail of the Dragon’s 318 curves, whatever — you’re on the brakes early because slowing down takes a while, it tips into the turn slowly and reluctantly and waddles you up to the apex. As you pass the apex and try to straighten the bike up, it resists the pull on the bars and you struggle with it, you struggle until the double yellow line and oncoming traffic are getting uncomfortably close and the bike is again vertical, you then exhale and start getting ready for the next one. It’s got very little ground clearance, so you can’t lean it very far without dragging hard parts on the pavement.
It has 97 horsepower. For an 864-pound modern motorcycle, that’s way, way, way underpowered.
The Revival is the best touring bike I’ve ever owned. By far. It represents America at one of its finest hours, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Civil Rights, color TVs in walnut cabinets, shag carpeting. It’s good union jobs and a livable minimum wage. It’s the Camaro, the Mustang and the Coupe DeVille with white wall tires. It’s Janis, Grace, Jimi and John Fogerty. It’s Nixon before most people knew he was Nixon. Sure, we had Viet Nam, but the tide was turning and Walter Cronkite was on it. The Japanese motorcycle invasion had started but we didn’t know it, all we knew about Japan was that we’d beaten them in The War. America sat astride the Harley Davidson Electra Glide and the world with pride.
Fifty years later, people of America love the Electra Glide’s revival, the color, the lines, the stature, the heft, the Americanness of it. It can’t be defined by numbers or feel at the handlebars and butt, it’s defined by the woman in the parking lot who wants a picture, the black kid on the horse, the Iraqi immigrant, the woman with the prosthetic leg. The Revival is flawed and ridiculous and it’s us. And everyone wants to talk about it. And about themselves. Wandering these United States talking to people and retelling their stories, the Revival is perfect. The Revival is a celebration of us…
Two nights ago, I slept at Ursula’s house in Niota, Tennessee.
Ursula is a friend of a friend, she’s fifty-one, a thrice divorced born-again Christian who rides a Harley and has a prosthetic leg, she lost the leg in a motorcycle accident nine years ago. She breeds and raises birds; chickens, ducks, quail, song birds; pretty birds in an enormous variety of sizes, colors and plumage that strut and peck and cluck around her big fenced backyard. She’s also got three small dogs and a son who lives in Chicago.
Her first marriage was to a Navy man when she was 16. Her father was career Navy, divorced, and reassigned to Guam. She was going into her senior year in high school, she married so that she could stay in the States and finish school. They had her son. Her divorce two years ago was from a psychopath who beat her. I asked her about relationships, she adamantly has no interest.
Ursula
Ursula’s birds all have names and personalities that she describes with annoyance and affection. They come when she calls, they sit in her lap, take food from her hand, follow her around the yard. Lucky sits on her shoulder as she does chores. Her love is obvious, her conversations about them have the intelligence, confidence and syllables of science.
More beer and some colorado and our conversation changed from ducks to people. The sky is black, the stars bright, she’s got tiny lights strung on the coops and cages that twinkle, the air has cooled and has a soft touch. We argued about the nature of humans. I told her about friend of mine, Ron, who a few winters ago got a job as a union roofer. Ron was homeless, he didn’t have a vehicle or vehicle insurance or cold weather clothing or the most basic tools or money for lunch. And his cellphone was failing. But the job paid well and I lent him money and sold him an old company truck on credit. (Ron was killed a couple of years later by St. Paul Police.)
She argued that the help I gave Ron was crippling, that he needed to make his own way, that the lord placed a premium on personal endeavor, that any help, particularly government help, creates dependency and weakness. Ursula was defending her god. I’m an atheist.
Our argument approached vitriol and I began to worry about where I was going to spend the night. I was tired and I’d been drinking and I really didn’t want to get back on the motorcycle. Also, this is supposed to be a listening tour. I started talking about the beauty of the night sky and the colored lights on the cages, a change of subject she accepted without hesitation, and we went back to talking about birds and motorcycles. For breakfast, we shared an Amish-grown cantaloupe. The birds got the rinds.
Ursula receives SSI disability payments for her leg.
Two nights ago, I stayed at Jackson’s Trace motel in Sylacauga, Alabama. In the morning, Alexander from two doors down told me he had chest pain and that he’d had open heart surgery, he yanked down the neck of his t-shirt to show me the scar. The shirt was stained and already so stretched it didn’t take much yanking. He said his house had burned down and his car had been vandalized and that he needed to meet with the judge. Cornelius, another neighbor, was born and raised in Sylacauga and wanted to talk about the Revival. He’s unemployed looking for a job.
I stopped at Heart of Dixie Harley Davidson in Pelham, Alabama to pick up a quart of oil. They have at least one black customer.
Heart of Dixie Harley Davidson
White guy in golf shirt, Bermuda shorts, flip flops in a parking lot asks about The Revival and me. I said I was here to talk with people I might not agree with, to try to break through the media filter. He said, “I’m with you. I watch Tucker every night”. He was on his way to the waterpark with his wife.
I motored past a roadside stand selling jellies and pickles and turned around and went back. I got some blueberry jelly for Jane and some sweet pickles for me. Jayde was a victim of sex trafficking by men in the Marine Corps and unable to escape. Her mother hadn’t believed her. She’s 36 and has been in the program for two months. She talked for several minutes.
City of Lights Dream Center is a 12-month support program for drug rehab, victims of domestic violence, poverty and the like. They asked me to write about them. Photo left to right: Jordyn, Jayde, Kim, all in the program. The jam and pickles were twelve bucks, I gave them a twenty and told them to keep the change.
I chatted with Hehe last night at the Redwood Inn while I was doing my laundry. She’s fourteen going into her sophomore year. Her parents are from Mumbai and own the motel. She’d never been to India and wanted to hear about it, wanted to know if I’d liked it. I told her that Jane and I were engaged at the Taj Mahal. Hehe has three sisters, two are in college. It looks like Grandma lives here, too.
In the Army, Billy T was a friend and roommate. He was from Chattanooga. I thought I’d try to look him up.
In Leeds, not too far from Birmingham, Vicky owns a cafe called Laney’s. Her daughters, Sharon and Laney, do the managing and cooking, Sharon’s daughter, Lillian, makes the biscuits. Hot and buttery and crispy brown on the outside, served with pepper gravy, those biscuits are so worth the sore butt of getting there.
They were sitting at a table near the coffee pot and when I filled my cup and they asked about my trip; I told them I was wandering the south talking politics with people I might disagree with.
Laney told a story about a cop escorting her out of a local dirt track car racing event for being overly affectionate with her girlfriend. She told it like it was a family story she’d told many times. Her mother and sister laughed with her as she told it.
I parked the Revival and walked the streets of Marion. In the drugstore, the girl behind the cash register said hello. I said my wife worked in a drugstore when she was in high school and we got to talking. She’d graduated in May and is going into the Air Force in the fall. I told her that I’d joined the army after high school.
There’s a fine line between curious and creep. Two old ladies approached the register. Rather than skulk around while they paid, I told her to take care and we bumped fists, enlistee and vet, and I got back on the bike.
Two or three miles down the road from Marion, I stopped to talk to TJ sitting on his horse, Red. TJ lives on a farm down the red clay road from where I pulled over. He lives with his folks raising cows and sheep and growing melons. He’s ridden bulls in the rodeo, just a couple of times, and sometimes races Red. Red’s a fast horse. TJ graduated in May, he’s thinking about welding school in the fall, but sounded tentative. I told him about the girl at the drug store. She was a classmate.
I pulled off the road and down a little track under a bridge to pee. There was pickup parked there. Twelve years ago, Cleveland retired from his job in Cleveland, he’d been a mold maker in a foundry. He grew up near Greensboro and now he’s home, fishing for catfish. His daughters and grandchildren are coming from Ohio to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday on Tuesday. He already had two nice fish in the bucket. I didn’t ask him how he came to be called Cleveland.
Chris woke me up this morning at 6:00 when he started his truck just outside my window. It’s a diesel flatbed and damn it’s loud. Chris’ company is CH Mechanical out of south Georgia. They’re moving a veneer drier from Camden to Greenville, they’ll load the last semi this morning. Chris has horses and a wife in Georgia. He talked a lot about the horses. And about a broken neck he got in ‘95 that partially disabled his right arm. After the holiday, he and his crew will spend another six weeks living in motel while they put the drier back together. When I talked to him last night, Chris was slurring his words, lean-on-the door jamb drunk.
I had some conversations yesterday. I mention Roe a couple of times below, it wasn’t me that brought it up.
At Jim’s Cafe, Jimmy (presumably no relation) and Debbie parked their shiny new pickup next to the Revival and sat at the the booth next to mine. Jimmy was on the phone and I chatted with Debbie about scuba diving in Cozumel and horses and horse hotels, their five-year marriage, the second for both of them, and not believing in vaccines and having Covid this spring and now she’s on three kinds of blood pressure medicine and it’s worth it because they’re her antibodies fighting the virus.
Jimmy, wearing a pink golf shirt, got off the phone and started talking to me, loud, motorcycle guy to motorcycle guy. He’d been cancelling plans for Sturgis. They’d been to Sturgis last year, trailered the bikes, great time, Sturgis, great music, great people, couldn’t wait to go back, ah, but this year a friend couldn’t go. Horrible. Very disappointed. Was really looking forward to Sturgis. He looks me in the eye over his bacon and grits and asked me, motorcycle guy to motorcycle guy, if I’d ever been to Sturgis. I told him yeah, I’d been to Sturgis. Forty years ago.
Ronald Lee Anderson was sitting on a bench in front of Jim’s Cafe and when I came out, I sat on the bench next to him and we got to talking. He told me about places he’d lived and jobs he’d had and how he supported the SCOTUS decision on Roe. I asked him why and he pointed to a book of scripture on the bench next to him, the binding shredded, the cover torn and the pages piled loosely. I said the bible has nothing to say about abortion. He said, “thou shalt not kill.”
My goal on this trip is to listen but sometimes listening is too hard.
I said, ‘That’s bullshit. Loving a fetus is cheap and lazy. I’m sitting next to a guy who just asked me for five dollars for breakfast, what about him? Where’s his unconditional love? Where’s the pro Ronald Lee Anderson life movement? Who’s picketing and protesting and raising money for him? Where are the billboards? Where’s the fancy speeches and big gatherings and powerful politicians demanding Ronald’s well-being?’ He got quiet. I’d asked him directions earlier and after a minute he stood up and he told me how to get where I was going and he walked away. I rode passed him and he didn’t wave.
I pulled off the highway into a little park and there was a Sheriff’s SUV parked there and I parked beside it. Nick Phillips is a Greenville County Sheriff, a vet and a native Apache, his grandfather as a child had been sent east from the reservation to go to school. Nick talked about the high rate of crime in Greenville, about the police and the local chapter of the Vice Lords having an informal agreement, ignore prostitution and drugs, focus on rapes and murders. The agreement worked for everybody until local politics and a new police chief made a mess. And Roe was going to make it worse. Because all these families living on the edge are going to have more babies they won’t be able to care for. More desperation. More crime. Nick is moving to Memphis with his wife and child and getting out of law enforcement.
In Rosedale, Mississippi, I sat in the shade on a concrete ledge on Bruce Street and had a conversation with John Wright. Rosedale was immortalized by Robert Johnson’s recording of “Traveling Riverside Blues” and made famous by Eric Clapton and Cream in their later version of the song which includes the line, “goin’ down to Rosedale.” In its heyday in the ‘30s, Bruce Street was lined with juke joints. Today, it’s vacant, crumbling structures and concrete pads where the joints used to shake, bluesmen strummed and wailed and people danced night into day.
John Wright
Apologies that this is so long, I ran out of time.
