Author: Ruth Waite

August 5.

The last official day of our ride together was packed with activities for me.  First off, we got to sleep late (breakfast wasn’t until 6:30, which means lights on at 6:00 am!)  We only had 20 miles to go to reach the coast.

We kept a pretty slow pace and stayed fairly close together most of the way.  I was amazed by the scenery, but didn’t get too many photos.  There weren’t good places to stop and I don’t like to try to take photos while I ride.  There was one road where the trees formed a fairly low canopy over the road with the Spanish moss hanging down that was just beautiful.  I would have loved to get some pictures of that.  Also, every time we went over a bridge, we could see a very long ways and see the marsh grasses and little water ways.  This is the first time I have been to any of these barrier islands along the coast.  I had no idea of the landscape, and I was fascinated by it.  We also saw quite a few water birds along the way.

We didn’t stay completely together, but we were to meet up in the parking lot near the lighthouse.  When we got there, we stopped for lots of pictures, and then we waited to give our media team time to set up on the beach before we set out.  We were supposed to ride together over the boardwalk to the beach, but we missed the start to the path!  A garbage truck, the team doing their daily work, happened to be blocking the start of the boardwalk.  So as soon as we turned we had to get off and walk our bikes through the sand.  We could see the boardwalk right beside us.  A handful of people actually made the course correction, but most of us just continued walking down to the beach.

Then followed a great celebration!  We dipped our tires in the Atlantic, held our bikes up in the air in victory (mine’s kind of heavy and I needed help to lift it), and played in the ocean for a good long while, with hugs all around.  Though we were all planning to attend the banquet in the evening, most of us were departing in the next few days and we wanted to make sure to say goodbye to everyone in case we didn’t get a chance later.  We were also planning to stay in different locations overnight.  Some, whose relatives had come for the banquet, had hotel reservations for Saturday night, some of us were staying in the church on Tybee Island, and some of us planned to stay in the church in Savannah.  Even though I had heard others’ plans, I could only keep track of myself, so I also made sure I had a chance to talk to everyone.

We had ridden our bikes all the way across the country!  Across mountains, and across deserts, through dry heat and through very hot and humid days, through snow, sleet and rain, and we had all gotten there safely.  At the beginning, we were strangers, but over nine weeks of living in close quarters, we had become a band of brothers and sisters–different ages, different walks of life, different quirks and annoying traits–but overjoyed to share that moment of victory together.

The celebration was fun and marked a big accomplishment, but for me the ride would go on another two weeks.  I had plans to join another Fuller Center Bike Adventure group coming down the East Coast and finish in Key West.  As I joined in the celebration, what the coming two weeks would bring was also on my mind.  I was sorry to see my companions leave and a little nervous about joining a new group.  I was happy that Steve would be joining the East Coast group with me, along with a couple of other people who had been with us the final week of the cross country trip.

We had a final circle up there on the beach where we shared our goodbyes and our thoughts about our journey together, and then we headed off with relatives or to our respective churches for the afternoon.  In the evening we would get back together for a banquet celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Fuller Center Bike Adventure, and I will tell you about that in another post.

August 3 & 4.

In Claxton, GA we got one of the best welcomes ever!  The people from the Eastside Baptist Church were on site when we arrived.  They had prepared goody bags for everyone, which had in them honey sticks and sunflower seeds and granola bars, plus info on 3feetplease.com  It’s the law in 26 states to give cyclists three feet of room while passing, but most people, even in those states where it is law, are not aware.  Not even all police officers are aware of the laws governing bicycle travel.  One of the church members had done a presentation on bicycle safety which he had set up there at the church.

I had the bag of info in my suitcase, but one of my honey sticks had broken open inside the bag and gotten the window sticker and bumper sticker all gooey.  I had a feeling I should have either eaten or gotten rid of those!

Around five or so, even more church members came bearing food for our dinner.  I don’t remember what they prepared, but I know it was tasty!  One family even stayed overnight with us.  Some of our more energetic riders raced the little boy around the rows of chairs.  Henry gave a presentation and asked a couple of riders to speak, also.  And then Wes regaled us with some songs, accompanying himself on the banjo.  I only knew one or two.

We have a lot of meadows and open fields, cotton fields and peanut farms and apparently I am getting more interested in getting to the destination than in taking photos.  I didn’t take any photos on the way to Claxton.

In the morning, the church members got up early and brought in several breakfast casseroles.  Breakfast casserole is a great way to start the day!  At least, I like it better than cereal and bagels every morning, and a hard-boiled egg.

For snacks that day we had some of the famous Claxton fruitcakes.  I gave it a try and it wasn’t too bad, even though I am not a big fruitcake fan.

One bad thing happened on the way to Savannah.  As I was pulling out of one of our rest stops, I saw something in the road ahead which I couldn’t quite make out.  Then, I saw a person stand up.  As I approached I saw that there was a dead dog in the road, and one of our cyclists, Mike, pulled off ahead of that.  The dog had run out of its yard to chase him, just at the same time that a car was passing.  He knew ahead of time what was going to happen, but there was nothing he could do.  I stopped and stayed with him until he was ready to move on.  That was a sad occurrence.

In the evening we made it to Savannah where we stayed at the First Presbyterian Church.  We had a bit of free time in the evening to go down to the river front.  Even though our ride was advertised as going from San Francisco to Savannah, Savannah doesn’t quite bring us to the coast.  The Atlantic Ocean was still 20 miles away, at Tybee Island.  That we did the next day, on Saturday.

August 2.

The length of the ride this day was 91 miles so I sagged ahead to the first rest stop.  There I wrote a memorial to Bob Walters on my helmet.  The ride was difficult for me because I kept breaking down.  When I actually started crying once, I discovered that the wind and tears don’t mix.  That made my eyes sting so I couldn’t see.  When I was trying to ride with both eyes closed, I decided that was a very bad idea and had to stop.

The last twenty miles of the day were among the most difficult that I have ridden.  It was a little difficult physically with a head wind, but it was very difficult emotionally.  I really wanted to go the entire way once I had started, and I did manage to do it.

July 31 & August 1.

We had two build days while we stayed in Americus.  Those were also quite full days.  In Americus, we split into two groups–one to work on a wheel-chair ramp and one to work in the office of the local affiliate of the Fuller Center.  They were fixing up a living area above their downtown office.  I helped cut down some bushes at the wheel-chair ramp site, and then jumped at the chance to help Grace with running errands.  I am really out of my element at the build sites.  I don’t see what needs to be done right away and need to be told what to do.  But with so many workers and so few supervisors, we rarely get much detail in our instruction.

The best part of the day, though, was a chance to get to work with Thad.  He spoke at one of the dinners we had and we learned something of his life.  He was a construction worker who was injured when he fell off a truck.  He was confined to a wheel-chair, and pretty much hopeless.  When he was able to get help from the Fuller Center for Housing, it really turned his life around.  He has been a volunteer with the Fuller Center ever since and it has given him a new purpose in life.  He is not at all shy about ordering his crew around and telling us what to do.  He was really upset that the materials weren’t delivered at the time he had arranged, and upset again when the auger wasn’t on the truck.  Grace and I volunteered to get the auger.  We had to take some seats out of the van to get it in.

Thad also credits his new-found purpose with the Fuller Center with giving him the courage to ask his wife to marry him!  She was a member of the same church as he.  She said no the first time he asked.  I don’t know how many times he ended up asking, but now they are married.

A bit before noon we went to Koinonia Farm for lunch.  Unfortunately, they had not been notified that we were coming.  Or, rather, they were notified at some time, but the notice was lost or something.  So they weren’t really prepared for such a large crowd.  That was uncomfortable since, of course, they insisted that guests go first.  When they were afraid that we hadn’t got enough to eat, they also ordered some last minute pizzas.

I sat at a table with some people from Pennsylvania who were there for a year. They had been there before to help with the pecan harvest.  I didn’t quite figure out how Koinonia Farm works or what they do now.  On the way there, I got a call from my brother that my Aunt Karen had died.  He had seen it on Facebook and wanted to call so I found out from him rather than seeing it on Facebook.

On Tuesday at breakfast, I was idly checking Facebook when I discovered that my friend Bob Walters had died the day before.  He was out for a bike ride and had a massive heart attack.  So that was a terrible way to start the day.  We were scheduled to drive to Albany, GA to work on a roofing project.

Bob wrote the book, The Last Missionary, about his bicycle trip in the North Katanga Conference of the United Methodist Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  I read it on the plane and during the beginning of the trip.  When I finished the book, I let Bob know how much I enjoyed it.  I said, “The ultimate compliment–I’m pretty sure I need to read it again.”  Bob told me that he was enjoying following me on my journey.  He had been reading my blog.  It made me really proud to know that he was reading my blog because I am not near the cyclist he was.  Bob was a colleague, a mentor, and a friend.

After receiving the news of Bob’s death I didn’t feel like going to the work site. I also didn’t feel like spending the day by myself.  So I went.  But I stayed off the roof and took charge of the magnetic nail picker for my job.

Once again, our materials were late in arriving, embarrassing the person who had set up the work.  She was spending her birthday there helping roof the house!

I didn’t take any pictures of people working on the roof, just Becky holding the home-owner’s grand baby and the labyrinth at the church where we ate dinner.

For dinner, we were invited to another church in the area–about a 45 minute drive.  The roof wasn’t done yet and several people decided they wanted to stay until it was completely done.  Instead, they stayed until the shingles were gone!  But still late.  It was late when we got back to our temporary home in Americus.

July 30.

This was a really busy day for a day off!  On Sunday we got up early to go to Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains to attend President Jimmy Carter’s Sunday School class.  We had to leave by about 7:25 to get there by 7:40 and get our place in line.  We learned during orientation that the people in the very first row had arrived at 4:30 a.m.  to begin their wait.  Our entire group received number 36 and stood off to the side.   The doors open at 8:00 a.m. and orientation starts at 9:00.  Four hundred fifty people are allowed in the building according to the fire marshall’s regulations and that is all who get in on any given Sunday.  Though it wasn’t the case very often in the past, with President Carter reaching age 92, there are now frequently Sundays when people are turned away.

At 8:00 a.m. the line began filtering in, were checked by Secret Service, and got seated by the ushers.  As we were sitting there before orientation, I thought how it must be both a blessing and a curse to have a former president teaching Sunday School.  Becky, sitting next to me, showed me the attendance record in the bulletin where last Sunday’s attendance was 25 members and 473 guests.  About all the questions I idly asked Becky while we sat there were answered during orientation.

Miss Jan did the orientation.  First she sent us all to the restroom so we would be  back in our seats for orientation.  She said that President and Mrs. Carter joined the church the first Sunday President Reagan was sworn in.  It was a pretty new church then, and President Carter asked how they could best help. Miss Jan said she would like some really pretty offering plates.  So President Carter went home and made some offering plates.  He made the cross which hangs up in front from persimmon wood.  He also made some other furniture for the church which we didn’t get to see.

The church takes its unique mission very seriously.  They know that they have a unique opportunity to reach people who wouldn’t normally go to church.  They have heard back from people who have never been to church and from people who haven’t been to church in thirty years, but decided to come to President Carter’s Sunday School class.  They believe their mission is to plant the seed of God’s love.

Miss Jan is a retired teacher, something that most of us guessed from her ability to handle the crowd and give instructions.  She told us what we were allowed to do and what we were not, and when we were allowed to take pictures and when the cameras and phones had to be put away.  She said we were not to stand when President Carter came in the room, nor were we to clap.  That’s because you don’t clap or stand when your Sunday School teacher comes in the room.  We practiced saying where we were from.  He likes to find out what states and countries people are from that day.  But she said if your state has already been mentioned, then you don’t mention it.  And then we practiced with the first section.  She told us not to go too fast, because he sometimes likes to talk about his experience in your state or country.  She also said he would ask if there were any ministers or missionaries present, but if you raised your hand then, you had to be prepared to say the opening prayer.

President Carter was actually a good teacher!  He had clearly studied the lesson, which that day was from the book of Ezekiel when the people of Israel were in exile.  He tied it in to the importance of water and how Jesus is the living water.  And he also talked about times he has visited Israel.  Just like Miss Jan said, he liked to run an interactive class.  She said he would never embarrass you, but would say, “I’m looking for something else” if that was not the answer he was looking for.

The Sunday School class went by quite quickly.  Miss Jan had told us during orientation that when the music started for church (the prelude) that was our signal to get back to our seats and be quiet.   She also explained how we were going to do pictures afterwards and what the procedures and rules were for the picture taking with President and Mrs. Carter.  She is the enforcer, with Secret Service back up.

She also told us about an episode while she was teaching and had Secret Service back up because Amy Carter was in her class.  She said there was one boy that she just couldn’t get to behave.  (That was a rare occurrence)  She asked the Secret Service agent to put his hands on the boy’s desk, look him in the eye, and say, “We aren’t going to have any more trouble!”  Then, she said, just pull your jacket back a ways.  “Miss Jan, you know I can’t do that!” he said.  “I’m not going to tell,” she replied.  “And if you won’t do that, we’ll take the whole class out for ice cream after school.”  The boy, now about 50 years old, supposedly came back and told her that she and the Secret Service saved his life.  She was a hoot.

The church service was also relatively short.  About 18 or 20 people got up to sing during the choir anthem.  They sang a hymn and did a pretty good job of it.

After church, people with small children got their pictures taken with the Carters first, then groups, and then everyone else.  Miss Jan told us it would take about 15 minutes to get everyone through.  She wasn’t sure if Mrs. Carter would stay since she had a family reunion that day, but she did.  Her birthday is coming up and there is a big celebration in town for that, too, later in August.

Some of us stayed in Plains to do sight-seeing for a couple of hours and the rest of us headed back to Americus.

After lunch I spent some time in Bittersweet Coffee Shop and Book Store and then we went to Linda Fuller’s house for a picnic dinner.  She is remarried to a man named Paul Degelmann.  We wondered what it would be like for him with memories of Millard Fuller so prominent everywhere in Americus.  I don’t think his experience is uncommon, though Millard is probably more widely known and adored.

At the reception yesterday, I heard Linda say she had to get home to cook and get ready for today!  But she also had help from some of her friends.  They have a beautiful property.  Paul also owns a property on another part of the same lake, but they live in the house that Millard and Linda built.  It was a very nice evening.  We were supposed to go in two shifts on the boat ride, but as we returned we saw some of our companions on another boat.  Linda was aghast when she saw who they were with.  And it was very upsetting to several who had gotten on the other boat.  They were with a drunk man who was full of racist thoughts that he freely shared.  They also felt sorry for his dogs, one of whom had cut his tongue biting on a beer can.  So some of us did not have a happy ending to the day.

Like I said, it was a very full day for a day off!

 

July 29.

After all these days bicycling across the US, we have only had a handful of rainy days.  One ascending into Lake Tahoe on which we experienced rain, and sleet, and snow–and even a bit of hail…one just a short time later traveling to Lovelock, NV.  I got caught in some rain some afternoon traveling through Mississippi but most people (except the sweeps behind me) got in early enough to miss it.  There was no chance of missing the rain on this day.  We can’t complain though.  It’s amazing that we have had so few rainy days.

Henry tried to help us avoid some of the worst of the rain by postponing our start.  And when we did set out, it wasn’t raining very hard.  We had plans to get through Plains Georgia by a certain time so that we could get to Americus by about 11:45.  When I arrived in Plains, it was pretty much time to leave.  I shared a peanut butter ice cream with a friend and stopped to use the restroom and then it was time to go.  By the time we left Plains, it was raining really hard.

 

We rode to a gas station just outside Americus and met up with our police escort to the Fuller Center.  Because we were able to practice in Tuskegee, we did pretty well with this police escort.  I heard Henry tell the officer to stay at around 12 mph and slower uphill and we would all be able to stick together.  I wasn’t expecting much of a reception other than that, but when we reached the Fuller Center headquarters, there was a crowd of people there cheering us on and welcoming us like heroes!

Then we went in, all soaking wet, to the air conditioned building, to have sandwiches and watermelon and cookies.  All of us refused to sit down when we were invited because we knew we would get the furniture soaking wet, too.  Eventually we had done enough celebrating and headed off to the Presbyterian church where we were to spend the next several days.  There was one shower in the church, and several of us also went to Georgia Southwest, a university in Americus, to take a shower.  We got clean, warm and dry and were ready for our evening activities–a dinner prepared by the Mennonite church in town.

 

 

 

July 28.

We started the day with another police escort!  We went the same direction as the night before–we had an escort from Tuskegee Institute to somewhere on the edge of town.  They took care of us all the way through town!  That was a great welcome.  It was also good practice for our police escort the next day into Americus, GA.  We didn’t get nearly as spread out as the night before.  When you’re in front with a police escort, it’s quite tempting to try to keep up.  If the ones in front try to keep up and are able to do so, then the ones who can’t go as fast get further and further back.

Apparently the main occurrence this day was crossing the Georgia state line–at least according to the photos I took.

Shortly after we crossed the Georgia line we passed a canyon.  We thought we were going to be able to drive back to see the actual canyon according to what Henry had said in the morning.  We passed it by and didn’t go out to the viewpoint.  Unfortunately, we were mistaken.  I saw a couple of people’s pictures of the canyon, and a sign to the canyon, but I did not see the actual canyon.  Too bad!

In Lumpkin, we were greeted by Miss Jean, who used to be a school principal.  She is part of the Fuller Center there in Lumpkin, though I arrived too late to find out much about what she did.  She took excellent care of us and then took us out to dinner at a catfish restaurant.  It appeared to be one of the few businesses still open.  We had a good dinner and went back to the church to sleep.  Miss Jean also came in the morning to see us off.

July 27.

Going from Selma to Tuskegee was another very hot and long day.  We started out with a ride over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and followed the historic way of the march to Montgomery for part of the way.  We learned from Diane Harris the night before that once a court order was given allowing the march and federal protection was brought in, that she was allowed to go on the march to Montgomery.  Not everyone marched, she told us.  Someone had chartered busses, and she and many others actually rode busses each day while others marched.  I don’t know if they took turns or how they did that because there were definitely some people marching along the way from Selma to Montgomery.

I learned this later, but the Fullers were also a part of the civil rights movement.  They were living in Montgomery at the time of the bus boycott and later at the time of the march in Selma.  Millard and his law partner, Morris Dees, had seen some of the beatings taking place and were horrified and knew they had to choose a side to stand on.  Morris Dees, of course, later founded the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Linda talked about how they were asked to provide housing for people on the march to Montgomery.  Some of the people who had come from the north would sleep in their house and then get a ride each day to wherever the march had ended the day before.  She didn’t say much about it; it was clearly not a good memory.  She did say that they were threatened because of it.

Just inside Montgomery we had a rest stop at the Selma Road Park.  When we pulled in (I was riding in the van at the time) we were greeted by a black man, Rufus Ellis, who assumed that we had gotten lost!  Apparently, vans and trailers with white people in them don’t show up too often.  There was a shelter there and we weren’t sure if we should use it since they were already sitting out there, but they said it was fine, and several people helped us set up.  There was a community center there, also, with a children’s day camp program of some sort.  This turned out to be a highlight of the trip because we got to play with a bunch of children in the park.

Henry played basketball with some of the boys and ran races with them.  Grace and Becky played with the girls and showed them how to use the camera, and some of the boys wanted to learn to take pictures, also.  Grace teaches at a farm where children come for three days.  She truly loves children, and loves seeing them learn something and then teach it to their peers.

Mr. Ellis was a minor league baseball player, a pitcher, and you can find info about him using Google—the universal encyclopedia.  He was surprised to learn that some of our riders were in their seventies, about the same age as his mom.  So he even called up his mom and had Lou Cooper, one of our riders, talk to her.  Lou gets along with everyone and loves to meet new people so they had a good visit.  I think I wrote already about how Mr. Ellis told us how his mom picked 200 pounds of cotton on a Friday before giving birth to his brother on Sunday.  He was amazed at what we were doing, but it made him really proud of what his mom had done, also.  I suppose he had always been impressed by that, but it seemed to come home to him in a new way.

At Tuskegee, we stayed in the Tuskegee Institute Middle School.  We had a police escort from the Institute into town where we heard from the mayor pro tem and the head of the chamber of commerce.  They also wanted to learn about the work of the Fuller Center.  It only takes five people to start a Fuller Center Covenant Partner.  This was the first time Henry mentioned that in one of his presentations.  Another good day!

July 26.

This day was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Though I was worried about traveling through the South in the summer heat–which has, indeed, been difficult–it’s been amazing to learn some history from people who were actually there.  We started out our day by talking about our impressions from watching the movie Selma the night before.  David, the only black person traveling with us, said that he had only met a handful of actual out and out racists in his life.  Others were simply afraid.  David is from Atlanta.

But we had to get there before our history lesson, so here are some photos along the way:

This was one of the days when the sweat ran into my socks and got them just as wet as rain.  Also, my fingers were turned to prunes from the sweat, also.  If our route had not changed due to a bridge out, taking us by an extra gas station, I might have run out of water.  I drink four to five times as much as other people but, for whatever reason, I seem to need that much.

Henry had a friend in Selma who was serving as an intern with the city.  She arranged for a presentation by Diane Harris who was in high school in 1965.  She told us about her experiences during the weeks surrounding Bloody Sunday.

She went to a Lutheran School there in Selma and was a freshman in high school.  Students from SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), which I think were college students, came to her school.  They made the movement sound meaningful and exciting and Diane skipped school one day to go down to the church where meetings were being held and listened to the speakers.  She got her younger brother to go with her.  Skipping school was a big deal, and it sounds like Diane was also quite persuasive!  She said she was sure she was going to get a beating when her mom learned that she had skipped school and taken her little brother with her.  But she told her mom she was doing it, at least in part, because she knew that her mother couldn’t because of her work and all.  She didn’t get a beating that night and was actually allowed to skip school for four days.

On the day of the protest known as Bloody Sunday, depicted in the movie Selma, Diane and her brother had permission to go to the downtown church and listen to the speakers again that day.  But they were not allowed to leave the church.  This is the day depicted in the photos above.  As you can see, she is not inside the church!  The arguments that she had previously used with her mother were to no avail, and she did get a beating that day from her mother.  Those on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, including Representative John Lewis, suffered much more severe beatings.

Diane and her brother were in the back of the crowd.  That group–the numerous people whose names are not widely known–are the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement, and Diane Harris and her brother are among them.  She said they never set foot on the bridge.  They heard the explosions–tear gas and smoke bombs–and people screaming and running, and they ran back to the church.  They just made it back to the church on time before someone on horseback reached them.

She told us how they learned later about who some of the “posse men” were–those who had been deputized by Sheriff Jim Clark and rode horses and carried batons to beat people with.  One was their milkman, who delivered milk in their neighborhood.  When that became known, people in the neighborhood quit getting their milk from him.  It’s truly a hard thing to imagine.

She talked about how very much things have changed, but about how the struggle also continues.  She led us in some of the songs that they had sung at the church to give them strength during the movement.

After the presentation, I walked to the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

The Episcopalian Church where we stayed had its own civil rights history.  The current rector told us about how shame lingers on in the community and what they are doing to heal those long-term wounds.

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian, brought some black people to the church.  They were not allowed in to the worship service.  The last paragraph of the sign above tells about how that forced the congregation to reevaluate their attendance policies.  He was later killed in Hayneville, AL and is recognized as a martyr by the Episcopalian Church.

It was a very moving day and I am very fortunate to be on this journey.

July 25.

This day we rolled into Alabama on an 88 mile ride to Demopolis.  There was no fancy highway sign on the back country road we used.  I took a picture of a chair in a store instead!  As you can see, I wasn’t allowed to sit in the chair.

Since we are heading to Selma tomorrow, we took some time to watch the movie Selma, about the protests led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  I was reminded of the role played by John Lewis in that drive for voting rights.  Tomorrow (July 26) we get to hear from a person who was a part of these historic marches.