Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
you whine less—it's great. For what it's worth, it's exactly what I sense when riding
alone in France: my tired legs and squeaky chain may be interesting to a degree, but it's
the landscape, the roads, the towns, the assorted people, plus the food, etc. that make the
whole thing interesting.
My first review! It's about a B-plus, I'd say. I'll take it, I guess, but the word
whine
isn't one any writer wants to hear. I suppose that's whining, too. Anyway, Terence had
more to say:
As for the ferry across Lake Michigan, I trust you'll spend the entire passage on a
trainer; otherwise you'd not really be “riding” from coast to coast! Had you thought of
that? Better yet, go by way of Gary, Hammond, and Michigan City, and tell of the people
and the land and the food along the way. You did it for Montana and North Dakota,
so why the exception now? I admit that a calm road is better than a world of traffic,
but isn't that the point of your adventure? Skip the boat, stay on your bike . . . and who
knows what things—terrifying, mundane, bizarre, enriching—that you'll meet along the
way. Enjoy and be well.
Ol' Terence is a bit of a scold, isn't he? As it happens, I did consider the idea of the
ferry ride as “cheating,” though I dismissed it. After all, I'm actually adding miles to the
trip, not taking a shortcut.
Still, he does raise a point I've been mulling lately, the one about not being able to be
in two places at once, about choices that you make that obviate other choices. You can't
have everything—one of the fundamental LCTs. (I'm borrowing the acronym from L.
Rust Hills, the late
Esquire
fiction editor, my first boss in publishing. LCT = Life's Cruel
Truth.)
This is a mortality issue, of course, not surprisingly brought on by all the ruminating
about my parents and the filial obligations I either discharged or didn't. At this point, I
know an awful lot about being a son—
their
son, anyway. But I've never had the experi-
ence—or the duty—of looking at the relationship the other way around.
I can't say not having children was a conscious choice, but choosing not to marry, or
at least not to settle down with a woman, strikes me as tantamount to the same thing. I
spent endless hours blathering with a shrink about women and the revolving door they
used in and out of my life—I chose a female doctor for this very reason—but strangely
enough, in nearly twenty years of therapy I don't think I ever talked about wanting or
not wanting to have kids. I don't remember ever considering the subject seriously on my
own, either, though if therapy taught me anything it's that it remains buried in my sub-
