Posts Tagged ‘family’

1. Thinks Americans and a lot of others around the world are missing life. They live behind glass (televisions and cars), veiled behind music in headphones, interact with others primarily through electronic media, behind the walls of their homes. Hence, www.biketofeel.com.
2. Does not fear or worry about dying very much. He as had a fulfilling life and has had far more meaningful experiences and opportunities than a lot of people.
3. Believes that individuals should make good, intelligent and informed decisions about how they interact in society before being required to interact a certain way by law.
4. Tries to live his life by the motto, ‘Do the right thing.’ He believes he should ask himself, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ on a daily basis even when making small decisions.
5. Had a hard time as a new father until he approached fatherhood with this objective: Try to teach your children how to live long, healthy lives even though they may be taken from you at any moment. That is all you can do.
6. Is learning how and strives to be a better father every day.
7. Really likes beer.
8. Thinks that a lot of people don’t understand him. He believes that his wife is not one of those people.
9. Would like to ‘retire’ in a few years and do ‘hands on’ work to help other people who haven’t had the opportunities that he has.
10. Really likes cigars.
11. Feels people vastly misjudge his character because of how he looks.
12. Has hope for the future.
13. Believes that war is fundamentally wrong. After all, why do we teach our children not to hit others.
14. Has few regrets about life. He’s made a lot of mistakes but has learned from them and moved on.
15. Believes that most people in his line of work (medical device regulatory affairs) are pretty weird and anal retentive. He maintains that he is normal.
16. Thinks all people inherently want to take the path of least resistance. But he thinks people have the cognitive ability to instead do what’s right. He would like people to use this cognitive ability more frequently.
17. Would like to be a vegetarian and is working hard at it. He feels it’s very hard though with a very carnivorous wife and daughter.
18. Believes that he should walk the world a humble man. He likes to substitute the word ‘bike’ for ‘walk’ in the previous sentence.
19. Believes fear is the pathway to evil.
20. Feels like the band camp girl from the movie ‘American Pie’ when he talks about his Peace Corps experience in Haiti . He’s apologizes for talking about it so much.
21. And his wife are building a house in Haiti that overlooks provincial capital of the Gran D’Anse and the Caribbean Sea .
22. Wishes he was better at brushing his kids’ teeth and reading a book to them before bed. He really doesn’t like doing either. He’d rather just sing to them but he doesn’t remember very many songs from childhood.
23. Had to finally get glasses this year. He bought the biggest, blackest dorkiest looking frames he could find just to spite his eyes. He is disappointed that people now call him Clark Kent or Superman because he looks like him/them. He is also disappointed that he agrees with their assessment.
24. Wishes he could just shave his head instead of cutting his hair but he realizes that his head looks too small anyway.
25. Once fell asleep in the co-pilots’ seat of a small commercial passenger aircraft and woke up to find his face only inches from pushing the yoke forward.
26. Is an overachiever and listed 26 things: Doesn’t love bikes, he loves biking.

I get comments, smiles and laughter all the time. I have people pull over in their undesirable vehicles and ask me how I put the family truckster together or where I bought it. I think a lot of people would like to do what I’m doing. However, they don’t do it. It may be laziness but is likely ignorance of biking as a functional means of transportation. They don’t know anyone who does it and therefore they don’t do it. It’s classic group think. It’s also unimaginative.

Others simple say, “I can’t do it.” Untrue. I have the patience of a male dog with a full bladder standing next to a fire hydrant. Yet, in one trip in the family truckster this past Sunday, my son, 4, daughter, 2, and I ran the following errands:

1) grocery store (soy milk)
2) convenience mart (calling card)
3) Vietnamese grocery store (basil, bean sprouts, green onions, noodles for Pho Tai)
4) Home depot (tools)
5) Radio Shack (didn’t have C cell batteries to repair drill battery); and,
6) Payless (new shoes for the daughter).

While not necessarily easy, I got some exercise, my son got some exercise and we spent quality time together in an environmentally-friendly way.

Try functional cycling as a family – you’ll love it.

The family truckster:

The cart and trailer bike were $200. One I bought from a friend and the other from a bike store — both used. These attach to most any bike.

My son I drove for 45 minutes from Jeremie over the worst roads I’d ever seen. He then turned the Toyota 4WD onto a path barely wider than the truck. After 20 minutes, the path go so steep and rutted that we couldn’t drive any farther.

We got out and walked about an eight of a mile to a school. It looked like a large chicken coop built from cement blocks covered with fresh stucco. The roof was corrugated sheet metal with the rafters exposed. Inside were many rows of o student desks – 12 foot- long, 10-inch-wide rough planks attached to stool legs for the seats with identical rough planks to write on. Tarantulas, other giant spiders, lizards and rats were frequent visitors. There were no in-door restrooms, no electricity, no playgrounds, no drinking fountains and no air conditioning or heating. There weren’t even any glass windows in the building, but a little light and air did come into the tow rooms through two doors and series of perforated blocks at about the seven-foot level of the outside walls.

School wasn’t in session because it was the middle of summer, but pictures I have seen showed clean-faced, happy, well-dressed students posing in front of the building. My son had spent a day at the school in the spring and said the rooms were so crowded that students often had to stand outside to listen to lectures though the windows. They were eager to learn even though most lessons involved rote-memory work, excluding dynamic, exciting, creative educational experience.

The location was the mountains of Haiti, which is the poorest and most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere. My son is serving there in the Peace Corps, and I was visiting to meet the school director who needed a grant to fund the school for the next year. Textbooks and basic supplies for the approximately 240 students and pay for seven teachers totaled only $5600 for the entire school year. Donations from individuals and funds from my home church covered their needs. Now my son is working to start a goat project, which will supply the students with goats to raise so that when they produce kids they can be sold to fund the school in future years. The children will do almost anything to get a little formal instruction.

I’ve been involved with education most of my life and my only comment is : I thank God for organized Federal and State government, fine school buildings, well-trained educators and the support of local taxpayers.

Joel Robbins

- Driving a Toyota, 4WD king cab, beat up truck. No seat belts. No emergency brakes (this is mountainous country). Beat up seats.

- Family with lots of packages, etc., were so excited about getting a free ride that they threw everything into the back, with the help of bystanders, including a kid – we heard thunk, waaaaaa.

- Scared to death driving so close to people, goats, cows tied along the road, chickens, carts, motorcycles with no road rules.

- Lots of thatched roofs.

- Hear roosters all night, thought I heard an old door hinge squeak — yeeeee – then I heard haaaw, yeeee haaaaw — a mule. Also heard goats bleating and people talking as they walk the mountain paths.

- Taxis were motorcycles, running people from Jeremie to the mountains, then there are tap-taps, compact trucks whit benches on each side, called tap-taps because you tap to get off. Cost a few cents, then there are cameons, cattle trucks which act as buses, and once in a while there is a real bus.

- Roads are potholes connected by craters.

- 99.9% black, walked through Saint Marc at night and saw only floating clothes.

- Storms over the massifs each night – beautiful.

- Dogs all skinny and short haired. Almost no cats.

- Fruit pits, from whatever’s in season, all over the paths. Often mangos.

- Fruit juice, fresh from a colander, each morning included pear, mango, passion fruit orange, grapefruit, pineapple.

- I loved hiking in the hills, looking over the ocean. I want to go backpacking there.

- Avocado trees in yards, as well as plantain, banana, mango, etc.

- Purplish stalks of sugar cane for sale on streets as candy.

- Claren, alcohol made from sugar cane. Liqueur made from local cocoa beans and claren coffee from mountains is strong but seems to have little caffeine.

- Most houses were cement block, often made on site, one block at a time.

- Doors and gates made by metal workers with hammers, saws and welders were along side of road not in buildings.

- School director shows us his school rubber stamp (his only token of pride) as we talk to him about supporting his school – tears came to our eyes.

- Nicole, Mason’s sister was beautiful, sweet, alone, at a beautiful mountain site with no road and 8 little kids in the yard.

- Old large cemetery stones, beautiful, haunting.

- Voodoo church and music heard from Madam Jacques’ porch.

- People dress better than Americans, yet are the poorest I the Western Hemisphere, and living in one of the most densely populated countries in the world – you’ve got to love them.