Days 70-75 Cycling across Illinois to Chicago

 

Days 70-75 Cycling across Illinois to Chicago

       I spent the night in Davenport on the banks of the Mississippi River.  It was a wonderful experience to big boats again.  There is a large series of canals connecting the Mississippi River to the great lakes. Along the canals are the tow paths which have been re-purposed to bicycle trails.  They are beautiful with a bicycle friendly surface. 

     At the end of my first day I found myself absolutely exhausted after 25 miles.  I decided to stop 20 miles short of my planned destination and get a motel room.  I collapsed into bed and slept for 10 hours.  When I awoke, I discovered that one of the tires in my bicycle cart was flat and I had been dragging it for a considerable difference.  The sound of the crunching surface had prevented me from hearing anything unusual.  I felt foolish as I changed the inner tube and re-inflated it.

      At one of the many rest stops along the trail met a cyclist who was cycling from Chicago to Los Angeles along the old Route 66.   He introduced himself as Jim Franklin who was taking a leave of absence from his work as an epidemiologist for the Illinois office of public health.  When I described the events of the previous day and the exhaustion I felt at the end of the day, he pondered this for a moment.  He then explained that this describes precisely the plight of many of the persons of color in Chicago’s poorer neighborhoods.  He went on to say “this is why blacks have a maternal mortality rate twice as high as that of whites in the same city.  It is why black men die of heart attacks at three times the rate as white men.  It is why the many more blacks live in impaired immune systems and are much likely to die of Covid.  They are pulling a weight which of which the affluent are unaware and become pre-maturely exhausted.” 

     I thought about this as I peddled towards Chicago.  Many kind and conscientious persons are pulling a load which is unnecessarily burdensome.   It made me think of the comment by the Jewish philosopher, Philo “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

     It also serves as a reminder that I should check my cart tires more frequently.