Roots research

March 4, 2018

(Note to reader: on occasion, my entries may have only an oblique relationship to the tour or even to cycling. Who knows why? I certainly don’t - sometimes entries like today’s unaccountably slip past the editor’s desk. You’ve been forewarned, so feel free to make use of one of the arrows scattered about the page if you’d rather just move on).

Yesterday we drove up to Seattle to join the family in celebrating my father’s birthday celebration. I keep losing track, but I think it’s 89 this year. Dad’s birthday is one of the few events that brings the family together, and it’s important enough that it shapes our annual travel plans - even after we are in the mode of spending most of the year on the road with our bikes, we plan to return to the Northwest at this time of year to honor dad, and again in July for mom’s birthday (see, already there’s a relationship to the tour in this entry).

While we were in Seattle, we took advantage of the visit to conduct some personal roots research. I’ve been reflecting back on my life lately, wondering where my passion for biking and travel came from. Looking for clues and early influences, I went through the box of family photos my parents have preserved.

To my delight, we found a photo I had hoped still existed: me on my first wheels - the tricycle I got for Christmas not long after I turned three. As far as I know, this is the only photo of me on wheels until I reached adulthood. I don’t recall that the bicycle was really a part of my life as a child. Instead, I liked to run; and I ran to my own drummer.

My sister Elizabeth and I, Christmas, 1949. A quiet but happy moment, just before I shook things up by triking into the tree. I have a pretty impish look, like I already have this plan in mind.

Here’s another photo I was happy to find - I’m waxing the family car (a Peugeot 403 wagon, which dad proudly reminded me had 350,000 miles on it before he finally let it go after rebuilding its engine himself twice. He finally gave it up when he could no longer find spare parts for it in the junkyard).

Three things about this photo strike me: first, I’m surrounded by kids several years younger than me. I was a bit of a pied piper figure in our neighborhood, organizing the kids into various activities, preferring to spend time with them rather than my peers, whose interests I generally didn’t share. Second, my mother reminds me that one of these activities was the Around-the-block Club - I would lead the kiddos in runs/races around the city block. So maybe that’s an forerunner of my interest in traveling under my own steam? And then, there’s the Peugeot - certainly an odd choice for the family car sixty years ago. Maybe it presaged my longing to see France? Certainly it influenced my choice for my first touring bike, a Peugeot U-08.

The Around-the-block Club. Present are myself (waxing the car); Nadine, from across the street; our next door neighbors Shelly, Ricky, and Blaine; and my brother Stewart, on the right.

Here’s yet another photo I was elated to find. It’s not quite the one I hoped for (it doesn’t include my bike), but this is a scene from my first overnight bike tour, when I was fourteen. This is at Sun Lakes State Park, in eastern Washington. I bicycled there, solo, on a two day ride to join my family for our summer vacation. I put in about 150 miles on the first day, crossing Snoqualmie Pass and sleeping in the sagebrush on a blown-over billboard outside of Vantage.

I’m the one on the left with the cheesy grin. The others were friends I made at the campground, pairing up on a semi-date. I was with the girl in white (Janet, if I recall right - I think she had a limp). There was no hankypanky, to the other guy’s disgust - he had bigger plans for that evening, but I had no idea what to do with the opportunity at hand.

I found some other photos and memorabilia of interest - me in my runner’s uniform, and some race results clipped from the newspaper (I was a credible miler and cross country runner in high school and my first years of college); and an article about a relay run by my high school cross country team around Lake Washington that I helped organize. I forget the sequence of events now, but I think this relay run was inspired by my bicycle ride around the lake that summer - quite a challenge, given how bike-unfriendly the city still was at the time. Reading the clipping, I’m pretty impressed at our time - it’s over 50 miles around the lake. There are no bikes in all this of course, but if you wrap your mind around it right you can see some continuity with my pre-nascent interest in bicycle travel.

Posing in my track uniform, and my new Adidas kangaroo skin running shoes. This must be my junior year, when I was still on the JV squad - I think the varsity colors were white. I don’t remember why there is a measuring tape in the frame.

Unprecedented! I have so many great memories of running with the cross country team that summer, between my junior and senior years of high school: we would get up early and drive over to Green Lake for a run around the lake and through the Woodland Park zoo.

So, that’s it about me - not many tangible early indicators that I was destined to see the world by bike someday. Other than these photos of my parents, from their tours of Greece and the Middle East. Maybe the urge to travel is just part of the family line, and it was all fated from the onset.

My favorite photo of my parents: in Isfahan, Iran, a few years before the Shah was overthrown.

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Ron SuchanekThose are fantastic photos! I doubt anyone minded the diversion into your past!
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5 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Ron SuchanekThanks, Ron. I was especially pleased to come across the photos of my parents. We enjoyed a good visit when we were up last, listening to them reminisce about their long ago adventures. I suspect mom would still love to travel. Do it while you can.
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5 years ago