Author Archive: Bill Black
I'm a baby boomer, lefty Democrat, Boston Irish Catholic, born in 1953. I work as a public affairs consultant in Washington.
Gets Worse
This morning I got back at it. I clearly hadn’t installed the handlebar properly which clearly contributed to my spill yesterday evening. But after much trial and error, it seemed I had everything attached in the right place and the right way. I made sure the brakes worked without locking up. This time I put my helmet on and went out for another brief ride. Now, the gear shifter was acting up. I tried to shift the front gears and the chain came off.
Strangely, at that moment, a neighbor, a man of maybe 70, walking his dog offered help. Seemed odd until he explained that he had sold his bicycle manufacturing company three years ago, so he knew a little something about bikes. Turns out, he was no help with the bike, but had a fascinating story. Was in the biking business for 40 years, sold his first company in the early 70’s. Mentioned a bunch of brands that sounded familiar and told me the founders all worked for him. He invented a number of seats and was surprised that I liked the weird seat I installed.
It was a nice chat and told him not to be surprised if I knocked on his door for some help or advice as I prepared for my trip. He walked off and I hooked up the chain. I continued my test run.
Within seconds of our chat, I shifted the back gear, everything seized and I heard a sickening grinding noise. This time, it was the derailleur. It was completely twisted and a gear was laying on the street. An ugly mess. The rear gears looked completely destroyed. This was bad.
I brought my twisted mess to a local bike shop, expecting many hundreds of dollars and weeks of labor. But, it’s always darkest before dawn.
To my surprise, it was less than $100 to fix and I had my bike by the end of the day. AND, he straightened out my handlebars and restrung the brake and gear cables. Back in business.
Tomorrow, my first “dress rehearsal” into Rock Creek Park with my fully equipped bike.
Over the Top
Here’s what I hope will take me from Peoria
This will be the first of my posts surrounding my charity bike ride from Peoria to Washington, DC in August. It’s an inauspicious start. I’ve been installing various upgrades to my bike, most recommended by my future riding partner, Peter Asmuth. I successfully installed a weird seat that is much more comfortable than typical bike seats. I also bought a Bluetooth speaker that works with my iPhone, since headphones are strictly prohibited.
Yesterday, I tried to install some fancy new handlebars. Peter tells me it is important to be able to switch your grip periodically on long rides. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be. I had to keep track of which side the brake handles and gear shifters needed to be. And making them fit was a bit more of a challenge than expected. After much fumbling around, I finally got everything attached and took the bike for a very short ride.
Didn’t go well.
Fortunately, I was moving pretty slowly when I came out of the driveway without my helmet. I gently squeezed the brake and the front wheel locked, launching me over the handlebars on to the street.
I blocked my fall with my hands, but I’ve got soreness in a number of places, hands, hips, shins. I put the bike away and came inside to nurse my wounds. Not sure if the problem is my installation or that I hit the brakes too hard. I’ll get back at it this morning.
A Little Story from ThriveDC
I thought of a little story from yesterday’s volunteer work at Thrive. A very talkative and articulate woman chatted me up. Frankly, I wasn’t sure whether she was a staff member or a “client.” She was a client. She noticed I was from Boston and we talked about that. Then she asked for extra soap explaining that she was a bit obsessive about hand-washing. She was thrilled to hear I was married to a dutiful (not obsessive) hand washer.
After our first encounter, she came back a little later asked if a lot of people were telling me stories. I said no, not to that point. Then she asked if I would mind if she told me a story. I said of course not. She pointed to a small clear sandwich bag that she had tied to her pocketbook. It contained paper with handwriting on it. She told me that she found the paper on the floor of a bus and that it was a love note from a man to a woman. For whatever reason, she kept it and carried it with her everywhere.
That’s it. The whole story. I told her someone could write a book about that.
Volunteering for ThriveDC
Today was my first volunteer experience at ThriveDC. It was very rewarding. I was surprised with the good humor in a room filled with people living on the edge. Lots of laughter and joshing. These people were mostly homeless and clearly struggling with life. ThriveDC gives them the basics, food and hygiene and the recipients were very warmly grateful.
I was staffing the hygiene corner. My partner was a staff member named Brian. He is young man in his twenties with a pony tail. I asked him what he did outside Thrive? He said he mainly protested. I asked what he protested. He said “Everything.” He grew up on Bethesda and Silver Spring. Graduated from UMD. Good guy.
My job was to manage the waiting list for the showers. They have two big shower stalls, just for the men. When they come in for their food at 8:30 am, they can get on the list for a shower. When their turn comes up, I give them towels and toiletries. They get 15 minutes and I go to the showers to give them a 5 minute warning when their time is almost up. Fifteen guys used the shower during my 2 hour duty. At the same time, Brian managed the laundry, creating lists for people to use the laundry next week and helping those on the list use the laundry today.
I really enjoyed the experience. My regular shift will be on Wednesdays. I’m looking forward to going back.
Seeing The Who with Danny
I went to the Who concert last night with my son, Danny. It was his Christmas gift to me…in 2014. Unfortunately, lead singer Roger Daltrey took ill and they had to cancel the original performance. This was the make up.
The last time I saw The Who live was when I was in high school, around 1970. I remember the concert well because my “tricked out” VW beetle was stolen that night. It was found two weeks later totally stripped.
But this concert was a bit of a surreal experience. Honestly, the concert itself was little different from what I remember from 40 years ago, which, frankly, was mostly a good thing. My period of Who fandom was primarily confined to their “early, middle years.” The key albums were Tommy, Who’s Next and Live at Leeds. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to their pop era, in the early 60’s or later to Quadrophenia and beyond. We might also call that, the Keith Moon era, in honor of their legendary drummer. I was big fan of Moon’s as noted in a blog post I wrote exactly five years ago today. Also adding to the surreal nature of the evening is the fact that The Who’s current drummer is Ringo Starr’s son, Zak Starkey. He was a worthy successor to both his father and Keith. Continue Reading
When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air is a very deep and thought provoking book by Paul Kalanithi. He was a young neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in his late 30’s. He wrote the book after he was diagnosed and it was published after his death. It is part memoir, part spiritual and existential reflection. Extremely powerful. I’m still trying to sort out my thoughts about the book.
One persistent thought was how relatively meaningless my life is. This man is brilliant and driven. His description of the process of becoming a neurosurgeon is daunting. The level of commitment and the enormity of the workload are just amazing. I was exhausted just listening to it. My least favorite parts of the book were when he described the actual surgeries, the types of disorders he confronted and the tragedy of many of the cases. But that was clearly necessary to give a full picture of his life. But his involvement in such enormous life and death issues made my life seem somewhat puny.
Add to this his eloquence as a writer in describing actual events and ruminating about the meaning of life and I felt totally inadequate. Continue Reading
The Share Food Network
Share Food Network order on its way to those who need it.
One of the biggest challenges that any nonprofit faces is how to sustain itself over time. This is a particular challenge for nonprofits serving the poor. Since nonprofit social service organizations have always been seen as vehicles for people with means to transfer resources to people without means, the simplest approach was for the nonprofit to find good people with money to donate in support of whatever activity the nonprofit was conducting. Basically, the model was based on the philosophy of Blanche Dubois from Streetcare Named Desire who said, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” While there are many kind people out there, there’s still not enough to fill the needs of the poor in our society.
The reality is that, in order to be sustainable, nonprofit social services organizations need to build their models on something more enduring than altruism. This approach is sometimes called “social entrepreneurialism” which seeks to apply business principles to efforts that address social needs.
A great example of this approach is the Share Food Network, a program that provides access to healthy, affordable food to people in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Its headquarters are in Hyattsville, but it serves food programs from Baltimore, Maryland to Newport News, Virginia. Continue Reading
Roslindale Hits the Bigtime
I grew up in a neighborhood of Boston called Roslindale, also known as Rozzie. The older I get, the more fondly I remember this neighborhood and the more loyal I am to it. It is part of my identity. It is a neighborhood of which few have heard, even those who know Boston pretty well. We are the place you go through to get from the better known ethnically diverse neighborhood of Jamaica Plain to the better known upscale neighborhood of West Roxbury. When I was growing up, Roslindale was a lower middle class blue collar enclave. Most of my friends were of Irish, Italian or Greek descent. All three of my siblings still live there. There were (are) housing projects at either end of the neighborhood along Washington Street, Boston’s main street that ran west from downtown through the middle of Rozzie. I didn’t dare enter those projects until I was in my twenties and had some friends among the few white people that lived there. Continue Reading
A Cup of Joe for the Homeless and Hungry
“Where are the rum and cokes?!” shouted Allan, one of the delegation from the Knights of Columbus as our Saturday morning assembly line hit its stride. We were tasked with preparing 2,500 snack packages for our “Cup of Joe’s” project at the SHARE Food Network Warehouse. Each bag needed to be packed with seven items, including granola bars, juice packs, apple sauce and a utensil. Looking at the pallets stacked high with boxed-up ingredients, the project seemed daunting.
We started out somewhat inefficiently with each volunteer grabbing a bag and filling it with the seven items individually before handing it to the packers. Before too long, Jerome, retired Navy and current human resources expert, suggested we split the tasks into stations and move the bags down the line, adding items along the line. Our
Jerome, the Efficiency Expert
productivity soared and the bags began bunching up at the end of the line. This problem was quickly solved by redeploying resources to those packing the boxes for shipment to the hungry people who would benefit from our labors. Henry Ford would have been proud. Allan’s shout out for a little “hair of the dog” was a joke, but reflected the lively, almost celebratory mood in the cavernous warehouse.
Cup of Joe’s provides a nutritional breakfast for guests at Catholic Charities’ shelters, which houses 1,000 men and women a night. It is a pretty labor intensive project, so requires a large number of volunteers. It is also a very “social” project that allows a lot of chatter and joshing as the work gets done. The day I helped, the camaraderie was established quickly. And, once Jerome rejiggered the process, those bags flew down the line into the boxes.
In short, it was a lot of fun and a great entry level volunteer project for people wanting to get involved in Catholic Charities. And bring the kids along. But don’t expect any rum and cokes, as Allan was disappointed to discover.
The Cup of Joe Production Line