Hickory, North Carolina

 Thanks to meeting up with Lyndon and his twelve-year old son Sullivan, my legs got a much-needed afternoon off.  They were particularly drained coping with the throngs of traffic for hours after Charlotte, constantly forced to sprint to driveways or side roads to pull off before 18-wheelers coming up from behind me could overtake me and blow me off the road, having little room to pass.  My thighs felt the burn for the first time in 2,000 miles since I set out from Memphis a month ago.

The traffic was nearly non-stop, bumper-to-bumper from both directions for miles and miles.  The lone salvation was no rumble strips and a shoulder that generally gave me a little breathing room.  The din and intensity of traffic was comparable to California. This part of North Carolina was reaching a population density beyond reason.  Where could all these people possibly be going and whatever happened to everyone staying at home to work?

I was hoping I wasn’t too shell-shocked to enjoy Lyndon’s company, a long-time linchpin of the Telluride Film Festival who’s everyone’s favorite uncle involved with the festival, from Ken Burns to the most anonymous ticket-checker.   He goes back over thirty years with the festival, slightly longer than me.  It was always a privilege when I was assigned to the same condo as he was during our month in Telluride.  As King of the Free Box, he was everybody’s best buddy, as he would constantly return from The Box with an item one would ask him to keep at eye out for and find items that one never knew they needed.  He lives to please.   His southern sensibilities charm all, and was just what I needed. 

We hadn’t seen each other in a few years, but we picked up as if we had seen each other last week.   It was Sullivan’s first day of summer vacation. He hadn’t set foot in a classroom in eighteen months.  He and Lyndon had fully adjusted to home-schooling and were inclined to stick to it.  Lyndon’s vocation of installing work at various museums and galleries around Winston-Salem had dried up as had much of his handy-man projects, but ever the survivor with countless tricks up his sleeve, he was surviving.  I am reminded of Lyndon every morning when I strap down my sleeping bag and tent on the back of my bike, as Lyndon taught me the trick of tying knots in bungee cords if they’re not tight enough, as I’d done with the pair I’m presently using.  

We met up in Hickory, where I broke a string of three Carnegies on college campuses.  Hickory’s was vacant and was a mere facsimile of a Carnegie with recessed columns and none of the grandeur that grace most Carnegies.  Still it conveyed that unmistakable Carnegie dignity and was a pleasure to behold.  Never once have I felt even a hint of disappointment after biking miles and miles for a Carnegie.

The previous three on college campuses were all hum-dingers, standing out even on campuses full of distinguished works of architecture.  The first at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina was an extravaganza with a dome and a pair of grand entrances, thanks to Carnegie consenting to the college president’s request to up his more than usual initial grant of $20,000 to $30,000.  It was very common for recipients of his grants to ask for more.  Generally Carnegie declined,  but in this case he consented if the college would offer a degree in library sciences. It now houses a couple of galleries and is known as Rutledge Hall.

Just a few blocks from the Carnegie was a bike shop.  I stopped in to see if it had a 700x28 tire, as my front needed replacing.  It didn’t, but this was a rare medium-sized city with two bike shops.  The other was at the Riverwalk development with a BMX park and a relatively new velodrome of Olympic proportions, one of the few in the country.  It is not getting as much use as was anticipated and there are fears the developers will tear it down and build homes on the site as they have all around it.  This shop had the tire I was looking for, sparing me the chore of searching out bike shops in Charlotte, twenty-five miles north.

All I had to find in Charlotte was the Carnegie on the campus of Johnson C. Smith University, a Black Presbyterian University founded in 1867.  When the Carnegie was built  it was known as Biddle University,  but was renamed in 1923 for the man whose wife donated a considerable sum to the university.  The Carnegie was in the center of campus and stood out like a sparkling gem.   It still bore the name of Carnegie and now houses various administrative offices.

I was subjected to twenty-five miles of mind-numbing traffic to Davidson College in Davidson.  It’s Carnegie had been converted into a Guest House, which almost looked as if it could have been its intended use.

It was post rush-hour but the traffic hadn’t relented.  I had thought I was going to be out in the sticks beyond Davidson, but the development continued.  There was such a labor shortage, a McDonald’s was offering a $500 signing bonus.

For the first time in these travels I resorted to the property of an abandoned house with overgrown vegetation as my campsite, bounded by palatial estates on either side.

The morning’s rush hour traffic was akin to that of any big city.  But at least I had Lyndon and Sullivan to look forward to.