Being Memphis: Martin King, W. W. Herenton, Al Kapone and the Memphis Grizzlies

Between games 2 and 3 of the Western Conference Finals, with the Grizz down 2 - 0 to the San Antonio Spurs, Geoff Calkins wrote a column as the best of 7 match-up prepared to shift to Memphis.  
 
"Memphis was once a city of pessimists," Calkins wrote. "Memphis was once a city that expected the worst.

"Much of this is because of what happened on April 4, 1968. Walk over to the Lorraine Motel, stand before it, look on that wreath, and you can almost feel the sadness descend. 

Memphis was a city of sadness, and of conflict and of flight.

Memphis was yellow fever and the sanitation workers strike. Memphis was an unruly river and ungodly heat. 

This spilled into everything, into politics, even into sports. Have you ever heard of a city trying to fight off the arrival of a major-league team? A whole bunch of Memphians fought against the Grizzlies because they said -- this was the actual logic -- that the team would inevitably fail and leave.

Now those same Memphians have painted their faces and their toenails and possibly even their houses blue. 

They have turned growl towels into neckties and have worn them to church. They are naming their dogs Z-Bo and Big Spain.

Memphians are calling the Greenline the Grindline until future notice. They have stuck a headband on Le Bonheur’s giant heart logo. Midtown Skate Shop can’t keep enough 'Grind City' T-shirts in stock. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital hung a giant growl towel that says, 'St. Jude believes.'"

Calkins concluded: "Memphis is no longer a city of pessimists. Memphis is a city of newfound faith."

But how did the Memphis Grizzlies, a professional basketball team, so effectively help our city roll back the tide of grief and guilt spanning more than a generation to make such a profound civic attitude adjustment?  What was it about these guys, this team, and their work together that was so special?  

***

On April 7, 1968 – Palm Sunday – the Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr. spoke to a crowd of 9,000 people gathered at E. H. Crump Stadium in Midtown Memphis.  Lawson had been a critical leader in the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968, and as he stared at the audience from a platform on the fifty yard line at Crump Stadium, Lawson’s voice rose with indignation.  He called the assassination of Martin Luther King “God’s judgment on you and me and upon our city,” and issued what turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy for the City of Good Abode:  “How can anyone have a good feeling about Memphis when one of the finest sons of this world of ours was shot down in her streets...And no matter how much we try, from now until there is no longer any written history, Memphis will be known as the place where Martin Luther King was crucified.”  

John T. Fisher, the tallest man pictured center, was a key organizer of the Memphis Cares event in 1968

Lawson had known King for years before inviting him to Memphis in the spring of 1968.  The two men had met in 1957 when King spoke at Oberlin College where Lawson was a student of divinity. Lawson and King sat beside one another at dinner that night, and they discovered they both had a deep interest in Mohandas Gandhi and, in particular, Gandhi's notion of satyagraha. 

Lawson and King appear together at a press conference in Memphis following the unravelling of a nonviolent march in late March 1968

Rev. Ben Hooks openly weeps during the Memphis Cares event in early April 1968

David Halberstam tells us that Lawson's wife, Dorothy, knew despite her husband's best efforts to publicly conceal his emotion, Lawson's grief over King's death was tremendous. "He would not be able to sleep," Halberstam writes, "and he would get up in the middle of the night and read in the Bible about the prophets, or do some writing.  There were times after King's murder when his grief was so great he wondered whether he could go on - there had been so much killing: John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin King and Malcolm X."

In the years following the assassination, Lawson often visited the man convicted of killing King, James Early Ray.  Lawson actually developed a relationship with both Ray and his fiance, Anna.  Lawson was long a staunch believer in the power of love and forgiveness, and despite the pain he felt over his friend's death, his relationship with Ray deepened over time.  One evening years after the assassination, just as the Lawson family was sitting down for dinner, Ray called James Lawson with a request: Ray asked Lawson to conduct the marriage ceremony between he and his fiance Anna.  Lawson was confounded by the request, and at dinner he asked his family what to do.  Lawson's son, John Lawson, told his father that if he truly believed in the all that nonviolence and redemption he had preached his whole life, he would marry Ray and Anna.  

Indeed, John concluded, Martin King would have married the couple. 

***

The civil rights icon  Lawson would leave Memphis in 1974 for a church in Los Angeles, and it would be nearly 20 before Memphis elected its first black mayor.  In 1991, Willie W. Herenton became the first black mayor of Memphis, and the city became the last city among the top 50 US metro areas with a majority black population to elect a black mayor.   W. W. Herenton defeated incumbent Dick Hackett by 142 votes. 

In October 2007, after being elected to his fifth term after a campaign centered on "Shake Them Haters Off," W. W. Herenton delivered victory remarks to a raucous crowd of supporters. 

"...I want you, I just want you to be just a little quiet just for a couple of minutes, just for a couple of minutes. A good man obtaineth favor of the Lord. Wait a minute. I want y'all to hear me. I'm in a very serious mood. I'm happy, but I want y'all to hear me."

W.W. Herenton following his election to the office of Memphis Mayor for a fifth consecutive term, October 2007

Herenton spent the first half of his speech thanking his supporters - both those conditional and un-conditional supporters - but he then turned his focus to the onslaught of criticism he'd faced.     

The Commercial Appeal reported the second half of Herenton's speech this way: "'There are some mean people in Memphis,' Herenton said in a speech punctuated with hoots of approval from his supporters. 'They some haters. ... But I know about haters and I know about shaking 'em off.'  ... 'But what they (white people) want to say is, "How can Willie Herenton bring us together?"... I didn't separate us ... I don't have a problem. They've got the problem.'"

Columnist Wendi Thomas, non-plussed by "Shake Them Haters Off," called for alternative slogans for Herenton's campaign.  

Cordova's Millie Askew contributed this one: "Herenton for Memphis, Home of the Movers and the Shakers. I'll shake while they move."

A funny slogan on the surface - except move they did.  

Askew's slogan was a reference to Mayor Herenton's previous directive to Memphians who were critical of his leadership.  If you don't like Memphis, Herenton told his supporters, you can leave. 



Hearing this as a college student in my early 20s, having grown up in a place recently described as the dirtiest city in the dirty-dirty south, it meant that I watched as many of my friends took Herenton's advice and left Memphis. 

Memphis Magazine affirmed the flight of the young  in 2013:

The Memphis region toppled from #37 to #49 in the percentage of the population older than 25 with college degrees.  It was 26.3 percent in 2006 and 25.1 percent in 2012.

Memphis has fallen four spots to dead last in the ranking of percentage of creative professionals — from #47 to #51 with a decrease from 5.2 percent to 2.4 percent.

Memphis has fallen from #36 to #46 in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees — from 3.8 percent to 3.6 percent.

Memphis is #43 in the number of foreign-born residents with college degrees. In the 2006 report, Memphis was #40 with 7.5 percent and fell three spots to 7.7 percent in 2012.

Now, as the Atlantic points out, the struggle to capture the best and brightest is not always a race to the top.  And yet talent still matters.  At the very least, you don't want to encourage the talent you have to get the heck out.  

***

Zach Randolph, Getty Images, courtesy of Grantland.com

On January 31, 2013, the Memphis Grizzlies traded "franchise player" Rudy Gay to another country.  The six-man swing-trade shipped Gay and his $82 million dollar contract to Toronto in exchange for Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye from Detroit and Ed Davis from the Toronto.  The most scrutinized NBA trade of 2012-2013, the shift helped Memphis become a better team.   

Gay was long and had capable of sexy dunks.  But as the New York Times reported, "...Gay was one of the most inefficient volume shooters in the N.B.A. this season. Among players with at least 1,000 field goal attempts, Gay’s .449 effective field goal percentage was the third worst in the league."

In plain terms, Gay took a ton of shots and few of them fell through the hoop.  

Gay's departure allowed Memphis to open up its offense, spreading Gay's touches out across Mike Conley, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph.   Conley ended up with a banner year following the trade, while Mike and Marc regularly went for 15 or 20 a night.

So Memphis, despite intense criticism, defied the superstar model in favor of a team based effort - an old school approach for an old school Coach in Lionel Hollins who put team over self.  This team-first message was regularly reiterated by the Grizzlies in their post-game press conferences and locker room interviews.  

The Grizzlies, ultimately, decided to be the Grizzlies - not the team the critics and pundits wanted them to be.  And that means we didn't have a great offense; in fact, in the recently completed series against the Spurs, the team collectively shot below 39% from the field.  

But even in their final losing games, the Grizzlies worked as a team.  And that's what makes this crew so special.  They embraced their faults - an inefficient offense and a spotty bench - but they also embraced their strengths night-in and night-out: a tenacious, league best defense; a slow and grinding half-court offense, and a tough - and I mean tough - set of players who were willing to bang inside all night long.     

When the Grizzlies embraced their identity, the City of Memphis fell in love with the team.  

See, Memphis (both the Grizzlies and the city) did something especially significant this year.  It was an accomplishment with its roots sunk into years, flooded with muddy Mississippi River water and saturated by stifling heat and humidity.   

It was an achievement that spans basketball and civil rights, that includes A C and W.W., and smells like a beer-soaked goat on a historic slice of street known for gambling, black-owned business, and ruffians.

To elaborate on Geoff Calkins point, the reason Memphis became a place of "newfound hope" these past couple years is because we finally decided to be us.  We decided to be Memphis.  



We decided to embrace an inefficient offense, replete with Tony Allen jump shots; we also decided to accept our past rather than fight it - something we did in the living by gathering just a mile from where King was killed for regular civic celebrations at the grindhouse.

"I don't know if making it to the Western Conference Finals and having the best season in the history of the franchise is inspiration or a rallying cry for a city with fearsome problems," wrote Spencer Hall at SB Nation.  "I never know how much that means to a city, particularly one I don't call home. I don't know if the Saints really did help New Orleans accomplish anything by winning the Super Bowl, or if New York felt any better after 9/11 because of baseball, or if any storyline about a city and the very real business of professional sport helping it cope with life actually exists for the purposes of anything but well-edited inspirational ESPN montages. I'm skeptical about it because it's so easy to say, and easy things and Memphis don't really match up a lot."

This editorial resonates because we all know Memphis isn't easy.  And maybe that's why we Memphians resisted "doing us" for so long - because it wasn't easy.  But I think we're becoming more comfortable being known for "Whoop that Trick," the reinvention of once admonished players, and for the fact that "We don't Bluff."  

Memphis is real.  It's got real problems, real promise, and real people.  We don't have time for bluffing, and we certainly don't have time for backsliding.  

"My children are being raised in a new Memphis," wrote Richard Alley, "one with possibilities imagined from the uppermost reaches of government down to the teacher in the classroom, from the 7-foot-1 defensive player of the year to the CEO to the waitress serving sweet tea."

Maybe it's a new Memphis.  

Or, maybe it's the same old Memphis, just happy - for the first time in decades - to be who we are.

A City that Achieves

This morning, I heard one of my friends was working at a Steak and Shake in New York City.  He has taught Spanish at Rice College in Houston and, most recently, took a break in earning his Ph.D. at U. Penn.  Now, he’s working at the Steak and Shake.  He’s brilliant, charming, funny and ambitious.  But I guess the real question is how good is he at making malts.   

Meanwhile, here in Memphis it’s hot as Hades.  The ambiance is thick--day after day—and only rarely in the last two months have we seen a break in the daytime heat.  And by break I mean a drop from triple digits to lower nineties. 

It’s amazing how unrelenting difficulty can enhance one’s appreciation for brief moments of ease. 

It’s also an exciting time here in Memphis.  This city appears to be on the verge of making sustainable infrastructure development a priority, and NGOS, non-profits, and the municipalities all appear to be falling in line—offering their political support and often financial support for the creation of bike facilities, sidewalks, and greenlines. 

The City of Memphis will announce it’s new bike and pedestrian coordinator in the coming week; The Shelby Farms Greenline will open in October; Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton has committed to creating 60 miles of bike facilities within the next 18-24 months, and Walk Bike Memphis is working to fund bike paths through Overton Park, along Broad St., and on into the Shelby Farms Park Greenline. 

The Greater Memphis Greenline will begin work on acquiring and developing three new greenlines while maintaining a long-term focus on the acquisition of right of way for more than 400 miles of MLGW utility easements.  And The Wolf River Greenline is progressively heading west: the connector from Shady Grove to Walnut Grove is currently under construction.    

A new bicycle shop, Victory Bicycle Studio, is set to open on Young Avenue September 1^st.  The Peddler Bicycle Shop has become an exclusively Trek store while Outdoors Inc. and Midtown Bicycle Company continue to serve bicyclists between Highland and the River.  Revolutions Community Bicycle Shop is continually growing in it’s ability to work with community partners: its latest project—in addition to its ongoing effort to help Memphians construct their own affordable bicycles—is a partnership with Leadership Memphis that will afford students in the leadership class the chance to work with youth to build a bike.  Revolutions continues to inspire with its ability to build bicycles while building community. 

It’s an exciting time to be a Memphian.  And, considering the last 10 years spent working on these issues, it’s thrilling to see a very different city being built before our eyes.  Southern Avenue has become my own personal symbol for this progress: I spent hundreds of hours speeding up and down Southern Ave. on my bicycle, navigating the narrow stretches of roadway with experience and caution. 

But within the month Southern will have bicycle lanes. 

It’s unclear just how much of the street will have bike lanes—we’re hoping the entire stretch from Cooper to Goodlett will receive lanes this month—but to have a dedicated bicycle facility on this critical corridor of connectivity between Midtown and the University lifts my heart. 

Memphis is on the Move.  And it reminds me of a speech the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on the steps of the Alabama capital in 1965.  Marchers had just trod from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate support for the federal Voting Rights Bill that would be passed in August of that year.  King could clearly see a break in the heat—it was that ebb of days in the low 90s amidst the sweltering oppression of ongoing racial injustice.  And King knew that the freedom struggle was at its height; most importantly, he knew no-one could turn the movement around.  He said: 

We’ve come a long way since that travesty of justice was perpetrated upon the American mind. James Weldon Johnson put it eloquently. He said:

We have come over a way 

That with tears hath been watered.

We have come treading our paths

Through the blood of the slaughtered.

Out of the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam
Of our bright star is cast.
 

Today I want to tell the city of Selma, today I want to say to the state of Alabama, today I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world, that we are not about to turn around. We are on the move now.

Yes, we are on the move...Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us.  We are moving to the land of freedom.

The stakes were higher in the Civil Rights movement than they are in the movement to make our streets safe for bicycles and pedestrians. 

But the stakes are equally as high for Memphis generally.

And maybe, even when seen in this broad way, our city is indeed on the move.   

But questions persist: will we stave off poverty for a third of our population, end the brain drain, improve education, work with our homeless brothers and sisters, end the bloodshed in the streets, and build a sustainable city—a city that has a sense of destination in 10 years, a city that enjoys a reputation for being a forward thinking place that learns from the past and forges a bright future?

I think so.  But, as with King, I’m a “prisoner of hope,” one bound to a commitment for a city that succeeds.   So maybe I’m not the best judge. 

An editorial in the Memphis Commercial Appeal last month boasted Memphis’ ability to effectively strive towards positive development, noting the inherent good resulting from this striving.  King may have agreed.  He claimed “unearned suffering is redemptive,” assuring freedom fighters enduring physical and emotional beatings that none of their efforts were in vain. 

But Memphis ought to move from a city that strives to a city that achieves.  It’s my contention that we’ll know we’re on our way—not just on the move, but on our way—when Memphis becomes a city of achievement.

As it is, I think I’m due to call my friend in New York.  We need to catch up about our lives, sure.  But as I seek to find my place in this forward movement for a city that still struggles to offer opportunities, I’m interested in what it’s like to work at the Steak and Shake.

History, Injuries, and Social Diffusion

Utah Philips, a social observer and American Radical, once remarked that history is like a river in which we are all waist deep.  The idea of time (and it's inevitable by-product of history) as a river, the notion that time is a moving and active force that both shapes us and our surroundings, has never been more apparent to me than today.  3 weeks have passed without a blog post!  Yeesh!  Time has simply slipped away from me these past few weeks, or slipped over me as the case may be.  As so many grains of sand through the hour glass that is this year, heaps of new people, new places and new experiences have passed over and beside me.  So many places and smells and people now fading in the rear view mirror attached to my handlebars.      

First, a re-cap.  My time in Melbourne began with three days spent at my friend Kristen Murray's house in Ivanhoe, an outer-city suburb some 30 or so minutes from the Melbourne Central Business District (CBD).  After recovering from a fierce case of trans-continental jet-lag, I set about the work of finding an apartment.  I scoured local bookshop windows, perused the Smith St. Food co-op housing board, and posted requests on every local cycling forum I could find.  I quickly found a posting for a sharehouse in another outer-city suburb called Preston, so after a quick call I arranged a meeting for that night.  I bicycled down High St., a major north south thoroughfare that passes directly through the increasingly hip suburb of Northcote on my borrowed Kona mountain bike thinking, "wow.  This place must be in a pretty good neighborhood."  After 20 more minutes of riding and a substantial change of scenery, I realized I may have judged too soon.

Arriving at the house I met Russel and William, my two soon-to-be housemates.  Within minutes, my landlord Ben arrived.  A mid-twenties man with a slightly awkward countenance, Ben ended all his words with a slightly higher note than the words began.  He offered me a vodka drink with ice and a freshly squeezed lemon.  I accepted, and Russel and I and Ben and William listened to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" while we waited for a couple of Egyptians to arrive.  

I didn't take pictures of the place in Preston largely because it was unremarkable.  I didn't stay there long.  I took the room at the far north end of the house, clearly a later addition to the house that ended up really hot during the day and really cold at night.  Our refrigerator went out within the first week I was there, and we never could seem to make the ice-box not smell like sausages.  Still and all, It wasn't a terrible experience--Russel turned out to be an amazing man with a sordid past that included a bank heist that he got away with.  He later turned himself in.   I also found the plate glass window pictured above just a block or so from my front door.   Love me some Dr. King. 

But when a friend of a friend told me that a share house in Fitzroy North was up for sublet during the time of my stay, I jumped at the chance to move to an inner-city suburb.  My landlord Ben, who was generous with his vodka, gladly paid me back my last two weeks of rent.  I met him at the bakery he manages on Smith St. and he gave me two dozen pear, apple and pineapple pastries along with two fresh loaves of bread.  That on top of the two weeks rent.  He was headed to Mexico and San Francisco the next week and believed in good karma.  I told him I believe in that sort of thing, too.        

A thread of difficulty was woven throughout all of these experiences.  During my first five days in Melbourne, I sustained an injury to my hip.  I was playing polo (surprise!) when I had to put my foot down to keep from crashing into someone who cut me off on the court.  The impact created a tear in the laberum cartilage, that is the cartilage between the hip socket and the femur bone--but I didn't know that for some time.  I was riding roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) a day into and out of the city whilst still playing polo.  Soon, all this activity conspired to prevent me from walking without pain.  After a week of staying off the bike, I scheduled an appointment with a Physical Therapist, who recommended I see a doctor, who then sent me to a neurologist (where I got an MRI), which finally led to seeing an orthopedic surgeon.  Weeks of doctor's appointments later, the verdict was I could continue on the fellowship without serious injury to myself so long as I hold off on playing the bicycle polo for a couple months.  As I reported all this to a friend some days later, she said "you don't sound so happy about that!"  To which I could only reply, "It's good news, I reckon.  I just really love to play bike polo."   

The injury didn't slow me down too much...It's just there was more and more to do.  I continued to volunteer at the bike shed, but not as much.  I wanted to be there two to three times a week, because as most of you know I love old bikes.  What's more, I love teaching other people how to get old bikes working again.  And this is precisely what the bike shed is all about: teaching others to make broken bikes whole. 

I did make it down to the shed for a sort of commemoration some weeks back.  Earlier this year, the shed lost one of its most avid volunteers, a man named Thomas Orange.  You can read a bit more about Thomas and his contributions here.  The volunteers at the shed created a sort of collage to commemorate both the work of the shed and the central role Thomas assumed in that work.  All of Thomas' family came out for the un-veiling while food and drink and stories were shared for a couple of hours. 

One reason I was unable to go to the shed, and a major contribution to my recent busy-ness was an "internship" I started at Bicycle Victoria.  Internship implies work, though, and my role at BV was almost the opposite of work.  "Voyeur," I think, is a much more appropriate term to describe my role at Bike Vic.  I was assigned to Garry Brennan, an amazing man who works as the Public Affairs officer at Bike Vic.  He also works with the facilities team, a team focused on bicycle policy, bicycle advocacy and the development of bicycle infrastructure.

Mostly, I've observed the ways in which Bike Vic goes about it's work of advocating for increased bicycle infrastructure, the kinds of bike infrastructure it advocates for, and the relationships required to make advocacy effective.  This last point is pretty important--relationships.  Bicycle Victoria has a membership of over 45,000.  I'll type that again--45,000.  That makes them the third largest community based bicycle advocacy group in the world.  That also means they can claim a pretty vast constituency.  But perhaps most importantly, this membership base (and the subsequent volunteer base that emerges) means BV is able to afford to hire staff who are fairly adept at planning bicycle facilities and their implementation.  Bike Vic, then, can boast broad representation and expertise, which leads to the exertion of influence.  It is, of course, arguable (at least here in Melbourne) how expert or representative Bicycle Victoria truly is.  But one thing is in-arguable: they exert an incredible amount of influence over the development of bicycle infrastructure in Victoria.  Stay tuned for more on this idea of representation and power....

One of the better programs overseen and engineered by Bicycle Victoria is the "Ride 2 School" (R2S) program.  R2S is funded by the State of Victoria, but staffed by Bicycle Victoria--a great example of why it pays to have good relations with political authorities.  I had the great pleasure of accompanying BV staffer Robin on a trip to two local schools, one of which had a R2S program and the other of which was interested in starting a R2S program. 

 

Robin led an assembly at school number one, pictured above, which culminated in the awarding of two bikes to two kids recognized for their commitment to commuting to school each day (awarded by the deputy premiere [or governor] no less!).  The kids were also awarded the bike because they are leaders in their school, both academically and socially.  This kind of positive reinforcement--the affirmation of positive behavior amongst young leaders--is meant to encourage/inspire other students to emulate their peers.  This idea is called "social diffusion," and it is a big piece of the behavior change model utilized by Bicycle Victoria in their efforts to get more people cycling more often.  For more on the behavior change model that Bicycle Victoria uses in their work, see the ideas of Dr. Doug McKenzie Mohr and his Community Based Social Marketing.

The second school--Good Samaritan Catholic--had an enthusiastic principal.  Mr. Bob, as he was known amongst his students, had a passion for cycling and a history with Bicycle Victoria.  Mr. Bob had been on the Great Victorian Bicycle Ride (which I just arrived home from yesterday), he was a Bicycle Victoria member, and he believes in the bicycle's power to positively impact young lives.  He had been at Good Samaritan since its doors were opened some 15 years ago, and he had been eager to begin a concerted effort at increasing the number of students riding to school for years.  So why had he waited so long?

The school is located on the frontier between Melbourne and the encroaching outback/bush, so development and construction has meant that bulldozers and tractors and semi-trucks have been a constant companion in and around the Good Samaritan campus.  He believed these conditions might lead to disaster for commuting students.  Fair enough.

It was these kinds of surprising factors that continued to pop up as I listened to Mr. Bob and Robin talk about creating a Ride 2 School Program.  I took note of the myriad responsibilities and concerns involved in making a strong program happen, and was amazed to see how many factors required tending:  

• Bicycle Education was required: teaching kids how to ride safely to school was imperative, and you need teachers who are known at the school as well as outside experts to facilitate these classes
  
• Starting with the older students, while meaning less numbers, would lead to better long term social diffusion.  It would also make the program initially manageable
• A great number of new students at Good Samaritan are Iraqi immigrants, and their parents feel a strong sense of protection over their young people (they've arrived from a warzone after all).  This was a potential barrier that Robin and Mr. Bob agreed might take some time to surmount 
  
• Bike parking would be a problem once the program took off.  A bike shed for parking would be required before the program started 
  
• Parents often require a forum to voice their concerns about a new Ride 2 School program--facilitating this forum and hearing the concerns is critical to long term success 

This is just a sampling of the many common concerns among R2S schools.  In spite of the obstacles, or perhaps because Bicycle Victoria is handling the obstacles effectively, Ride 2 School now includes 250 schools across Australia--most of which are in Victoria.  Amongst reporting schools, over a 50% active travel rate was recorded.  This means that over 50% of students enrolled in Ride 2 School programs are either walking or biking to school.  This is quite impressive, I think.  It's also worth nothing that the State of Victoria requires Bike Vic to work with low-income schools.  Even more impressive.  Have a closer look at the numbers here.

Beyond life at BV, I've been busy with the regular assortment of bicycle subculture activities.  I worked at a checkpoint in an alleycat two weeks ago that was held with a "Bogan" theme.  Bogan, from what I understand, is kind of like redneck in the US--just without the implications of violence.  A little more like "good ole boy," I guess.  Regardless, each checkpoint was themed to be Bogan, which means the local race car track was a must.  Riders were required to do a skid into the pit area before we checked their manifest and sent them on to the next spot.  We left a bit unsure as to whether the field had in fact all come through our checkpoint, so we left them a little note. 

Per usual, the gathering spot was Pony Bikes.  As the riders crowded in, a crew from Brunswick Bikes assembled "roller racing" gear for a night of Gold Sprints.  I left shortly before the Gold Sprints began so I could grab some dinner. 

 

Unfortunately, I didn't make it back to the shop before the rain started.  I decided I was a fan of the warm, dry chair in my room--especially over and against the cold, wet seat on my bicycle.  As it turns out, the folk gathered in the alley made the rain into a part of the fun.  They frolicked in puddles, rolled around in the flooded alley while attempting to keep their beers upright, and generally embraced the terrible weather with a spirit of good fortune.  Bicycle people are the best.

Indeed....Time as a river.  Like a swift moving stream flowing through the cobbled alley behind the fixed gear bike shop, time has rapidly passed over my fully immersed spirit.  Stay tuned...