Tour d'Emory

Years from now, when my grandchildren ask me to recount the story about the time I competed in the first Tour d’Emory, I will say, “The air smelled like honey.” I may even get on a bike and lead them down the same country roads so they can strive to reach not the Arc de Triomphe but the closest thing Emory has to it, Emory Gates.

To be fair, I will disclose that I was the only person to participate in this forty-minute race. After all, I was looking to achieve something halfway to personal best, not the international stardom for which professional athletes like Lance Armstrong train. My simple goal after getting on a racing bike for the first time in almost twenty years was to survive a loop of about four miles.

I did it, and I have my son to thank. Last month, you see, Guy went down the basement and emerged with my old Peugeot, a lean racing bike I had abandoned for a mountain bike and baby carrier some years ago. Since Guy is almost 15, he has outgrown several bicycles along with the baby carrier. Why not fix the Peugeot? I said I would, as long as he (a) kept to his mountain bike for rougher cycling adventures and (b) let me use the Peugeot too.

I bought this green bike in 1979 in a shop in Savannah, where I spent the summer working and riding through the old streets when I had the time. While I had grown from one tricycle or bike to another since the age of four, the Peugeot was the best bike so far. It was sublime. When I left Savannah, I knew I had found a bike that I could love.

How can I count the ways I remember my Peugeot? I can’t. I can mention fall afternoons on maze-like roads where I rode past cornfields and peach orchards until I had to smile. I remember getting off work at the Athens Observer and cycling home late at night when the fall air smelled of tea olive.

Until I moved here and bought my first car, the Peugeot was both thrilling and practical. Would it still be? Despite its years in isolation while I opted for the convenience of clunky cars and mountain bikes, the old Peugeot was in pretty good shape, needing only a tune-up and new chain. Guy wanted a padded seat, so I sprang for that as well, keeping the vintage seat imprinted with “Made in France.” Sentimental, I’m trying to figure out what would be better: hood ornament for the Sentra or paperweight?

When I left home on the last day of the Tour de France for my own petite Tour d’Emory, I set out on a long stretch of road being resurfaced. I could have waited a week to avoid loose gravel, I guess, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to get out and go. Go I did—past chicory and Queen Anne’s Lace, past cows and purple thistle, past dogs in pens that barked encouragement as they admired my freedom when I whizzed onto blacktop at last.

Okay, I did stop five times to catch my breath. Some of the hills around here are awesome. I could have shifted gears, I know, only I was so rusty I was afraid I’d do something wrong and the chain would fall off, writhing like a snake at my feet. Would I remember how to put it back on? You know what they say about riding a bike? At least I’ll never forget that.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 27 July 2005, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2005.

William Wise, 54

“William Wise, 54,” is all it ever says. I know because I check CNN daily to see if a biographical sketch has appeared next to the man with the scruffy beard and glasses. I mean the man sandwiched between Philip Stuart Russell, 28, from Kennington and Gladys Wundowa, 51.

According to CNN, Gladys Wundowa, mother of two sons, “had finished a morning shift as a cleaner in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in University College London, part of the University of London, and was on her way to a course in Shoreditch, east London.”

“William Wise, 54, was thought to have been travelling on the Number 30 to King's Cross,” reports say. King's Cross Station, notes its brochure, is “the London terminus for the east coast main line.” Network Rail adds, “The station was opened in 1852 and the station roof, the largest at the time, was supposedly modeled on the riding school of the Czars of Moscow.”

Here’s another bit of trivia for the curious traveler looking up the schedules for trains leaving from King’s Cross, a station through which over forty million pass annually: “It is also rumoured that Queen Boudicaa is buried beneath platform 8.” Before Queen Boudicaa committed suicide around 60 AD to avoid defeat by the Romans, this widow of Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, rallied native Celts against the Roman interlopers after they beat her and raped her daughters.

More is known about Queen Boudicaa than William Wise, who died in an explosion in Tavistock Square in London on the Number 30 bus Thursday, July 7. The Scotsman reports initially that his address is not known. Matthew Beard of The Belfast Telegraph says, “He was last heard from at 9:30 AM on the day of the bombing, travelling on a bus from Euston towards King's Cross station.”

Who heard from William Wise at 9:30? Somebody knows that he got on a bus, black briefcase in hand. A tall, bespectacled man, he wore a beige suit and black shoes the day of the bombing. Reports say that he was also wearing a watch and an Aries ram medallion on a silver chain.

What the newspapers cannot tell me, I find in an online forum called “Liberty Unites.” A few people have posted reminiscences regarding William Wise, 54. Tony, who knew him through work, writes, “He was a dignified, sensitive, and supremely intelligent man. I remember he was kind to me when I lost my father.” Jonathan Stanford, who also knew William Wise through work, says, “He was an ever cheerful member of the team who was always ready to help out. I am so sorry to hear he has gone.” The Faulkners remark that he was “a very good neighbour.”

The name “William” has a rich tradition in England. Derived from the Germanic “Wilhelm,” it combines words that signify “will” and “protection.” Without the Norman Invasion, which happened some years after the Romans had their turn, the name would have never made it to Great Britain.

From commentator Peter Faris, I learn that there is a reason CNN shows only a photograph with a name. “Police say,” Faris writes, “his family asked that no other details about him should be released.” It’s appropriate to seek privacy in the face of a very public tragedy. What can one paragraph say to capture the life of one man?

Queen Boudicaa is remembered as a great motivational speaker. Two thousand years from now, she will still epitomize nationalist fervor. I wonder if any history books will mention that William Surtees Wise, 54, was intelligent and kind.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 20 July 2005, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2005.