Matt Biers-Ariel - The Bar Mitzvah and Beast: One Familys Cross-Country Ride of Passage by Bike

THE BAR MITZVAH AND THE BEAST

One Familys Cross-Country Ride of Passage by Bike

MATT BIERS-ARIEL

THE MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS

is the nonprofit publishing arm of The Mountaineers, an organization founded in 1906 and dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and enjoyment of outdoor and wilderness areas.

1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98134

2012 by Matt Biers-Ariel

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First edition, 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Distributed in the United Kingdom by Cordee, www.cordee.co.uk Manufactured in the United States of America

Copy Editor: Joan Gregory

Cover, Interior, and Map Design: John Barnett / 4 Eyes Design

Family Photograph on Cover: Erron Evans

Author Photograph: Laurie Friedman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Biers-Ariel, Matt.

The bar mitzvah and the beast : one familys cross-country ride of passage by bike / Matt Biers-Ariel.

p. cm.

ISBN (epub edition): 978 1 59485 673 0

ISBN 978-1-59485-672-3 (pbk.)ISBN 978-1-59485-673-0 (ebook) 1. Bicycle touringUnited States. 2. TourismReligious aspectsJudaism. I. Title.

GV1045.B54 2012

796.64dc23

2011045878

The poem, Much Madness Is Divinest Sense, by Emily Dickinson is reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

From The Diary Of A Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, translated by Susan Massotty, translation copyright 1995 by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.

To Seabiscuit, Sprite, and Wooch

FIRST AND FOREMOST my heartfelt thanks to Ken Giles, partly for providing beer in a dry county but mostly for his companionship and good humor. Mark Schwartz and Sharon Strauss schlepped our gear up the Sierras and brought Solly a lifesaving ice cream cone. Kevin Murphy, Jennifer Oman, Daniel Wallach, Catherine Hart, Rabbi Tom Gutherz, and Carmi Weiner opened their homes and hearts to us. The bicycle ministries of the First Baptist Church of Sebree, Kentucky; the Presbyterian Church of Booneville, Kentucky; the Methodist Church of Rosedale, Virginia; and The Place run by the Methodist Church of Damascus, Virginia, all provided succor when we were hot, tired, and crabby.

Lori Lipman Brown helped set up our congressional meetings.

Sacramento Bee writer Janet Fullwood wrote fabulous articles and was a great help. Rabbi Sydney Mintz sent us off with a beautiful benediction. I would be amiss to forget David Moss, who planted the idea of this alternative rite of passage when he told me how his oldest son had celebrated his bar mitzvah with a cross-country bike ride.

This book would not have been possible without input from Amie Diller, Cyndi Toy, Raoul Adamchak, and Pam Ronald. Thanks to Frank Babbitt, who convinced me to start the blog that greatly tightened the writing. Also to Aunt Yvette whose collation of the trip blog proved an invaluable aid.

Thank you to Amy Smith Bell and Joan Gregory, whose editorial comments were spot on. To Ingrid Emerick for being an awesome Girl Friday. Finally, a great big thank you to Kate Rogers, editor in chief of Mountaineers Books, for taking a chance on a book that is perhaps not their normal fare.

MAP KEY

CALIFORNIA

1. Baker BeachYonah and Matt dip rear wheels

2. Davispick up Djina and Solomon

3. Carson Pass (8,594 feet)

NEVADA

4. Great BasinTriple-digit weather commences

5. Middlegate and Shoe Tree

6. Electrolux Caf

UTAH

7. Middle of NowhereThe Beast breaks down

8. Headwinds join heat

9. Cedar CityKen rescues us

10. Bryce Canyon

11. PangwitchMatt and Solly hit 45 mph

12. Escalante14% grades

13. HiteColorado River

COLORADO

14. Ridgewaypulled over by police twice in one day

15. Monarch Pass (11,312 feet)

16. Pueblolink to TransAmerica Bike Trail

KANSAS

17. Corn and humidity join heat and wind

18. Yonah and Solomon sick of ride

19. HutchinsonThe Great Debate

20. Chanutefirst one-hundred-mile day

MISSOURI

21. Ozark Mountainsself-propelled roller coasters

22. Ash Grovesecond 100-mile day

ILLINOIS

KENTUCKY

23. Sebree bicycle ministry

24. Ken rescues us again

25. Appalachian Mountains

VIRGINIA

26. TroutvilleDjinas bike breaks down

27. CharlottesvilleLeave TransAmerica Bike Trail

WASHINGTON D.C.

28. Dip front wheels in Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

IT DIDNT BEGIN as sudden inspiration. I didnt leap out of bed, wake Yonah, and holler, Son, were biking across America! Fill your water bottle! Pump up the tires! Grab an extra pair of underwear! Lets go!

No. It began with a conversation the two of us had seven years prior, when he was in kindergarten. While finishing dinner, little Yonah asked, Daddy, what happens after you die?

I remember scant little from Yonahs early childhood except for the times when I caused him bodily harm. Once I walked through a low doorway with him sitting astride my shoulders, giving the toddler a man-sized bump on the head. While changing his diapers, I almost sent him to the emergency room, twice. The first time, I shish-kebabed his delicate babys butt with a safety pin while pinning his nappy. I pushed and pushed, trying to get the pin through the thick, unyielding cotton. And then it was through, and I closed it. Initially, he didnt make a sound, but his face had a strange look of surprise, and I knew I had done a bad thing. A few months later, I gave him a penny to play with, so hed stop squirming while I cleaned his tush. Then the penny disappeared. It wasnt in his hands, it wasnt on the changing table, the carpet was bare. I stared at my smiling infant.

You didnt no dont tell me you your mother is going to kill me. For the next two days, my wife, Djina, and I went through his poop. If the penny didnt pass, it would be a possible surgery and a probable divorce. Fortunately it passed.

With a father like me, no wonder the five-year-old was curious about death.

Yonahs first words, his first steps, and the first time he slept through the night are stored somewhere in my brain, but I cannot access those memories. But that question, the question that launched a thousand religions, is burned into my brain as though Yonah asked it ten minutes ago. I remember thinking that this was the essence of fatherhood: conversing with your child on issues of truth and passing wisdom from one generation to the next. Thats a great question, and the truth is that no one really knows what happens when a person dies because no dead person has ever come back to tell us. But there are at least three ideas that people have. The first is that the part of you that makes you you, your soul, goes to a place like heaven or to somewhere else and lives on. The second one says that people are reborn into something different. Its called reincarnation. Maybe youll be born as another person or maybe as an animal. What kind of animal would you like to be reincarnated as?