Matching Tracksuits

cycling

Ride and Visit

Tuesday 26 July 2022

The forecast called for rain by lunchtime, so the Boy and I decided to get a morning ride in before the predicted afternoon of rain. We headed out toward the area of the village known as “Wild,” but we came back along tractor tracts and dirt roads through fields.

One of the oddities of riding in rural Poland is the “Warning: Cows with Square Udders Ahead” sign. It has also given rise to a new danger for E as a cyclist: the unexpected blobs of cow blessings on the road.

Along the way back, we discovered yet more abandoned houses, but different in a significant way: these are not unfinished houses that the owners abandoned to move to the States. These are lived-in, likely-loved houses that have simply outlived their usefulness. To renovate them makes little sense to the owners: they’re too small, and to renovate them would cost more than just building a new house.

In the afternoon, once it was raining and rather cold, we headed over to the aunties’ house for name day celebrations. In loving yet typical Polish fashion, the aunties served a virtual meal even though Babcia had begged them not to. It wasn’t a formal meal. It was just enough snacks and cakes to make a meal.

Changes and Endings

Monday 25 July 2022

There was a shortcut through an empty field by a neighbor’s house that was worn down with years of use. The Girl used it heading to her first day at Polish school nine years ago.

First Day at (Polish) School

One of the first changes we’d noticed was that the shortcut is no more.

The shortcut

More and more people drive more and more. Fewer people walk. Just like fewer and fewer people have anything resembling a farm.

“The Polish village is dying,” Babcia insists. “It survived the Partitions, the wars, Communism — but capitalism killed it.” When she says this, I want to argue that it’s more complicated than that, but I never do. What’s the point?

This afternoon, we decided to go for a bike ride to Lipnica Wielka, my home for seven years. Along the way, we passed a monument to slain Soviet soldiers who died fighting the Germans in 1945 as the Soviets pushed the Germans back. The front shifted, as it always does, but from Christmas 1944 to Easter 1945, it ran right through this area.

There’s a monument to the men who died here, presumably at a mass grave based on the inscription.

While the Russians were certainly not heroes in the strictest sense (they were raping in mass numbers as they went along, particularly when they crossed into Germany), they were freeing the Poles from a greater immediate threat. Or were they? Didn’t they just replace one type of totalitarian rule with another? Was it really that much of a change? The Germans had Auschwitz; the Soviets had the Gulag Archipelago.

Things changed, but they didn’t.

When we reached Centrum, I decided we should go look at dom nauczyciela one more time. I knew how it would look — just as it had always looked.

It was scheduled for demolition, but I knew that would take weeks. Months. Maybe even a year. When it comes to construction, nothing moves fast in Poland.

As we approached, though, I saw that the road to dom nauczyciela had been partially blocked off.

And soon, I heard the machinery. And I knew. I knew that although nothing in construction moves fast in Poland, destruction can come with unexpected rapidity.

There it was, my home for three years, three of the most amazing years of my youth, being carted away, load by load, in a dump truck.

It’s silly to feel sentimental about a building, to exaggerate the importance of a relatively routine action. “Things move on,” K suggested in a text.

The building was ugly — there was no denying that. It’s not like it had all the charm of a solution to a problem in which only functionality played any role at all. The strange roof that cascaded and became part of the side of the building suggests at least a half-hearted attempt to make the building original, in some sense beautiful. But like so many things built when communism and socialist realism ruled behind the Iron Curtain, the attempt at some kind of architectural uniqueness only highlighted everything wrong with the ideas ruling the country. The building was, in a word, ugly.

In addition, it was likely horridly inefficient at keeping the heat in. When the mayor’s assistant (who later went on to become the mayor himself) moved into the apartment beside mine on the first floor, he added insulation to the outside of the building to help with the frigid winter nights. The water for the heaters circulated in a clockwise motion from the lower left corner where the boiler was located. I got the hot water first, and as a result, my apartment was almost always oppressively hot when it was in the minus twenties outside. But by the time the water got to the mayor’s assistant’s apartment, it had cooled considerably, hence the insulation.

So K was right: it was time for the poorly insulated, ugly building to come down. But that reality doesn’t change the stab I felt as I watched workers clean up what was left of the building.

Oddly enough, just a few meters from my former home as one heads to the back of the school

is a home that has never changed in appearance since I arrived in 1996, a home that has never been inhabited.

The owners moved to America and quite possibly have even passed away by now. Their children, fully integrated Americans with no desire to return to a small village in southern Poland, a village that one only drives to and never through, own property that they likely never see.

The ride itself — the before and after the discovery — was fantastic:

a 25 km ride that the Boy handled like a pro.

Final Wood, More Rides

Wednesday 20 July 2022

First, breakfast — that old Polish favorite, salceson. It’s one of the things along with flaczki and tartare that I look forward to having while in Poland. (I’ve had tartare, and now I can check salceson off the list. Still looking for that bowl of flaczki.) Headcheese (I love that name) is available in the States, but I never buy it. It’s a Polish thing for me.

It is, I suppose, an acquired taste: the consistency is a little odd, alternatingly gelatinous and firm, but the flavor is quite pleasant.

After breakfast, we headed off to the jarmark. It’s Wednesday in Jablonka — there’s only one place to go!

The Boy still has money that’s burning a hole in his cliche, so we stopped at every single knife monger (is that even a term?) for him to look at the available wares. His concern was simple: he wanted something that he could use in scouts, but most of the knives were switchblade-esque: they didn’t look like the old switchblades you’d see in West Side Story, but they did have spring-loaded blades that flipped out at the press of a button.

“I’d better do some research before I buy one,” he wisely decided. (The verdict, as we predicted: such knives are not acceptable for scouting events.)

After we got home, the Boy and I decided to go for a bike ride. After a few kilometers, the Boy turned back. I continued.

It was the same ride as yesterday until the point at which I turned right instead of left. The route I’d mapped out earlier would drop me down toward Chyzne before turning back up toward Jablonka. However, I didn’t count on one thing:

Over a kilometer of deep, thick mud. Virtually impassible mud. I spent a good bit of the middle of the ride with one foot up on the only-slightly-muddy bank pushing myself along or, when the mud to got six or more inches deep, simply walking in the less muddy part and dragging the bike beside me.

After lunch (pierogi z borówkami), Z, a Georgian who rents from Babcia, and I finished up the wood. Even Babcia said we were done — there were no lurking piles that I had not noticed.

Listening to Babcia and Z communicate was a lesson in the value of hand gestures: he speaks a bit of Russian and almost no Polish; she speaks Russian fluently and no Georgian. Their conversations reminded me of Dziadek and Papa talking: I got the feeling neither was really responding fully to the other.

As for me, I used Google Translate to talk with him. I showed Babica and suggested she could use her tablet the same way, but her response was predictable.

Finally, the Boy and I took one more bike ride in the evening, this time through the fields between Jablonka and the two Lipnicas.

The sun was setting so we had to make our ride short. Of course, on the way home, we had to take a spin through his favorite riding location: the empty jarmark.

At the far end were long-abandoned stalls that had seen neither seller or buyer in years. It’s a testament to the changes in Poland: the jarmark is shrinking, probably because of the availability of items in Poland and, truth be told, the comparative lack of quality of many things sold in the jarmark, especially clothing items.

Wooden Bikes

Tuesday 19 July 2022

Day two of the wood adventure. Today, we focused on cutting the pieces that were too long to fit in Babcia’s furnace. That meant using an enormous and old homemade table saw to cut the pieces. The blade must have been 14 inches in diameter, with just under half the blade above the table and no way to adjust it. It was, in a word, a nerve-wracking experience. But we got it all done. And there awaits yet another pile, Babcia explained

In the afternoon, we focused on finally getting our bikes ready for a first ride. I had to put the new tire on my back tire having finished the front wheel and tire yesterday. The Boy pumped up the tires of his borrowed bike and we were ready to head out.

It’s been a long time since we’ve ridden; it’s been five years since we’ve ridden here. So many changes in the meantime.

Once the Boy tired and I took him back, I headed out for one of my favorite rides in Jablonka: a 15-kilometer circle through fields and forest.

Planning Rides

Saturday 18 June 2022

This summer, I’m hoping to get back on the old mountain bike I left at Babcia’s and ride a bit of the old areas I’d covered so many times in the early 2000s. Much of my riding then was on a road bike, which I don’t have in Poland (or America anymore for that matter), but I rode a fair amount off-road as well.

To that end, I’ve planned at least a few rides I want to complete — three of them completely new.

Ride 1

The first ride I want to do — though not necessarily the first ride I will do — involves crossing over the border at the top of Lipnica Wielka, the village where I lived for seven years. I’d always heard there were villages on the other side running somewhat parallel to LW, and I discovered getting to them is fairly simple. Since one can cross the border freely now, there’s no risk of getting in trouble coming back into Poland without any documentation of entering Slovakia.

Ride 2

Next up would be a ride that begins the same ride four — one I’ve done a few times but instead of turning left in the fields, I’ll turn right. I never went right because I didn’t know where I might end up. Turns out, I’ll end up in Chyzne.

Ride 3

The third ride is through the fields of Lipnica Mała and Lipnica Wielka. It goes along the top of a ridge I’d looked at countless times when riding in Zubrzyca but never bothered to explore. I’ll explore it this summer.

Ride 4

The small loop through the fields, I rode this route a few times in the past. It’s a fun one, especially that climb at the start.

Southside Ride

Friday 13 May 2022

Boy, am I out of shape. Eight miles and it kicked my butt.

Having my first wreck on the new bike didn’t help. Nothing major.

One of those accidents that could have been a lot more serious, and as a result, you ride a lot more cautiously afterward. No real damage done — except to the ego.

Wednesday Afternoon Bike Ride

Wednesday 11 May 2022

The Boy and I decided yesterday that we’d go mountain biking today after school. He wanted to go to a bike park in a town about half an hour from here, but I said it was too far and suggested Lakeside Park, where L had her sand volleyball practices. He agreed, somewhat reluctantly, but seemed eager about the afternoon when I left this morning.

This afternoon, just as I was finishing up with the bikes and bike rack, he came out to tell me he wasn’t ready.

“Well, get ready,” I laughed.

“No, I’m not mentally ready. I don’t really want to go now.”

This is what I was waiting for, almost expecting. It happens more times than I care to experience, and sometimes, K and I take a more gentle approach, trying to get him to see the positives of it, reminding him why he wanted to do it in the first place. Not today. Today, I didn’t have the time for that.

“Stinks to be you. We’re leaving in a few minutes. Change your shirt and get your shoes on.”

I went go get his bike to complete the whole packing process (his goes on last) and saw that his back tire was flat. Again. I’d just replaced the innertube before our last adventure only to have it rupture about a mile from the car. I’d simply taken the older one, which had the slow leak, and patched the leak. It had worked fine for a while.

This put a new crimp in the plan. He was already reluctant to go. Getting a flat in the middle of a ride might turn him off of riding for a while. There might be even more fussing the next time. I decided just to take the chance. I pumped up his tire, saw that it was holding, and packed the bike. When we arrived at the park, it was still holding. About midway through the first part of the ride, though, E noticed it was getting squishy. We went back to the car, pumped it back up, and rode another few miles.

“That was fun,” was his verdict.

Sunday on the Trail

Sunday 6 March 2022

The Boy and I were alone for most of the day as the girls were in Rock Hill for the tournament — three tournaments in three weeks means we’re just about sick of them.

Breakfast of an omelet with bacon — a guaranteed clean plate

E and I had decided to go back to Southside Park to do some more riding. We first, though, had to perform a bit of maintenance. His bike developed a flat yesterday, so we had to get a new inner tube. That done, we headed out.

We went over to the improvised “Power Line” trail because that was what E had been dreaming of all week. At the start of it, I realized I’d lost my water bottle. We went back the way we came but to no avail, which meant a bit of judicious water bottle sharing: in short, I drank only when my throat was raging because the Boy always finishes his bottle and wants some of mine.

After 11 km of riding, we started back when suddenly, E got such a severe puncture that his rear tire — the one with the new inner tube — deflated almost instantaneously. Had to walk 2 km back to the car…

Boys’ Saturday

Saturday 19 February 2022

We started with an early soccer game — 8:15. On the way there, we drove by his school at just about the time he’d be arriving for a normal school day.

Somehow, the boys lost their second consecutive game. I say “somehow” because for 90% of the game, they dominated. They kept the ball in their opponents’ half of the field, and I’d say they had at least 25 shots on goal. Their opponents maybe had 6-8 shots on goal — but one of them went in. That’s the only difference, but that’s the most important difference.

After the game, a little relaxation for the Boy, with a quote from a favorite movie of mine — modified, somewhat.

Late morning was honey-do list time — including getting some final details set for K’s new workstation.

I’m not jealous of her computer, but I’m envious of that desk!

Afternoon — bike ride. What else?

Hot dogs for dinner — the Boy on the grill.

The Climb

Sunday 13 February 2022

It’s a bit steeper than it appears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvYit6PL0w

Epiphany 2022

Sunday 2 January 2022

Today’s reading in Mass had to do with the coming of the wise men — the magi:

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” (Matthew 2.1, 2)

It doesn’t take much to see that they are using the star rising — which is a clear reference to astrology — and by this, learn of Jesus’s birth. Astrology is condemned in the Old Testament: “Do not practice divination or seek omens” (Leviticus 19.26) makes this clear, as does “Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19.31) and “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer” (Deuteronomy 18.10). But here it seems to be fine. In fact, God is using astrology to guide the wise men to the infant Jesus.

Bishop Robert Barron spoke of this in his homily today. The magi are astronomers, he suggests, and because of their “scientific investigation[, they] are now journeying to find this newborn king of the Jews.” Only in one’s wildest fantasies could one call these three astronomers. They were clearly astrologers. Astronomers do not see stars as being guiding forces in any way; that’s exactly what astrologers do.

The priest in Mass today brought up science as well, though in a different way. He talked about how atheists deny God’s existence by saying there’s no scientific proof for him. “But science changes all the time!” the priest protested, adding with a pause, “Just ask the CDC.” Laugher in the congregation prompted him to admit, “I thought you’d like that one.” It was an underhanded way of belittling science’s advances: “It really doesn’t say anything completely trustworthy because it’s always changing. It’s useful, but not for grounding ultimate concerns,” was the insinuation. It’s a way of having the benefits of the scientific advances of the last 200 years (“We’re not Luddites, after all!”) without having to deal with the direct challenges science makes to religion.

On the non-religious side of things, my new bike arrived today:

A new mountain bike for me actually means a very happy Boy. “Think of all the places we can ride now!”

Sunday Ride and Party

Sunday 30 May 2021

The day began with a ride. It was unplanned in every way imaginable: we hadn’t planned on going for a ride today, and when we decided to go, we really didn’t make a plan where we would go. We simply got on our bikes and started riding. The only criterion: “I want to go somewhere we’ve never been,” the Boy said.

We started out going to a little neighborhood about two miles from our house that includes a really significant climb. When we finished, we were close to the back route that I take to work, which leads right by Nana’s and Papa’s old place.

“Want to ride to Nana’s and Papa’s old place?” I suggested.

“Sure.”

And so we headed over to the old townhouse. We explored here and there coming back, and in the end, discovered we’d been gone for two hours and had ridden over 27 kilometers.

In the afternoon, we went to Polish Mass. After this particular Mass, though, the Polish community gathered for the first time for a little socializing.

The mothers got roses for Polish Mother’s Day, which was this week.

And naturally, there were speeches and singing.

I’ve said it often before: you can’t get a bunch of Poles together and not expect a speech.

The Poster and the Fall

Tuesday 27 April 2021

The Poster

I was out Friday so I could run all the errands and such K would normally run so she could try to rest some and get well. The kids at school took to heart the cliche about cats being away, but they did so in such a way as exceptionally clever kids with good senses of humor would do:

While at the book fair, they bought me a poster of a Korean boyband and hung it in my room. When I came back Friday, I asked them who was responsible. They admitted it with giggles immediately. “I’ll keep it up under one condition,” I said. “You all have to sign it.”

I love the fact that

  1. they thought of doing this as a funny prank;
  2. they were willing to spend the few dollars to pull it off;
  3. they knew me well enough and trusted me enough to know how I’d take it;
  4. they liked me enough to be so silly.

It’s a silly, silly gesture, but a touching one nonetheless.

The Fall

In the evening, when K, E, and I were walking to CVS to pick up a prescription (and L was at sand volleyball practice), it appeared that the Boy had had a bike wreck. He was some distance away, so it wasn’t really clear what was going on. But the bike was clearly down, and there was little to no movement.

I began jogging down the hill toward him. I wasn’t terribly worried because there were no sounds of wailing or pain. But there was no movement.

“I was just waiting for you guys,” he explained with complete nonchalance.

Bike Ride

Friday 23 April 2021

Image from 2004.

Return to Dupont

Friday 9 April 2021

“You guys from out of town?” the cyclist asked coming to a slow stop as he navigated the steep downhill that we were climbing.

“Not really — we’re from Greenville.” I figured being only 50 miles away doesn’t exactly make us tourists.

“Well, most people around here go the opposite way on this loop and go down this hill,” he said, I suppose trying to be helpful, but it came across to me as a little — I don’t know, annoying somehow.

“But what about those of us who enjoy hard climbs?” I wanted to say, but thinking I might be only speaking for myself, I said nothing.

“Yes, it seems like it would be more fun,” K agreed.

Our interlocutor headed off down the hill, and added, as if he’d read my annoyance and wanted to soothe it and simultaneously aggravate it, “Of course, it’s your choice.”

Just before December, we went to Dupont forest for some cycling. It wasn’t exactly what we’d planned. But since then, the Boy has asked us several times when we’re heading back. Today, we finally made it.

And afterward, there was mulch to spread and bikes to wash.