textfiles/fun/CAA/gecaa-04

From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan  7 17:30:13 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-4

NORTHWEST PASSAGE



#4 in the second online CAA series



by



Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)



Bainbridge Island, WA



September 11, 1986



     Hello from Puget Sound!  For a place so close to Metropolis, this wooded

island is about as calm as can be imagined:  the ferry to Seattle may just as

well be transoceanic.  People around here amble; they move slowly and stop to

watch the sunset.  A New Age coffeeshop called Pegasus offers classical music

and interesting reading materials to go with its fresh Costa Rican.  The

Streamliner Diner conjures robust spicy omelettes of fresh veggies, and days in

the fern-carpeted forest become nights, and then days again.  Manana outside

the Caribbean?  Haven't been this relaxed since Key West.



     The setting is appropriate.  This is the month of final preparations

(always more final preparations, eh?), a time of wiring and debugging,

programming and tweaking.  We came to the island in our well-travelled van,

ready to move once and for all to the bikes and head south properly -- under

our own power.



     Much has happened in the weeks since my Granby, Colorado update. We glided

west, too smoothly, joining the throng of lumbering campers fouling the beauty

of Yellowstone and motoring on -- over mountains, deserts, farmlands,

wastelands.  The scenery passed as video, stripped by our metal cocoon of its

smells and textures.  By the time we rolled into Vancouver, I was so sick of

the van I was ready to dump it in the ocean.



     We spent a week in that town -- doing Expo to the point of exhaustion.

The motive, of course, was not to gawk; this is not one of those dutiful

pilgrimages of what Edward Abbey calls industrial tourisim.   It was a chance

to display the Winnebiko in the energetic company of over 150 other bizarre

vehicles... and, more importantly, their creators.



     There are a lot of strange ways to put together wheels, pedals, and a

seat.  High-speed humans zipped around town all week, grinning back at the

gaggle of confused touroids stopped in their tracks by the weirdness.  Dave on

his sprightly Vacuum; the Swiss team in their flawless Trivia; the tatooed punk

smoking cigars inside a full fairing; the Humboldt County blondes laughing in

their kinetic sculpture dubbed the Bionic Taco.  All shared the delight of

invention and speed -- the week was a celebration of creativity.  *This* is the

essence of competition:  not muscle against muscle inside the conceptual

straitjacket of traditional bicycle racing, but brain against brain, concept

against concept, human against human.  Cortex and quadriceps alike were

involved here, and the atmosphere was electric.



     Of course, Expo went on in the background, a mass of roiling humanity,

bright color, street music, pavilions ranging from the deeply philosophical to

the blatantly commercial, and overpriced food. Curious behavior emerges in a

place like this:  in our "scoring" culture, numbers are more in demand than

experience.  Tourists gripped their "passports," queing impatiently to have

them stamped at every attraction, seemingly more interested in the trophy than

the game itself.  Public address systems directed the masses, food smells

tickled the nose, groups of Japanese tourists stopped randomly to photograph

each other, and the scream-punctuated whooshes of rides were ever-present in

this state-fair-turned-city.  But here and there were pockets of brilliance --

the roller-skating khaen-player who travels the world to learn native

instruments, the Spirit Lodge of GM, the videography behind Discover BC, the

nonverbal message in the movie "Rainbow War," the occasional spark in an eye in

the crowd.  Always from the mundane emerges magic, if you're willing to wait

long enough.



     We left with relief, fleeing to the unselfconsciously picturesque town of

Victoria for a few days, wondering soon if the journey would become a

succession of painful goodbyes.  New friends already, and we don't even live on

the bikes yet... but it won't be long.



     A strange phenomenon is the border:  any border, from county to country.

If you view the world from an incoming starship, the imaginary lines separating

kingdoms are of no interest -- there's one species down there, citizens of one

planet.  It was with this attitude that I drove casually though US Customs,

mildly annoyed at the delay but thinking it no more meaningful than waiting for

a driver's license renewal.  But the scowling agent squinted past me into the

van's cluttered cargo bay.



     "What the hell's *that*?"

     "Oh, just a bicycle."

     "What's all that junk on it?"

     "The usual.  Computers and so on."

     "Where'd you get it?"

     "I built it in Ohio -- had it in Canada for Expo."

     "I need to see some registration."

     "You don't register bicycles."

     "Around *here* you do."

     "Look, I just took it to Exp--"



     "How would you like to have that thing impounded until you can come up

with some proof that it came from the US?  Would you like that?"



     The agent, in his grim way, was obviously enjoying this.  Before I could

answer, he told me to pull around to the office.  Within minutes, the chief

came out, nodding seriously at the explanation given by my tormentor.



     "I built this in Ohio," I told the guy.

     "Yeah, yeah.  Let's see the papers."

     "It's a *bicycle*," I told him, feeling that quaver in my gut that comes

from total powerlessness in the face of ignorance. I handed him a flyer for the

*Computing Across America* book.



     "Look," he said, jabbing a tobacco-stained finger into my electronics

package.  "Half that stuff in there comes from Korea.  You can't import

electronic equipment without paying duty -- with no documentation, we lock it

up.  Just like that.  If you really took it to Canada, you would have declared

it at the border."



     This was news to me.  The Canadian agent had simply smiled, asked how long

I'd be in Canada and if I was carrying fresh produce, then waved me on.



     Finally, of course, we managed to convince him -- with armloads of photos

and media coverage -- that we weren't smuggling high-tech contraband over the

border.  But my already negative opinion of governments dropped another notch,

and the sudden tackiness of Port Angeles did little to dispel the shadows.  Why

didn't we just stay in Victoria, a garden city of bakeries, bicycles and

beaches?



     But things always improve.  Through that succession of chance encounters

that inevitably results from wandering around in public on computerized,

solarized, gizmologized recumbents, we ended up living in the Bainbridge Island

woods atop a fully equipped machine shop.  Ya just never know.  The company is

called Octo, and manufactures the Browning automatic bicycle transmission that

allows riders to shift under full power.  Heh.  We're engaged already in a bit

of impromptu technology transfer, a barter of intellect, an arrangement that

makes everybody happy.  And, just like back in Ohio, I'm surrounded by a sea of

parts and tools and cables and papers and databooks and...



     Somewhere, very close now, is the road.  The "day rides" around the island

tease me -- quick winks from the Other Woman, temptations of the spirit.  I'm

slipping into her arms, this time in a menage a trois:  Maggie has recovered

fully from surgery and yearns, as I do, for a life of total uncertainty -- a

life whose constancy lies in change.  Let's get on with it.



     Mutual tire itch, it seems, is even less curable than my old solo variety.

 Why stop when every new road is a beginning and home is right there by your

side?