For a few days now we’ve been following US Highway 60 (West, of course), and today that was the only road we were on from Seiling to Higgins, Texas. Unfortunately we are not staying in Texas tonight, and alas, I cannot officially say that we’ve conquered another state. The motel we made reservations with had overbooked themselves (if you want to boycott that motel for their rude behavior to your two favorite biking heroes, it’s called the Golden Spread Motel… but I doubt you’ll ever have a chance to boycott them). We then had to backtrack fourteen miles (we just took the car) to Arnett, Oklahoma. Of course, we only had to backtrack one mile to return to Oklahoma because Higgins is a border-town. To make up for this heresy, we’ve decided to either start from here in the morning and then just drive the last fourteen miles when it’s the hottest out, or to drive the fourteen miles back to the Golden Spread and then start. It really depends on when Thomas wakes up.
Anyway, the steep up and downs returned today (we’re up to 2600 feet above sea level, all from steep up and downs). And the weather forecast was slightly off. Over a 100 degrees by noon was correct, but the 75 degrees at 7 a.m…. way off. I left the motel this morning in Seiling at 7 and a few minutes spied a bank’s sign telling me it was already 85 degrees. Now, I don’t make the following remark about the area we are in, just about the weather: we are in a hell-hole. The landscape is pretty in its own way but definitely reminds me of an African safari, and I can say that because I’ve been there. Especially with the heat and birds with really long tails, definitely an African safari. Yesterday the temperature in Seiling reached the highest it’s been on this trip, 109 degrees. Today we set a new high for the temperature that we’ve actually biked in: 102 degrees. Hell-hole. The weather report that we saw on Friday told us that this area is experiencing a heat wave… hooray! An already super hot area in the middle of summer experiencing of a heat wave, plus 60 or more miles of riding a day, what could be better? Inconceivable! a certain really awesome film character might say. Dating back to last Thursday and continuing until Tuesday, all the temperature forecasts for the towns that we are biking through were and are for potential or near record-highs. Considering that we are in northwest Oklahoma and northwest Texas (funny that we went from one state’s northwest to another state’s northwest with nothing in between), I think it’s safe for me to once again say, Inconceivable!
In the past, when I would hear weather reports from New England or the somewhat hotter and more humid D.C., I would sit amazed at the over 100’s of the South. Now that I’m here, it’s no longer my imagination telling me how amazing this is. And now that I’m here, I’m starting to ask a lot of questions. First of all, why do people choose to live here in this hell-hole for goodness sakes? I don’t really mean that, I’m sure it’s a wonderful place to live if you don’t intend to be physically active during the day in the summer-time. But, honestly, how do the Texas Rangers play baseball during the day here? How do the Dallas Stars (should still be in Minnesota, but at least they have the Wild now), Phoenix Coyotes, San Jose Sharks, and Los Angelis Kings have hockey teams? I mean, I understand that the ice is inside a cooled building and most of the games are played during the winter, but I’m still amazed that the ice doesn’t melt completely and cause a massive flood. How does the grass not die? In fact, how does that tumbleweed that I saw this morning not die? For goodness sakes. Most importantly, how do the poor cows survive??????
Some of the cows were resting in the shade, thank God. But some cows had no shade to rest under. The plot of land some of the cows are fenced into have no trees. I’m not surprised there are few trees out here, but can’t the cows get some shade?! I felt so bad as I biked past. Apparently cows are unredeemably (that’s not a word, and doesn’t fit at all here, I abuse the right of poetic license) afraid of bikers. One troop (herd) of cows ran away from me for about a minute. They weren’t the smartest cows, they just ran parallel to me. Still, those poor cows ran for an entire minute in this heat. I didn’t even know cows could run! (and my grandfather owns a farm, so I’m not totally ignorant of cows… the heat has clearly affected me, I’m using quite a bit of these parentheses) How do those cows survive? They’re eating dried out grass with no shade and their owner rightly doesn’t want to step outside and melt like the Wicked Witch. Oh those poor cows. For the love of God, give the cows some shade.
Thinking about the cows, and thinking about myself as the hot wind burned my face off, I reflected on the terrible conditions of factories in the 1800’s in the We’re-Civilized-I-Promise European West (that many illegal immigrants are still forced to work in today) that helped spark the Labor Movement. Regulations were put in effect to limit the number of hours in a day someone could legally work, how many hours a week, how many days a week, and how old people needed to be. In terms of what is lawful, this country really stepped up to the plate in the late 1800’s and the turn of the 20th century to make child-workers illegal and dangerous/dangerously hot working conditions equally unlawful.
The only problem with this grand story is that we still frequently need use of a word that should have gone out of business long ago: sweatshops. Thankfully a growing number of people are becoming aware of the “Made in” tag that helps alert us consumers to whether or not a product came from a sweatshop or not. Clothing is usually the worst culprit (it’s an old question now but still very significant: do you wear clothes produced in a sweatshop?) but even my darling bike, Cato, had his frame built in Taiwan. What does that mean? Taiwan, India, and China are generally red flags, so am I riding a slave-produced bike to fight slavery? I can’t honestly know, but at least I’m aware of the possibility. And being aware of the possibility will make me more cautious if ever I buy a new bike; I’ll do the research to find a bike produced in respectable work conditions. Though I do go shopping for clothes as little as possible (generally only a few new items every other year), I am clearly in need of as much self-examination and discipline as anyone else. One thing remains certain: our financial choices make a giant difference in the marketplace, and we can help prevent the poorest of conditions just by making better choices.
Biking through the heat is bad. Real bad. I really did feel like my face was being burned off. I probably shouldn’t say these things so our mothers don’t freak out, but we do have everything under control. My real question isn’t about the cows, it’s about the people who are pushed to work in the hottest of places for no or little pay because they’ll be punished if they don’t. If riding through this heat for a few hours could leave us feeling burnt, what would working in a sweatshop twelve or more hours a day for six or seven days a week do to a person? And don’t think it’s just about sweatshops. People in India, especially, are literally slaves because someone in their family took out a loan of maybe $1.00 with sky-high interest rates that are impossible to ever pay back except by labor, slave labor. You think being a slave in India, like the African-Americans were in this country, wouldn’t be ridiculously hot day after day? What about in the places in Africa that this type of slavery happens?
Some people in India have ingeniously found a way out of their loan slavery. At first, all the slaves pool their money together to give to one person to buy their way out. That one person then finds a job to pay for another person’s freedom, then those two do the same for another person, then those three for another person, and so on. It starts with a little bit… a little donation, perhaps…
I’m really at the point of begging you to believe me when I say it’s burning hot here and we’re biking through it. I’m begging you to believe me so that you’ll think about the people that our consumer choices keep in slavery, in sweatshops, and the people in India, Africa, and elsewhere that your donation could help rescue. Give the slaves some shade!
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