Last month, on the second day of a bicycle ride west from my home in Portland, Maine, I came through Harvard late in the afternoon, looking for a campground after a 70-mile ride. Weary from pedaling a loaded bike over the undulating hills, I was dismayed to find the only campground nearby completely full. Setting out again, with shadows lengthening on the wooded roads, I stopped at a dairy farm to ask about pitching my tent in one of its hayfields. The ruddy, flint-faced farmer wasn’t enthused and directed me to a youth hostel several miles away—eastward.
I wanted nothing to do with going in the wrong direction, so I resigned myself to a night of stealth camping, a cyclist’s euphemism for trespassing. Pedaling slowly through the coming twilight, I looked for an abandoned farmhouse or old woods road where I could unobtrusively set up camp.
Passing a large, fenced garden, incongruous in the middle of an unkempt field surrounded by woods, I noticed a man putting some sort of implement in the trunk of a small sedan. I turned around, pulled into the lane leading off the road, and addressed the man—was this his property?
No, he replied, it was a community garden. I introduced myself, explaining how I had landed before him. He extended a firm handshake and we began talking.
Would anyone be offended if I camped here, I asked. He smiled and shrugged; the land was ‘community’ property, so probably not, but he could call the police and let them know I was here. I considered, then declined, reasoning that if the police objected, I’d be pedaling through the dark trying to find someplace that didn’t qualify as trespassing. Better to tuck myself in the corner of the field; darkness would take care of the rest.
He didn’t disagree, but offered a suggestion. Would a front yard do? I laughed, nodding vigorously. With his directions, I set off. A minute later he passed me and I found him again waiting at the top of a long hill that led into the village common; I then followed him home. I had barely dismounted when he asked if I might want a cold beer. At the end of a long, hot ride? I came in to meet his wife, who regarded me with the bemused look of a wife wondering what her husband had dragged home this time.
The next morning, after a wonderful evening of conversation, complete with salmon dinner, stories of our respective sons, a history of Harvard and its politics, a blessed shower and comfortable bed, I climbed aboard my bike again and headed toward the Connecticut River Valley.
When people ask me why I do this—it’s my third cross-country ride—I reply that bicycling is a wonderful way to see a magnificent and beautiful land filled with interesting, generous, and kind people.
I came into your town a tired stranger, and left with friends who make me smile every time I think of them as I ride across our country. Those two are truly emblematic of the day we met—July 4th, Independence Day.
Harvard is so very fortunate to have such fine citizens.
Laurence Eubank
Somewhere west of the Mississippi
