Leather On Rubber - One Thousand Miles Out Of Arden

A leather-rubber tramp is much like any other tramp: Traveling over great distances, often for extended periods of time, abstaining from normal, long-term labor and thus remaining aloof from mainstream society. What makes this subspecies of transient peculiar is his mode of movement: bicycle. A leather tramp sees America by virtue of the sole of his shoe, often traversing shoe-tearing terrain, hence the adjective leather. Where a normal person can wear down a regular pair of shoes in about a year, a leather tramp will have gone through many more by then. A rubber tramp sees America by virtue of his gas tank, be it motorcycle, car, or even moped. Though a leather tramp may hitch-hike, he does not go through the arduous task of replacing tire after tire (of course much more frequently than the city commuter), thus the distinction between those traveling on leather shoe sole and those traveling on rubber tires. Now a leather-rubber tramp naturally calls upon on both to see his way. He needs his leather shoes to pedal, and he needs the rubber bike tires to carry him forward. He wears them both out considerably. His fuel is not gas, but water and the sunshine -- he is a creature of light. He wears a massive tan and a rugged unhandselled countenance. His vital heat is indefatigable. He may wear a bandanna. His shoes have holes in them. He knows not about studying life, he is too busy living it to heed the theory thereof.

The Legend

~ Three-Hundred and Sixty-Five days ago, I got a new bicycle. This bicycle was forged out of the memories of my time in the mountains. It is an eighteen-speed Motiv, the frame of which was taken out of a junk heap and put together, using spare parts, into a functioning bicycle by a retired man in Arden, NC: David Dunbar. This bicycle cost me nothing, but gave me everything beautiful. It brought me down from Arden, through Salem, Clemson, Ninety Six, and down to Orangeburg. Since this Frankenstein Two-Wheeler arose and went forth, it has seen hundreds of miles. The rubber thereof has seared on the asphalt of Strawberry, Carolina, rested in the grasses of the US 52/US 78 split, leading to two of the twelve corners of North America, rambled up through the Barren Land that will always stand along the way to the Magic City, pushed onward even to Edisto. I have only woven a portion of the tapestry, many patches I will weave in now, though a manly weave is always left a bit rugged.