Flat-Food and the Panhandle of Texas

FLAT-FOOD

AND THE PANHANDLE OF TEXAS

By Larry Cooperman

Mineola, Texas is a beautiful little town and a pleasant place to be “stuck.” Packed and ready to go, the cyclist took one last cup of coffee, bought supplies, and cycled on Texas Highway 69 which went northwest into the Panhandle.

“Where’s your flat-food section?” The cyclist asked the produce manager at the Piggly Wiggly.

“It’s next to the round-food section…What do you mean, flat-food?” Amused, the manager smiled with curiosity.

“You see, young man, that I am THE cyclist and bear the weight of sixty-five pounds, one pound for each year of my life, and flatfood is what the cyclist needs to pack correctly and balanced. Besides, I love Swiss cheese and hard salami. Tortillas work better than bread, sliced cheese is more efficient than block, sliced roast beef better than pork short ribs, and dried apple better than not-dried apple.” Always fairly detailed in explanations, the cyclist picked up a grapefruit and tossed it up and down saying, “Weighty and round.”

The produce manager said, “You’re funny, but I get it.” Perhaps the cyclist is not eating well but well enough; he burns every bad calorie off.

Packing correctly is essential. This became evident on his earlier failed attempt in August 2016, where he had to turn around for his best friend’s funeral in Columbus, Georgia, to cycle madly back to Savannah. Picking up a Tumbleweed Man on a Huffy stuck-inone-gear bicycle in Adrian, Georgia, the man fueled on malt liquor and couldn’t keep up, then left at a feed store near Swainsboro. The cyclist had packed two small Axiom Seymour panniers and a medium internal frame

backpack, all affixed to the back rack with nothing on the front. The balance was pretty whacked, and controlling the bike required constant vigilance with the back of the bike doing a little side-to-side dance when slow and an expansive waltz when going downhill. However, getting off of the bike often had him falling over in mini-mart parking lots to his non-embarrassment. A man of sixty-five has lost quite a bit of pretense, so the cyclist had no care except for being hurt.

Now on the Panhandle of Texas in 2017 with two sets of panniers, the cyclist’s rig was well balanced. The ride north hit headwinds that cut his average speed, which had been around twelve, down to eight to nine MPH.

Two slices of Swiss cheese and a couple of slices of salami wrapped in a flour tortilla, two times a day, fueled legs that were becoming excellent machinery. His fingers with open-fingered bicycle gloves leaving the handlebars to grab trail mix on a well-balanced touring package, kept the cyclist going up to twelve hours a day.

Dr. Atkins protein bars with very low sugar and carbohydrates feigned desert well enough. Food stores in little towns have next to nothing for a diabetic. Texas was turning out to be as overweight as the south; the country tilted and all the roly-poly Texans grabbed onto the earth with their little centipede legs, holding on to their banjos and corndogs, munching happily in the sun saying, “Don’t mess with Texas.” You can hear the banjo accompaniment. The next stop was Lone Oak and a picnic area; Chinese tent on a gross angle in order to be stealthy.

The cyclist had enrolled with a premium membership for Planet Fitness before he left Savannah, which gave him access to all of the one thousand outlets. Incorrectly thinking that every outlet would offer a hydro massage bed, a shower, Internet access, and a quiet early A.M. rest was actually a farce. The finest of all Planet Fitness outlets was the one he left in Savannah - the rest of lower quality.

Greenville, Texas’ Planet Fitness was not in operation regardless of what the Internet said. They were open to just take memberships and finish construction.

On to an operating Planet Fitness, located in Frisco, TX, the cyclist was on a good roll and rolled just under seventy miles from Lone Oak. At dusk, he arrived and pushed his loaded bike through two sets of double doors and leaned it against the east wall.

All eyes are upon the cyclist in these settings. In grocery stores, the cyclist rolled a polished homeless conveyance, trick to the bolt, and nice looking in green and black with large capacity Nashbar waterproof panniers on the back and on the front, Axiom Seymour medium capacity panniers.

“Can I get a room?” The cyclist asked a gum-smacking young aficionado of he couldn’t say, but she was plugged in, metaphorically, with wires coming out of her ears below multicolored hair.

“Hi, um, excuse me, what did you ask?” She placed her gum on a piece of paper below the cyclist’s view.

The cyclist asked, “First of all, can I leave my bike there?” He pointed at his conveyance and showed his membership card.

She looked around for a higher authority; there was none, “I guess so. It isn’t blocking anything.” Another rule of the cyclist: if you are going to impose on a business with a packed-to-the-hilt bicycle, you must not block their monetary gain.

With Planet Fitness, the hydro massage beds vary in length of time at each outlet. In Savannah, it was twelve minutes; in Frisco, Texas, six minutes angered him in his own special exhausted way.

“Double my order, waitress!” The cyclist said.

“Huh?” She answered with little interest.

The cyclist wrongly thought that he would be able to get a little sleep in Planet Fitness in the early mornings when the facility was not much in use—no deal. The music of urban predators was enough to annoy the cyclist and the lighting-brash.

He was now on Texas highway W-380. Near Denton, Texas, he was momentarily in “The Twilight Zone.” There was a big sign saying, “Savannah.” It was a subdivision. After standing like a mesmerized duck, he cycled on to the next Planet Fitness in Denton.

Denton had a reasonable Planet Fitness, no gum-smacking groovies, but college women at the front desk. After reasonably good relaxing and a shower, the cyclist was off to Decatur, Texas.

A sixty-mile run, at around two p.m., with a touch of headwind, brought the cyclist in for a miserable camping experience.

Finding a flat area behind a mini-storage facility, the lights from the establishment were bright so the cyclist made a decision to use the tent as a bivouac to keep the profile low to avoid detection.

The cyclist had purchased a “good to thirty-five degree” sleeping bag. Be aware; the temperature designation in the United States refers to you being able to survive this temperature; in Europe, the temperature rating refers to you being somewhat comfortable and not shivering.

With this in mind, making a survey of temperatures across the southern states, the cyclist purchased a sleeping bag liner that brought the sleeping arrangement down another ten degrees. No help did it provide in Newton, Mississippi, or in Decatur, Texas, and the cyclist spent his second night cold and with no sleep.