Bicycle riding brings me great enjoyment, and the North Augusta Greenway is a big part of the reason.
The North Augusta Greeneway (spelled with the extra e because it’s named after a former city mayor by that name) is a beautiful place
to exercise. It’s a railroad bed converted to a walking and biking trail that
runs down off the Piedmont of upper South Carolina, through the city of North
Augusta, down into the Savannah River valley. My 10.5-mile routine, a
few times a week, never gets old. I particularly enjoy the Greeneway in the
summer at first light. It gives me time with the Lord as I ride and time for me to enjoy His
beautiful creation. On my early morning rides, I encounter plenty of deer, particularly down along the Savannah River
One thing I’m intentional about on the Greeneway
is greeting the people I pass. At my age, I’m not riding so fast that I don’t
have time to speak, and it’s a good Southern tradition with which I grew up. Besides,
one never knows if you are passing a person who could use a friendly greeting.
Admittedly, only a
retired person with plenty of time to think about such things would do this,
but I calculated how many people I’ve greeted over my nineteen years of
bicycling on the North Augusta Greeneway. I figure I have greeted about fifty-five
thousand people, plus or minus 4 percent. This is almost twice the current
population of North Augusta. [here's the math: Nineteen years × two, 10.5 rides per week (average) × fifty-two weeks × twenty-eight people per ride (an average, not counting babies in strollers) = 55,328 people]
Not everyone responds to my greeting, which, of course, is OK; after all, most are there just to exercise and perhaps find a bit of quiet in their busy day. Some, however, beam and flash big smiles, offering a return greeting. By contrast, others simply ignore me altogether.
Everybody I pass seems to be somewhere on this continuum of friendly smiles and returned greeting, to irritated, ignoring looks. This is my personal and subjective observation spanning 19 years on the Greeneway, but older black women tend to be on the smiling and friendly end of the spectrum. Other bicyclicers, particularly younger, serious exercisers, tend to ignore the intrusion. Women are generally on more friendly end of the scale, except, perhaps, younger women who have probably been taught not to speak to strangers. Older men are friendlier than young men, although I don't know what the younger men's excuses might be.
