told how American motorists would deliberately swerve in order to scare him.
"Off and on different objects were thrown at us, and once even an empty bottle, whilst shouting, 'Ride 'em cowboy!'" On a back road in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a man calculatedly sideswiped him, injuring his horse's leg (the driver then honked and waved in triumph). After two more serious incidents of this kind, Tschiffely abandoned his epic trip in Washington, D.C., and took the train to New York.
At this point, the reader who is a jogger or similar sort of outdoor exerciser will shudder with recognition. Practically every jogger I know has been heckled or threatened in this way. Anyone who runs by the roadside, it seems, is subjected to catcalls, honks, verbal abuse, unwelcome invitations, and guffaws. Objects are flung from carsâcoins, food, beer cans. People spit. It is remarkable how forcefully people can spit when there is someone either to impress or to intimidate. Women joggers occupy a special category of potential victim, and wherever they exercise, they can accurately be described as running a gauntlet.
In London, such behavior is less common in my experienceâbystanders are more used to eccentricity. They have to be, because people live at such close quarters. Henry James remarked on this one hundred years ago in
English Hours:
"We seem loosely hung together at home as compared with the English, every man of whom is a tight fit in his place." He goes on to say, "It is not an inferential but a palpable fact that England is a crowded country."
Americans, who boast of living in a place with plenty of room for everyone, tend to object to any sort of proximity, and at the slightest hint of a loss of elbow room say, "You're in my space" or "Get out of my face." At the same time, the pressure of crowds and the uncertainties of class have made Britain a more tolerant and gentler place. Anglers can be awful to canoeists, but that is strictly territorial in a country where fishing rights are sold by the yard on rural rivers. Few people are bothered by joggers, horse riders, or athletes in outlandish clothes. The British cyclist causes the least comment of allâit might be anyone, a policeman, a schoolchild, a commuter, a racer, or your elderly father-in-law. The British jogger is allowed his or her share of the road.
American joggers are frequently harassed by people in moving cars, and these antagonists are their single greatest risk, far greater than bone spurs, gut aches, hammered knee joints, or hot flashes. I have found no literature on the subject of anti-social behavior toward people who make themselves visible through solitary exercise. What might be perceived as harmless heckling seems to me to express an intention that is related to assault, obstruction, even rape and murder.
I don't jogâtoo tough on my muscles and bones, it makes me feel unwell. But I value solitary aerobic exercise of other kinds, such as pedaling a bike, paddling a kayak, and rowing a boat. I happened to be cycling when I realized that my presence aroused a sort of hysteria in bystanders or people passing in cars. They shouted abuse, they laughed. What's so funny? They threw things. It was actually worse in bad weather, as though there were something in the very nature of adverse conditions that made people gloatingly more abusive, because I was more vulnerable. Rain or cold days brought out brutishness in them. I endured it for a while, and then I asked around. I was not alone. Most cyclists have stories of this kind, and joggers had much worse ones, and women joggers told the worst persecution stories.
Fleeing to the ocean doesn't help. Rowing my boat off Cape Cod, I am constantly harassed by speedboats. What is it about recreational motorboaters (as opposed to fishermen in motorboats) that makes them such a callow, aggressive breed? Something to do, perhaps, with the fact that boozing and boating often go together, and so many of the boaters
"Off and on different objects were thrown at us, and once even an empty bottle, whilst shouting, 'Ride 'em cowboy!'" On a back road in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a man calculatedly sideswiped him, injuring his horse's leg (the driver then honked and waved in triumph). After two more serious incidents of this kind, Tschiffely abandoned his epic trip in Washington, D.C., and took the train to New York.
At this point, the reader who is a jogger or similar sort of outdoor exerciser will shudder with recognition. Practically every jogger I know has been heckled or threatened in this way. Anyone who runs by the roadside, it seems, is subjected to catcalls, honks, verbal abuse, unwelcome invitations, and guffaws. Objects are flung from carsâcoins, food, beer cans. People spit. It is remarkable how forcefully people can spit when there is someone either to impress or to intimidate. Women joggers occupy a special category of potential victim, and wherever they exercise, they can accurately be described as running a gauntlet.
In London, such behavior is less common in my experienceâbystanders are more used to eccentricity. They have to be, because people live at such close quarters. Henry James remarked on this one hundred years ago in
English Hours:
"We seem loosely hung together at home as compared with the English, every man of whom is a tight fit in his place." He goes on to say, "It is not an inferential but a palpable fact that England is a crowded country."
Americans, who boast of living in a place with plenty of room for everyone, tend to object to any sort of proximity, and at the slightest hint of a loss of elbow room say, "You're in my space" or "Get out of my face." At the same time, the pressure of crowds and the uncertainties of class have made Britain a more tolerant and gentler place. Anglers can be awful to canoeists, but that is strictly territorial in a country where fishing rights are sold by the yard on rural rivers. Few people are bothered by joggers, horse riders, or athletes in outlandish clothes. The British cyclist causes the least comment of allâit might be anyone, a policeman, a schoolchild, a commuter, a racer, or your elderly father-in-law. The British jogger is allowed his or her share of the road.
American joggers are frequently harassed by people in moving cars, and these antagonists are their single greatest risk, far greater than bone spurs, gut aches, hammered knee joints, or hot flashes. I have found no literature on the subject of anti-social behavior toward people who make themselves visible through solitary exercise. What might be perceived as harmless heckling seems to me to express an intention that is related to assault, obstruction, even rape and murder.
I don't jogâtoo tough on my muscles and bones, it makes me feel unwell. But I value solitary aerobic exercise of other kinds, such as pedaling a bike, paddling a kayak, and rowing a boat. I happened to be cycling when I realized that my presence aroused a sort of hysteria in bystanders or people passing in cars. They shouted abuse, they laughed. What's so funny? They threw things. It was actually worse in bad weather, as though there were something in the very nature of adverse conditions that made people gloatingly more abusive, because I was more vulnerable. Rain or cold days brought out brutishness in them. I endured it for a while, and then I asked around. I was not alone. Most cyclists have stories of this kind, and joggers had much worse ones, and women joggers told the worst persecution stories.
Fleeing to the ocean doesn't help. Rowing my boat off Cape Cod, I am constantly harassed by speedboats. What is it about recreational motorboaters (as opposed to fishermen in motorboats) that makes them such a callow, aggressive breed? Something to do, perhaps, with the fact that boozing and boating often go together, and so many of the boaters
Similar Books
