Early days in a long journey
Published 9:40 pm Friday, August 29, 2014
A man who says he’s cycling around the U.S. to fight homelessness paused at a Suffolk laundromat Friday, after setting out from the nation’s capital a week ago.
David Gower, 30, said he decided to cycle the circumference of America after witnessing an incident near the White House that he said revealed society’s indifference toward the homeless.
“There was a homeless man laying on the sidewalk,” Gower said. “He was taking up the whole sidewalk. There was a lady and her husband — she proceeded to step over his head. The husband went around.”
David Gower, 30, stopped at a laundromat on North Main Street on Friday, in the early stages of his quest to cycle around the circumference of the U.S. to help the homeless.
Gower said he didn’t say anything to the woman. But the incident played on his mind, so he decided do something about it.
“The problem is they are not educated,” Gower said on the intractability of homelessness. “Once you become educated, you have a different bunch of tools that you can use to better yourself.”
Gower has a wife in Maryland, he said, but they had been quarreling. “The Lord told me I have to do this,” he said.
He said he had been working for himself as a mechanic, fixing cars at home, and graduated high school.
Before setting out, he said he first bought a mountain bike from a homeless person, but found it was too small and uncomfortable for the long journey. So he traded it with “a gentleman who had ridden from Michigan to D.C.” for a reclining bicycle.
He has a fishing pole, tent, sleeping bag, hydration pack fastened to the handlebars, two spare tires and other personal effects stored in makeshift saddlebags.
Gower, who also carries a cellphone and tablet, has no support crew — he’s winging it. He said he sleeps on the grass in churchyards and cemeteries, and relies on the generosity of strangers.
He said he wants to experience what the homeless experience. “I want to know what they go through,” he said. “Being rained on, being cold, can’t be here and can’t be there. I can’t help them if I can’t experience the homelessness.”
The journey will take about 8 ½ months, Gower reckons. Asked about his plans for the winter, “They sleep in the cold, don’t they?” he responded.
Gower can be reached via davidgower1969@yahoo.com.
