Happy Birthday Dunc!

A tribute to good times and the best memories...

"Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold"

Happy birthday to the most golden friend Bret or I ever had, long before hitting our golden years.

An Easter People

This Easter morning, I woke with a memory that sat with me like an unfinished story.

Several months ago, I set out to share a personal story of life with HIV in 21st century America. In a time and place where HIV can be diagnosed early and treatments are more effective, I’d thought it would shed a hopeful light on an otherwise bleak topic. The story a friend agreed to share began exactly that way – more than 15 years of careful treatment and proper nutrition had brought the HIV to undetectable levels in his body.

He stressed the importance of early detection and relentless protection but as the topic turned to eradicating the virus all together, this man who’s as close as a brother to me said something completely unexpected. He believes the government purposely released HIV into undesirable populations, specifically African-Americans and the gay population. I’d heard this Conspiracy Theory but never a compelling reason to consider it seriously and wouldn’t in this interview either, but it bothered me that this intelligent man I dearly loved would feel so betrayed.

This morning’s Easter message put the pieces together. Quite simply, it’s no mystery a gay, black man would feel persecuted. Easter is the story of life-saving grace overcoming the darkness of death, not only in the way He died but in the way Jesus lived. Sadly, our world will continue to cast out and persecute, but as Easter people we are called to continue the work Jesus modeled, to bring hope and healing to the dark places in our world. How will we write the end of this story?

Refocusing the Home Field

This morning I handed a card to a fellow cyclist describing the AIDS ride I’m doing this year. Her response, “You don’t hear much about AIDS anymore”. The glass half full side of me thinks that’s progress. Two years ago the response was more likely to be “AIDS? Isn’t that cured?”

Last Saturday I rode my bike for the first time in 4 months. Despite thousands of odometer miles, it took about 5 more to remember how to shift my gears. Shifting comes as natural as breathing so long as I’m riding week after week, but a few months out of mind had put it out of focus. Keep HIV/AIDS out of mind long enough and the message can get so out of focus it’s no longer believed to be a problem.

In the last decade, I’ve witnessed a growing American awareness for AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, education campaigns across India, increased funding for the Global AIDS Fund; we buy, carry and wear (RED) but what does it mean in our own neighborhoods? In our own families and social circles? Last month’s news out of DC is the most startling evidence that the HIV prevention message must be loud, must remain effective and must, above all, be persistent.

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced their plan to “attack complacency" and “put HIV/AIDS back on the nation’s radar screen”. The planned spend of $45 million over five years is the ounce of prevention needed to refocus this nation on protecting itself from the still fatal and costly ravages of AIDS.


You signed on for a National AIDS Strategy call to action. You made this difference. Thank you!

Severe Epidemic HIV Rates in Our Own Backyard

Most AIDS rides are intentionally routed through small towns and rural areas. Rider safety is one, but not the only reason. Most HIV/AIDS services are concentrated in large cities where subway stops, park benches and city buses are frequently plastered with safe-sex messages reminding us that HIV is still alive and deadly.

Stands to reason the greatest need for HIV/AIDS awareness would lie outside these cities. Sunday's Washington Post headline proves HIV rarely stands to reason when it revealed at least 3% of the residents of our national's capitol have HIV or AIDS.

"Our rates are higher than West Africa," said Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, who once led the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's work in Zimbabwe. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."

The DC data is pretty equally spread across all modes of transmission and indicates a smattering of stigma and ignorance compounded by a lag in prioritized attention.

The NYCDC AIDS Research Ride doesn't enter Washington, DC via the scenic, well-travelled route. We ride, and even walk, through some of the more sketchy neighborhoods on our way to Capitol Hill. We'll ride into Washington, DC again on September 13. It's just one day, and a simple message, but one that needs to be heard unceasingly, until there's a cure.

An Off Season

“Spring” forward the clock with a forecast of snow got me thinking of so many other paradoxes of the past few months – the world’s economy in the toilet, a historic new President, a jet makes a safe river landing and another simply falls from the sky; do I have a job today and will we still be in business tomorrow? Good or bad, things feel “off”.

How does it make you feel? Have we ever been so called to constant collective reflection? Thanks in large part to what I’ve observed in others, I’m learning to welcome that daily check-in to my psyche. Peel away the anxiety, fear and loss of control to find I’m invigorated, inspired and determined to not only keep my head above water but to hold my neighbor up too.

All this came to mind while writing about the start of a new biking season which, for the 11th year, begins in early March and ends in a late summer AIDS ride. My off-season activities have evolved over time but the annual process is really quite unchanged. I allowed myself one of those daily reflections to consider how events of this “off" season might impact my ride plans.

I invite you to read the results then share your comments about how we can best help ourselves AND the most vulnerable among us to get through this off season and back on the road.