I grew up in the world of How ‘bout… A typical conversation among childhood friends might go,

“What do you wanna do now?”

“How ‘bout the fort?

“Nah, too hot.”

When I was 10, Headquarters was a tree fort and a look-out tucked in a ravine on the undeveloped side of the neighborhood. Two months of accumulated scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of pilfered plywood covered the old sagging oak, spreading up into three levels. A gang-plank style entry crossed the ditch to the first plywood platform. Small boards nailed up the trunk led to the second floor, offering a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns. Another scramble up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and two shoulder high walls that swayed in the breeze. Stirred leaves were just at arm’s reach up there. The next tree over was taller: the look-out. It was nothing but nailed boards in a ladder all the way straight up the trunk to where the view opened out of the ravine. The wind swaying gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights.

I loved using the hammer, a reminder of my dad, an architect/carpenter nailing in shingles on the roof. How did he get a big nail into stud walls with only three hits? It took me ten or twenty to get through a 2x4; but I really knew how to straighten it back up or take it out if it bent on the way in. Nails and tools made ideas possible.

“How ‘bout Tarzan?”

“Nah, that old man’s home; he’ll yell at us.”

There was a shortcut to the fort we found that followed a creek through someone’s property. Finding some gnarled vines tangled among tree trunks, we discovered on a dare the vines were just strong enough to hold a kids weight swinging out over the dry embankment, but dear God don’t let go. Crash landing when the vine loosened meant scrambling back up through some scrubby weeds and poison oak. When we broke just about all of the vines, I figured out how to make rope with a ball of yard-sale yarn, weaving it on my fingers.

“How ‘bout the Creek?

“Sure, lets go.”

Across the street from Headquarters was a small shallow stream winding through willows branches straight enough to fashion rudimentary bow and arrows. A favorite pastime was living creatively in imagination: Swiss Family Robinson meets Lord of the Flies. I wondered while stepping from stone to stone in the afternoon shade, what if we had to completely fend for ourselves? Pretending brought a liberating feeling, but this was serious at the same time. How could we live off of acorn flour, almonds, and mulberries, spearing frogs? I tried starting a fire like the Indians did: a bow, a string, a small hole in a some wood, all to start a spark. Nada. Failure brought awareness of the scale of my vulnerability. What if… How to survive in the big world when one doesn’t want to go home? But there was no choice, at least not yet. I would have one when I made one.

Seven years later, I’m a teenager reclining on the couch in the living room of my second foster home. Finished with chores, I’m watching Superman, a whatever's-on-tv, saturday-afternoon-movie, and a song by Supertramp plays during the credits.

Give a little bit of your love to me

Give a little bit, I’ll give a little bit of my love to you

Send a smile and show that you care

I'll give a little bit, I'll give a little bit of my life for you

So give a little bit, Give a little bit of your time to me

Now's the time that we need to share

So find yourself, we're on our way back home

Going home

Oh, the words of that song hit this foster child hard in the chest, unprepared for the reminder of the void. The long-stuffed feeling welled up, one I had ignored forever like that elephant in the room too big to push out the door. For an instant, a depth of sadness brought tears, because life was hard, too hard sometimes, and lonely on and on, and the world gives only just enough that you keep breathing, but you wonder why. Yes, please someone give just a little....

But this was all I knew, this fate of having to take care of myself but only after taking care of others, and so I again just reflexively stuffed it. Besides, I felt lucky to have first one, then another family make room for me in their lives. Too much need wears out a welcome in someone else's home; it was my place to try to be pleasant company. It seemed most everyone else had family, security, some money for perhaps things like a pair of cleats to run in school track if you have the desire. Its called belonging or opportunity and I was acutely aware I wouldn't have it.

Fast forward this chapter 25 years, through all the challenges of getting my life together after the accident. My stained glass art studio is rewarding, and my daughters have started college. I live in Cleveland, otherwise known as Purgatory. I like the city though; I think the motto should be "Its Not That Bad." A tough steel town, it’s unpretentious to a fault, tenacious. Cleveland inspired the Clean Water Act because the Cuyahoga River became so polluted it caught. on. fire. People who live there just don't quit, except that the biggest export is traitorous young people seeking any sort of opportunity elsewhere. The streets and freeways are eerily empty, circumventing abandoned steel mills, epic sculptures of rust. But it’s not that bad. Now they brew a tasty beer called Burning River. One can even surf there, when the wind blows a Nor'easter in the fall, just before the lake freezes. Close to an outflow culvert into the lake, the wave break is nicknamed "Sewer Pipe.” One can easily imagine why.

I biked with a club there; cycling my life-blood. Life was pretty good, blessed with measures of contentment and happiness and family, even through so many challenges. Except that I'm stuck pedaling a trainer in the basement most of the long winter. It was during one of those endless, gray Februarys that I was inspired by an idea: a Velodrome. Its one of those banked tracks people in America only see during the Olympics. Cover it, and people could have a bicycle park all year-round with palm trees in the winter, in Cleveland. Its a blast of a sport with serious American heritage. The track could be a place where all a kid has to do is show up and with enough motivation he or she can make it to the Olympics. They wouldn't need money, just 100% heart. It would be the kind of opportunity I didn't have when I was a kid.

So I decided to take on the responsibility to build one. To not to be afraid of the price tag, or how to do it, or let a label like "disabled veteran with a head injury" daunt me. The fact that I knew only a dozen people on the planet didn't stop me either. There would need to be many others to work on this idea, but I figured my role was to get the project started and motivate others to do other parts.

I decided my shortcomings weren’t the issue, so I wouldn’t discuss them, introduce myself with that label, or use it as a disclaimer. As many times as I wished I had a chalkboard sign around my neck saying, Please excuse the mess, I had to tell myself it was not an excuse, and carry on without excuses.

The stories of three people inspired me. Kyle MacDonald had a dream to barter a paper clip for something better, trading that for something else, anything else, until he had a house. My paper clip was an old laptop where I wrote the concept, and a couple thousand savings. I drew an upside-down pyramid with 2K at the bottom and 20 Million at the top. Leverage was my strategy, each bit of progress or credibility would get one step further up, wherever that would be. Everything can be considered an asset if creative enough. If I could figure out a way to reduce any of the costs, say perhaps find someone to donate the land, then I figured I just made a few million dollars. After discovering a special type of dome that cost much less than a building, I figured we just made another 5 million. That’s a pretty good day, creating assets out of thin air.

Erik Weihenmayer is a blind alpine mountain climber, conquering even Everest. He didn’t let anyone convince him what he could or couldn’t do, should or shouldn’t do. He didn’t let impairments keep him from his goal. He didn't let blindness, the fact that he couldn't see the top as well as others, make the goal any less appropriate for himself. Plus, there’s no way he could have done it without help.

The third person for inspiration? The third was me. Not out of pride; its the me before-brain-injury. When I was growing up, all the kids in my neighborhood knew unfairness on so many different levels; there was no choice but to just take it. Fairness felt like theft. Happiness was simple and there was a lot of it, but the hard world was right there. We knew money does not buy happiness; it buys power. Power buys security. Asked what I wanted in life, it was a million dollars and a Rolls Royce, the only way I could figure to get security against the whims of disregard. I just did’t want to have to ask other people every time something needs to be fixed. All of it: money, power, security, is an elusive, illusory dream. But I was a dreamer, growing up on the outside of fences, owning not much else than imagination and resourcefulness, living in the world of “How ‘bout,” How ‘bout a velodrome? Why not?

There are no business plans for a bicycle park or there would be more of them. My brain damage became an asset. The single minded focus that distracted me from being able to keep other jobs was just the tenacity required this time. I could schedule my own hours to my good days, and my VA pension kept my bills paid. I'm good at figuring things out, what with having to relearn things all the time. I have to live day by day, with lists to keep me organized. With this project, I just ended each day with a list, and went at it the next day. I don't quit because that has never seemed to be an option. And my impulsive talking? This was the first time I didn’t have to turn that off, walking into a roomful of people trying to explain just what a velodrome is. Certainly the project was eccentric but as an artist I've never really cared about what others thought. I certainly didn't have a reputation for sanity to maintain. Resourcefulness is my middle name, having to put my life back together every year or so with a new job or career. Professionally, I’ve had just enough experience with so many phases of development: from office work at the back end as a Project Assistant, to designing it as a Mechanical Drafter and Steel Detailer, to constructing it as a Woodworker and Sheet Metal Worker. I understood this project, paperwork to steel.

I discovered many volunteers just don’t have the time outside of a busy life to do more. If something needed to be done, I began to just figure out how to do it. I showed my good friend Jackie the concept. She read it on my kitchen table, then excitedly said, "I'm in!" the first one to help. She arranged meetings with local politicians, like the City Planning Commission, or the City Council, and helped recruit a lawyer who applied for our non-profit.

We needed a website, so I took an online tutorial. I had to go to business and political meetings, so I enrolled in communication seminars for better speaking skills, trying to overcome one of my brain damage challenges. I was an artist, unfamiliar with this business world, so I had to buy a couple suits and mentored from a friend to learn business etiquette. Our new non-profit needed a Board of Directors, so I recruited a few other motivated cyclists, Rick, John, Matt being the first ones. I begged for services, like graphic design and architectural sketches. I asked one artist, Brian, to help design a classic wool jersey for a fundraising campaign. I researched archives for century old fonts and photos of Cleveland's previous velodrome back in the day of 6-day Madisons and rich prize purses, when thousands came to see the sport. I tracked down an 80 year old man, a cyclist from the 50's, who had raced on the last track built in Cleveland, and he showed me the scrap of paper with the original plans they used to build it.

I learned new programs to write the reports and presentations. We needed funding, Sherman from one bike shop gave me the first donation. I kept his letter of support posted on my office wall; it saw me through sometimes, seeing that someone believed in me. I took classes for fundraising, won a few grants. One, the Civic Innovation Lab, was awarded just for sheer audacity. I had presented my upside-down pyramid chart, 2K to 20M, and straight faced convinced them that their 40K grant down here at the middle was crucial. One sponsor was required to back the project, and it took him several days to convince the rest of them. From that funding, we hired a consultant who explained we needed to write a business plan and five year financial projections for a stadium. The report was due in three weeks, and btw, I had to learn Excel to write it. Rick and I traveled to Detroit to visit with the man who builds tracks. He later said, of all the dozens, if not hundreds of calls he gets from people wanting to build a track, I was the only one who actually showed up, driving up to talk with him. We traveled to Interbike in Las Vegas to network, and traveled to Los Angeles to ride the indoor olympic track there.

I kept hoping someone who knew what they were doing would take over, but they never seemed to materialize. What I thought would be a few months turned into several hard years of work, learning new things on the fly the whole time. It felt like cramming for finals, having to take endless exams for classes I never attended.

Every challenge I had ever gone through seemed like preparation for this one. God had finally lit the match, saying, “Here, burn it up.” I have no off switch, so I didn’t just burn my candle on both ends, I was torching it in the middle. Many times I wondered if it was all for nothing; so many dead ends and frustrations, months then years where the project was barely on life-support. Mistakes and wrong turns making people mad, losing faith in me. Pissing off the Board members going down random tangents. Trying to motivate dozens of people who showed interest to become volunteers. One site seeming promising, then falling through, then another site materializing, then falling through. Another, that fell through. One board member suggested a site on the edge of the ghetto, and showing it to Rick and I on a gray, cold November day. Thats when the project really became inspiring. Controversial, but such potential!

Would it ever really happen? For years, I imagined what my front wheel would look like under the handlebars, the wood grained boards flying under, pushing through the turn on a banked track, listening to songs on my ipod. One particular set of the same songs kept me going, a mantra of motivation. I have to admit that one of them was a rap song, involving a lot of cussing. This was my life's ultimate Art Project; made with wood, steel, and tenacity.

A small tangent here, a digression back to the fifth grade, back to those little construction paper parks. I was fashioning velodromes from whimsy and imagination when I was nine. That memory had faded away until I was two years into this actual Velodrome project, trying build the same thing full scale, a bicycle-track on the edge of a ghetto. I began to wonder about a life's purpose… but without serious funding it all was still just a what if. Cruel if nothing came of it.

There is a necessary role for the dreamer. Visionaries help to break status quo, introduce new solutions. Sorting through the banal with unique perspective, the random is reassembled into intriguing newness. What is creative nature? Is it obsession to improve things, the need for approval, resourcefulness within limits, or perspective outside boundaries? Is it tenacity to the point of obsession, focus to the point of selfishness?

In our tempered society artists are judged and compared to a standard: talented or not, skilled or not, worth keeping or not. Artists are accused of being obsessive or selfish, where the same traits in another profession would be considered tenacious or focused. Mediocre artists are vilified, ostracized, dismissed as if creativity is a crime; but then finally respected, admired, and memorialized if their work and worth is eventually deemed worth money. Who sets this standard, and why should there be one? Why does society still insist on placing a value of productivity on everything, as if growth is something tangible to box up and quantify; perspective is something to freeze-dry and sell? And lastly, why does the monetary value of an artists' work double the very day they die? What is society saying, worth more dead than alive? Every artist knows this, thank you very much.

To be honest, I did reach my limits and finally burned out, completely spent. The project became big enough to where to succeed it had to be a larger community effort, if it was meant to happen. I had to let it go. Thankfully, a few dedicated people on the Board, Brett, John, Matt, did find a way, making the final make or break push, working hard for the serious money, finally securing the lease of the land from the City, and organizing all those volunteers. Six years after my first inspiration, Phase 1 of the Cleveland Velodrome opened to the public in 2012, an open-air track without a cover. Presently they are raising funds for Phase 2 to cover it. Serendipitously, (I’m beginning to wonder if there is such a thing) I was there the day the track was finished and got a chance to ride it. All I wanted to do was one thing: listen to those songs on my ipod and actually see my wheels under the handlebars rolling on the track. In reality. I didn't want to race or be recognized at some celebration. I just wanted to ride a few laps, happy just to have a role in building it. In less than a year there are already training programs, youth cycling classes, and teams competing. Through community grants and hundreds of volunteers, it’s all free to anyone under 18. All a kid has to do is show up.

Not to be forgotten, thanks should also go to one supportive teacher who helped a scrappy kid dream. Schools measure math and science so valuable, for good reason since those crucial skills were tapped. But there is a big picture, one that favors both sides of the brain including the creative. That city park, an urban renewal project helping to improve a neighborhood, is traceable to the exact same idea assembled with clumsy school scissors, white glue, and colorful construction paper during 5th grade free time.

I can't wait to hear the news of some tough kid from East Cleveland making it to the Olympics.

Next Chapter: Two Wheels