Tag Archives: lewisville

The Genesis of Lewisville’s Cycling Culture

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In the region in which I live the small town I live in, Lewisville, NC, is a bit of a mecca for road cyclists. Several times a week you will see large groups of cyclists meet in downtown Lewisville and depart for long rides in several different directions. The good townspeople of Lewisville are split on their feelings about the cyclists – some welcome their presence and wonder how the town can make hay out of Lewisville’s reputation within the cycling community, while others find them a nuisance as they wait for an opportunity to pass the riders on Lewisville’s two-lane country roads – but they’ve been a presence for many years and in the ten years I’ve lived here I’ve always wondered how Lewisville came to be known as a cycling hot spot. Scott Sexton’s recent column in the Winston-Salem Journal reveals how it all got started:

(Gene) Gillam was born in Iowa and grew up in Greensboro before heading to The Citadel. He became a pilot with the U.S. Army Air Force and flew B-26 bombers.

Sixty-one times he flew missions over Normandy, northern France, the Rhineland and the Ardennes. He was shot down several times, and was rescued by French families and the French Resistance — the sorts of things that awe us today but were almost routine to men of his generation…

It was through his hobbies that a lot of people got to know Gillam. He was an avid runner and, later on, became something of a pioneer within the local cycling community. That’s where Ken Putnam, the owner of Ken’s Bike Shop, first met and got to know Gillam.

“He used to live out in Lewisville, on Grapevine (Road),” Putnam said. “A group of us would meet out at his house and just go ride. That’s why all the rides now start in Lewisville, because we’d leave from Gene’s house.”

Again, that might not seem like much more than a couple of guys out indulging a hobby — until you consider what has transpired since a handful of oddballs started heading west from Gillam’s house in Lewisville each weekend in the early 1970s.

The routes plotted out by that little group eventually got written down, named and taught turn-by-turn to new groups of riders as they discovered the sport. That small group grew by twos and threes, and turned into other groups of differing interests and abilities.

These days, hundreds of riders leave from Lewisville in any given week throughout the spring, summer and fall.

Walking With Purpose

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I read Scott Sexton’s column about Ken Glazener with great interest because Mr. Glazener walks by my house just about every day and unfortunately I knew nothing about him other than:

  1. He walks alot
  2. He picks up a lot of trash which he totes back to his house
  3. I’m pretty sure he lives in the subdivision behind my house because when he returns from his walks he usually takes the road by our house back into the subdivision.

Other than that I knew nothing about him even though I’d seen him for years. Now I know what he’s been up to:

Most days, he walks upwards of 10 miles along Forsyth County roads with an equally scruffy dog by his side, carrying a plastic grocery bag that he fills with discarded cans and bottles…

Glazener is a retired dentist, “not rich but comfortable,” he said, while recounting one of the many times a kind stranger approached to offer a few bucks for a hot meal…

Some days he starts his walk with a plastic bag in his pocket. Others, he figures (correctly) he’ll find one that’s been tossed and he’ll use it. He recycles bottles and saves aluminum cans until he has enough – 200 or so pounds – to rate a trip to OmniSource, a scrap metal yard off U.S. 52 across town.

“I bet I get 300 cans a week,” he said. “Unfortunately most of them are beer cans. If I thought people were drinking them at home, sobering up and then leaving to throw them out on the roadside I’d be wrong. It’s scary to think about.”

The money he gets for the cans, a few hundred bucks a year, he sends to a scholarship fund he set up at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry.

Since our house fronts one of the roads that Mr. Glazener travels I can attest to the fact that most of the bottles/cans discarded from passing cars contained an adult beverage before they were tossed. For 10 years I’ve been finding empty bottles of a certain brand of vodka and more empty PBR cans than I can even count in the ditch in front of our house. It’s disheartening to know that some of our neighbors are boozing it up behind the wheel and that they have such terrible taste.

Next time I see him I hope to thank Mr. Glazener for his service and for being smart enough to do his community service while also getting some great exercise. Let’s just say he doesn’t look close to the age, 71 years old, that’s mentioned in the article.

Update on Williams Road Bridge Repair in Lewisville

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From the Town of Lewisville’s Facebook page:

**UPDATE ON THE WILLIAMS RD BRIDGE CLOSURE**

The NCDOT now plans replace the bridge as a part of the necessary repairs that are needed due to a vehicle striking it some time ago. While work will start sometime around the month of January 2015, the bridge is not expected to be closed the until next March (2015).

The bridge will continue to be two lanes, but there will be added width to allow for a sidewalk to be added in the future.

The bridge is expected to be closed between March and August, 2015. Please share this with friends and family that may be effected.

NCDOT had said that the construction would begin this summer, so the delay is a bit of a bummer, but the expanded width to accommodate a sidewalk is very good news.

News Flash: Lewisville Residents Already Have Recycling

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The Town of Lewisville recently posted the following on its Facebook page:

***VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR TOWN RESIDENTS***

It has come to our attention that some Lewisville residents have been contacted by Waste Industries to become Waste Industries customers for recycling services.

IF you are a town resident, you are ALREADY provided garbage and recycling collection though Lewisville's contract with Waste Management.


LewisvilleRecycle

The Williams Road Bridge

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For all the folks in Lewisville wondering about the status of the Williams Road bridge – you know, the one between two traffic circles – the latest I've heard is that construction won't begin until some time next spring and when construction does begin NCDOT will close the bridge for however long it takes to repair (replace?) it.  Apparently they're also going to raise it so that there won't be a repeat of trucks with oversize loads hitting the underside, but unfortunately they won't be widening the span to allow for pedestrian or bike lanes. They'll also occassionally have to shut down 421 and detour traffic during certain parts of construction, similar to what they're doing on I-40 at Union Cross road right now. 

For those of us who live on the south side of 421 it's going to make our trip to downtown Lewisville just a tad more circuitous.

Running

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2013 is an election year for many NC municipalities and Lewisville is among them.  Folks can register as candidates between July 5-19 so whose hat is already in the ring now that we're not quite halfway through the registration period? Here's a quick rundown:

Mayor – Incumbent Dan Pugh has registered and right now he's running unopposed.

Council – Incumbents Fred Franklin, Jeff Zenger and Robert Greene have filed to run. Former councilman and mayor Mike Horn has filed to run for a council seat after sitting out last term due to term limits.

That's it for now, but the next six or seven days should bring a flurry of filings.  Incumbent council member Tom Lawson has reached his term limit so he'll have to take a break for at least one term. That leaves only two other incumbents, Ed Smith and Mayor Pro-Tem Sandra Mock, who have yet to file.

FYI, you can find the list of registered candidates at the Forsyth County Board of Elections website.

We’re Talking Downtown

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Over at the NC Legal Landscapes blog attorney Tom Terrell writes about the changes proposed for High Point by consultant Andres Duany:

Duany described High Point’s furniture market as “the most complete monoculture I’ve ever seen,” adding that all it is good for is “fame and tax base.” The town is designed and constructed to support a semi-annual economic event that, in itself, causes High Point to exist on statistical ledge, waiting against an unexpected event – any event – to topple it to the canyon floor below. “If the monoculture sneezes,” Duany noted, “there is no Plan B.”

In both standing-room-only public presentations, Duany expressed amazement at the obstacle created by the “market.” “When the market is gone, the entire downtown hibernates. . . . I’ve been to many places but never to a place where all the storefronts hibernate.”

In economic terms, Duany explained that the market is a “spike,” and spikes are terrible for commerce because businesses must continually “staff up and staff down.” High Point, he marveled, has the “Everest of spikes.”

Duany’s antidote is to create a mixed use town anchored by one “hot destination” district. Since the historic downtown is unavailable for that, he recommended another area several blocks north. “All it takes is two and a half blocks to create a famous destination,” citing examples of 2-3 block famous areas all of us had heard of.

High Point also must plant trees along that stretch and engage in “road dieting,” something he described as a non-negotiable aspect of the plan. Road dieting eliminates the hostile experience of speeding traffic, creates places for parking and landscaping, and nurtures a friendly, desirable place to visit.

For those of us working on Lewisville's downtown we don't need to worry about a hibernating downtown, but we do need to worry about how a bedroom community like ours can develop a downtown that hasn't really existed before. It's amazing how similar our concerns are to High Point's, especially our desire to create an environment that "nurtures a friendly, desirable place to visit."

 

 

You Know You’ve Ticked Them Off When…

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You know you've ticked off the voting public when two candidates for village council seats win via write-in and the mayor almost loses to a write-in.  Voters in Clemmons were sufficiently teed off at some of the candidates on the ballot (it had to do with a bond referendum and what appears to be a rift between a "new guard" and an "old guard") that they voted in two people who weren't even on the ballot, and narrowly missed voting out the incumbent mayor with a write-in campaign.  That's what I'd call a motivated voting populace.

Over in Lewisville things were much more sedate. I had the pleasure of serving on the Planning Board with two of the town council's newcomers, Sandy Mock, who garnered the most votes and Ed Smith who wasn't far behind in the vote count.  I think they'll do a great job for the town.

Splitting Important Hairs

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At last night's Lewisville Planning Board meeting we were reviewing the town's 2010 update to its Comprehensive Plan.  The Comprehensive Plan is a document that is created and revised by a series of task forces made up of volunteer citizens and then sent to the Planning Board for review and from there to the Town Council for final approval and adoption.  The task forces working on the 2010 review took the 2005 version and made necessary updates and edits based on changes in the town over the past five years — changes in the regulatory environment (ex. new Federal stormwater requirements), new developments over the past five years, etc.

One of the additions made was the mention of social media as a form of communication that the town should use to engage and inform its citizens.  During our discussion of that addition we hit on the fact that hyperlinks would be included in the document for the first time since the 2010 version of the Plan will be the first to reside online and not merely in print.  What ensued was a discussion that reminded me of President Clinton's famous quote that it "depends on what the definition of is is."

One of us (it might have been me) said that it would be great to have the ability to go back and add appropriate hyperlinks to the document if new sources of information became available.  For instance if the Comprehensive Plan references a map that isn't currently online, but becomes available online at a later date, it would be great to be able to insert a hyperlink to the map at that time.  The town attorney stopped us and said he'd be hesitant to say that would be allowable, mainly because it would change the document from whatever form the task forces had created, the Planning Board had reviewed and the Town Council had voted to adopt.  I, for one, wasn't sure that adding a hyperlink changed the document since it was merely adding a link to a source that was being referenced by the original document.  Then the question of who would confirm the accuracy of the linked document arose, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that we got started down a pretty serious philosophical rabbit hole from that point on.  

We're not done reviewing the Comprehensive Plan, and I'm still not convinced one way or another on whether or not the addition or deletion of a hyperlink changes a document.  I know our attorney well enough to be 100% sure that he's right legally, but I'm not sure that I agree philosophycally with the law in this case.  In the end I think the rabbit hole we started down will lead to one very significant choice that needs to be addressed: should a document like a town's Comprehensive Plan be a static piece that is changed only when the community comes together every X number of years, or should it be a living, breathing document that is updated on a regular basis? I won't tell you what I think, although you could probably guess, but I'd love to hear what others think.

Forgiveness

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I know a lot of Christians, myself included, who struggle with forgiveness. After reading Rick Reilly's column I'd say Lewisville's own superstar Chris Paul could probably teach us a thing or two.  Not many people would seek a second chance for their grandfather's killers:

"Even though I miss my granddad," Paul told me, "I understand that he's not coming back. At the time, it made me feel good when I heard they went away for life. But now that I'm older, when I think of all the things I've seen in my life? No, I don't want it. I don't want it…"

No, what floors me about Chris Paul is his humanity. If strangers had bound my weak-hearted grandfather, beat him for no reason and killed him for the cash in his wallet — strangers who to this day have not shown a thimbleful of contrition — I'd want them in prison 100 years after they were in the dirt. 

Chris Paul once wrote that his grandfather "taught me more things than I could ever learn with a Ph.D." 

One of them must've been love.