Cycling Through Columbine

Description

As I bicycled along in my mind with JRW Case on the “blue highways” of this country, I couldn’t help but also tag along on his inner journey to explore those important 21st century questions of values that we all face…who am I and what is my role in creating the world I desire for my children, and my children’s children? I encourage everyone to read this book and “cycle along” on their own journey of self-exploration.
–Mark Gilbert, author of Be Yourself Evolving the World Through Personal Empowerment
I believe this is an important and powerful book. The opening moments are terrific…The book is by turns powerful, funny, poignant, harrowing, and heartfelt. We meet a narrator who is processing through movement, community, and, upon one of the biggest and most dramatic “ruptures” of his adult life; one that shifted not only his identity, but the identity of the community, and the country, as well. This is a fantastic premise for a book…one written in a propulsive, tightly controlled narrative.
I am deeply moved by the connection JRW Case felt with one particular victim and his lacking a sense of belonging….For the storyteller, of course, the perspective is unique because he was in direct contact with the events and personally invested. But the book tells an American story–of war, expansion, guns, “freedom,” and people building new lives from the ashes of old ones. We are ALL invited by the strength of the narrative to reckon with this. The aftermath of Columbine is the aftermath for ALL of us. -Emily Rapp Black, author of Poster Child: A Memoir
As I bicycled along in my mind with JRW Case on the “blue highways” of this country, I couldn’t help but also tag along on his inner journey to explore those important 21st century questions of values that we all face…who am I and what is my role in creating the world I desire for my children, and my children’s children? I encourage everyone to read this book and “cycle along” on their own journey of self-exploration.
–Mark Gilbert, author of Be Yourself Evolving the World Through Personal Empowerment
This book is at once a memoir, a travelogue, a dispassionate look at a notorious school massacre, by an author coming to terms with unresolved memories and heartfelt parental uncertainties. The reader isn’t just pushed along but rather propelled forward through the external and internal experiences of an insightful scribe relentlessly pedaling across space and time.
-Brent Green, author of Questions of the Spirit: The Quest for Understanding at A Time of Loss
In the wake of Columbine, many spoke of unity, hoping to engender some. Others offered thoughts and prayers. Instead, the months would turn into years, investigations and trials dragging on without much in terms of relief, accountability, or resolution. Obvious gains were notable instead, in the increasing number of 211 mass casualty events caused by gunfire in the public places along Colorado’s Front Range. Behind the scenes, parents whose family members had been wounded or killed by gun violence would revisit those memories, but never see their beloveds again. And, I watched as the spirit of Columbine lingered for a while, withered, and then faded into some inaccessible place, like the memory of a prodigal child, distant and remote, but never forgotten. JRW Case Bike Tours USA author Robert Case