Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
“Some of the Americans are ugly Americans, but we know we ain’t all that way.”
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers
“Counterclockwise”
It’s about much more than a trip across America on horseback.
That’s part of his plan, but Bill Inman of Lebanon is really more about uncovering America and, with an independent filmmaker and webmaster, telling America’s stories and putting a different, more realistic, face on Americans than the national and international media present.
“It’s not just about the adventure,” Inman said. “It’s about the people that live in Sweet Home.”
It’s about the people who live wherever he is at the time, he said.
“The horse will slow it down, so we can see the people.”
Inman is joined by Dallas Pesola of New York and Jonathan Campos of Lebanon.
Pesola is an independent filmmaker who was driving across America when he heard about and decided to join forces with Inman. He is filming the trip as a documentary.
Campos plans to run a Web site and blog documenting the journey, which is scheduled to begin June 3. Campos comes to the area from Nevada, where he worked with Inman.
Inman moved to Lebanon 10 months ago from Nevada, where he worked for the Department of the Interior. He is a 47-year-old Gulf War veteran. He has run ranches and worked with Native American ranches in Nevada, and he is a licensed auctioneer, he said.
Campos and Pesola will travel ahead as Inman rides the countryside on his 15-year-old half-quarterhorse, half-thoroughbred, Blackie.
At the beginning of the trip, Sweet Home, “they’ll park at Thriftway and invite whoever they think makes a positive image of America to come talk to them,” Inman said. “I’m uncovering America.”
The three plan to look for interesting places, individuals, groups and history that inspire pride or lift up the spirit, he said.
“The goal will be to promote a positive image of America and to outshine the negative images seen in the media. This adventure will show the American public that we do have something to be proud of, and nothing is impossible as long as you try.”
Inman plans to ride 80 to 100 miles each week. He isn’t planning a specific length to the trip, but he thinks it will take about 32 weeks. His destination is North Carolina.
The group will travel four to five days a week, stopping to explore communities of interest, he said, and local and national media will be invited to participate directly or indirectly to rouse support and excitement.
“We will hold old-time town meetings in a location where the public can swap stories and interact with us,” Inman said, to reveal what’s really going on in America.
Watching the news, “it just looks like the whole thing is coming unraveled,” he said. He wants to get tidbits of American life onto networks such as CNN, to show that the United States isn’t all just school shootings, methamphetamines and crooked politicians.
“I’ve never met a CEO,” he said. “I’ve never met a child molester, a school shooter.”
That’s not what America is, but that’s what people around the world see, he said, and if not that, a materialistic, arrogant people.
He said he is looking for the guy who’s making biodiesel in his back yard, the fabricator who’s gone unnoticed, the backbone of communities, the volunteers, he said. Lebanon suffered during the decline of the timber industry, but the city has bounced back. He wants to focus on the kind of people who’ve made that happen.
He also wants to promote natural resources and the outdoors among the youth, he said. “They’re seeking discovery and adventure. You don’t see a lot of unhappy kids engaging the outdoors.”
The trip will be financed by sponsors, he said. Sponsors can place their logos on the team’s equipment along with space on the Web page.
It also provides opportunities for nonprofit charitable causes, which are welcome to organize fund-raising events connected to his journey, he said, adding that nonprofit organizations could take pledges and keep money collected inside the organization so he doesn’t need to handle it. Groups such as 4-H can join up for a stretch of his trip and use that as a fund-raising technique, for example.
Inman put this trip together after someone told him he should write a book about his work chasing wild Mustangs, working with Native Americans and working in Costa Rica.
“I’m not a writer,” he said. “I wanted to, but I could do a lot more if I get on my horse and do what I do best and have it documented.”
He plans to ride in the Strawberry Parade in Lebanon on June 2 and then, on June 3, begin his journey by riding into Sweet Home. From Sweet Home, he will ride up Highway 20 to the Old Santiam Wagon Road where he will complete most of his trip across the west side of the mountains.
The group may be reached at http://www.uncoveringamerica.com and through the e-mail addresses of [email protected] and [email protected]. A phone system using an Internet service may be set up before the trip.