Robert Kennedy

Saw a road named after the assassinated rich, white dude from MA today, upon entering the poor side of Ville Platte, LA (yes, NOT Platteville, WI). Then a street named after his more famous brother.
And for the first time I thought of them as being kinda like Frank and Andy Schleck, the bike racing brothers who are inseparable - and each other's best teammate. Now, this was near then of a long, hot, humid day into a brutal wind (15 - 25 mph, mostly cross wind) where I was afraid in the morning, then resigned to my fate/duty round lunch, then determined to just keep turnin' the pedals over, no matter how hard or boring it was...so I know it is weird; but it is what it is. The mind goes to strange places over 5+ hours of pedaling, especially when the wind makes conversation difficult.
And then we rode through some poor Louisiana neighborhoods where a white dude could reasonably be a little concerned for his safety. And I thought about Bobby, and how he visited poor neighborhoods in the deep south (of 'Merica!) And how it really effected him; how he wanted to do something, anything, to help his fellow Americans. Even the poor ones, even the dark ones. And how, it seems, whenever you want to or try to help poor people you get killed. You get killed in "mysterious circumstances". You get killed by the CIA. You get killed by "School of the Americas" trained (in Georgia, by Americans) right-wing mercenaries in Central or South America.
The thing that pulled me out of my random thoughts about Bobby, about history, about poor people and powerful people?
A woman in the passenger seat of a car in the poor neighborhood of Ville Platte who yelled to us as we biked by
"God bless y'all!"