What I Believe: Chris Hoffmann
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By COLLEEN KENNEY / Lincoln Journal Star
Chris Hoffmann says he’s a child of post-modernity.
“We don’t believe much.”
But he believes in bicycles.
Related Media
Audio Slideshow: I Believe, Chris Hoffmann
I Believe is a seven day series featuring the beliefs of Lincoln locals. (Heidi Hoffman/JounalStar.com)...
He’s a big guy with a beard. His forehead sweats. It’s noon, on a humid day that will reach the mid-90s. He’s just walked into a coffee house in the Haymarket to talk about why he believes bikes could save the world.
Hoffman, 33, rode here from his apartment near 21st and Washington streets on his hand-crafted Rivendell, a throwback to another era.
Near the State Office Building downtown, he passed a pretty woman who was walking. She was in her late 20s or 30s and wore a flowered sundress. He likes to wonder about the people he sees, what their stories are.
He rode through downtown to the university, where he’s a religious-studies major “on the 15-year plan,” he says, smiling.
He grew up Catholic but isn’t religious. He believes it’s important to learn what people believe and why they believe it, because religion has contributed so much to why the world is the way it is today.
He bought a New York Times at the university. Then he rode back through downtown, along O Street, watching people, watching out for cars not obeying the rules.
Outside a college bar called Brothers, on the corner of 14th and O streets, he heard two guys talking about something.
... At least he didn’t paint it red ...
Were they remodelers?
Up the street, he saw the woman in the sundress again. He wondered why she was walking so far in such a nice dress in the heat. Why wasn’t she in a car?
He swung by another bar, O’Rourke’s, and peered in the window as he rode by, just to see who was inside.
He works there as a bartender, loves his job. He usually starts work at 5 p.m. and stays until an hour after closing to clean up.
He’s learned a lot about people at O’Rourke’s, like not to judge them based on how they act when they’ve been drinking. For the regulars, the bar is like their living room, a place they can unwind and have fun, and it’s OK.
On the job, or in different environments, these people might act very differently. That’s human nature, Hoffmann says.
Many people driving cars, he says, behave differently than they do when walking or riding a bike.
He’s seen that change in himself, and he doesn’t like it. He hasn’t owned a car for a decade. When he borrows one or rents one for out-of-town trips, he becomes angrier, lazier. He notes how little he notices the people around him, the neighborhoods, the topography. He doesn’t feel the hills.
When he’s driving, he becomes angry at people driving too slow or too fast. He doesn’t like feeling that way.
So he bikes.
Sometimes drivers yell at him. Sometimes he catches up to them at a stoplight and yells back, just to make them think, mess with them a bit. He usually sees a look of fear come over them, as if they didn’t think their little fortress could allow that happen.
On a bike, there’s no such protection, he says. But sometimes it’s good to feel vulnerable.
Bicycles can save the world because biking makes people feel more connected to it, Hoffmann believes.
And to one another.
Colleen Kenney is on leave. Reach her editors at 473-7306 or citydesk@journalstar.com
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