Riding on the edge of society

Editor's note: Matt Wittmer is a Cape Girardeau native and an avid cyclist. He is helping to plot a bike route from Canada to Key West, Fla., as part of the East Coast Greenway. Wittmer's portion of the ride started in September in Washington, D.C., and will end in Key West in November.

Gleaning is the gathering of crops left in fields after harvest. People practiced it in Biblical times. It was, in fact, an order of God. Ruth is known as The Gleaner.

As outlined in Leviticus 19:9-10 and Deuteronomy 14:28-29, landowners were instructed to leave a corner of their fields unharvested and the fallen fruit of their vineyards untouched, that the poor and the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, might come and take their portion. One could think of it as the earliest form of social welfare.

It was natural in the Middle Ages also and common in France into the 19th century, until rights to it were reduced and sometimes withdrawn.

Nowadays, it is a politically charged act. Across ideological lines, groups are resurrecting the ancient practice and, in the process, rethinking our society's horrendous wastefulness.

The group Food Not Bombs recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves it outside in public spaces to anyone, without restriction.

The Society of St. Andrew has delivered more than 6.5 million pounds of salvaged potatoes and other food to the needy in Missouri alone.

And gleaning is the backbone of a subculture called Freeganism, an anti-consumerism lifestyle based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.

The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act -- a gleaning initiative as well -- is an effort to encourage the safe donation of food and grocery products to not-for-profit organizations such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens and churches for distribution to the downtrodden.

I outlined my ethic in my first column. I planned to live on the margins during this trip, and I have. For the time being, I am a roving gleaner, mobile and benign.

The idea extends beyond the belly. Usufruct is the right of temporary possession and enjoyment of something that belongs to somebody else, so far as that can be done without causing damage or changing its substance. It's become my favorite art. For instance, I've found a safe spot to sleep without cost 14 of 17 nights so far.

One can glean wireless Internet, electricity, bagels, and, like the turkey vultures circling the castoffs of the highway, a shirt and hat here, a bungee cord there.

I'm doing it right now, in the lobby of a courtyard by Marriot in Carolina Beach, N.C., and I filed my first column on a wireless bleed across the highway from a Days Inn off I-95.

Couchsurfing.org and warmshowers.com are sites for travelers, networks of like-minded people intent upon reimagining their journeys. I'm using their resources, too.

And I'm practicing in other, less tangible ways. All the information you have read has been gleaned via the Internet. It functions as a metaphor for what I've been doing on the road.

Even documentation can be thought of in this way. I am, effectively, taking images from the everyday world that would otherwise be lost, and shaping them into a coherent whole. Hopefully.

The dual arts of gleaning and usufruct come as naturally as breathing to the nonmotorized traveler, transients of all stripes and those existing on society's fringe. You may know them as dumpster divers or bums or oddballs. They may be meddlesome, even appear desperate, but they do have their own unique story to tell.

Fear can lead us to believe our way is the only way. Humanity, though, is as varied as the birds of the air, as colorful and, most likely, as beautiful and harmless when given the chance to pitch its tent where it pleases.

So I've given you some stuff to Google. Go forth and glean.