LANCASTER, Pa. – I’m often asked by people who are not writers or in the media business why most writers – specifically sports writers and journalists – are so darned cynical. It’s a fair question because most of the people who write for a living seem to take a bit of perverse pleasure in debunking myths and raining on parades.
“The reason writers are so cynical,” I answer, “is because almost all of them have been burned by the truth more than once.”
It’s kind of like the time when I was a teenager and spent two weeks during a summer working in one of my grandfather’s restaurants. I would never eat there, I told people, because “I saw what went on in the kitchen.”
That’s the way it is with most writers. The clichéd credo is often either “hope for the best but expect the worst,” or “if something is too good to be true, chances are it is too good to be true.”
Nevertheless, there is still the idea of hope. Hope for the best – a good story, a hero or something uplifting. Hope is always the operative word.
So when Floyd Landis and his improbable story rocketed into the sports landscape like it was Haley’s Comet, writer-types broke out the binoculars and telescopes with the hope (there’s that word again) of gleaning something new and interesting. You know, something out of the ordinary from so many of the stories that dot the papers and Web sites like so many stars in the sky.
But when the news of Landis’ failed drug test first began to tickle out – showing higher levels of testosterone/epitestosterone allowed by rule – it was like a jolt to the solar plexus, followed by a kick in the gut. This hurts. This hurts badly.
That’s especially the case for a writer-dude like me, who grew up in Lancaster city – not too far from where Landis was brought up in his fundamental Mennonite household. Though our upbringings were about as different as could be, just the idea of the winner of the Tour de France coming from the same general place as me was, well, neat. Though those differences are myriad, there definitely had to be some shared experiences. Like I once bought a bike at Green Mountain Cyclery in Ephrata, Pa., which just so happened to be the shop where Landis hung out, got his first real bike, and signed on for his first racing sponsorship.
Heck, I even live on Landis Avenue.
Actually, it’s the same way for the folks all over Lancaster County where people are looking for some way they can share in greatness. You know, find something they can touch and relate to.
At the Oregon Dairy, a food market, dairy, ice cream shop, gift shop and restaurant, located just at the edge of the Lancaster suburbs and farm country, there is a makeshift shrine on the wall near the entrance for Floyd Landis with newspaper clippings, a copy of VeloNews, photographs, and the coup de grace, a sheet of poster board neatly written with a simple sentence:
Floyd Landis Worked Here!
Needless to say, there was no talk about Thursday’s news – aside from a headline on the front page of the Lancaster New Era taunting the locals from the paper box on the sidewalk:
Floyd Landis Fails Drug Test.
Six miles away from the Oregon Dairy through rolling countryside with little-used back roads that are perfect for bike riding along the banks of the wildly winding Conestoga River, is East Farmersville Road. At a neat farmhouse filthy with TV trucks, writer-types and curiosity seekers sitting astride touring bikes, no such dichotomy exists. The headline, not poster, is the reality. Nevermind the fact that the truth is still out there in the ether waiting to settle on those pages and Web sites, or that Landis issued a strong denial to Sports Illustrated on Thursday evening.
All that’s left is hope. Hope that the “B” sample proves that there was a false positive. Hope that something extraordinary will occur just like during Landis’ miraculous comeback during Stage 17 of the Tour de France. Hope that Landis will still have an honorable reputation remaining when this is all over.
His mother and devout Mennonite, Arlene Landis, is hopeful.
"My opinion is when he comes on top of this, everyone will think so much more of him. So that's what valleys are for, right?" Mrs. Landis told reporters from in front of her house on Thursday.
"I'm not concerned. I think God is allowing us to go through this so that Floyd's glory is even greater."
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Question begat more questions as the poking and prodding of what Landis puts into his body has just begun. Landis knows this and is not hopeful, according to his interview with Sports Illustrated.
Landis told the magazine that he "can't be hopeful" that the "B" sample will be any different than the "A."
"I'm a realist," he said.
Sadly, we all are.