Shortly after my return to MIT came the first Arab Boycott. The lines of cars waiting at the gas stations, and my growing awareness of our nation's vulnerability, led me to sell my family's second car and commit myself to year-round bicycle commuting.

My ride was over a route paralleling Paul Revere's as far as Lexington. Actually, it came closer to General Gage's route as he set out from Boston to reinforce the British who had just fired some of the shots "heard 'round the world". Joining Lowell St. at the foot of my hill, my route to MIT became Massachusetts Avenue at Arlington Heights and proceeded through Arlington Center to Porter Square in Cambridge. There, it passed over "killer bridge", known for its unexpected formation of ice glaze that had wiped me out twice as I approached on a blind turn, and then continued its beeline on Beacon Street for MIT, just across the Charles River from Boston. Nine miles if by bicycle, fourteen if by automobile.

The latter 70's were characterized by Carter's declaration of the "Moral Equivalent of War". Motivated by a price of oil that peaked at double its pre-boycott level, Congress gave the Department of Energy the resources necessary to encourage research and development of indigenous energy sources. Special tax incentives were designed to encourage the commercial development of a range of energy alternatives, many of which would have long since been commercially competitive if the price of oil had remained at the boycott level. Although the Greenhouse Effect did not yet loom over the use of fossil fuels, environmental consequences of energy utilization were also being addressed. And energy conservation became a high priority. Automobile advertising switched from emphasizing luxury to fuel conservation, making ironic the recent return to an emphasis on mileage.

My research turned from experiments and theories aimed at demonstrating basic principles to such literally dirty applications as air-pollution control, of diesel exhaust as well as conventional and new-generation coal combustors. Typical were my graduate students, Karim Zahedi, Jeff Alexander and Peter Zieve, who one day were theorizing about the mass-transfer influences of electric fields on fluidized beds, the next were working with "hard-hats" in a Brockton plant to apply these ideas to making the recycling of asphaltic concrete environmentally acceptable and who, upon graduation, started their own company to develop and market a new class of air pollution control equipment.

But, bicycling did the most to put me in touch with the popular view on energy and the environment. Partly through the inspiration of my doctoral student, Richard Withers, who joined me for a number of years on much of my commuting route, I became active in promoting bicycling. I provided support for Richard as he joined with others in the organization of the Boston Area Bicycle Coalition. For a year or so I represented the BABC and the League of American Wheelmen on Beacon Hill in the promotion of legislation concerned with bicycling. In 20 minutes, the "T" would get me from my office at MIT to a hearing or conference in our state capital building.

For me, those were the days of hope that Americans would face squarely the challenges of energy and environment, making individual contributions to achieving a meaningful security for themselves and their children. In a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, someone even worried that people would get so serious as to take "better than thou" attitudes toward those who did not join in. However, even then I recognized the futility of presenting the challenge as requiring sacrifice. Bicycling was fun, and that is why we did it.

Indeed it was. While providing exercise that would otherwise be gotten in the stultifying surroundings of a bedroom, gym, track or pool, bicycle commuting also provided the satisfaction of having done useful work. During a period when I had the company of not only Richard, but another of my graduate students, Kent Davey, we got good enough to even be a bit competitive. I was drafting Kent as he won the Great Commuter Race from City Hall in suburban Wellesley to the State House in downtown Boston. And the three of us placed first for a team in one of MIT's bi-yearly 30 mile intramural races, the average participant's age being about half of mine.

Attitudes toward the obvious dangers of sharing the road with automobiles, buses and trucks provide one of the many insights about how the electorate will face a long term crisis. The dangers of bicycling, real as they are, are the first excuse for commuting as usual. Already a well known television reporter in the Boston area, Joe Day was covering a BABC rally on the City Hall Plaza and used my bald head to pick me out of the youthful crowd. In opening an interview that appeared that evening on the news, he asked me "Isn't bicycling dangerous?" "Yes, and so is skiing." was my answer.

But, attitudes toward bicycling and skiing injuries are typically very different. Although bicycle commuting might be regarded as a sport pitting one person against a variety of natural and man made challenges, mishaps in bicycle commuting hardly have the same aura as the broken bones and even fatalities that also result on ski runs and jumps. My heroes tend to be those who returned to their sport after suffering their "agony of defeat" when the sport represents something more than a way to achieve public adulation or money. They are the Will Allises and the Louis Smullins, examples of MIT colleagues who were hospitalized from injuries received while bicycle commuting after reaching retirement age and who returned to their commuting as soon as they were well. (MIT professors never really retire.)

After the equivalent of more than four times around the world on essentially the same route, almost every block brings to mind some type of incident. One that taught me to pay attention to even minor complaints from my bicycle occurred on the way home shortly after I had crested a small hill on Beacon Street in Cambridge. My handlebars, which had been making a creaking sound, suddenly broke in two. Forewarned, I might have been able to come to a halt while holding onto unattached brakes and bars, but as it was I ended up with my Schwinn straddling a bus stop sign with my chainwheel bent out of shape. That night, after being rescued by my wife, I hammered the chainwheel flat, borrowed another pair of handlebars from an old three-speed, and the next morning I rode the Schwinn to work. Although I was hit by cars about a half-dozen times, the two incidents that required an ambulance did not involve automobiles. In the worst of these, I had miscalculated on my blood-sugar level (I am a diabetic) and fainted while negotiating the "broken handlebar" hill one sleety evening. That resulted in the breaking of a collarbone and three ribs, and six weeks of missed bicycling. Or was it only five weeks? During the 70's it seemed to make more of a difference.

The 70's were also a period when we saw the Shah of Iran as he was being interviewed on a US national news program look straight at the camera and affirm that he was God. America, whose CIA had played a key role in making this possible, seemed unabashed. For those who followed what happened in Iran, Kuwait is a replay. For the sake of oil, our government had cast its lot with an obscenely rich familiar dictatorship that was out of step with popular movements that would persist in demanding a share in the petroleum wealth. During the 70's we sold our best arms to Iran in support of the Peacock family. Now, that support goes to the relatives of the Emir in Kuwait and of the sheiks in Saudi Arabia with the poor neighboring Arab states a caldron of popular discontent that rallies around the Palestinian cause.