My six-year-old son, Oliver, and I push our bikes up the sidewalk in McClellan Heights, the most coveted residential district in Davenport, Iowa, a leafy neighborhood where some of my fellow professors live; where, in Mark Twain’s day, the famous Rock Island Rapids riverboat pilots built their mansions. This morning the streets are cordoned off, and cheering spectators line the sidewalks and yards. The occasion is the 53rd annual Quad Cities Criterium, a day of bicycle races around a short, hilly loop, past historic homes. We stop at Lyle and Sigrid’s place, a stately foursquare with a wide porch and generous front lawn that today is covered by folding chairs and canopies for their annual “crit” party. Canned craft beer and ice fill a kiddie pool, and a neighbor who owns a local brewery has donated a keg of ale. A commercial-sized smoker sits on its trailer at the edge of the yard. The hosts have spent hundreds of dollars on food and drink — an investment in local goodwill. Sigrid is a lawyer, and Lyle a software developer; they are the sort of people I now consort with, though I never would have gotten near a party like this in my younger days.