Of course you do. The guy’s a legend.

Well, two of his new fans, riders Greta Songe and John Martinek, are making a short animated film about him. (Songe, by the way, is part of the Tiny Circus animation team that worked out of the Airstream trailer for the past two years at the Des Moines Arts Festival.)

Here’s a clip from the cartoon, which is still a work in progress:

– Michael Morain

Now, the important part: A pair of spokespeople for BikeLayne.com, a website designed to combat Parkinson’s disease, set up the ice-cream bike at several stops along the RAGBRAI route this week to raise awareness about their cause.

As the story goes, Dr. Jay Alberts of the Cleveland Clinic was riding a tandem bike with a Parkinson’s patient during RAGBRAI a few years ago when he discovered that forced exercise reduced the patient’s tremors. (“Forced exercise” in this case means physical activity that is conducted longer and harder than what a person would be able to do on his or her own.) Further research funded in part by Bruce Layne of BikeLayne.com confirmed Alberts’ initial discovery

Now, the folks at BikeLayne want to help their website become what they call “the Huffington Post of Parkinson’s” — that is, an open forum for ideas that can help collectively find better treatments and, one day, a cure.

Here’s BikeLayne’s Claire Bernard with the ice-cream bike near the Port of Dubuque:

She had to warn riders who took a turn pedal-churning not to pedal too quickly or they’d end up with butter instead of ice cream.

– Michael Morain

Much of the talk at the site Saturday morning centered on the fact that the couple who own the property, Don and Becky Lansing, have put it up for sale for a reported cost of $5.4 million. Both Lansings handed out free bottles of water near the souvenir stand and chatted with visitors about their decision to sell the place after 21 years.

“We’re tired,” Becky Lansing said, explaining that it takes a lot of work to keep the place in shape for the thousands of baseball pilgrims who visit each year.

Besides, the Lansings are planning a pilgrimage of their own.

“We’ve always wanted to go to Italy,” Becky Lansing said.

On a side note, 16-year RAGBRAI veteran Bill Pennington of Andover, Mass., loved the movie so much when it came out, he built a baseball diamond in his own back yard and planted Iowa corn near the pine trees that framed the outfield. His daughter Melissa was young then and often worried her dad would disappear into the corn just like the players did in the movie.

So Pennington enlisted Becky Lansing in a little prank. At his request, she called his daughter, now 18, and left a voice message, introducing herself as the owner of the Field of Dreams and explaining that Pennington was lost in the corn.

“I’m very concerned because he hasn’t come back out,” Lansing deadpanned.

Here’s a look at the site and a few words from Lansing:

– Michael Morain

For the record, both QWASK-uh-tun and qwa-SKEE-tun are acceptable, but other versions kept popping up throughout the day from Iowans and out-of-staters alike. QUASKE-toon. QUASK-question. QUACK-town.

One rider told someone on the other end of her cell phone that she was in Queesaquatchie, prompting a local to interrupt with a polite correction.

“Everybody wants to know how it’s pronounced,” said lifelong resident Harvey Chesmore, 70, who was staffing the Quasqueton Historical Society’s museum on the main drag. “But the truth is, they’re all right. We just call it Quasky.”

So what does it actually mean? Native Americans gave the location along the Wapsipinicon River its first name, Quasquetuck, which means “swift running waters,” according to a booklet the local booster club published for the town’s – ready for this? – quasquicentennial, in 1967.

– Michael Morain