An Old-School Visionary

 The Book of Ecclesiastes (1:9) reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun.

In earlier posts, I wrote about “bike libraries” as if they were some new, visionary idea. Turns out, someone created and operated one siglehandedly more than 40 years ago.  And Charles Kuralt used that exact phrase to describe it.

The best part is that the man in charge—Jethro Mann, who died at 96 in 2013–wasn’t running it as a nonprofit organization.  He did all of the work—from “rescuing” discarded bicycles, repairing them (or, sometimes, grafting parts from several bikes onto others), loaning them and keeping records (on paper) when kids took them out and returned them.

He also did something else that seemed revolutionary when organizations like “Recycle a Bicycle” started doing it about 20 years ago:  He turned his space into a kind of community center where kids not only learned how to fix flats and other problems; they also showed kids younger than themselves how to do the same.

While doing all of that, hemodeled kindness and respect and expected his benefactors to do the same. He, whose day job was with the state of North Carolina, definitely would not have a place in the Trump Administration or the MAGA movement.

Oh, and while fixing bikes and helping kids—most of whom were poor and African-American—he wore overalls over a dress shirt and tie.  And a fedora.  When was the last time you saw that?

Whatever his age, he would have been in the middle of his life, and life itself. I would have loved to meet him, even as the snotty young thing I was.

Was This His Weekend Plan?

 Tomorrow is Labor Day here in the US.

Some people are going to the beach one last time.

Some are cycling there.

Not many, I reckon, are combining those activities.

Who—Or What—Is Next?

 It’s been said that the deaths of famous people come in threes. Within the past two weeks, we lost two of the most amazing women: Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem.  Some (including me) would count Tim Curry, who died the same day as Dolly. Others might Robin Morgan, who passed yesterday, in the group. Perhaps we should make it four:  In Japanese and other cultures, the number is associated with death.

Strange times we’re in (as if we weren’t before). One of my neighbors, whom I usually encountered while smoking with other neighbors just outside our building, has kicked the habit. That’s a good thing, of course (unless you have stock in Philip-Morris), but the circumstances that brought him to that decision weren’t delightful:  While in a store, he started gasping and was rushed to the emergency room.  Oh, and someone else I know was ordered to the hospital immediately when tests revealed liver damage.

Somehow I knew change was gonna come (apologies to Sam Cooke) as I set out for Point Lookout, a ride I have taken many times. The weather was almost too perfect:  temperature-wise, more like a day later in this month or even next month, preternaturally blue skies and white, puffy clouds. Waves rolled in, echoing streams of flapping egrets’ wings. Perhaps it had to do with hearing, before I set out to ride, about a news item about an event to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Like almost everybody else who lived through that day, I remember how beautiful it was right before the planes flew toward the towers: much like yesterday.

Movies and TV programs never show disasters happening on days like yesterday or, for that matter, 11 September 2001. But the times before, if not the disaster itself, then the loss of innocence, always seem to be idyllic, even Edenic, shown through a scrim, or perhaps a gauze, of dreamlike haze. Even the sunset, when seen through that mist, wispy clouds drifting about, does not seem to portend the coming of the moment when it all becomes a memory—and nobody in the scene knows what’s coming. The audience does, but they can’t tell.