“Senior Citizens” Should “”Limit” Their Outdoor Activities

 We’ve been warned to limit our outdoor activities if we have chronic medical conditions or are “senior citizens.”

Since I am, ahem, in midlife and know that the definition of “limit” can be, shall we say, elastic, I did go for an early ride.  City Island and back: entirely agreeable—especially on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike—and fits the word “limit,” at least for me.

The island looks like a bit like a New England fishing village. But the thing that reminds you it is, after all, part of New York City (and a tourist trap) are the restaurants and their patrons.  I could smell the fried clams which, somehow, I don’t think New England fishermen eat—and I know weren’t bivalves from local waters. I also noticed the youngish couples who, I assume, were “doing brunch” even if, by most people’s standards, it was breakfast-time.

But, of course, nobody goes to those restaurants for the seafood which is delivered frozen, in trucks, just like the fish and crustaceans one might order anywhere else in the city.  And those restaurants aren’t exactly bargains.  People go to those eateries for the same reason the island is one of my “limit” ride destinations:  the views.

So I will not judge anyone for “doing brunch” at overpriced mediocre restaurants where they could eat exactly the same stuff served on the mainland. I will not judge them, any more than I will judge anyone else riding a bicycle, no matter how decrepit or simply inferior it may be—precisely because I used to judge such riders (some of whom brought their bikes to the island on carriers attached to their cars). It was a lovely morning, and wildfire smoke had yet to shroud the sky.  Let them enjoy it as they will!