This Isn’t What They Mean By “Going Green”

What I see during rides is a surprising —and sometimes shocking.

Witness this, from a recent late-afternoon ride:

A puddle with its own ecosystem?

The Abbey Road Ahead

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Is it nostalgia? Or does it mean I haven’t given up? Jo

I am pondering those questions as I’m listening to “Abbey Road,” specifically “Something.”

When “Abbey Road,” I was a couple of years shy of the demographic that made it one of the most iconic albums of all time. Still, whatever your age, you heard its most popular songs, like “Come Together,” “Something “ and “Here Comes The Sun” on the radio in 1969. The album is great because of its songwriting, musicianship and the sheer charisma of “The Fab Four.” But it’s also a reminder—or, at least it reminds me—of how what some would see as idle whimsicality is as necessary as analysis. Actually, rationality has nowhere to go without imagination.  

The album also reminds me that cynicism is not to be confused with wisdom, and it’s not naive to believe that joy is still possible. If anything, it might simply be an act of defiance: It’s not about not letting go, it’s about not allowing something to be taken from you.

That is not nostalgia. It’s what we need to move forward or, more precisely, what’s necessary to make the journey, whatever remains of it (personally or globally) meaningful.

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.

Gloria Steinem Dies In The Middle Of Her Life, At 92

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.

She admits that she didn’t coin the phrase.  But she probably did more to popularize it (and its paraphrase, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”)

I am talking, of course, about the one and only Gloria Steinem.  Please indulge me that one cliche: She was not only one-of-a-kind; I truly believe that it’s simply not possible for this world, let alone the human race, to produce anyone else like her.

Yesterday she passed away, age 92.

I remember my disbelief when hearing that she was 80 years old. She seemed to be as much in the middle of her life as she was decades earlier. Perhaps it came from living and working for the causes she championed  with the knowledge that even when a policy changed, a new law passed or people (some, anyway) changed the way they thought, her work would never end. She clearly never forgot the struggles she faced while growing up (her father died when she was 11) or as a young woman trying to make her way in male-dominated spheres.

Her body has ceased to function. But her legacy hasn’t, in spite of Trump’s (and his allies’) attempts to destroy it. That is why she will always be in the middle of her life: the only possible, let alone proper, way to remember her.

This Light, That Color

 A downpour in the early hours. Rain until late morning. Then this:

I have never seen such a sky early in the afternoon in this part of the world.

I am not Vincent Van Gogh who, I believe, experienced colors as energies and balanced (especially violet and yellow) rather than merely contrasted or complemented them, as someone like me, who can only see colors, would. Nor am I Claude Monet, who sensed light as a tapestry of colors and textures woven into a moment. But I do perceive and remember moments, events and people by the light around them. 

I believe I will recall early this afternoon—an otherwise ordinary time—by the light of that sky, unlike any other I have seen. Does it convey some energy I can’t yet, and perhaps never will be able to, explain? 

What Does It Mean To Be Retired?

 

The new semester has begun. For the first time in many years, I am not part of it.

After I taught my last class, more than three months ago, my brother asked me how I felt about it. “I don’t feel retired,” I said. “ I think it will hit me when next semester starts.” Well, here I am and I still don’t feel “retired.” Is something supposed to happen in one’s body, one’s mind or one’s life when one stops doing what they’ve done for most, or all, of their working life?

People have advised me to keep busy. I am doing that,  and will probably become even busier if I do even a few of the things I’ve planned or contemplated. Of course I have been cycling, writing and helping Sam, Carrie and a couple of other people with everything from fixing bikes to filling out forms. But I am also, in whatever ways I can, be someone who is the kind of person I didn’t know when I was growing up or beginning my life as Justine. I got a glimpse of that person when, after my last class, two non-binary students told me they were glad to, not only have me as a professor, but also simply to meet me: It showed them, they explained, that the lives they want to live are possible.

And, as I mentioned in the post I wrote afterwards, it actually confirmed, for me, that I was making the best decision. The venue and context may change, but there is work and simply living to be done. Perhaps that is the reason I don’t feel retired, and possibly won’t.

On Top Of The Curve

 Beach cruisers aren’t meant to be high-performance bikes. So their designers can be, shall we say, a little whimsical:

A “Blockbuster” No One Wants To See

 Rain, rain and more rain. That’s a fair summary of the past two days. One local weather forecaster called this summer a “blockbuster storm season.”  Blockbuster? I guess storms can be spectacles, spreading  across the sky like a movie on a screen.

Ironically, I was most worried about rain the other day, I’d pedaled out to Point Lookout and was enjoying pane de casa from Addeo’s with Manchego cheese when a cumulus cloud with a face of shadows crawled across the sky. It passed, and I made good use of my sunscreen during the ride back.

And now I get to watch this summer’s “blockbuster “ when we were supposed to see a near-total lunar eclipse.

We Didn’t Lose A Hero: Dolly Parton Will Always Be One

 

The other day, I wrote about heroes. In that post, I said that our heroes, especially when we are young, are people we believe we can emulate, or at least become. So a young person’s hero might be an athlete because they don’t yet realize that being the best basketball player in their neighborhood doesn’t mean they have the talent to win a scholarship to UCLA or Indiana, let alone a contract with the Lakers or Celtics. Or, perhaps, they might idolize a musical performer before they realize that no matter how much they practice, they’ll never play guitar like Jimi Hendrix.

Once they realize they can’t emulate a hero, one hopes they will find another satisfying path and not grow bitter and cynical.  If they want or need a hero, perhaps they can find one in someone who makes an admirable choice that they themselves could make.

When I was younger, Dolly Parton wasn’t a hero simply because I never could have imagined I could become like her. I don’t have her looks or talents—at least, not her talents.  I could, however, identify with the sentiment in “Jolene”—a sense of insecurity over not being “good enough “—and realized that she was doing things  of which I was capable, however imperfectly:  She could empathize and express it, and thus herself, in a completely authentic way.

And that is why she is—dare I say it—a hero to so many of us, whether in the LGBTQ community or in other dilemmas not of our own making, or enlisted military members (many of whom grew up poor, as she did). She wasn’t simply feeding us “It Gets Better” platitudes; she was creating and, more important, simply being, something better because she was unapologetically who she was.

That is why we didn’t lose a hero yesterday: She will always be one. At least, one of mine.

Who Are The Heroes?

 

Yesterday’s post was a “Sunday Funny,” got me to thinking about an interesting question: Who is a hero, really?

When we’re growing up, our idols tend to be much older than ourselves. To some kids, parents  might be heroes and even continue to be even after they become parents themselves. An athlete or other performer is often the object of a kid’s adoration. I knew a brother and sister whose avatars were, respectively, a mechanic and beautician. They were like magicians, who seemingly could do the impossible with their hands, in the eyes of those siblings.

I am not an anthropologist, psychologist or sociologist. For whatever it’s worth, here’s my theory about hero-formation: The one admired is visible, whether in person or some medium, and does something the admirer can’t do in the moment but hopes to accomplish one day. That, I believe, is a reason why most kids don’t idolize the author of a book (especially if it’s a children’s book) or creator of a movie or cartoon:  They cannot see the wordsmith, the animator, the director or, for that matter, even know their names. Also, they don’t get to see the process of those creations as they do with an athletic performance or dance.

You grow up, become as old as your childhood heroes and your life takes a path different from theirs. Sometimes very different. You realize that you won’t do whatever they did, whether because you couldn’t or your priorities change. Or you realize your heroes weren’t the people you thought they were.

My favorite baseball player was Tom Seaver.  He was one of the greatest pitchers ever to grace the game. But he wasn’t a hero:  I knew, early on, that I never would be a professional ball player, no matter how hard I worked at it. Later, when I learned about bicycle racing, I admired Eddy Merckx, who was in his prime. But he, too, wasn’t someone I could idolize because in those days, Americans didn’t ride in the peloton. The cyclists I admired were people like John Rakowski, whose around-the-world bicycle tour I followed in Bicycling!, and fellow club members-especially the women—who pedaled up mountains and across hundreds of miles.

In other words, my heroes, even when I was young, were people who did things I couldn’t do at the moment, but could do if I dedicated myself. In addition to the cyclists I mentioned, some teachers and professors became heroes, even though I wasn’t yet considering their career paths, because their education and the kinds of understanding they were out of my range yet still attainable.  As for people I never would meet, I looked up to writers because even if I weren’t as great as they were, I could see myself in them: Kurt Vonnegut’s and Allen Ginsberg’s  disdain for pretense, Toni Morrison’s understanding of dilemmas and Victor Hugo because he always seemed to ask, “Who are you?”  And there was Jacob Bronowski, whom I encountered in his “Ascent of Man” series. He seemed to know everything and somehow made it seem possible.

Although I don’t idolize athletes, there are some I admire as much as human beings as for their sports accomplishments. Among, but not limited to them, are people like “Major” Taylor, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe and Simone Biles. While I will never match their physical feats, I can still use their courage, integrity and pure-and-simple humanity as guideposts to my life.  Perhaps they, the creators I mentioned and people who do whatever they can to make our lives and worlds more livable, are the closest we can find to heroes.

Here He Comes

 Forget Eddy Mercx. Forget Philippa York.  Here’s my real cycling hero:

Midlife Champions

 Athletes are referred to as “the Jackie Robinson” of their sport if they are the first African American to play in its top leagues or tournaments.

Althea Gibson has been awarded that title by more than one historian of sports. She broke the “color barrier” three years after Robinson played his first game for the Dodgers. Aside from the barriers they faced on account of their race, their stories have other parallels—and differences. 

Althea was born and raised in Harlem, New York City. While that presented its own challenges—for example, cops often conducted spurious raids in her neighborhood and chased African Americans, especially boys and young men out of other neighborhoods, she at least had a network to help her develop her talents. At age 14, she won on the New York State Girls’ Championship sponsored by the American Tennis Association, organized as an alternative to the all-White United Sates Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA).

Jackie, on the other hand, was born to sharecroppers in Georgia eight years before Gibson. What was life like in the Peachtree State? Because of the Jim Crow laws that were in effect at that time, African Americans were restricted to living in certain areas, deterred from voting through poll taxes, literacy tests and “grandfather rules” and barred from some schools, occupations and professions. And while sandlot baseball helped him develop his talents (like Gibson, he also excelled in other sports) it probably didn’t help him develop some of the habits and skills baseball players need to succeed at the highest levels.

I do not mean to minimize the obstacles Althea faced in comparison to those of Jackie. In 1949, she tried to gain entry into the USLTA’s National Grass Court Championship (the predecessor of today’s US Open) but was refused.This infuriated Alice Marble, a four-time winner of the NGCC, who wrote a letter to American Lawn Tennis magazine in which she created the USLTA’s “bigotry “ and demanding that Althea be allowed to compete in a qualifying event.

Finally, on this date in 1950, the USLTA admitted Gibson. She won her early matches but struggled for several years until winning the French Open in 1956 and the US Open and Wimbledon the following year, when she was 30.

While Jackie had an equally circuitous path to Major League Baseball, his differed in that he was already an established star in the Negro American League and, before serving in World War II, was a star football player and track-and-field athlete at UCLA.  Still, even though he was a first-ballot Hall of Famer, one can wonder what his career could have been: He was already 28 years old, an age when most ball players are at, or on the verge of, their prime.  

So being the first African American to achieve what she did is not the only reason Althea Gibson is “the Jackie Robinson of tennis”: both of them accomplished what they did as they were in, or entering midlife, depending on how one defines it.

(Althea also faced accusations that she was a man. Some things never change!)

Not The Way To “Graduate “

Many people ride bicycles until they “graduate” to cars. 

Here in the United States, kids may pedal to school, an after-school job or to someplace “fun” until they get their driver’s licenses.  Like many of my high school classmates, they may not mount a saddle again once they get behind the wheel of a car.

In other countries—and in some communities, including ones near me, the bicycle might be a means to acquiring an automobile. You often see immigrants taking this path, if you will:  They might ride a pedaled or e-bicycle to work, or to make deliveries, so they can save enough money to buy, or make a down payment on, an automobile. 

A gentleman in Indiana decided to follow the time-honored tradition I described in the previous paragraph, except for one thing:  He didn’t want to save up. Instead, he had the brilliant idea of using his bike to make one quick payday that would allow him to parlay two wheels into four—or, to be more precise, eight, as he bought two cars.

So what did he do that will be taught to future generations of students at the Wharton Business School (a certain billionaire’s alma mater)? And what lessons might those future Masters of the Universe draw from it?

Well, Derek Dwayne Core rode his mountain bike to a bank. I’ve done that many times myself. However, I have never entered such an establishment (or any other) dressed in white—and a ski mask. And the many items I’ve carried on my bicycles have never included a handheld device designed to propel projectiles for the purpose of making holes in human bodies.

OK, I don’t think I need to tell you what he did.  And it might’ve been a brilliant business plan except for a couple of things. 

 One, the bag into which he stuffed those green pieces of paper he took from the bank ripped, spilling those likenesses of American historic icons. Naturally, he gathered up as many as he could, which probably narrowed the time and distance between him and the folks pursuing him in blue suits.

Two: A piece of his sneaker lace got caught in his chain.

Those green pieces of paper and sneaker lace became evidence that the fellows in blue suits would use at the end of their pursuit. Those things, and two others: the 2005 Cadillac Escalade he bought and the 2013 GMC Yukon his friend bought—with the green pieces of paper he managed to retrieve.  

Do They Ride Bikes?

During the mid- and late ‘80’s, I could ride all day and not see another adult cyclist, especially in “transportation deserts “ and other areas where, by necessity or choice, people were car-dependent.  By “choice,” I mean that people drove even when they could have walked or cycled for local trips or commuted on a bus or train.

Those communities tended to be working- and lower middle class. I often thought they, like many of us, were inculcated with the notion that motor=maturity and that only kids rode bikes. Whatever receational or other “by choice” cycling took place in middle-class neighborhoods. 

When I started this blog in 2010, I noticed that if I was the only adult cyclist within sight, I was probably in a low-income immigrant community. Sometimes it had to do with the fact said immigrants came from places where there was little or no cycling, possibly because they were too poor to buy a bike. Or they aspired to having a car, and they saw riding a bicycle as a sign that they were not progressing toward the goals they had when they emigrated.

If I saw other cyclists, they were almost always male. I was often admonished to be careful or that I shouldn’t be riding at all because the dangers were too great—or because they came from cultures in which girls and women simply didn’t ride bicycles. 

These days, even in the neighborhoods or areas I’ve mentioned, I am rarely the only adult cyclist.  Some might be on beat-up wrecks they cobbled together from abandoned or discarded bikes; others might be spinning the pedals of a Trek or Cannondale.  

There is, however, one city that reminds me of the old days. Before I moved to my current home, two years ago, I had ridden through it maybe a couple of times. But now that I am living across from the New York Botanical Garden and just above Fordham University, that city is only 8 kilometers (5 miles) away, directly across the city/county line. It hasn’t been a destination—yet—but it is along some routes I now ride.

I am talking about Mount Vernon. It’s not what comes to mind when most people think about Westchester County. If anything, it’s a lot like the working-class neighborhoods I described: apartment buildings are interspersed with brick and stucco houses surrounded by small parches of lawn. I suspect that many residents, if they don’t work in the city’s shops or factories, take the Metro North commuter railroad to Manhattan. For them, commuting by bike isn’t feasible and I imagine they don’t have the time or energy at the end of the day for a ride.

Perhaps their busy schedules, or some of the attitudes I described earlier, are reasons why I have yet to see another adult on a bicycle in Mount Vernon. Or could it be that they see someone like me and don’t see themselves?

Along For The Ride

 I never have had children. If I had, I like to think I would have taken them on bike rides. Somehow, though, I don’t think it would have looked like this:

I Couldn’t Cash My Traveler’s Check. And I Celebrated.

 

Today, the 15th of August, is the Day of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Say that three times fast—in Latin.  If you won’t, I don’t blame you—not many other people would. If they’re paying attention to it at all, they simply call this date the Assumption. 

You may be wondering why there’s a holiday for something people believe whether or not anybody can prove it’s true.  Well, the “Assumption,” in this case is that the Virgin Mary ascended, body and soul, into Heaven at the end of her life. Now, I know that some people, including a bunch of old guys who live in Rome, do not see the Assumption as, well, an assumption:  It has been a “dogmatic truth of faith” ever since Pope Pius XI declared it so in 1950.  But the faithful didn’t need that decree; many have been celebrating it ever since at least the fifth century C.E.

And why is all of this important, at least according to Catholic theology? Supposedly, Jesus ascended to heaven under his own power. (Hmm…Sometimes getting up hills is hard enough!) Mary, on the other hand, could ascend only by the power and grace of God.

I guess that is the reason why even some very lapsed Catholics celebrate this day:  If Mary, a human, could go to Heaven, body and soul, so can the rest of us.  (I always wondered about the “body,” though:  If you are old and ravaged, is that the version of you that makes the trip up, up and away? What if you’re an amputee?) And in some current—and former—bastions of Catholicism, this date is a national holiday on which banks, post offices and the like close.

France is one such country. I was reminded of that during one of my bike tours there when I needed to cash a traveler’s check (remember those?). Fortunately, I could’ve made it through the day on some fruit and half of a baguette I’d bought the day before in Troyés.

Notice that I used the past conditional tense.  I stopped beside a tree, just to get out of the sun for a few moments.  A group of people—a couple of families—invited me to join their picnic. I learned that in now-mostly-secular France, the day is, for many, one last chance to shop, take a short trip or simply relax before the rentreé (when kids go back to school) or returning to work.

Those experiences are, for most people, about as far from an “assumption “ as possible. That may be a reason why, even if they don’t believe what it represents, they celebrate the holiday. At least I didn’t need a miracle when, for one day, I couldn’t cash a traveler’s check!

Two Women Riding In The Rockaways

 

Today’s ride to Point Lookout was pleasant in all of the ways one could hope: The weather was warm, but not overly so; I had to pedal into just enough wind on my way out to make things interesting and I seemed to have just beaten the summer weekend crowds. Pleasant and pretty unremarkable, except perhaps for two women I saw.

The first rode with me across the Veterans Memorial Bridge to the Rockaway Peninsula and then to the boardwalk, where we parted ways. I’d guess that she’s within a decade of my age. She rode a Trek road bike in, probably, the smallest frame size available in that model. But I wouldn’t describe her as petite so much as compact:  Her body seemed to concentrate not only strength, but also the effort and discipline she put into cycling and, I suspect, whatever else she does.

The second, whom I encountered—ironically enough—just before I entered the VM Bridge on my way back, seemed about as different from the first. Tall and lithe, she could be as much a model as an athlete.  If the first one concentrated power, the second extended it through her long limbs. She rode what appeared to be a flat-bar road bike, also from Trek. The young man, who seemed to be her boyfriend or fiancé, pedaled a bike that looked like hers, except for its dropped handlebars.

On reflection, I recall a striking similarity between those two women:  They seemed, each in her own way, very confident and in command of their bodies.  The petite woman on her road bike pedaled in deliberate strokes and perched herself forward in an unapologetic yet joyful way. The taller woman kept pace with her male companion and, perhaps, could have ridden faster. But something in her body language told me she wasn’t trying merely to be in sync with him, and a brief glimpse of her face led me to believe she wasn’t deferential to him.

I am glad to have seen each of those women riding confidently, competently and comfortably in her own way. And they remind me of what this administration, with its patriarchal religious and oligarchic allies, are trying to take from us.

(I apologize for not taking pictures of either of the women, or today’s ride.)

Why Couldn’t It Break Away From The Big Screen?

        
(Go to 7:00)

I had forgotten about it until the other day.  Turns out, I’m not the only one who did.

I’ve been watching Paul Van Scott’s YouTube series on TV shows that lasted one season or less. Some shows, I must admit, I’d never heard of.  Others, however, I’d seen, if only for one or two episodes.

His segment about the short-lived series from 1980-81 included Breaking Away. It might sound familiar even if you never saw it: It was based on the previous year’s movie of the same name. That picture enjoyed both critical and commercial success; the TV show would only experience one. Why?

No one could answer the question. After all, it had all of the elements that made the movie so successful:  The relatively unknown actors fleshed out well-written roles in a coming-of-age story that just happened to be about a young man who dreams of being a professional bicycle racer.  The story also had an “underdog” element, as the young man was an American in the Midwest, and his heroes, whom he is trying to emulate, are Italian.

If the movie’s success surprised anyone, it was because relatively few Americans were interested in bicycle racing.  Remember, this was before Greg Le Mond’s Tour de France victories. And while almost nobody thought the movie turned the Unites States into a nation of cycling fans, almost everyone involved with the project believed that what made the story so appealing on the big screen would translate to the small screen.

Some argue that it did. And that is why no one could explain why its ratings were low enough that it was canceled after only eight episodes. The other shows that aired at the same time were decent but hardly ratings juggernauts. Steve Teisch wrote and Peter Yates directed both the movie and series. Some actors reprised their roles. One notable exception was Dennis Christopher, whom Shaun Cassidy replaced in the David Stohler role. While nobody ever watched Cassidy for his acting chops, I don’t think he would have turned off TV audiences.

Here is my two-bit theory as to why the TV series didn’t make it through a aeason. People who didn’t care about bicycle racing (e.g., most Americans in 1979) were willing to watch it for the sake of the story for a single movie of less than two hours . On the other hand, I think that if they still weren’t interested in pacelines and pelotons a year later, they certainly weren’t willing to see them every week, even if the series had the same “feel good” story as the movie and they thought Shaun Cassidy was cute.