Georgia On My Samajwadi Mind

 

Right now, I have Georgia on my mind for a good reason:  It might deliver the presidency to Joe Biden.  Poll workers in the Peach State are still counting ballots, but some time in the wee hours of this morning, the lead shifted to Joe.

I still think about him riding rings around a Fox reporter a few weeks ago.  Trump, on the other hand, keeps at least a few tire rotations from bicycles.  Even if people hadn't seen Biden on Bike or Trump treading on cyclists, they might more readily associate bicycles and cyclists with Democrats than with Republicans.  That makes sense if you look only at the two major parties.  Me, I'd associate bikes with the Green or Working Families party first, but if I had to choose between the donkey or the elephant, I would remember that it's easier to ride--or just get things done--on the former rather than the latter.

(But, really, you shouldn't interpret what I've just said as an endorsement of any candidate, I swear--with my fingers crossed behind my back!)

Whichever American political party you associate with two wheels, two pedals and a set of handlebars, none can compare India's Samajwadi Party:  Its symbol is a bicycle.

He Was Stopped For....

Lots of people claim to have been in Northern California bin the 1970's, when Keith Bontrager, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze and other mountain bike pioneers were barreling down fire trails in Marin and Sonoma County.

I wasn't there, so I'm not going to try to settle the question of who "invented" mountain bikes or mountain biking.  But as with anything in which the earliest developments weren't--and probably couldn't have been--documented, a lot of legends and folklore have arisen.

From a couple of people who probably were there, I've heard that some folks who bought some of the early mountain bikes that were made for the purpose (as opposed to the DIY machines Bontrager, Fisher, Breeze and their peers fashioned from salvaged baloon-tired bombers) used their rigs to transport what was often called "California's biggest cash crop".  And they weren't talking about wine grapes or almonds.

Of course, that cash crop is now essentially legal in the Golden State and in other places.  That, like the end of Prohibition, has put smugglers and bootleggers out of business.  But, as in most places, there are other substances that aren't legal. And there is a demand for those substances, which means that some folks will try to make a living by transporting them.

(Disclosure:  When I was a bike messenger, I found myself making repeat trips to questionable locations with small envelopes and packages.  I didn't ask or tell.)

And, yes, some will transport them by bicycle. That, apparently, is what Terrent Dowdell was trying to do.  Now, the police claim they stopped him for not having "a reflective light" on the front of his bicycle.  I also couldn't help but to notice that Mr. Dowdell is, well, black--in Columbus, Georgia.

Whatever the constables' motivation, they found "drug related items" and arrested him for possession of marijuana and heroin "with intent to distribute."  

Not A Swamper

I've never pretended, even for a moment, that I could be a "swamper."  Even though I was born in Georgia, which has more than its share of swampland, I spent only the first few months of my life there.  And I know that, as much as I love Sweet Home Alabama, I will never have the same feeling for the places figure into that song as the ones who wrote and performed it.

However, spending a few days in Florida, especially when I have the opportunity to ride, allows me to appreciate the beauty of the wetlands I see here.  For one thing, they're full of flora and fauna one simply doesn't find on drier lands, or any lands north of the Potomac.  And, for another, these swamps glisten in the sunlight in ways that no other kind of landscape can.  I suppose that if I spent more time in and with it, I could describe it better.  For now, all I can say is that their perpetual greenness somehow makes the water seem bluer, and gives everything a feeling that is pristine and ancient at the same time.  It's as if those lands, and the water and plants that cover them, could neither reflect nor belie the ways in which the human race has or hasn't touched it.

But when you're out in the middle of one of these swamps--or even riding a bike lane that cuts through it--in the middle of a bright summer today, like the one I experienced today, it's just plain hot.  And it's even hotter when you get a flat and there's no shade to cover you when you're fixing it.

Now, having fixed it and eaten an Easter dinner (ham, baked sweet potatoes, Italian-style asparagus and tomato and mozzerella slices drizzled with olive oil, among other things), I can sit here and celebrate the beauty of what I saw.