In Pink

One week ago today, I marched with about a million (depending on whose count you believe) other people in Manhattan.  If you saw that demonstration, or the ones in Washington and many other cities around the world, you probably noticed that many of the marchers wore "Pink Pussy" hats.  

They make for a great statement.  And, if the day ever comes when we don't need to make such a statement, they'll be a lot of fun to wear.  They might even be seen as adorably goofy.

Someone suggested making a bike helmet to match.  Hmm...They certainly would be visible.  Let's hope that if it's ever made, it doesn't look like this:

C-Preme Raskullz Sparklez Peace Love Kitty Helmet

or end up with a name like that!

Who Needs What?

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

When I first heard that phrase, it was attributed to Gloria Steinem or Flo Kennedy.  Neither, though, has ever claimed authorship of it. Steinem, however,  once attributed it to Irene Dunn, who in turn says she was paraphrasing Charles Harris, an American psychologist who supposedly wrote "A man without faith is like a fish without a bicycle" in an article he wrote for the Swarthmore College newspaper while he was an undergraduate there during the 1950s.

But even Harris admitted that the expression probably existed long before then.  Indeed, an 1898 editorial in the Hartford Courant, a Connecticut newspaper, opined:

   The place [Aragon, Spain] didn't need an American consul any more than a cow needs a bicycle; for it had no trade with America and no American tourist ever dreamed of stopping there.  

Well, as Groucho Marx said, "You've got a point there.  Now why don't you go and put a hat over it."  I mean, a cow or a fish may not need a bicycle.  But so what?  Who's to say they can't have a bicycle if that's what they want?

Better yet--what if the fish wants to be a bicycle?

From Web Ecoist

Oh, Deer...Or, Qu'est-ce Qu'on Peut Dire?

Around this time every year, two of my uncles took hunting trips.  They and some of their buddies would drive upstate, usually to the Catskills, in pursuit of deer or whatever else they could shoot.  Sometimes they went with bows and arrows; on other trips, they brought rifles.  I would learn that hunting season was delineated not only by the prey (deer, bear, moose) but also weapons (bow or gun).  

On a few occasions, they said they'd "bagged" a "big one" but couldn't bring it home.  (Sounds like a "fish story", doesn't it?)  But I recall one other time they actually brought back a deer carcass and we ate a lot of venison (which I liked) that fall and winter.  Another time, they brought back the antlers.  To this day, I choose to believe that they actually let their buddies take the rest of the animal:  Being the city kid I was (and am), I wouldn't have known whether they bought their "pointers" in some gift shop.

Although it's something I could never do myself, I have always had respect for hunting.  Some of that, of course, ,may simply have been a result of my love for my uncles-- one of whom is my godfather and my only still-living uncle. If nothing else, I came to see that someone who shoots an animal is very, very unlikely to turn his gun on a human being.  Also, I learned that the chase requires self-discipline and a respect for the animal whose trail you are following.  Finally, I have come to realize that a certain amount of hunting is actually necessary, as the animals' natural predators are all but gone in many areas.  Even though the thought of shooting an animal does not appeal to me, I would rather that some animals were shot by sports people than to see many, many more starve and freeze to death during the winter.

Still, I smile on those rare occasions when I see a set of antlers tied to a roof rack.  Honestly, I still couldn't tell you whether they were actually hunted by the vehicle's driver or passengers, or whether they came from some store.

I probably wouldn't care whether or not they were real if they were transported this way:

I mean, really, how can you not respect someone who cycles to the hunting grounds and brings back his or her "trophy" on two wheels?  ;-)

Saturday Silly: Don't Just Sit There!

OK.  After writing about cyclists mowed down by a pickup truck driver and the deaths of famous people, I think it's time for something light.  

I saw it in the corridor of the 23rd Street-Ely Avenue subway station:

What Holiday Is It Today?

Surely you've heard someone say, "You learn something new every day". 

What, exactly, does anyone learn on any given day?  It may be a bit of information or a new skill.  Or, perhaps, a new way of doing, expressing or simply looking at, something one has always known.  For better or worse, we might learn something about our selves or someone else.

Sometimes it seems that I learn every day is a holiday or feast day I've never heard  of before.  Maybe it has to do with my Catholic upbringing:  I don't think any religion has more feast days or saints' days.  It wouldn't surprise me to know that I never even knew about most of them!

Just for the heck of it,  I checked to see whether there's a
"Saint Justine Day".  Sure enough, the 7th of October is the day on which Santa Giustina di Padova is commemorated.  Like many other saints, Giustina was canonized for converting someone prominent  (Cyprian, the pagan magician of Antioch) and her martyrdom.  Hmm...I'm not sure I want to martyr myself for anything.  As for conversions...well, I converted myself:  I used to be a guy named Nicholas.  I know, that's not the kind of conversion the College of Cardinals has in mind. 

(By the way, St. Nicholas Day is tomorrow. Yes, it's the 6th, not the 25th, of this month!)

So, is there a holiday today?

Turns out, there is, in the cycling world--at least a part of it.  If you're not part of it, that's not the only reason you haven't heard of this holiday:  After all, Global Fat Bike Day was proclaimed for the first time only three years ago.

A "fatty" on a trail in Killington last year.

Now, while I don't envision myself becoming a Fat Bike rider (as distinguished from a fat bike rider) and thus won't celebrate, I am glad the holiday is being observed as it is.  You see, it hasn't been taken over by any commercial enterprise:  It's a grass-roots day, as Earth Day was in the beginning.  And, unless Fat Bikes become a major part of the bike market, that's probably how the holiday will remain.

Today is Saturday.  So, in two years, this holiday will fall on Tuesday. (Next year is a leap year.)  Will they call it "Fat Bike Tuesday" and ride up and down the streets of New Orleans?  Bon temps rouler, as they say in "The Big Easy".

 

Saturday Sillies: What If Charlton Heston Had Ridden A Bicycle In "The Ten Commandments"?

I have always known that we, as cyclists, can change the world around us. 

We all know about the ecological effects:  If we get to work or school, or take joyrides, on our bikes, we don’t use the gasoline and other resources used by, or cause the pollution made by, automobiles.  We also know about the health benefits:  The exercise of pedaling makes our bodies stronger and the emotional release of being on a bike makes us saner. (Notice that I used the comparative rather than the absolute form of the word “sane”.) 

I believe many of you also know that we can also be agents of peace.  Although we can be competitive with each other and get angry with motorists who cut us off or pedestrians who step into our paths while they’re texting someone, for the most part, we’re calmer than most other people.  That, I believe, has to influence the people around us in one way or another.

That got me to thinking about how my riding, or cycling generally, might have influenced the drivers of these vehicles I encountered on my ride today:

Did I have the kind of influence Charlton Hestonhad in The Ten Commandments?  Am I such a powerful cyclist that I can cause two cars to part and let me pass?

Or, could it be that the police officer and taxi driver were so in awe of a woman in late middle age riding her bike—and passing a guy half her age—that they stopped dead?

Perhaps my riding so roiled their competitive juices or stimulated their production of testosterone (Wouldn’t that be ironic?) that they stopped each other in each other’s tracks?  On the other hand, something about me might have caused each of them to recognize something about each other and meet each other in the wilderness of Randall’s Island? 

Hmm…Maybe they, in the tedium and stress of their jobs, they were simply seeing so struck by seeing someone happy—positively giddy, like a lovestruck teenaged girl—that they simply had to stop?

And, dear reader, I’m still feeling giddy.  I’m not sure of why:  The ride, while pleasant and invigorating, was not exceptional.  I did nothing exceptional before or after the ride and I ate foods that, while both healthy and tasty, had no mind-altering chemicals of which I’m aware.

If you’re giddy, how can you not change the world around you—or, at least, some part or some people in it?

Giddyup!  I’m going to keep on riding.  Maybe I’ll stop some more traffic.

(As I type this, the Beatles’ Hey Jude is playing on the radio. Somehow that seems exactly right.)

I Can Get Absolutely Anybody Onto A Bike. Really!

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, sometimes my biggest obstacles to riding my bike are Max and Marlee.  There are times when either or both of them will jump into my lap or circle around my ankles when I'm about to go on a ride. Or they pose on the table, in front of my bikes. They just know what I'm about to do.

So I got this idea that maybe if I got them to ride with me, they wouldn't try to stop me.  Let's see...I tried that with an ex or two...and how did that work?  But, at least neither Max nor Marlee has--as far as I can tell--any of the issues my exes (or, for that matter, I) had.  And they're certainly playful cats.  So maybe I can channel some of their energy into pedal power.

How is it working.  I think this note says it all:

From The Journey