Night, Rain And The Ocean

Yesterday I did something unthinkable for a blogger:  I went for a ride that stretched from the afternoon into the evening, and didn't take any photos.

So why did I do that?  Well, it wasn't intentional.  In fact, the ride itself wasn't intentional.  Oh, I got on my bike because I wanted to.  I didn't, however, plan my route or destination.

And I decided not to take my phone with me.  No phone, no photos.   In this day and age, not carrying an electronic device seems like a radical idea, or simply unimaginable:  My students, especially the younger ones, tell me they simply can't imagine being without their devices.  I, of course, explain that being without electronic gadgets was the normal state of affairs because, well, we didn't have those things.

So, perhaps, it was inevitable that while riding the way I rode in my youth, I would take roads to destinations that were part of my younger years.

So I pedaled to the World Trade Center and took a PATH train to Newark, on a lark.  From that city's Penn Station, I rolled and bounced the rutty streets of industrial and post-industrial urbanscapes down to Woodbridge, where New Jersey State Route 27 meets State Route 35.  Once I passed the stores, take-out restaurants and professional offices that are just as utilitarian and charmless as they were when they were built--but imbued with more character than anything that might replace them--I rode into an enclave of pickup trucks and "muscle" cars with their actual and implied "Make America Great Again" bumper stickers.  On one of those streets, a guy who looked like he'd just been released from the nearby Rahway prison danced with a skeletal (including her teeth) young woman in full-goth mode and black spike-heel pumps to death-metal music blasting from a car.  I applauded; they smiled and waved to me.

That was in a town called Sayreville.  Next town down the road, Old Bridge, a buzzard buzzed just over my head to something lying on the side of the road.  The town after that, I skirted Lake Matawan along Monmouth County Route 516 to Keyport--where, depending on whom you ask, the Jersey Shore begins.  From there, I took a series of side roads to another lake--or is it a pond?--and turned by a firehouse onto State Route 36 at Airport Plaza, where I used to get on or off the bus to see or leave my parents when they were still living in the area.

Although Route 36 has three lanes in each direction and a speed limit of 45 or 50, depending on which town you're in, it's really not a bad road for cycling.  For most of its length, it has a wide shoulder and drivers don't pull in and out to pick up or discharge people, or double-park, and trucks don't idle in them while making deliveries.  In other words, it's safer than almost any bike lane I've ridden in New York.  Plus, it's interesting to see the landscape change from something that wouldn't look out of place in The Deer Hunter or Silkwood (funny, that Meryl Streep was in both of those movies) to farm stands and, finally to the Highlands, where you climb a long (but not steep) hill, then descend, to the bridge that connects the "mainland" with Sandy Hook and the narrow strip of land between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic Ocean. It's sort of like like the strip between the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and the ocean in Florida, with colder weather and without palm trees.

In the "Deer Hunter" part of Route 36, there's a store that sells hunting, fishing and scuba-diving gear, and offers lessons.  Dosil's is owned by one of my high-school classmates and the sign looks as if it hasn't been painted since he took over the store.  I am sure he and his family are doing well, at least financially, but he was one of those kids of whom you knew that he would never leave North Middletown.  He wasn't a bad kid, and I rather liked him, even though he was very different from me.  Perhaps having been wrestlers during our first two years of high school had something to do with that. (After that, we both played football--he, the American kind and me, the kind the rest of the world plays.)

Anyway, whenever I go over the bridge, I know I'm headed to Sandy Hook (if I turn left) or to Sea Bright and Long Branch (if I turn right). I chose the latter, possibly because it had begun to rain lightly around the time I saw Dosil's and the showers came and went as I crossed the bridge and started down the isthmus.  Even though McMansions have replaced the bungalows and cottages Sandy destroyed on some stretches of the road, I like seeing that stretch of beach and ocean under gray skies, especially with a light rain or drizzle.  When I was younger, I sometimes felt that it was a reflection of myself in some invisible mirror.  I still feel that way--or, at least, the memory of feeling that way is still very strong.

After eating my "lunch" by the beach in Long Branch, it was more like dinner time and I knew I had, perhaps, an hour of daylight remaining.  And the light showers had turned into full-blown rain. Still, I continued riding, along the shore.  I thought I'd go to Asbury Park and either take the train home, or turn back toward Long Branch.  Instead, from Asbury, I continued along boardwalks and streets called--what else?--Ocean Avenue.  You might say that I was hypnotized by the streetlamps, with their penumbras of mist, and buoy lights that faded--or was the darkening horizon over the sea so strong that it became the ambient light of that evening?

Finally, in Spring Lake--after 105 kilometers (about 65 miles)  of riding from Newark's Penn Station, I turned around and rode the 20 kilometers back to Long Branch.  The rain seemed to lighten as the skies grew darker, until the rain stopped just before I reached the station.  Maybe it seems like child's play to a racer in training, but I'd say that at this point in my life, riding about 80 miles on a ride that began around two in the afternoon isn't bad.  But, more important, between that ride, and not having my phone, I was doing something I needed to do, though I didn't realize it until I was on the train back to New York's Penn Station.

Atlas Rode

It wasn't just a ride.  It was a mission.

Arielle, my trusty Mercian Audax, took me to the site of some mysterious structures.  How they got there, we weren't told.

How long had they stood?  How long would they have stood

had we not gone there to hold them up?  

Once we knew they'd stay up, we exited, Bill and I, across the bridge of George

into the clouds

 

over hill and dale

and back to the city, shining city.

All in a day's riding!

And, no we weren't doping:

Jordan Almonds.

All of the photos--except the ones with Bill--were taken by Bill.

Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey

By now, everyone has seen what might have been just another postcard from a fading beach resort

had it not graced the cover of a certain singer/songwriter's first album.

By now, everyone has heard of Bruce Springsteen and someone's claim of having seen him for $1 before he was famous. I swear, it's true!  

One of the great things about getting to be, ahem, a certain age is that the statute of limitations runs out.  You see, when I saw the then-obscure Bruce, the legal drinking age was 18.  Still, I was a few years shy of that.  So were a couple of the youngsters who accompanied me, and their siblings who were just on the other side of that age.

In those days, the Stone Pony was a "dive bar" in what was then a dying town.  If you were in Atlantic City before the casinos opened--or have ventured more than a couple of blocks away from its "strip"--you have an idea of what Asbury Park was like in those days.

It had become so unfashionable, in fact, that this was nearly demolished:

I used to ride through it and, as often as not, have no company besides a pigeon or seagull or two.  Now it houses a bar and a few stores--and you can't ride through it.  Cycling isn't allowed through the promenade, but even if you've spent your life riding criteriums and downhill slaloms, you couldn't have ridden through the crowd I encountered there the other day.

I'm not complaining.  I had a great ride down there, from my place in New York, and back up to Long Branch.  I reckon I did about 120 kilometers in total before taking the train back.

Though it was warmer--about 14C--the air felt almost as chilly as it did during my Connecticut ride on Thanksgiving day, when I started in OC conditions and the temperature didn't get much above 5C.  I wasn't complaining, though:  My seashore ride had the sun and clear skies I saw during my ride to the Nutmeg state.

No, I didn't see Bruce, or stop at the Stone Pony. I did go by it, though. Not surprisingly, it's become a tourist attraction:  While some parts of the city are still worn around the edges and suffer from unemployment and poverty, the beachfront and downtown areas draw strollers, shoppers and others from around the area.

By the way:  Contrary to what some have mis-reported, Bruce was not born in Asbury Park.  He did, however, spend his formative years--at least, musically--in the city.  

On the other hand,"Bud" Abbott of the Abbott and Costello comedy team was born in AP.  So were Danny DeVito and Leon Hess.  And, as much as it pains me to mention her name, Wendy Williams.  

Oh--a fellow named Arthur Augustus Zimmerman also first came into this world in Asbury Park.  In 1893, he won the first World Championship of cycling.  

Finally--You might say that Asbury Park is where the "joy buzzer" went to die.  At least, that's where its inventor--Soren Adam Sorensen--drew his last breath!

This Ride Was Good

All rides are good.

At least, I can't think of any bike ride I wish I hadn't taken.   And I've been riding for a lot of years!

Some would say that some rides are "better" than others.  Of course, "better", when it comes to rides is subjective:  Some want to climb as many steep hills as possible; others prefer land flatter than their dinner tables.  Some of us love riding by an ocean or a lake; another cyclist's idea of a "dream ride" takes him or her through deserts or prairies.

You might to ride in the hottest weather with the brightest sunshine; I like it cooler with a mix of sun and clouds.  Your friend might not go anywhere near a bike if there's a single cloud, let alone if a single drop falls from the sky; his or her club-mate believes that if you don't get wet, it's not a "real" ride.

I'll admit there are a few conditions I'll avoid if possible. For example, I don't mind the cold or even rain, but I prefer not to have both together when I'm riding.  (Snow, on the other hand, can be fun.)  And, while traffic doesn't scare me, I prefer not to cross entrances to, and exits from, highways:  When I ride to the Rockaways or Point Lookout, I take a detour through the side-streets of Howard Beach so I can avoid having to traverse the on- and off- ramps of the Long Island Expressway and Belt Parkway that feed into, or lead away from, Woodhaven and Cross-Bay Boulevards.

I took a similar diversion yesterday after I crossed the Victory Bridge over the Raritan River in New Jersey.  On the Sayreville side, I zigged and zagged through an industrial area and residential streets simply to avoid a stretch where State Route 35 (of which the Bridge is a part), US 1 and US 9 merge and are one for about five miles.  There, it's a four-lane road which, at times, sees surprisingly little traffic but, at times, really seems to be carrying the load of three major highways.  

That wouldn't be so bad if there was a shoulder for the whole length.  Unfortunately, the shoulder appears and disappears, much like those bike lanes to nowhere that I see too often.  Worse, a large part of the traffic consists of trucks, which aren't allowed on the stretch of the Garden State Parkway that parallels the section of Route 35/US 1 and 9 in question.  

My detour, naturally, added some distance to my ride, which I'd started in the afternoon.  I didn't mind:  I avoided that potentially-bad section of road and wandered through a couple of historic districts and other areas with cute little gingerbread houses by lakes, streams, Raritan Bay (with great views of New York City) and the ocean.

Starting my ride in mid-afternoon and taking a circuitous route had its advantages, including this:

Now, if you've been reading this blog regularly, that I love descending bridges that lead to the ocean.  I coasted down this one, after pedaling up the hills on Route 36 (They don't call it the Atlantic Highlands for nothing!) for the first time when I was about 13 or 14 years old--either the year my family moved to New Jersey, or not long afterward.  

Call me sentimental, but I still get goose-bumps, especially when it's late in the day and the sun, through a scrim of clouds and haze, begins to tint the blue sea and sky with shades of violet and orange.  Once I reached the base of that bridge--in Sea Bright, on a strip of land not much wider than a football field with the ocean lapping up one side and the river on the other--I was floating.  My bike was a cloud; I had wings.  I felt that within an instant, I'd sailed--on two wheels--into Long Branch, some 8 kilometers down the road--without effort, and that every drop of surf mist, every ripple of wind, and every step of people walking with their partners, their children and their dogs along, had become a part of me.  

In Long Branch, I saw the soft twilight colors darken into the night that would engulf the streets as well as the sky and sea.  All rides are good; this, like so many others, made me happy in its own way.

Trek To The Sea

Yesterday the Trek project got another rite of initiation, if you will:  I took it on a ride I have experienced with all of my Mercians--and some of the bikes of my youth.

I pedaled down to Long Branch, NJ.   I am glad I went there yesterday, when it was overcast and windy--and turned chilly.  Today is summer-like and, of course, it is Easter Sunday, so lots of families will be taking their post-church service or pre- (or post-) prandial strolls on the boardwalk.  Some may even venture onto the beach, even though it's still  too cold for just about any land, and even most amphibious, animals to swim.

Vehicular traffic  was pretty light throughout the ride, except in one spot where it's almost always congested:  Just past the Victory Bridge, where US 9 and New Jersey Route 35 converge for a couple of miles--which is near the point where the New Jersey Turnpike (the Jersey stretch of I-95) crosses the Garden State Parkway.  But until that stretch, and after it, I didn't see many cars or trucks, even in Newark.

I rode down to the World Trade Center and descended through three levels of "upscale" (i.e., glossy and overpriced) shopping and "fine" (i.e., see above) "dining" (i.e., eating) "expriences" to the PATH train platform.  If Dante's Inferno had been made of glass, steel and faux marble, and the people spent more money for clothes with names on them but weren't really any better-dressed than I was (if I do say so myself), it would have looked like that place.

And, the train parked itself in Journal Square, about halfway through the trip, for a "schedule adjustment".  Hmm...I'll try that the next time I have a deadline to meet. Anyway, a trip that normally takes about 20 minutes took double that amount of time: longer than it took me to ride from my apartment to the World Trade Center.

Once I got out of Newark Penn Station, which smells as if someone's been brewing the same pot of coffee since the day it opened (It's a WPA building.), I was about to swing my leg over my bike when one of the most charming homeless men I've ever encountered asked me for a dollar to help him buy some fried chicken.  Who doesn't like fried chicken?  How could I deny such a request?  Certainly not I, even if he wasn't telling me the truth!

I think, subconsciously, I chose to ride the Trek today because I knew its colors would mirror, more or less, the sea and sky.  It's almost as if the Trek wanted to be there today.  

The last part of the ride--from the Azzolina Bridge to Long Branch--was the flattest and, paradoxically, the most difficult part of the ride.   It took me longer to cover that distance than to ride nearly double that distance, from the intersections of Route 35 and 36 in Matawan to the bridge.  Once I got off the bridge, I was riding right into the teeth of the wind and the temperature felt as it had dropped about twenty degrees F.  When I finally stopped, at the Long Branch boardwalk, it might been good to be a polar bear.

Speaking of which:

I think it's the first time that place has been painted in about 45 years.  My first reaction was "Uh-oh!  They're turning it into a Cold Stone Creamery clone--with CSC prices.    Turns out, I had nothing to fear.  It's still an old-school Jersey Shore roadside ice cream stand.  You won't find exotic flavors there (unless you consider Yuengling Black and Tan exotic), just the stuff you remember from your childhood.  And it's just as good, maybe better, and reasonably priced.  I ordered a cone with vanilla-chocolate twist ice cream and a cherry topping.  Definitely old-school Jersey shore.  

It was good.  Real good.  So was my ride.  So was the day. 

It's Not My Fault, I Think

Confession:  For a brief time in my life, I worked in market research.  

In those days, we didn't have what are now called "social media".  And only the computer geeks were using the computer networks that would later help to form the basis of the Internet.

So we did our work with paper and telephone surveys. The former were mailed or given to people, while the latter--then as now--reached people while they were eating dinner, or at some equally inconvenient time.

The money was decent.  So why did I leave it?  No, I didn't have any sort of existential crisis or moral pangs.  And I didn't get bored:  After all, in what other kind of work can you learn such interesting and useful facts as people's consumption habits?  At the time, interestingly, people in Puerto Rico bought more Cheez-Whiz and Hawaiians purchased more Spam per capita than anyone else in America.  And the average New Yorker--surprise, surprise--bought more Wonder bread than anyone else.

Egad!  Had I known that such data would be stuck in my cranium all of these years later, I would have quit even sooner than I did.  But I left market research, in part because I went and did other things that, I thought, were closer to my own talents (such as they are) and passions. The biggest reason, however, for moving on to other things was that I realized my MR job was the most profound waste of time in my life.  I still feel that way about it.

On that job, I learned that simply asking people questions wasn't the surest, best way to get accurate, much less truthful, information about people.  We all know that there are those loves, those passions, that dare not speak their names.  To this day, I don't know what led me--or anyone else with whom I worked--to believe that people would always tell us what they wanted, liked or felt.  Sometimes they wouldn't.  Sometimes they couldn't.

I found myself thinking about my MR experience after I heard the election results and the disbelief of the pollsters and pundits.  Surely, they told us, Trump hadn't a chance:  He was too vulgar, too sexist, too fill-in-the-blank.  He had no government experience; running a company or hosting a reality TV show isn't like presiding over a country.  As if people were thinking in such terms!

Their surveys and algorithms (Was that the theme music for a certain campaign in 2000?)  couldn't detect something I've noticed while riding my bike.  

From Regated

I wish I'd photographed the lines of "Trump" signs posted on front lawns along the Connecticut, Westchester and New Jersey streets I rode last Friday and Saturday.  Some of them stood next to signs calling for Hillary's incarceration.  

Through the past spring and summer, such signs sprouted, like fungi after a rainstorm, with increasing and alarming frequency, along my bike routes on Long Island and even in parts of this city, the bluest of the blue.   

Of course, being on the road, I saw plenty of "Trump/ Pence--Make America Great Again" bumper stickers.   And, let me tell you, they weren't all on pickup trucks:  I even saw one on a Prius, of all cars!   

But what if I'd presented some pollster or talking head with photos of Trump signs and bumper stickers, or other evidence of Trumpmania I observed?  Would they have paid any attention to me?  Somehow, I think they wouldn't have, any more than the market researcher I was would have listened to someone who actually spent time in clubs, dance halls and the like in order to determine what music people were listening to.  Or the store manager who can tell you what is selling and what isn't.  

So, even though I didn't take those photos or otherwise record the evidence of Trumpophilia I saw from my saddle, I guess I'm not responsible, after all, for his election.  Or so I'd like to believe.

Colors That Haven't Changed From My Youth

Yesterday's ride was all about color.  So was today's ride.  At least, my ride ended with them, though the hues I saw were very different from the ones I saw in Connecticut and Westchester County and the Bronx--or even in my neighborhood.

Of course, not every vista on today's trip looked like that.  But it's hard to have a better ending, wouldn't you say?

Certainly, it was a reward for pedaling through the industrial and post-industrial badlands of Essex, Union and Middlesex Counties--and, I guess, for something I did about an hour and a half before I saw the sunset.

A cool wind at my back glided me and Vera, my green Mercian mixte, down Route 36, a two-lane valley of asphalt running along the length of an isthmus about 150 meters wide, with the Atlantic Ocean to my left and the confluence of the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers on my right.  As I mentioned in other posts, I pedaled this road many times during my teen years, and during visits to my parents' house after I moved out, and before they moved to Florida. 

Tears rolled down my cheeks.  I couldn't blame them on the wind, or even the chill.  I was thinking a bit about some of those past rides, but I was also very, very happy to be riding a road--and through a community--Superstorm Sandy all but submerged four years ago.  

In spite of the beautiful weather, I saw little motor traffic. Of course, even on unseasonably warm days at this time of year, few people go to the beach.  I did see, however, more than a few cyclists--including a twelve-year-old boy crumpled on the side of the road, his bike lying on its side.

Fortunately for him, I wasn't the first person to see him:  A man and woman who were walking by, and a friend who was riding with him, were standing around, talking to and touching him on his shoulder, neck and arms.  

He'd  been riding on the sidewalk and, from what he said, grazed the side of the curb.  When I chanced upon him, he was clutching the right side of his head, which struck the curb when he fell and rendered him unconscious for a few seconds.

The couple had already called the police.  I told his friend to dial the boy's family, who live just over the bridge that crosses the river from Sea Bright, where we were, into Rumson.  Soon the officers, EMS workers and a fire captain arrived; a few minutes later, the boy's father showed up.

In response to the fire captain's questions, the boy gave his name, address, birthdate, parents' names, and telephone numbers--and correctly identified today's date, the town an state in which we found ourselves.  And he named the current President.  He reported no pain anywhere in his body but his head, from which a lump was starting to throb.

The fire captain, police and EMS workers admonished him to wear a helmet the next time he rides, and his father to buy it for him.  As they left, the father thanked me, even though I didn't do much more than stay with the boy and say some reassuring things to him.

It wasn't exactly heroism on my part, but somehow I felt rewarded for it at the end of the day.  If I indeed was, perhaps what I did, however small it was, could have been some sort of atonement for committing one of the worst sins a cyclist can commit.  At least, I would have regarded it as such back when I had pretensions to racing.

I mean, how could I resist the Polar Bear Ice Cream.  Even Bruce Springsteen couldn't have come up with something more old-school, blue-collar Jersey Shore than that place.

It's not one of those places that will dazzle you with exotic flavors or architectural presentations.  Instead,it offers some of the classic flavors and toppings of hard and soft ice cream, home made. They are offering smoothies and other things that none of us could have dreamed of in my youth.  Still, I went with something basic:  a waffle cone with the vanilla-chocolate swirl. (Think of it as the black-and-white cookie of ice cream.)  It was all that I remembered--except, of course, for the price, which was still modest.

I think the young woman who worked the counter wasn't even born the last time I stopped there before today.

Funny, though, I don't remember one of my early mentors (in cycling) telling me, or anyone else, not to eat ice cream while riding.  I don't remember how I got the fear that consuming anything like that cone, or a sundae, during a ride would shut down my digestive system and, possibly, everything else in my body.  But it certainly wasn't from "Ducky" Schiavo, or his son who now runs this shop:

The Peddler, in its first location a few blocks from its present one, was one of the first shops in the area to sell high-performance bikes.  I bought my Nishiki International and Peugeot PX-10 there.  Now Michael, his son--who bears a striking resemblance to him--carries a combination of the ultra-modern and retro stuff.  I learned a few things about cycling culture, to the degree it existed when the Peddler opened, as well as other bits of history.  Perhaps I'll write another post about that.

For now, I'll leave you with the colors that ended my ride, and day.

What Makes Her Think She Can't?

After eating a tasty, thoroughly unhealthy, Original Stromboli--one of those foods you live on when you're a twenty-year-old student precisely because it's so tasty and unhealthy, in addition to filling and cheap--I managed to ju-u-ust miss a train back to New York. 

It was nearly dark by that time, and riding back would have meant pedaling another 40 kilometers or so (I'd already done about 120).  I didn't mind the distance, but the last part of that route would have taken me through desolate industrial and post-industrial areas near Newark-Liberty Airport.  

I seriously wonder whether the lights on the streets in those areas are turned off after trucks make their last deliveries--or disappear into one of the potholes in those streets.  Seriously, those craters can make the Ho Chih Minh trail seem like a magic carpet.  I've cycled those streets in the dark.  If some of my Catholic school education had stuck, I might've been fingering a rosary strand (what we used to call "worry beads").

No, she's not me.  From San Diego Magazine

The time-table indicated that another train would arrive in bit more than half an hour.  I didn't want to wait that long, and I could've wandered around New Brunswick and discovered other old haunts that have been turned into sushi restaurants or ice cream parlors.  But I figured that doing so would cause me to miss another train.

So what to do?  Well, I knew that if I crossed the bridge over the Raritan and continued up Route 27--something I did many times in the old days--I probably could catch the next train a little further along the line.  

The next stop is Edison, a small station that the trains skip sometimes.  Besides, it wasn't very far:  I could make it in ten minutes without trying.  After that, there was Metuchen--"the Brainy Borough".  I knew I had plenty of time to get there and that, if I channeled the inner racer I never had, I could make it to Metro Park, the station after that.  Along the way, I'd burn off at least a little of the mozzerella cheese, cappicola, salami, peppers and onions stuffed into Italian bread dough (I told you it was unhealthy!)  I downed before missing the train in New Brunswick.

I played it safe, getting to Metuchen with about ten minutes to spare.  The train I boarded was nearly empty.  At the next station, a friendly black woman boarded and sat across from me.

She wanted to charge her smart phone.  I pointed to what looked like--turns out, what was--a port.  She admired my bike and asked where I'd been riding.

"You can actually ride a bike that far?" she wondered.

I assured her that it's not only possible, but that I've done even longer rides, and other people have done rides that were longer still.

"I couldn't make it around the block, let alone do what you did."

I explained that nobody rides that long on his or her first ride; you build yourself up to ever-increasing distances.  And, really, if you keep on riding, you don't even have to plan on building yourself up; it just happens as a matter of course.

She explained that she'd "have a hard time riding" because her legs were "shot" from years of playing racquetball.  I pointed out that if she has a bike with gears, she can shift to a lower gear and get as much exercise as she gets from racquetball or any other sport, without the stress on her knees.

"I don't know how you do it!" she marvelled.

I find it interesting that people who engage in all manner of athletic pursuits simply can't fathom the idea of riding a bike more than a few blocks.  Even long-distance runners I've talked to don't believe they can ride a bike as far, let alone further, than they run.

But the woman I met last night was even more astounding than any of them.  Not only was she a racquetball player, she is, from what she told me, an accomplished medical researcher.   I don't doubt it:  I mentioned that my sister-in-law is a microbiologist and she was familiar with, not only the kind of work she does, but the institute in which she conducts it.

I don't know about you, but I think that if I were involved in cutting-edge research and could play racquetball, I'd be pretty confident in my ability to do just about anything--including a bike ride!

We disembarked at Penn Station. ("Lead us not into Penn Station"?)  She was going to meet her boyfriend.  I wonder whether she told him about the crazy cyclist she met on the train, and whether he believed anyone would ride as much as I did. 

A Ride Along Another Canal: A Path To Memory

Today it was Vera's turn.

I took my green Miss Mercian mixte on a ride to, and along, the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath.  I used to pedal along that path when I was a Rutgers student; last year I rode it for the first time since those days.

Today I rode it just a week after pedaling and walking by the  Canal St. Martin through what has become a district of young artists and animators--and interesting, quirky restaurants and cafes--to the city's "little Africa".  Years ago, I also pedaled a section of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath near Washington, DC.  Like the D&R towpath, its surface (at least on the section I rode) is dirt and clay, with pebbles in some areas. A section of the St. Martin has a path with a similar surface, while another part is cobblestoned.

Towpaths along canals were constructed so that horses or mules could tow barges from the shore. Even if their surfaces are not paved, they make nice bike lanes as well as hiking trails because they are usually table-flat, or close to it.  The engineering that went into building them--not to mention the canals themselves--has seldom been bettered.

It's interesting that one reason we like to ride along canals is that they seem peaceful.  Their still waters reflect and refract light in sometimes-painterly sorts of ways, whether the canal courses through Paris residences or old factories in New England--or winds through stands of trees and follows railroad tracks in central New Jersey.  One often sees couples riding or walking, or simply sitting, along canal banks:  Canals and their paths are often among the most romantic sites in their locales.  

I also find it interesting that some canal towpaths are seen as "natural" sites.  Along some parts of the Delaware and Raritan, as well as other canals, trees and other vegetation have reclaimed the land from the remains of abandoned factories and other structures.  Areas along canals have also been turned into, or become, sanctuaries for various animals and birds.  But as lovely as all of those animal habitats, and all of the flora and fauna, are, they are no more "natural" than the canal itself. 

In saying what I've just said, I do not mean to diminish the aesthetic or recreational value of such sites.  I just find it ironic that we now ride along canal towpaths like the Delaware and Raritan to get away from the sometimes-dreary, or even grim, industrial and post-industrial landscapes those canals helped to create, or were built to serve.  

In fact, the city of New Brunswick--the locale of Rutgers University, located at one end of the canal--is such a place.  I don't know whether the term "post-industrial" had been coined by the time I attended university there, but it certainly would have fit:  A number of large and small enterprises had gone out of business or simply left:  Johnson and Johnson was threatening to do the same.  In fact, even some Rutgers administrators, and New Jersey state officials, talked about abandoning the Old Queens campus and moving all of the university's facilities across the Raritan River to Piscataway, where Rutgers already had some of its research laboratories as well as a residential campus.

Instead, they decided to "revitalize" the city.  In essence, they made it just like the downtowns of so many other cities, with all of the same chain stores and restaurants. (I mean, what town worth its salt would do without Starbucks, right?)  So it doesn't look as run-down as much of the town did when I lived there, but it has all of the character of a Sunbelt suburb.

And, of course, my favorite places--except for one--are gone.  Those places include what remains, to this day, my favorite music store I have ever encountered:  Cheap Thrills, on George Street. The prices were indeed cheap, which allowed me and many other students to buy albums (vinyl!) of all of those esoteric bands and kinds of music we learned about from each other.  

(That shop, and a Pyramid Books, which I also loved, were part of the Hiram Market district, which was designated a historic district, then de-designated because, as one architect put it, the area didn't fit into Johnson and Johnson's "clean desk" mentality.)

The only "old favorite" of mine that remains is a restaurant called Stuff Yer Face.  Of course, the menu includes all sorts of things we couldn't have imagined in those days. It also has a bar with an enormous beer selection.  Back in my day, they didn't (couldn't?) sell alcohol, but we could bring it in.  Of course, most of us did!

I ordered an Original Stromboli, for old time's sake.  The young woman who took my order and the one who brought it to me were, no doubt, not even born the last or first time I ordered one.  It was every bit as good--and unhealthy--as the first one I ate in 1979 or thereabouts.  A bargain, frankly, at $6.75. 

At least there was that--and the canal towpath.  They made the ride more than worthwhile.