I’ll Keep On Riding

“Are you going to keep on riding your bike?”

Photo by James Brey

Every year, as the days grow shorter, colder and darker, I’m asked that question, or some variant of it, even by people who’ve seen me pedal through winters past. But I think I started hearing it earlier and more frequently this Fall than in years past.

Perhaps it has to do with living in a senior citizens’ building. But—admittedly with a lack of empirical data—I don’t think I was so queried so often last year, my first in the complex. Maybe it has to do with familiarity:  More residents know me or, at least see me as a familiar face and are thus more willing to approach me.

But I believe another factor is at play. A number of my neighbors have expressed, to me and each other, their belief this winter will be exceptionally long and cold.  Something tells me they might be right. At any rate, whatever the coming season brings, it probably will be harsher than the past few, relatively mild, winters.

Then again, some of the folks among whom I live may be listening to their bodies: Their old wounds are throbbing, and their joints are aching. That, of course, could be a matter of health issues or simply aging. 

I can’t help but to wonder, though whether their personal Farmers Almanac weather forecasts might have as much to do with the political and social climate as El Niño, polar vortexes or the warming oceans, the latter of which causes weather extremes of all kinds.

One fellow I talk to, who was once a graduate student in Political Science and is not given to hyperbole, compares what has transpired since the Fake Tan Führer was re-elected to the Nazi regime’s early days.  If he’s right, and we don’t change, we are indeed headed for a long winter in more ways than one. And cycling through it could be a form of protest or subversion, depending on one’s political and social beliefs.

I plan to keep on pedaling.

The Latest Stop On My Journey

 OK. Now I am going to tell you about the life change which I’d been hinting about during the past couple of weeks.

As you might have guessed, it’s a move:  my first since December 2009.  And, for the first time since August 2002, I am not living in Astoria.

This photo from my 13 March post is one view from my new apartment: the Conservatory of the New York Botanical Gardens.

I am now living up the block from the Gardens’ Bedford Park Gate. If I look in another direction, I see the Fordham University and Prep School campuses and, in the distance, the Manhattan skyline.

The neighborhood seems to be a racially and ethnically mixed working-to-middle-class area, There are stores and restaurants nearby. Although they carry different items and serve different foods, they remind me of what I encountered when I first moved to Astoria. 

I must say, though, that I haven’t seen nearly as many cyclists—and, thankfully, motor scooters—as I would encounter on Crescent Street. That, I think, is a lesson in the sociology of urban cycling:  Astoria, like nearly Greenpoint and Williamsburg, has grown younger, whiter and more self-consciously hip. Perhaps I will—consciously or not—plant seeds of cycling culture as I pedal in and out of, and around, the neighborhood.

So why have I moved to Bedford Park, Bronx? Do you promise not to tell anyone? 

I am now in a senior citizens’ apartment.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might’ve guessed that I was in or near the age range for such a thing.  For several years,’I’ve been applying for one and my name finally came up. 

Whatever my housing situation, I do not plan to change the name of this blog. As I’ve said in earlier posts, whatever my age, I am in the middle of my life as long as I don’t know when it will end.  And, as long as I keep on cycling, I don’t think I’ll be anywhere near the end of my journey.