Paper, Plastic, Glass, Aluminum--And Pedals

When I first became a dedicated cyclist, as a teenager in the mid-1970s, we were still seen as latter-day hippies:  Whether we rode to work or school, for fitness, to race or tour, or just because, we tended to be more environmentally-conscious than other people.  In fact, the environment was the very reason some people rode. It was, and is, one of my reasons.

The funny thing is that, nearly half a century later, cycling is still associated, correctly, with environmental consciousness.  These days, though, those associations have more overtly political overtones:  If you pedal, drive a hybrid or electric vehicle, look for ethically-sourced products and recycle, even when it isn't mandated, that makes you a"lib" and an enemy to the MAGA crowd.

There is, I must say, at least some truth to the stereotype.  We live up to it every day:

 

Bikes Without Brews?

Around 2010, a new kind of business emerged:  the bike cafe.  Some were established bike shops that added counters, stools and even tables and served coffees, teas, snacks, sandwiches and even light meals and craft beers.  Others, though, like Red Lantern in Brooklyn, offered bikes, accessories and repairs along with fuel for the ride (or re-fueling for after it) from the day they opened. 

About five years ago, Red Lantern closed.  According to its owners, Brian and Lena Gluck, the final nail in the shop's coffin was a large rent increase, although they noted that they started to lose business a couple of years earlier when a Starbucks opened two blocks away and the Citibike program rode into full gear. The bikeshare program wasn't the "gateway drug" to a bike purchase, Brian noted. Although Citibikes, like most other share programs' bikes, are heavy and clunky, people weren't interested in getting a nicer bike.  Rather, they liked "compromising between not getting stolen, not having to maintain it, and not having to lug it up four flights of stairs," he explained.  Also, many Citibike users are tourists who aren't going to buy a bicycle during their trip unless it's very different from, or much less expensive than, whatever they can buy at home.

He's not the only one who misses Red Lantern.

The factors Gluck cited upon closing the shop may well have led to other bike shop/cafe establishments ending their runs.  After Red Lantern, I noticed a few other such closures. At the time I thought it had to do with the things that led the Glucks to close their shop and, possibly, that Millenials--who were those establishments' chief patrons and sometimes the proprietors--were simply moving on to other things.

But now I am hearing of, and reading about the end even more such businesses, here in New York and elsewhere.  Still others--like Mello Velo in Syracuse, New York--are getting out of the brew 'n' bagel business.  I have to wonder whether the cafes of  Mello Velo and other such establishments simply never recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.  While bike shops remained open, I can't help but to think that when masking was mandatory early in the pandemic, people didn't stay for coffee when they bought their bikes or had them fixed.  

If that is the case, it's ironic:  While the pandemic was a boon for many shops (though others closed because they couldn't get any more inventory), it was a disaster for almost anything having to do with hospitality--except, of course, for takeout.  

Will He Give Them The Freedom To Be Themselves?

During my ride to St. Augustine on Sunday, I realized who is cleaning up the mess Hurricane Ian left:

I don't doubt they are still at work, even if it's taken a toll on their relationship

or detracted from the joy he could bring to some human

I have to hand it to those folks, though:  They have a sense of humor about themselves.

Like so much humor, however, it has its dark origins:

Am I the only one who saw a gun in the Ron De Santis campaign sign?

Of course it's a stylized map of Florida. I can't help but to think, though, that its creators stylized it as they did to fit De Santis'--and many of his supporters'--interpretation of "free." As in:  You have a right to as many guns as you want, whenever you want them.  But not to terminate a pregnancy, or any sort of healthcare or education, or a living wage.  Oh, and if you're a teacher or in the LGBTQ rainbow, you have no more rights to, well, anything.

If De Santis is re-elected, I suspect I may see more "skeleton crews" if and when I ride in Florida again.

A Generation After The Ones Who Didn't Come Home

Today, I am not going to treat or subject (depending on your point of view) you to my "Sunday funnies" feature.

Rather, I am taking this opportunity to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and the downing of a flight in Pennsylvania.

This anniversary is significant because at the age of 21, most people in most parts of the world have all or most of the rights and responsibilities of an adult.  So, some might argue, a whole generation has been born since that terrible day.

I also can't help, as a long-ago bike messenger, to think of all of those messengers and other workers--including firefighters and other first responders and office workers in the Towers--who never made it home that day. I am also thinking of those who were spared because they had the day off, were late or were on their way when their train or bus came to a halt.

And there are the bikes that were never retrieved.

  

Bike rack at the 9/11 Memorial

Restfulness, I Hope

The other day, a late-afternoon ride along familiar routes turned into more of a journey than I imagined it could be.

Along the Malcolm X Promenade (formerly the Flushing Bay Promenade), workers who didn't have a "break room" were doing the best they could to take a break from work much harder than mine:

They were reclining by the water, in the way people can recline only when they're by the water.  A few miles away, in Fort Totten, I saw upright structures in, and by, the water.

Nearby, in Crocheron Park, Golden Pond allowed me, for a moment, to pretend that I'm Monet.

I hope that the men I saw early in my ride got their well-deserved rest--and, just as important, the calm I felt seeing the sailboats in the bay and blooms in the pond.

What, And How, We Have Delivered

Today is Labor Day in the U.S.A.  I am going to talk about some people who make their livings on their bikes.

No, this isn't about professional bicycle racers.  Rather, I am referring to messengers and delivery workers.

I was a New York City bicycle messenger for just over a year, in 1983-84.  FAX machines were becoming fixtures in offices and other work (and, in a few cases, residential) settings;  a decade would pass before the Internet would connect them.  Still another decade or so would go by before documents like contracts that required signatures could be sent digitally.

Nearly four decades ago, most restaurant and other delivery workers rode bicycles; so did just about all messengers.  The differences between and among us were in the kinds of bikes we rode.  Some restaurant and pizzeria delivery workers pedaled specially-made industrial bicycles with fitted baskets, most of which were made by Worksman Bicycles, still located just a few miles from my apartment.  Others--and some messengers--rode whatever they could get, from whomever they could. (It was common knowledge that if your bike was stolen, you should go to (pre-gentrified)  St. Mark's Place where, shall we say, one didn't ask questions.)  And then there were messengers who rode the then-newfangled mountain bikes or bikes that seemed newfangled to most people even thought they'd been around since the early days of bicycles. I am talking, of course, about fixed-gear machines.

Such was the case until well into the 2010s.  These days, however, you never see a delivery worker on a pedal-only bicycle:  They're riding e-bikes.  The reason for that is, of course, that most are working, not for the restaurants themselves, but for app companies like DoorDash, who classify their deliverers as "independent contractors."  That means those workers are paid--and their terms of employment depend on metrics the company keeps.  

I, and most other messengers, were paid in the same way.  The difference was that we weren't working for app companies that recorded our every move and turned the data into "metrics."  If we got that contract or sample--or, in one case I recall vividly, a paining from a Soho gallery (Yes, the neighborhood hadn't yet become an open-air mall.) to Judy Collins (Yes, that Judy Collins!) in a timely fashion, we were considered "good" messengers and got more work.  

As the wheels under delivery workers turned from pedal bicycles to eBikes, bicycle messengers disappeared.  I rarely them anymore, even in the Financial District and other dense neighborhoods of Manhattan.  Much of the reason for that is, of course, the digitization of documents.  Not only does that mean much less work overall; it also means that are few urgent or "rush" deliveries.  That, in turn, means customers are less willing to pay more than a couple of dollars to have, say, a sample of a neon hoodie brought to their door.

Photo by Cole Burston, for the Toronto Star

I hope I don't sound like an old fogie (after all this is Midlife Cycling!) pining for "the good old days."  But there is much I miss about the messengering milieu of four decades ago.  For one, I was able to make pretty decent money--which is precisely what enabled me to move back to New York.  For another, it was a job that people like me, a young misfit, could do.  Finally, being an "independent contractor" meant that I was, well, independent:  As long as the jobs I took on were done quickly, people didn't care about how I dressed (though I did try to be neat, as I occasionally entered professional offices) or, for that matter whether I was hung over or high.

OK, now I'll tell you about one of the dirty little secrets of the trade.  In addition to consuming lots of pizza, pasta, rice and beans, french fries and other high-carb foods, we partook of, uh, certain herbal substances.  I haven't smoked weed since, probably, a year or two after I stopped working as a messenger, but in those days, I smoked stuff I rolled myself.  So did just about every other messenger I knew.

(One great thing about getting older is that the statute of limitations runs out on most non-capital offenses!)

I think that for food delivery workers, nearly all of whom are immigrants, there is a more serious consequence. Ebikes are far more expensive than regular bicycles.  Few, if any, can pay for them up front.  So, they are in debt, whether to the dealers who sold them the machines or to whomever loaned them the money.  

Photo by Paul Frangipane, for Bloomberg News

Oh, and even though the New York City Council ruled  that delivery workers for app companies are, in fact, employees who are entitled to minimum wage, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and other benefits, the companies are simply flouting the law because they know a worker who's in debt and doesn't speak English well or at all is in no position to fight them.

In short, the changes in delivery work--and the near-disappearance of messenger work--has, to whatever degree, contributed to the ever-widening gap between, not just the rich and poor, but also (and more importantly, I believe) between those who can gain a foothold in this economy and move up, and those who can't.  I have to wonder what the young person I was--depressed and angry, unable to deal with office politics or over-entitled clients--would do today.

On Salman Rushdie And "Rolling Coal"

Once again, I am going to invoke the Howard Cosell rule. 

Two weeks ago, Salman Rushdie was attacked while giving a talk in Chautaqua, New York.  I actually wrote a reflection about it on another site, under a nom de plume I've been using.  I didn't mention it on this blog, until now, not because I couldn't relate it to anything else I've been writing here--if you've been following this blog, you know that I can relate almost anything to cycling and my life.  Rather, thinking about his attack was even more difficult than some of the other non-cycling events I've described.

For one thing, he is one of the world's best-known writers.  While my written words probably won't ever have the influence of his, I feel that the attack on him was an attack on me.  No one who is not doing harm to others deserves to have their freedom of expression--whether in the form of a creative work like a novel, the articulation of an idea or simply the way that person moves about in the world--inhibited, disrupted or ceased.  

But, perhaps more importantly, that attack reaffirmed for me that such attacks are not perpetrated by "others."  The young man who stabbed him was born and raised in the US nearly a decade after the Ayatollah Khomieni issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination.  In other words, although he was radicalized during a visit with his father in Lebanon four years ago, he is as much a domestic terrorist as those who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021, threatened to kill anyone who certify the election or impeach Donald Trump, plotted to kidnap and execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer--and who have murdered abortion providers.  

Oh, and I would put anyone who tries to negate the self-agency, let alone equality, of women and LGBTQIA people, in the same category.  Yes, I include the Supreme Court justices who voted to strike down Roe v Wade.  I am not a legal scholar, gender theorist or theologian, so please forgive me if I fail to understand the difference, in kind or in degree, of denying a novelist the right to use his language and creative powers, or a woman to do as she sees fit with her body, as they see fit.  

Call me paranoid or alarmist if you like, but I don't think it's a very long or particularly slippery slope from telling a woman or girl that she can't terminate a pregnancy to telling someone like me that I couldn't  access, not only medical procedures that have helped my body reflect my gender identity, but also the therapy, counseling and other support that have helped me not only to recover from the pain and trauma of living an inauthentic life, but also to use, and even treasure, the lessons and moments of joy I experienced along the way.

Or, for that matter, if a government can mandate--or radicalized mobs, whether they are based in Kansas or Kandahar, can intimidate--women and girls away from bodily autonomy, how far is it, really, from a ruler who doesn't allow women or girls to travel without male chaperones, or to ride a bicycle or drive a car at all? Does it really matter whether the ones who legislate or intimidate people from freely moving about in the way they choose, whether to get to work or school or for pleasure, have been elected to their offices, ascended to their thrones by birthright or take over the public space and discourse through aggressive displays of symbols like flags or by "rolling coal" with their SUVs and pickup trucks on steroids that take up the entire width of a roadway, including its shoulder?

Now, some of you think might be that I've stretched things a bit by comparing the attack on Salman Rushdie or the Supreme Court striking down Roe v Wade to the intimidation or harassment of cyclists.  But for me, at least, they are all personal and come from the same impulses: those of people who simply can't face a world that's changing.

Good For What Ails You!

Most people associate doctors' prescriptions with pharmaceutical concoctions.  But now physicians in a Houston clinic are prescribing, in addition to medications, something else for patients with prehypertension, hypertension, diabetes and prediabetes.

What is the new "wonder drug?"  A one-year membership in Houston BCycle, the city's bike-share program. Thanks to a collaboration between Houston Bicycle, the American Heart Association and Legacy Community Health in the city's Fifth Ward, patients can take a traditional or electric bicycle for 90 minutes at any BCycle location.

Photo by Lucio Vasquez

Those organizations began to work on the collaboration more than two years ago. Then the pandemic struck.  The director of Legacy continued to talk with the AHA and Houston Bicycle and the collaboration, called Bike Rx, finally started in February.  

The collaboration also helps to fulfill a goal articulated by Houston BCycle communications manager Mary De Bauche:  improving transportation options as well as the health and well-being of people in underserved communities.   Most residents of Legacy's Fifth Ward locale are Black or Hispanic, many of whom live below the official poverty level. In such communities, hypertension and diabetes are more common than in more affluent areas, in part because of the limited transportation and recreation options, which compound the stresses of being poor and experiencing racial and ethnic bigotry.

While the "bike prescription" program is, for the moment, available only at Legacy, De Bauche and officials of the other participating organizations hope that it will expand to other sites in the city.

  

Who Leads The Way?

Susan B. Anthony remarked that the bicycle did more than anything else to liberate women.

Sometimes I wonder what she would have made of couples on tandems.  Almost any time I've seen a male-female riding duo, the male is in the front, or "captain's" position and the female is in the rear.  That means the man/boy is steering and, depending on how much input he gets or takes from his partner, is determining the course of the ride. 

Is there any way to correct that imbalance?

Change And Reconnection

Early yesterday morning I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along the waterfronts of Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.  Another heat wave, like the one we had last week, was on its way.  But that was just one reason why I took an early ride.

After showering and a cup of coffee, I pedaled my "beater" to Court Square, near the much-missed (by me, anyway) Five Pointz building.  Riding there allowed me to take a more direct subway ride to Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn.

There, I met two old (OK, longtime) friends:

On previous trips to France, I've spent time with Jay and Isabelle who, I now realize, are my longest-standing friends. They came to town because their son has just begun to live and work in New Jersey, for an American branch of a company for whom he'd been working in France.

 

Meeting in Bushwick was Jay's idea.  This wasn't his or Isabelle's first time in New York--Jay actually lived here for a time--but he was looking through the Guide Routard (a sort of French counterpart of the Lonely Planet guide) for something "different."  So, as per the guide's suggestion, we started at the Montrose Street subway station, crossed Bushwick Avenue (the bane of Brooklyn cyclists) and wended our way through the back streets of a Bushwick industrial zone.

I have cycled through those streets, sometimes as a destination, other times en route to or from other places.  While I've seen buildings torn down and built up, spaces opened and closed, people and organizations coming and going, I don't think there's any neighborhood or district that shows me how much this city changes over time.  For one thing, some of the murals themselves change.  Also, I remember when the graffiti on the buildings wasn't of the kind that people like Jay and Isabelle would take a subway ride, or people like me would take a bike ride, to see. About twenty years ago, people--mostly men--worked in the warehouses and workshops during the day.  Anyone who stayed after business hours was too poor to live anyplace else.  Young people didn't move to the neighborhood; they looked for ways out of it.  And whenever I rode through it, I was the only adult cyclist for blocks, or even miles, around.

Of course, people change, too.  After a morning of wandering through one of the most expansive displays of truly public art in this city, we went to Christina's (Was our choice influenced by the mural? ;-)) in Greenpoint. It's a sort of cross between a New York/New Jersey diner--complete with Frank Sinatra and '70's pop tunes playing in the background--and a working-class eatery one might find in Cracow. I think we were the only non-Polish people in the place. Over pierogis and blintzes, we talked about their son, Jules, and how he wants to "voyager a travers  le monde"--see the world--just as we did when we were young. Actually, there are still places I want to see, and to re-visit.  But the pandemic has postponed travel plans for the past two years.  And, although I am fully vaccinated and take precautions, Jay reminded me of why I want to wait.  He and Isabelle didn't plan on coming here until a week or so before they arrived, which meant that their flights were expensive.  But, more to the point, he said that if, by some chance, he or Isabelle were to test positive and had to quarantine, or new restrictions were imposed--or a flight were abruptly cancelled--it could cost thousands of euros or dollars.

I told them that, if everything works out, I hope to return to France in January.  Seeing them gave me hope for that.  If nothing else, I felt as if I'd reconnected with what and whom I have known and loved, in all of changes and the ways they haven't changed.  

After I send this post, I will take another early ride and get home in time for brunch.

For Once, Don't Listen To The Talking Heads!

Six years ago, Paris drained its Canal Saint-Martin to clean it, as the city does every fifteen years or so. Although the canal now bisects fashionable streets with chic cafes and shops, it was once bisected a rather gritty working-class area.  But, perhaps to no-one's surprise, the most commonly-found objects found in every canal-draining were wine bottles.

And the second-most common?  Bicycles.  The only difference is that in the most recent cleaning, many of the bikes came from Velib, the City of Light's share program.

Bicycle uncovered during most recent draining of the Canal Saint-Martin.  Photo by Yoan Valat for EPA.

The company that ran Rome's bike-share program abruptly ended its contract because so many of the bikes ended up in the Tiber.  Not exactly what Remus and Romulus had in mind, is it?

Amsterdam has had to resort to "fietsen vissen"--bicycle fishing--because bikes were piled so high in the city's canals that they scraped the flat-bottomed boats.  At one time, freelance scavengers picked them up on poles and sold them for scrap.  In the 1960's, the city's water agency assumed responsibility for the "harvest."  Now a corps of municipal workers trawl for the submerged bikes on boats equipped with cranes attached to hydraulic claw grapples.  The bikes are hauled  to scrapyards for recycling where, according to urban legend, they become beer cans. (Think about that the next time you grab a Heineken or Amstel!)

The phenomenon of bikes "sleeping with the fishes" (I grew up in a Mafia neighborhood. Gotta problem widdat?)  isn't limited to European cities.  In Tokyo, officials decided to drain a large pond in the middle of Inokashira Park to rid it of a non-native species of fish that was causing environmental damage. Their work uncovered another species that wasn't native to the pond:  bicycles.  And, in February 2019, a Citibike appeared--covered with barnacles and blisters--appeared overnight in an Upper West Side docking station. A Hudson River conservancy group expert estimated that evidence--including "oysters on the handlebars" (Upper West Siders pay good money for such things!)--indicated that the machine met its fate in the Hudson the pervious August, or possibly June.

Jody Rosen has just written an article on this phenomenon for the Guardian. It speculates on some of the reasons why so many bikes end up in waterways.  Some are dumped when by fleeing criminals--who are as likely as not to have stolen the bike they're drowning.  Others are tossed or accidentally ridden into the water by drunken revelers.  (Could recycling be contributing, if unintentionally, to bikes ending up in Amsterdam's canals?)  And there are a few instances of folks who "ended it all" by riding into murky waters, as one woman did after handcuffing herself to her machine.

But, as Rosen points out, a bicycle--especially one whose owner is unknown or a corporate entity--is an easy target for people taking out their frustrations.  I suspect that at least a few share bikes were tossed into canals, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water by folks--more than likely, young--who feel lost, alienated, abandoned or simply ignored by their societies, cultures or institutions that control their lives, and over which they feel they have no control.

As a lifelong cyclist, I cannot imagine myself tossing a bike that did nothing wrong to me into the water.  And, as an environmentally-conscious person, I cannot condone throwing anything into a body of water that its native species can't eat.  But, as we've seen, these days, where there are bikes, there are e-bikes.  That, unfortunately, includes waterways, where e-bikes and mopeds are even more of a hazard because of the rare metals and chemicals used in batteries and other components.  

So, if you have a bike, e-bike, moped or scooter you want to get rid of, sell it or donate it. But please don't follow the advice of a Talking Heads song!

Survivors

Yesterday and the day before, I continued my recent pattern of riding early to beat the heat.  There wasn't quite as much heat yesterday, though, so I rode a bit longer than I'd been riding during the past week.

Once again, I zigged and zagged through Queens and Brooklyn, albeit through different neighborhoods, along different streets.  If you grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhoods where I spent my childhood, you think of the borough as a working-class enclave full of brick rowhouses and tenements inhabited by families of your ethnic group.  If you lived in some of the neighborhoods in which I rode yesterday, it was a much tougher place.  But if your acquaintance with the "Borough of Churches" or "Borough of Homes" is more recent--or if you are simply younger, whiter or more affluent--your image of Brooklyn could include brownstones or self-consciously trendy cafes where the tatooed, the bearded, the pink-haired and the Doc Maartens-wearing spend $40 to wash down a slice of advocado toast with a craft cocktail.

But another, older Brooklyn sometimes makes a surprise appearance. I hadn't ridden or walked by the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in a while and I'd all but forgotten about the church that graces it:

In a borough of brick and brownstone--and, increasingly, glass and steel-- only a few wooden buildings of any kind remain.  They were more common before Brooklyn became part of New York City and much of the borough beyond the waterfront was still rural.  At that time, the Dutch influence was still strong--hence the Reformed church.

It will be interesting to see what the building looks like when it's restored.  I love "survivor" buildings:  the ones that remain after everything else around it has been destroyed and replaced.  They look different, but not out-of-place because survivors are never out of place. At least that's what I tell myself:  I might be slower than I was, but I am still cycling and have no plans to stop.

The Tour de France Femmes

The Tour de France Femmes started the other day. Some news reports claimed the race was the first of its kind.  Others said the "only" previous women's Tour de France was the one held from 1984 through 1989.  While it is the best-known version of the women's tour, it's hardly the only one:  In 1955, French journalist and race director staged the original Tour de France Feminin.  In spite of his efforts, the five-day race, which 41 female cyclists finished, would be a one-off event:  Other members of the press treated it as a joke and some photographers stalked the women to their dormitories.  And, in spite of the fact that the race was organized and staged by a journalist, there was little press coverage and, thus, financial support. 

For a time, it seemed that the 1980s event--and the excitement surrounding the 1984 and 1988 Olympic races--would show that women's cycling had become a sport with its own identity and audience, somewhat like women's tennis.  During that time, however, men's cycling, like other sports, shifted from local network coverage sponsored by mom-and-pop businesses to the more lucrative cable and satellite networks with corporate mega-sponsors like Nike and Coca-Cola.  Decision-makers at those companies and networks--and Tour organizers--seemed to think that women's racing wasn't worth those resources.  

After the Tour severed its connection to the Tour Feminin, the latter continued, under different names, into the 1990s.  But without that Tour imprimatur, the media and corporate sponsors hardly noticed it at all. Thus, coverage was practically non-existent and almost no one who wasn't a dedicated fan knew that the races were running.

But all of those versions of the Tour Feminin had yet another fatal flaw:  They were "curtain-raisers" (or, as some would say, "appetizers") for the men's ride.  During the 1980s editions, the women rode the same routes, mostly, as the men, but finished before the men started.  So, while the women's race originally benefited from its Tour association, it didn't develop its own identity as, say, the Women's football World Cup or women's tennis has.  

This year's Tour Feminin began after the men's race ended.  Could it be the arrangement that allows the women's race to, not only survive, but to become a major sporting event in its own right?

A Ride In The Basin

Yesterday, as predicted, was the hottest day of the year--so far.  Therefore, as I've been doing, I took a morning ride fueled by coffee and a bagel with a piece of Saint Nectaire cheese.

My ride skirted the waterfront, from my neighborhood down to Erie Basin, the old cluster of ship docks in Red Hook that's now a park.  

I still can't get over an irony I've pointed out in other posts:  People, including relatives of mine, did hard physical work on this waterfront where I ride for fun and fitness.  Such laborers rarely, if ever, did anything that involves physical exertion during their off-hours:  They were too tired for such things.

 What would they make of my pedaling my fixed-gear bike up and down the docks--or that there are now cycling and pedestrian paths along the waterfront?

To them, wheels were for hoisting and moving objects larger than themselves--or for transporting themselves to and from places where they used those wheels, and other tools.  Those wheels were not attached to vehicles propelled by people in late middle age who were on the waterfront for exercise and the views.

The views?  I suppose that some of those workers--including one of my uncles--had some sort of artistic talent and inclination.  Still, I doubt that he, or they, were looking at the docks, boats, machinery and water for their lines and colors.

I am certainly not rich. And I have experienced bigotry.  But I am privileged--to ride where people once worked very hard, or anyplace.

A Message From Exotic Poetry

Maybe it has to do with the Supreme Court being up to no good.  Lately, it seems, I am seeing political and social messages everywhere.

I've passed this place many times.  It's just off Woodhaven Boulevard:  Cyndi Lauper's old stomping grounds.  The neighborhood has long been mainly blue-collar.  Some relatives of mine lived in and around it, among other Italian-Americans and children and grandchildren of Irish and German immigrants.  Some of those families remain, but many Indian, Pakistani and Central Americans have moved into the neighborhood--as well as some young LGBTQ people, no doubt because it's still relatively affordable.

Knowing all of that, I didn't think "ROE" meant the place serves caviar. Even if it does, I don't think I'd order it.  When I do stop there--which I intend to do on some near-future ride--I'll probably order something like the chicken, rice and beans dish listed on their blackboard.  Or perhaps I'll just have something to drink.

I can't believe I've passed that place so many times, usually on rides to the Rockaways and Point Lookout, where I rode yesterday.  Usually, it's closed when I ride by:  I suspect that it doesn't open until suppertime, or close to it.  Perhaps I'll catch it on my way back, or take a different ride that takes me in that direction.

After all, how can I resist a place called "Exotic Poetry?" Maybe I'll read some of my stuff, or attempt to launch a stand-up career.  (You think a transgender cyclist in, ahem, late middle age can't make people laugh--without even trying?)  One thing, I promise, though:  I won't do karaoke, even if it includes the letters "R," "O" and "E!"

A Ride To The Truth?

The other day, on a pleasant summer afternoon, I was riding back from a trek to Westchester County.  I couldn't help but to notice more work crews than I normally see on the streets.  Some came from ConEd or Verizon, others from the city's transportation department.  They confirm one of my from-the-saddle observations:  streets and roads are in worse shape than I've seen in some time.  Whether it's a result of the weather (climate change?) or simply deferred maintenance, I don't know.

One detour led me down Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx.  I actually didn't mind:  The stretch south of the number 2 and 5 elevated train lines has some rather nice old row houses, and the people seemed to be in a rather relaxed mood.  

Occasionally, I'll stop if a building or detail looks interesting. But I never expected to see, anywhere, something that sums up so many of the truths I hold to be self-evident, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence.  

Within the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has voted to curtail a woman's right to her own body and, possibly, a bunch of other rights-- but not the one to carry a gun with you.  Why can't they support the simple truths expressed in that sign?  

  

Our Flag--Or Their Banner?

On Sunday, the day before "the 4th" (American Independence Day), I rode La-Vande, my Mercian King of Mercia, to Point Lookout.  I have taken that ride many times, on every one of my current bikes and several I've owned previously.  Although the weather was just a bit warmer than I like, the skies were clear and bright and the temperature dropped as I approached the water.  Best of all, I was pedaling into the wind, blowing from the ocean and bay, most of my way out. That meant, of course, that I rode with the wind at my back for most of the way back.

Still, I couldn't help but to notice something that distrubed me.  Perhaps the holiday, and its associations sensitized me to it.  A ride I took the other day--the day after the Fourth--confirmed my observation.

Holidays like the Fourth, Memorial and Veterans' Day and, of course, Flag Day, bring a lot of Stars and Stripes out of closets, attics, trunks and storage lockers.  People hang flags in their windows and on their doors and fly them from awnings and poles.  I couldn't help but to feel, however, that the way those flags were displayed was more ostentatious and aggressive than usual.  

My Point Lookout ride takes me through strongholds of Trump-mania:  Broad Channel, a Jamaica Bay island between Rockaways to the "mainland" of Queens, and the Long Island South Shore communities of Long Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout itself.  Just past the Long Beach boardwalk, one house flew a flag so wide that it unfurled over the sidewalk in front of it:  Anyone walking by could have been brushed by it which, to some, would have been offense--by the person brushed, mind you--against the flag and therefore the nation. I noticed many other flag displays that were disruptive or simply more in-your-face than ones I saw in years past.

But the incident that showed me that the flag has gone from being an expression of patriotism or simply gratitude to one of agression and hostility, or even a threat, came the other day, as I approached an intersection in Eastchester, a Westchester county town on Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic. Something that looked like a bloated pickup truck--it was nearly as wide as the two eastbound road lanes--pulled up behind me, veering into the shoulder where I was riding.  From poles driven like stakes into each corner of the rear flatbed, American flags fluttered.  Another banner, about the size of those four flags combined, visually blared, as loudly and ominously as the revved-up engine (which seemed to lack a muffler), its message:  Let's Go Brandon.  That, of course is a code for what the driver bellowed at me:  "Fuck Joe Biden."

I pretended to ignore him.  I guess I'm not a very good actor:  I noticed him, the truck, the flags--it was impossible not to.  Eyeing my bike, he growled, "If you hate this country, leave it." 

"I am here because you have the right to say that.  And I have the right to disagree with you.  Members of my family fought for both."

He eyed my bike some more.  "At least it's a 'Merican' bike.  To be fair, he's not the first person to read "Mercian" as "American" or "Murrikan."

"Have a good day, sir."

With a perpexled look, he motored away.  I hadn't felt such relief in a long time.

In 1983, people--including some friends and family members--begged, cajoled and even tried to strong-arm me into not moving back to New York.  In those days, the news, movies, television and other media depicted my city as a lawless hellhole where people were robbed, raped, stabbed or shot.  The implication, of course, was that the victims were like me--a mild-mannered white person (I was still living as male) and the perpetrators were drug-addled black and brown thugs.  

The irony is that some of the people who were sure I'd be dead within a year of moving to New York--and other people who think like them--voted for Donald Trump, a hero to the fellow who was using his truck--and the flag--to intimidate me.

How Not To Hydrate

I've been following the Select Committee Hearings on the riot of 6 January 2021.  Some who testified--like Cassidy Hutchinson-- gave me hope that some people will do the right thing.  Other testimony--like that of the Georgia election workers who still live in fear because they wouldn't help to overturn the election results-- was as heartbreaking as it was infuriating.  

But no matter how much I hear or read, there are still some things I will never understand.  To wit:  Some people still insist the election was "stolen," despite any lack of corroborating evidence.  And they still take everything the Former President says as gospel, even though he publicly told more than 30,000 documentable lies (about 21 a day) during his time in office. 

I can come up with only one explanation:

The past few days have brought a heat wave to this part of the world.  Somehow, though, I don't think I'd hydrate with the stuff in the image--even if my political persuasions were more in line with the folks who imbibe it.

In Place

Yesterday I was torn between taking a familiar or a new ride.  So I did a bit of both:  I pedaled through areas of Westchester County I hadn’t seen in a while, on roads I’d never ridden.

While riding, I couldn’t help but to think about how two affluent towns, so close, could feel so different. Scarsdale, New York, like Greenwich, Connecticut, is one of the most affluent towns in the United States.  Both have quaint downtowns full of shops that offer goods and services you don’t find in big-box stores.  But while some Greenwich establishments have the intimacy of places where generations of people have congregated, others are like the ones in Scarsdale and other wealthy parts of Westchester County:  more self-conscious—you can see it in the names, some of which show merely that whoever came up with the name took French or Italian—and more trendy while trying not to seem trendy.  

Also, the mansions of Greenwich are set further from the roadway than those in Scarsdale.  I suspect that has to do with the differences between the towns’ zoning codes—which has to do with the philosophies of the people who made them.  Also, part of Greenwich includes farms where horses are bred and herbs are grown.

In other words, they reflect the difference between New England and suburban New York wealth (though Greenwich is certainly part of the New York Metro area). 

While both towns have public art and sculpture, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in Greenwich:

Simone Kestelman, the creator of “Pearls of Wisdom,” says she was inspired by what pearls mean: something to wear for special occasions, purity, spiritual transformation, dignity, charity honesty, integrity—and, of course, wisdom acquired over time.

One might expect to see something like this in Greenwich:

Indeed, the town has public horlogues like that one,  But I encountered it in the Bronx, across the street from Montefiore Hospital!