Warning Label

Last week, Steve A. of DFW Point to Point posted about locking his bike. 


The interesting thing about his security system is that it's actually more solid, or at least more effective, than it would appear to be at first glance.  He does concede, however, that the bike is 40 years old and is parked in a place where most people know it's his.


On the other hand, Steve's security system (or any other, for that matter) has nothing on this:

From: Stick Figs Warning Stickers

This sticker was listed on eBay, along with others from Stick Figs Warning Stickers.  As much as I enjoyed seeing it, I have to point out two problems.  

First of all, as I am a writer and an English instructor, I notice that the warning contains a comma splice.  If the comma were changed to a colon, and the "s" at the beginning of "Stay" were capitalized, the text would be fine. 

The other problem is in the drawing.  I have no problem with the art:  It makes me think of Keith Haring, possibly on crack, in a dark alley.  But if the standing figure is swinging the bat in the direction shown in the drawing, how would the other figure fall (float?) in the direction it's going?  Did the bat strike the bike and make it (him?) pop off the seat and into the air? If that's what happened, how would he (it?) fall backwards?  

I admit that I took Physics before many of you were born, and some things about it have probably changed.  But the movement in the drawing just doesn't make sense.  Still, I like the sticker, even though I'm not a violent person.

Well, I never used actual violence to stop a bike from being stolen.  I did, however, use the threat of violence to prevent  a bike theft--or, if you want to be more dramatic, to stop a bike thief in his tracks.

One warm evening about twenty or so years ago, I went to the Paris Theatre, which is across the street from the Plaza Hotel.  After seeing a film--I think it was "My Left Foot"--I walked along West 58th Street.  A wiry young guy lifted a Motobecane Grand Touring by its fork and rear stays and was turning the frame clockwise, trying to break the U-lock that clamped it to a bike rack.  

In those days, I was riding, on average, about 50 miles a day. (Yes, every day!)  I was also lifting weights.  A female friend used to say that I was always either glowering or scowling.  Whether or not that was true, I knew this much: Complete strangers used to cross to the other side of the street when they saw me. 

And that is what that would-be bike thief did, faster than anyone I've ever seen, when I planted myself, with my hands in my pockets, in front of him.  Even so, he just barely avoided getting hit by one of the taxis that zipped down 58th Street when the light turned green at Sixth Avenue.  I'm ashamed to admit this now, but I was actually more proud of how much I scared that guy than I was of keeping someone's nice bike from being stolen.  Maybe I would've felt differently if the bikes owner had shown up.  

Would I have been as effective if I'd had a warning label?

You Never Know When It Will Come In Handy!

"Why do we have to learn this?"

"You never know when you can use it."


I couldn't begin to count (I'm an English instructor, after all!) how many times I've had that conversation with a student. 


Truth be told, we learn lots of things we never use.  If I haven't used trigonometry or calculus by this point in my life, I doubt that I ever will.  Then again, I doubt that I know very much, if any, of it at all because whether or not I actually learned those things is certainly debatable.  I took classes in them, yes.  But I didn't do well, and I don't think I retained a whole lot of either of them.


Tonight, for my commute home, I used a skill that I learned as a Boy Scout(!) many, many years ago.  No, I didn't start a fire by rubbing two sticks together or weave a lanyard.  What I did was to forecast the weather.  Well, OK, I didn't predict the storm that came our way.  But I managed to avoid it.


One thing I learned during those hikes and camping trips is that most weather patterns--at least in the continental United States--move from west to east.  So, after my class, when I saw the sky darkening and heard that heavy rain and hail were falling in New Jersey, I knew enough to wait before riding home.


The ride from my class to my apartment--at least via the least-trafficked route, which I took today--is about twelve miles.  That includes a somewhat circuitous route through Kissena and Flushing Meadow Parks.  And, as it happens, the class is east-southeast of my apartment.


So I stayed for two hours after the class to read some papers and do a small piece of online research.  So, by the time I left the campus, the rain had already passed over the campus, as well as my Astoria neighborhood.  That meant I didn't have to ride in the rain (or hail!), although the streets ranged from slick to swampy, and there were large pools of murky water on the paths in the parks.  But I didn't care, as Marianela has fenders; the one on the front has a long mudflap.  


Who could have known that a skill I learned as a Boy Scout could help me to ride home in a skirt and blouse without getting doused!


Hmm...Might I actually use calculus or trigonometry one day?  Will I ever fix a tubular (sew-up) tire again?

Something I Didn't Know I Missed

I just remembered the stars
I love them, too
whether I'm floored watching them from below
or whether I'm flying at their side.


Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet wrote those lines in his wonderful poem, "Things I Didn't Know I Loved."  Think of what "My Favorite Things" might have been like had Julie Andrews been Turkish, lived in Russia and spent a decade or two in prison for opposing her government and advocating world Communism.


This evening, you might say that I experienced Something I Didn't Know I Missed.  I took an early evening ride with a new friend--yes, the new riding partner I've mentioned--and got home invigorated.  


Back when I was at Rutgers, I used to ride a couple of evenings a week with a group of cyclists from the local club. We finished our day's work or classes at around the same time and, since we were within a few-mile radius, it was fairly easy to meet early enough so that we'd have a couple of hours of daylight, or non-darkness, at least at this time of the year.  We'd put in anywhere from 20 to 40 miles, depending on when and where we started and what kind of pace we kept.  

Sometimes the rides took us along the turbid river; other times, we pedalled up the foothills of the Watchungs, which poked out like the aged but not dulled edges of the teeth of an old woman who had lived through anger and melancholy.  I had some vague notion, then, that I was looking at the future, if not my future.   A few times, we even took late-Friday rides to the ocean, where, if we were lucky, we'd see reflections of stars on darkening blue waves, and we'd spend the weekend with someone or another who had a rental or time-share in one of the nearby bungalows.


I didn't merely enjoy those rides at the end of the day; they were a kind of jeu d'esprit for me.  Perhaps that is the reason why they would, in time, become the first rides I would ever lead.  


Then I graduated, moved, moved on and didn't think about those rides for a long time.  I did not get into the habit of late-day or early-evening rides again for another two decades or so.  By then, I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was training regularly in Prospect Park, so I was always hooking up with someone or another.  In those days, I rode mainly with other male cyclists because I was still living as male and was in the best condition of my life, so it was difficult to find a female cyclist who could challenge me. The exception was Tammy who, of all of the people with whom I was ever in an intimate relationship, was the only one who even came close to sharing my enthusiasm for cycling.


I didn't know, until today, how much I missed those twilight rides with someone who shares my enthusiasm for them.  I have taken such rides by myself, as I like to ride alone sometimes.  But a ride into the sunset, if you will, becomes even more interesting with someone else because it allows you and the person accompanying you to let down the defenses, or simply release the stress of that day.  It's sort of a healthier version of taking a cigarette break with someone.

Tonight Lakythia and I met at the little park with the big statue where we'd met for our previous two rides.  Near the end of our ride, I half-jokingly pointed out that we had done le Tour de Brooklyn Juif:  the tour of Jewish Brooklyn.  We'd pedaled through back streets of Williamsburg that would not have looked out of place in the Warsaw stetl during the 1930's; from there,  between rows of grand houses on and near Eastern Parkway that, as elegant as they are, seem to reflect the graying post-Hapsburg skies of Mittleuropa. From there, we rolled down a couple of streets with long, slow inclines to  the modern homes of modern Orthodox Jews in  Midwood and Flatbush.

  


After all of that, we ended up in Sheepshead Bay, which looks more like a New England fishing village.  And we'd done about 30 miles, all told. 


I never knew I missed ending a day in this way.