An Island After The Storm: Following Virginia

The past couple of days have been insane.  I must say, though, that apart from a computer malfunction, it's been good.

Along the way, I took a detour onto Roosevelt Island, a place where I hadn't been since Superstorm Sandy.

At least it's still there. However, I was disappointed--though  not surprised--to see this:

The park at the northern end of the island has been closed off.  That means you can't go to the lighthouse (I'm sorry, Virginia!) at the point where the East River opens into Long Island Sound.  

You can't see it in this photo, but some of the promenade on the other side of the light house broke up like a window struck by a brick.

About half a kilometer south of the lighthouse, on the Manhattan-facing shore, an observation deck shaped like the bow of a ship was also closed off:

I stopped there anyway because, when I looked to my left, I saw visual proof that renaming the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge after Ed Koch was a terrible idea:

I don't think he had the emotional complexity to appreciate, much less reflect, the light and color of this vista.  Besides, he only went to Roosevelt Island--over which the bridge passes--and Queens under great duress. 

Here, I believe, is a more fitting monument to him:

It's called "The Marriage of Real Estate and Money". Tom Otterness made it, I'm sure, with his tongue at least somewhat in his cheek.  Still, it is an apt expression of Koch's real legacy.

On the island's southern end--just below the shadow of the bridge--a monument to Franklin D. Roosevelt, for whom the island was named  (Previously, it was known as Welfare Island) has been built.  It opened just a few days before Sandy struck.  It fared a bit better than the park around the lighthouse.

You can't bring your bike into it:  You can leave it at the gate and a Parks employee will watch it for you.  However, it's a rewarding dismount:

Once you pass the obelisk, you can descend steps that are like the rows of an ampitheatre and share a view with the birds perched on the rock:

After taking that in, I turned around and walked back to my bike.  As I have a lousy sense of direction, I needed something to light the way out:

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that the leaves left their color when the fell off those branches.  However, I know those trees are newly-planted.  I almost wish that they won't bud and bloom this spring.

I don't think the season makes much difference to this denizen of the island:

If that photo were the frame of a comic strip, this avian creature's though-bubble would probably read, "Silly Humans!"

Her Long-Lost Brother

It's probably a good thing I haven't named the Schwinn Collegiate I got just before Christmas.  Something happened that might affect the way she sees herself--which, in turn, could influence the name I choose for her.

You see, as she was made in 1966 in Schwinn's old Chicago factory, she has lots and lots of siblings she's never met.  Some of them may be lost to this world.  But it probably had been years, or even decades, since she'd met any of them.

Did you notice the verb tense shift in the last sentence of the previous paragraph?  There's a reason for it:

I asked, and she believes that this Collegiate in the same, similarly-faded, shade of violet she wears, is her older brother. 

There's a good reason for that:  According to the Schwinn Lightweight Data Book, the men's (diamond-frame) version of the Collegiate came with its shifter on the top tube in 1965.

Like most Schwinn shifters and derailleurs of the time, it was made by Huret and rebranded as "Schwinn Sprint".

I apologize for the poor angles of these photos:  I took them while standing between the bike and a parked car!

Anyway, the placement of the shift lever posed some interesting problems in routing cable:

There are also other things that make this bike specific to its time period.  Take a look at the engraving on the rear, which Weinmann made for Schwinn in Switzerland:

I mean, who does anything like that anymore?

One other interesting feature--albeit one that doesn't affect the bike's functionality--is the chrome "cap" on the front fork:

My Collegiate doesn't have it.  Those caps were removable, so it may be that someone lost it after overhauling the headset.  Or, the fork may have been a replacement, though it doesn't seem likely as the paint on the fork is chipped and faded in much the same way as the frame.

From what I could see, only three parts of "Big Brother" had been replaced:  the seat (which had a Huffy emblem on it) and the rear wheel (although the five-speed freewheel looked like it could have been the original) and the rear tire.

On the other hand, my Collegiate has original Schwinn parts from that period, though the rear wheel has a Bendix coaster brake and Schwinn rim (which would have been original equipment on the "Speedster," which had the same frame and wheel size as the Collegiate.  

It's a good thing I wasn't in a hurry when I spotted my Collegiate's long-lost brother.  As you can imagine,they had a lot to talk about!

With Every Paper We Deliver

But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver

You've all heard those lines in Don McLean's "American Pie." When someone asked him what the song meant to him, he Said, "That I'd never have to work another day in my life."

For me, it evokes memories of delivering the Asbury Park Press forty (!) years ago, right around the time McLean's masterpiece lorded over the airwaves.  One of my few achievements in life--and one I'm talking about for the very first time--is having been selected "carrier of the week".  No one ever explained the criteria used in making the choice; for all I knew, they just pulled a name out of a hat.

I mean, other carriers had longer routes or delivered more papers.  I was an honor student, but so were some of the other carriers.  And they won bonus prizes the Press offered for one thing and another, as I did.

Stranger things have happened.

I was reminded of that experience, and McLean's song, by a story someone passed on to me.  




I delivered newspapers all through three New Jersey winters.  I guess that's a respectable accomplishment, but I can't hold a candle to Bud Schaefer, who's been delivering 37 copies of the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin in the Minnesota winter.

He admits that when the snow piles up, he delivers his papers by car and rides a trainer.

Still, he has my admiration.   And my respect:  He's 86 years old, and my mother taught me to respect my elders.