About four weeks ago, I wrote about the first anniversary of Charlie's death.
He was sweet, adorable and smart, and accompanied me through some of most intense and, sometimes, wonderful times in my life.
Charlie came into my life on this date in 2006. My friend Mildred rescued him a few months earlier from an area of metal fabrication shops. There are a few houses among them; still, the area is usually deserted after dark. That's why people--and I use that term quite loosely--dump animals there.
Millie told me that as soon as Charlie saw her, he scampered toward her. That meant, of course, that he was not a feral cat; he must have had a home only recently. The vet said as much, and determined that he was about six to seven years old.
She wanted to keep him, but she had other cats in her house and yard. I said I would take him as soon as I was ready. She didn't rush me; she understood why I couldn't take him right away.
He is the reason why. You might be thinking that he looks like Charlie. In fact, he is Charlie--just not the same one I've been talking about.
The cat in the photo--let's call him Charlie I--had been in my life for nearly fifteen years, from the time he was a kitten. Only members of my family and a few friends have had, or had, more years with me.
In addition to being adorable and sweet, he was smart and, it seemed, prescient. You know he's intelligent from that photo: He's in front of an Oxford English Dictionary. Some people might believe that he read more of it than I did!
Another way I knew he was smart was the way he looked the camera. He seemed to realize that I was photographing him, but he also seemed to know that it was simply impossible for anyone--even yours truly!--to take a bad photo of him.
When I first met him, he was with the other kittens in his litter. He half-walked, half-waddled to me on his little legs and looked into my eyes. Somehow, he seemed to know all about me, and that he was going home with me. I didn't even have to make the decision.
What's even more interesting, though, is that he preferred women to men and girls to boys. Whenever I talked with a woman on the phone, he was at my side. When a woman came into my apartment, he simply had to meet her. And he and Tammy got along famously.
Someone suggested that he acted as he did the first time I met him because he knew that I'm a woman, even though I was still deep into my boy-drag phase! For a few months, around the time Charlie I was a year old, I shared my apartment with a fellow graduate student. Late one afternoon, Charlie I made a beeline for the door as I turned the key. My roommate joked, "Charlie, Mommy's home!"
So, Charlie I was with me for that part of my life, through graduate school and a few jobs, in five different apartments (including the one in which I lived with Tammy) and, most important of all, through my last, desperate attempts to live as a man and the beginning of my life as Justine.
Now, you may be wondering why I named Charlie II Charlie. The truth is, he was already so named when I brought him home. Millie had given him that name and I didn't want to change it. And, even though Charle II had a slightly different personality from Charlie I, he was sweet and loving. He was, not a clone of, or replacement for, Charlie I, but a continuation of him. Sometimes I think it's exactly what I needed.
Yesterday I wrote about a "rescued" bike. Today I'm going to tell you about another one. The difference is that the one I'm going to describe today is one I rescued.
It's also the first of four Bianchis I've owned in my life. This is an old-fashioned made-in-Italy bike. I'm not sure of the exact model, but I know that it was probably made in the 1970's or early 1980's, as the frame was made of Columbus "Aelle" tubing. If I recall correctly, the dropouts, headset and seatpost were all made by Gipiemme, an Italian company that was influenced by, or copied outright, Campagnolo's desgins. The name, interestingly, is the phonetic Italian pronunciation of GPM which, if I'm not mistaken, was the monogram of the company's founder.
The headset and seatpost were the only items that were on the frame when I got it from Toga Bicycle Shop near LIncoln Center. I was friendly with one of the mechanics, a salesperson and with the owner, Len Preheim, to the extent that one could be friendly with him. They were cleaning out the store's basement and unearthed the frame, which I got in a trade for, let's just say, something non-bike related.
I was glad that the seatpost came with the bike, as it was one of those non-standard diameter. The headset worked after an overhaul; even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been difficult to replace.
Anyway, this became a "parts-bin bike." By the time I got the frame, I had a pretty fair-sized trove of parts, most of which I stripped from bikes I had at one time or another.
In its original iteration, the bike was intended as an entry-to-mid-level road bike. Being made of Aelle tubing, the least expensive frame material Columbus made at the time, It was a bit heavier than the higher-level Bianchi road bikes. So, perhaps, it wasn't quite as quick as a Columbus SL frame (of which I've owned two: the Trek 930 and a bike I'll write about in the near future). However, it gave a pretty stable and fairly nimble ride.
As you can see, I fitted a rear carrier to the BIanchi. I rode the bike to and from work, and to classes during my first year and a half of graduate school. I also took it on a couple of weekend trips in which I packed a change of clothes, a book or two, my camera and a couple of other items.
Although I rather liked the bike, it was too big for me: I think it was a 58 cm (about 23.5") frame, as measured from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the top tube. I normally ride a 55-56 cm, depending on the design of the frame.
It size exacerbated another problem I had with that bike, and other road bikes I rode before I went for a custom bike: The top tube was pretty long. That meant using a stem with a shorter extension than I might have otherwise used, which blunted the bike's handling. Later, I would try to solve the problem by going to smaller frame sizes (53-54 cm) and using a longer seat post. When I did that, I missed the stability and the fullness of pedal stroke I could achieve with the slightly larger frames.
Anyway, I apologize for not having a better photo of the bike. When I got it, the paint was in rough shape, though still unmistakably "Celeste".
Because of its less-than-ideal fit, I was going to sell the bike. However, someone got it for free when I parked it outside CBGB. Hmm, maybe if I'd told Joey Ramone, he'd've done a song about it.
Today my far-flung adventures (ha, ha) took me through downtown Brooklyn and DUMBO. They included a stop at Recycle-A-Bicycle, where I donated a rack I wasn't using after I decided that whatever I'd get for it wasn't worth the effort of putting it on Craig's List or eBay.
While at RAB, a seemingly-friendly woman named Holly brought in this specimen:
It's a Schwinn Varsity from, I believe, 1967. (Check out the Paramount prices!) At least, that's what the "sky blue" paint and white panel on the seat tube seem to indicate. Also, it has shift levers on the stem, and 1967 is the first year Varsities came with such a configuration. The frame is really the same as the one on my Collegiate, except that it's built for 27 inch instead of 26 inch wheels.
Holly said she found it in the trash by the curbside. That's not surprising, given the condition of the paint. She was able to ride the bike from her neighborhood to RAB but, she said, she had no idea of whether the bike is salvageable.
The handlebar was badly bent, which she noticed. However, my quick glance at the bike could find nothing else that couldn't be fixed. The wheels spun: If I were to keep the bike for myself, I'd probably clean and re-grease the hubs. The tires will probably, and the tubes will almost certainly, need replacing. But the front wheel doesn't need more than a touch-up truing. The rear seemed to need a bit more work, but looked usable.
If nothing else, the bike will make a useful local errand or short-commute vehicle. Some tanks are lighter than it; I might actually classify it as an "ironclad" warship. (If a Civil War historian takes it, he or she should call it "The Monitor".) But it's lasted more than four decades; with proper maintenance, it might last that much longer.
When folks like Holly bring in bikes like that, I'm really glad that programs like Recycle-A-Bicycle exist. After all, seeing a bike like this one turned into someone's coffee crate or bagel bomber is better than seeing it end up in a landfill.
