Fifty Years Ago Today

Today I am going off-topic.

One of the most tragic events--no, I take that back, the single most tragic event--in the history of the United States took place fifty years ago today.

I am talking about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Now, I don't mean to diminish how terrible were the killings of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X or the unfortunate souls who perished on 9/11.  They were all awful, and it could be said the country and this world weren't the same after them.  

Perhaps I see the murder of MLK as I do because it's the first assassination I can recall clearly.  I have only vague memories of JFK or Malcolm X, and the fall of the Twin Towers doesn't have a single tragic figure that stands out.  But, even at my tender age, I could see that Martin was emblematic (though neither I nor anyone else in my milieu at the time would have used the word) of everything that was necessary and possible.

Martin Luther King Jr. is kissed by his wife, Coretta Scott King as Nipsey Russel, back left, and Harry Belafonte, right, look on in 1963.

America is, of course, not alone in venerating its military leaders.  And I am not foolish enough to believe that this country, or the world, will ever exist without armies and munitions.  But the only hope the human race has, I believe, is to work toward, if not ending, then at least diminishing, the role of the military and war--and indeed all violence--play.  Doing such work, I believe, is inseparable from the struggles for social and economic justice.

That last sentence is something Martin understood, perhaps too well.  When he said as much, in a speech he gave exactly one year before he was gunned down, many of his longtime supporters abandoned him. President Lyndon Johnson championed both civil rights and America's involvement with the Vietnam War.  When Martin denounced the war, some of his supporters took it as an attack on the person who brought to fruition some of the things for which Martin and his followers fought.

Some Americans--including some of my acquaintance, a few of whom are related to me--simply cannot understand why Martin Luther King Jr. is "the only person with his own holiday."  In some states, at least, that is not the case: Lincoln's birthday is celebrated before "Presidents' Day".  But, really, if only one person in the United States of America is to have his or her own holiday, I cannot think of who else that person could or should be.

In short, I feel he is this country's greatest hero, and we are still hurting from losing him.                                                               

Introductions At The Beginning of A Season

When I first learned about Western Civilization (yes, with a capital C and capital W!*), I was taught about a period called the Dark Ages, which was in turn followed by the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Everyone seemed to agree that the Dark Ages began when the Roman Empire fell (in the 5th Century C.E.) and ended more or less with the millenium, but there was more debate about the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Anyway, I grew up with an image of the Dark Ages as a defoliated, barren landscape broken up by patches of mud and huts from wattles made.  And in the late part of the Middle Ages, the brightening but still austere light of winter-turning-into-spring made the landscape all the more stark.

Years later, when I would first read The Canterbury Tales, I somehow pictured Chaucer writing in such an environment, just as the first buds of irises and crocuses and lilacs were peeking out of sinewy vines and weary earth.  

That landscape of my imagination came to life, more or less, on Saturday, when I went for a ride with Bill and his friend Cindy.  Not that the landscape was a bad thing:  When I ride, it's all good.  And they were fun to ride with.

Our spin took us, ultimately, to the ocean.  Along the way, just after we crossed over the Belt Parkway between the Queens neighborhoods of Ozone Park and Howard Beach, we encountered this entirely appropriate (for the season, but unlikely for the location) sign of the season:

I've ridden horses only a couple of times in my life. I would ride one again.  Even if I don't, though, I'm glad to see them--although I'm sure they'd rather not be fenced in.  Everything about them--their beauty, their movements and the aura they have--reminds me of what I love about cycling.  In fact, they embody, they are, the freedom I feel when I'm in the saddle, with two pedals at my feet and two wheels between me and the street (or ground).

They can skip with the wind.  We can glide with it.  They gallop over reeds and fields.  We pedal by them.  And we and they can trod or slosh through mud--or not.  Our reasons, of course, are different.  We didn't ride through this mud because, well, it wasn't all mud:

It was odd to see such a vista just within the limits of New York City, just before the Atlantic Beach Bridge.  Even when it's full of water, when the tide comes in, it seems almost out of place.  But exposed or submerged, wet or dry, with the tide in or out, it was exactly right for a day like Saturday.



Anyway, these very-early-spring days full of sun and wind--especially when they include rides to the sea--always seem like beginnings.  So, perhaps, it's appropriate that I was riding with a new friend in Bill and I may have made another in Cindy.

And, like the ride I took two weeks ago, I introduced a new bike.  Well, all right, Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, is indeed a brand-new bike.  But on Saturday, I rode another Mercian that looks brand-new.  

I am talking about Tosca, my fixed-gear bike.  A while back, I sent her to Mercian for repairs and refinishing.  She finally got to see the light of an American day again.

She may have a new look. But she rides like an old friend, only better!  I'll write more about her soon.

N.B.  All of the photos in this post--except for the one of me and Bill--were taken by Bill.  That photo came from Cindy.

The Day After

'Tis the day after Easter.  I stepped outside and what, to my wondering eyes did I see?

Well, it's also the day after April Fool's Day.  Perhaps Nature, that old prankster, is reminding us of that.

According to weather forecasts, the snow will be gone tomorrow. But then we'll have rain.