On My Way

My next post will be from a  place I haven’t mentioned before. Stay tuned!

Why Do We Call It A Bike?

 When I was growing up, and when I was living as a man, everyone in my family called me by a shortened version of my old name, with an “ee” sound at the end of it. I always hated that nickname even more than my full name. There reasoning was that an uncle and my father shared that name. 

(I hated being a “junior “ even more than my nickname.)

For some reason, however, no one ever called my brother Michael “Mike.”

What got me to thinking about all of that? This:

From One Connection to Another?

 Today, for the first time in a week, I took a ride that didn’t involve errands or some other purpose. I pedaled, into the the wind, to Point Lookout. That meant, of course, the wind pushed me on my way back.

As I munched on the chips and salsa (homemade—in my home) I brought with me, a lady asked whether I minded sharing the bench with her. “Of course not!” The man who accompanied her said, half-jokingly, “I trust you with her.” 

“You don’t know me!” I joked back.

Vera is a delightful conversationalist. After an hour or so, she invited me to her house—only a block away—for iced tea. Her dog Willie greeted me at the gate and she introduced me to her husband, sons and grandson.

COVID, it seemed, turned many people inward, or caused them to tune out. But Vera said it had the opposite effect on her: After seeing people die, she “came to appreciate “ that she’s still here—at 92 years old. I never would have guessed.

So I got home quite a bit later than I expected. I felt a little guilty about that because ‘it’s the first time I’ve left Marlee alone for a whole day since I brought her back from the hospital. Before I left, he was trying to rub his face on me but the “Elizabethan collar” got in the way. 

We will have our connection soon enough, I hope. But for today I made another connection—or, to be exact, Vera made one with me. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and asked me to call the next time I’m out that way.