What I Carried In The Original Messenger Bag

Sometimes I wish I'd saved the bag I used when I was pedaling the canyons of Manhattan to deliver legal documents, fabric samples, slices of pizza (!),manuscripts--and a few envelopes and packages with their own unwritten "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies attached, if you know what I mean.

That was a strange time in my life. I had a college degree. I'd lived and worked in Paris.  But I had absolutely no idea of what I wanted to do next.  Actually, I didn't want to know:  I knew that I could be turned into a writer and/or an educator, in some fashion or another, but I was too angry to want those things, or much of anything else. And I was stupid enough to think that sort of anger made me superior to-- or, at least, more sensitive or wounded than-- other people.

I told family members and my few friends (actually, by that time, one friend) that I wasn't ready to commit to a profession, or to even work in an office.  The truth was that I couldn't have done those things, to please them or anyone else.  And there simply wasn't anything else motivating me to do those things--or much of anything else, quite frankly.


A grandmother and an uncle who were very close to me had recently died.  And a friend had committed suicide. Of course, I had other demons and ghosts as well.  I didn't think anyone else could understand them; in truth, they didn't even make sense to me.  So,  I didn't want to talk, much less answer, to anyone unless I absolutely had to. 


So what else could I have been, at that time in my life, but a messenger?  


Remember that in those days--circa 1983--there was absolutely no status in being a messenger.  It wasn't a job that hipsters (or their equivalents in those days) did.  And only the really hard-core cyclists rode fixed-gear bikes; they weren't the status symbols of those who were trying to show, or make themselves or their friends believe, they weren't bourgeois.  


At that time, messenger bags weren't fashionable accessories.  


So, when I stopped messengering (Surely some English teacher told you "Gerunding nouns is wrong."  I didn't listen. It just figures that I teach English now.),  I sold my bag without thinking about it.  I'd just begun to work for American Youth Hostels, when it was located on Spring Street and the neighborhood still had some halfway interesting art and sandwich shops with names like "Rocco and His Brothers." One guy, named Judah, used to hang out there when he wasn't making his rounds on his old  Peugeot.  He had been a messenger, it seemed, since before the rest of us were born.  I used to see him on the streets when I was dodging cabs and pedestrians for my commissions.  So, at one time or another, did every other messenger in Manhattan.  


He told me that a friend of his was going follow him into the business I'd just left and therefore needed a messenger bag.  I'd used mine for about a year. Smog, slush, rain, pizza drippings, spilled drinks-- and a couple of burns from cigarettes that weren't made by companies that contributed to the campaigns of Southern politicians-- left their almost-still-viscous mosaic on the once-bright green canvas. Still, the bag was as strong as it was the day I bought it.  So, Judah's courier- novitiate friend paid me not much less than I paid for the bag.


When I bought it new, it was just like the bag in this photo--except, of course, that mine was green:

It was made--to my order--by a small company called Globe Canvas, which was located in the basement of some building in Chinatown, if I remember correctly.   The guy who, it seemed, was Globe Canvas asked which messenger service I was working for.  From my answer, he knew which size and color bag to make.  He was an older Italian gentleman and seemed like one of those forces of nature that always did, and always would be doing, whatever you saw him doing.  I hear that he died a couple of years ago.  I'm not surprised, as he was far from being a young man even then.


Anyway, these days, it seems that every other company that makes a messenger bag--or, more precisely, a bag that reflects the self-conscious aspirations to hipness of its owner as much as the style of the bag I carried for a year--says that theirs is the "original."  


I say that if any bag was the original, nobody would--or could--buy it.  Only the down-and-out, reject-of-society messenger of yore could ever have had such a thing.  And he wouldn't be bragging about it.


It was a great bag, though.  Almost nothing you can buy today is as well-made.  I'd love to have it now, even if I haven't used a messenger bag since the day I made my last delivery.
 

Serendipities

I got up late today because last night, after riding, I stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. Then I couldn't sleep when I got home.

After showering and having a sort-of-vegetarian supper, I went to Columbus Circle  to meet Joe.  He lives in New Jersey and advertised a bike on Craig's List.  Last week, I sold my three-speed because it was small for me.  I liked the ride and look of it, but even with a long seatpost and stem, it never felt quite right.  Plus, I would have had to change saddles, as I did with my Mercians.  And that Raleigh three-speed, which was painted a bronze-greeen colour, simply would not have looked right with a new saddle.  (I had a brown Brooks--a very traditional leather saddle--on it.)

Anyway, Joe had some car troubles but finally made it to Columbus Circle.   His fiance, Deanna, accompanied him.  When they had just entered Manhattan, she called me.  "It's been a day from hell," she sighed.  I thought she said "date." 

"This is his idea of a date?," I wondered. 

She defended him; I laughed.   It wouldn't be the first time any of us laughed.

At any rate, the bike is what I'd anticipated:  It's a larger ladies' Scwhwinn Le Tour III, from around 1978.  The finish, once a rather nice pearlescent orange, is chipped, cracked and marred in all sorts of ways. But everything worked, and the price was right. 

I'm going to work on it.  I'll probably change the handlebars and seat, and I'm going to add  a rear rack and  fenders.  So it'll be a commuter/beater bike.

After I bought the bike, Joe and Deanna said they were heading downtown and invited me to accompany them to the Cafe Esperanto.  When we got there, we found that it had closed for good.  Instead, we went to Cafe Reggio, which I hadn't gone to in years.  It's not that I dislike the place:  They always have my respect for looking and acting like, rather than merely caricaturing, a funky bohemian cafe from back in the day.  Reggio served esperesso and cappucino before most Americans knew what they are; today Reggio's versions are still among the best.


But the best part was staying up half the night and talking about theatre (Joe is a sound engineer), art, politics and thinking generally.  He asked what I thought of Obama; after I explained why I've never been crazy about him, we got into a long conversation about foreign relations, conspiracy theories and such.  


It made me think of what my youth ight have been like if a few things had been different. It  was exhilarating to be on Macdougal Street, one of my old haunts, even if it was almost wall-to-wall people.  And there I was--the clean, sober woman I carried within me during those days of drunken bitterness.  Best of all--though it makes me a little sad now that it's the day after--is the way the conversation and their company stimulated me.  I almost never feel that way after spending time on campus, among some of my so-called educated coworkers and acquaintances.  That's one of the reasons why being at the college has been so dreadful lately:  In addition to all the pettiness, there is a severe lack of intellectual stimulation.


Ironic, isn't it, that I find mental stimulation on a Saturday night from a guy  who got a two-year degree and a woman who got her certification in cosmetology?  Also strange, n'est-ce pas, that in middle age, I'm finding the sorts of excitement I wanted in my youth, and that I found it when buying a used bike?


I guess that even when I find order in my life when I ride my bike, cycling also makes it--some way or another--unpredictable and serendipitous.

Balancing Acts

Meteorologists are saying that this is already the seventh-wettest year on record here in New York.  And we have almost three months left in the year.  So, while we may not have the wettest year ever, it seems that this year will almost certainly be among the wettest five, or even four.


Don't you just love it when TV and meteorologists talk about "going for a record," as if there's anything we can do about it? I mean, it's not like we're sprinters and this is the Olympics or the Tour de France. Or--given that this is October--it's not like we're Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in the baseball playoffs.


It does seem, though, that anything done outdoors--whether riding a bike, playing a baseball game or holding a street fair--involves striking a balance with the risk of rain.  How much of a chance do you want to take?  How much can or will you do before the rain falls, and under what conditions do you want to continue?  


Anyway, the other day Lakythia, Mildred and I went on one of those "playing chicken with the rain" rides where we did some miles and stopped in a couple of bike shops. Mildred didn't like the bike she'd just bought, so she wanted to exchange it.  However, she also wanted to see another had to offer before going to the shop where she bought the bike.


She'd bought some absolutely hideous-looking Trek road model.  I don't know how it rode, but I could understand her wanting to exchange it because of its sheer garishness (Is that an oxymoron?) alone.  In its place, she got a much prettier (white with emerald green panels and black trim) Specialized Dolce, which I think also fit her better.  


Anyway, our ride ended when she exchanged the bike at Bicycle Habitat in Soho, where I was fitted for, and purchased, Arielle, Helene and Tosca.  I was going to ride with them to Brooklyn, then back to my place, but the Brooklyn Bridge was closed in the wake of the protests.  


And it was starting to rain.  I confessed, "I might just wimp out and take the train home."  


"I simply can't imagine you doing that!," said Lakythia.


So, even though the rain was falling harder by the minute, I rode.  The funny thing was that I somehow felt safer than I would have had the weather remained dry.  Perhaps it had to do with the fact that fewer people were out than one might normally expect when it's getting dark on a Saturday.


At least I didn't suffer what this rider experienced:  

No, I didn't ride with an umbrella the other night. However, I have done that trick before, and I've seen other cyclists--particularly in England and France--using one hand to navigate and the other to (perhaps futilely) keep dry.


Now, of course, everyone who's ever made deliveries on a bicycle has ridden one-handed while using his other hand to carry whatever he was delivering.  Plus, I'm sure many of us have stopped, bought (or picked up) something and carried it home in one hand.  


Once, I carried home a chair I picked up from a curbside.  Another time, I lugged a torchiere-style floor lamp.  I can recall a couple of times when I brought back pizzas that I balanced on one hand (once when I was drunk) as I piloted the bike with the other.  


But, perhaps my strangest (and noblest) bit of one-handed riding came when I picked up a little dog that, apparently, got lost or was abandoned and had never been outside her home before. She looked like one of those dogs that Posh Spice might carry as an accessory.  No one claimed her, and she had a collar but no tag.


I was riding home from a late class and I pedaled down one of the neighborhood's main commercial streets in the hope of finding a vet's office or animal shelter.  No such luck.  Even I'd found one, it might have been closed at that hour.  So, after ambling down that street, and another commercial area, I brought the dog--I don't know what breed she was, exactly--to the local police precinct.  I hoped that, from there, she made it home, or to a home.  At least, I figured, she was off the streets, where she could easily have been run over.  I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed bringing that dog in just to see the expressions on the police officers' faces:  There's nothing like watching macho guys get mushy.

What have you carried during a one-handed bike ride?

Horses Or Bikes, She Is A Real Freedom Rider

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, last month marked forty years since the release of Patti Smith’s album Horses. 

I was a senior in high school then.  It semed that my classmates fell into one of three categories:  the ones who loved it and didn’t want it to end, the ones who were looking forward to college or whatever else they were going to do after graduation, and those who just couldn’t wait to get out.

Those of us in the third category were, in one way or another, the class “geeks”.  Most of us were bookish; nearly all of us had some interest or talent that wasn’t fashionable in that high school where the unofficial motto seemed to be, “If you can’t f*ck it, smoke it or drive it and it ain’t Led Zep’, it ain’t worth it.”  More than a few of us read and/or wrote poetry or songs we would perform only for very close friends (who, naturally, were as introverted as we were); we loved poets like Patti who, we felt, told the truth—at least as we understood it at the time.

I had been writing stories, articles for the school newspaper and stuff I can’t categorize—most of which I lost or destroyed along the way from then to now.  Around that time, I started writing what some might call “free verse” poetry, or simply chopped-up sentences.  Whether or not it was “any good” (Let’s face it, how much of anything that we do at that age is?) is, I realize now, not the point, any more than whether or not I had the capability of becoming a world-class racer did or didn’t make the amount of cycling I was doing “worth it”.  Yes, I wrote and rode—as I do now—because I enjoyed those activities.  But more important, I could not envision life without them.

Actually, that’s not quite right.  I did those things, not only for pleasure, but also for survival.  And, in those days, the work of a poet like Patti Smith or Gregory Corso or Arthur Rimbaud was sustenance for “the journey”, whatever that might be.

I think what I really loved and admired about Patti Smith, though, was something I couldn’t articulate at the time, or for a long time afterward.  Now I’ll express it as best I can:  She did something interesting and unique, whatever its flaws (which I only vaguely understood at the time) and did it on her own terms.  At a time when I still did not have the terms or tools to articulate, let alone embody, the “differentness” I saw in myself—which others, especially the adults in my life, misunderstood as “rebelliousness”—Patti Smith gave us an image of how someone can become someone only he or she can become. 

When Horses came out, she was often described as “androgynous” because of the way she was dressed, and the way she carried herself, in the photo on the album’s cover.  The truth, I realized even then, was that she was actually showing that it was possible to be a woman in a way that didn’t fit into the boxes constructed by the governing institutions and individuals of our society.

She upset those authority figures in much the same way as the women who abandoned their corsets and hoopskirts for shorter skirts or “bloomers” so they could ride bicycles in the 1890’s. Most of those women weren’t consciously rebelling; they simply to wanted to live their lives as they saw fit.    

It might take a long time but, ultimately, independent spirits who realize their visions change the world and inspire us while those who try to suppress such spirits or the change they engender are forgotten or even vilified.  Most people, at least in the industrialized countries, think nothing of women wearing pants or skirts that don’t constrict their movement, and of working in what were once considered in “men’s” jobs.

Or of writing a line like, “Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."

Knowing what I’ve just said, are you surprised to see this image of Patti Smith?:

Hair and Tatoos

Today I rode the LeTour to work for the first time.   I was running a bit late--or, at least, I left my place a bit later than I'd planned--and forgot to bring my camera with me.  So I have no photos of myself or the bike or the commute.  But I'll tell you a bit about it.

First, fashion:  I feel as if I cheated a bit here.  I didn't ride in a skirt and heels.  Rather, I wore a sundress and my Keen sandals.  In a tote bag I stashed in my rear basket, I carried a short cardigan from a dusty blue twinset.   When I got to work, I slipped it over my dress, which was black with a hibiscus flower print in varying shades of blue.  One of those shades matched the sweater from the twinset, more or less.  And I also brought a pair of somewhat dressy black wedge sandals.  


I was glad to be wearing the sundress, as it was hot (though not as humid as yesterday).  And, of course, the Keen sandals were very comfortable.  


I didn't have any wardrobe malfunctions.  But the bike had a bit of a mishap.  Actually, it wasn't the bike itself; it was the rear rack.  The bolts that fasten the body of the rack to the arms that connect it to the seat stays fell out.  That caused my rack to flip backward and land on my fender.


Fortunately for me, I had just passed a hardware store, where I bought a package of screws and nuts, some lock washers and blue Loctite.  I've stopped there a few times before, as it's along one of my routes to and from work and other places.  Sometimes the guy behind the counter is an oldish Russian Jew who looks the way Alexander Solzhenitsyn (sp?) might have had he shaved.  But today I got this guy who is covered with tatoos and whose yellowing white hair  is longer than mine and beard is longer than mine ever was.  It's really odd to find him in that shop because it's at the corner of Metropolitan and 71st Avenues in Forest Hills, which is possibly the most resolutely bourgeois part of the city.  But he knows his stuff and is very helpful, which is one reason why his shop stays in business.


At one time in my youth, my hair was almost as long as that of the man in the hardware store.  And my beard, while not as long as his, was thick around my jaws and chin.   With all of the anger I felt in those days, I didn't need tatoos (which I've never gotten and probably never will get) or studded jacket to help me project an aura that said, "Stay the ---- away from me!"  I was like a cross between Charles Bronson and a hippie without the charm of either.


One hot day, I was riding my bike to my parents' house.  At the time, I was living in the town where I attended college (New Brunswick, NJ) and my parents were living on the Jersey Shore.  It was a thirty to thirty-five mile ride, depending on which route  I took.


Well, on that day, I peeled off my bike jersey before  I passed through Milltown, after which one of the early sedative drugs was named.  At that time, it was noted in the area for cops that were rumored to have been recruited in Alabama or from the KKK.  


One of those redneck officers actually pulled me over when I was riding along one of the streets.  In those days I didn't carry ID with me; most people didn't. 


"What are you doin' here?"


It took everything I had not to answer him sarcastically. But, fortunately for me, I managed to check that impulse.  


"What are you doin' here?"


"Riding my bicycle, sir."



"To where?"


"My mother's."


"All right.  Have a good day."


I haven't thought about that encounter in more than twenty years.  Now I wonder:  What would it have been like if I were covered with tatoos.

What Michael Carries In His Back-Pak

In one of my earliest posts, I recalled the messenger bag I carried before messenger bags became fashion accessories for hipsters.  I used it as I sluiced through the streets of Manhattan (and, occasionally, beyond) on my bike to deliver things legal and otherwise.  In that bag, I carried everything from prints (from a Soho gallery to Judy Collins. Yes, that Judy Collins!) to papers (for contracts to, and possibly on) as well as, believe it or not, pizza.  It also bore the weight of secrets I was trying to keep and issues I was avoiding by working a job where I never had contact with anyone for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

Some messengers still use bags like the one I had, except that they're made from different materials than the canvas that formed my workday luggage.  Since then, I've seen bicycle delivery folks use everything from "pizza racks" on the front, to panniers on the rear, of their bikes.  Some also use baskets of one kind and another.

Lately, I've seen another conveyance that looks the kind of insulated rectangular bags that are sometimes attached to "pizza racks,"  with backpack straps attached.  I imagine that they are handy for making deliveries, but I don't imagine that I'd want to use one to  carry loads for any significant amount of time:  The boxy shape doesn't look like it would be very comfortable on my back.

They are used, however, for a good reason:  It allows bicycle (and, increasingly, e-bike and motorized-bike) riders to make more deliveries in one trip than other kinds of bags or baskets would.  That would be especially important, I think, if those who receive the deliveries haven't had much, or anything, to eat in a couple of days--or if you wouldn't find them by knocking on a door or ringing a bell.

Michael Pak uses such a backbox. (Is that a good portmanteau of "backpack" and "box"?) So do some of his fellow delivery people in Los Angeles' Koreatown.  But they're not delivering kimchi to young software developers or hipsters.  Rather, the grateful recipients of their deliveries live on the neighborhood's streets.

One Monday in August, Pak put out an Instagram post asking for volunteers to help him deliver lunch kits on Friday.  "I picked up groceries on Thursday and packed them in my studio apartment while watching a movie," he recalls.  "Within an hour, I'd packed 80 lunches and called it a night."  He went to bed that night with no idea of who, if anyone, would show up the next day.

To his surprise, about 15 people came out to help him distribute the meals.  He realized, though, that his meal distribution could not be a one-time effort. "I realized that for this to work and grow, I had to be consistent and not be afraid to ask for help," he says.

Now, with the help of his friend Jacob Halpern and local volunteers, "Bicycle Meals" is making deliveries in Koreatown, to those without homes, on Mondays and Fridays.  The meals they deliver include a sandwich, fruit, water, snacks, hand sanitizer and a mask.  "The long term goal is to feed our neighbors every day," Pak declares.

To make his deliveries, he rides a BMX bike "gifted from a friend."  The "backbox," is, however, key.  "It can store up to 15 lunch kits at once," he explains.  "It's one of those Postmates delivery bags I found on Amazon."  

I carried a lot in my old messenger bag.  But I don't think I delivered anything as important as what Michael Pak delivers in his Backbox.

(Hmm.. Should we call it a Michaelpak?)

Photos by Wray Sinclair.

A Long And Restful Sleep

I didn't post last night because I got home dead-tired and fell asleep not long after walking through the door.


Thursday is my longest day of the week, work-wise.  And I did it on about half as much sleep as I'd planned.  Plus, it seemed, everyone--and I'm not talking only about my students--had some pressing issue, question or need.   Sometimes there are just days like that.


Riding from home to my main job, to my second job and home again, I felt surprisingly fluid.  Yes, I felt as if my legs were just flowing through each pedal stroke.  And I felt even more surprisingly strong, considering how little riding I've done since Christmas.  So what made me feel so tired when I got home?


Perhaps it had to do, at least in part, that I rode a bit more than I'd planned.  On my way home, I decided to ride a bike/pedestrian path along the southern edge of Kissena Park.  Close as it is to my commute, and other rides I do, I hadn't ridden there in a very long time.    So my memory of it was faulty, to say the least.  As I result, I made a wrong turn coming out of it.  Then I made another wrong turn. And another. 


My errance (Is that the noun form of "errant?") took me, among other places, around the perimeter of a cemetery.  And it was dark.  That, of course, is not an aid to someone who is a direct descendant of Christopher Columbus and inherited his navigational skills.  Well, OK, I may not be the great-great-great-great-whatever of CC.  But you get the idea.


One thing I wasn't going to do was to sleep in that cemetery.    For starters, it was very cold and windy.  More to the point, nobody ever plans to do such a thing.  At least, I didn't the one time I did it.


It happened back in the days before my first ATM card.  I didn't have any credit cards then, either.  I didn't buy traveler's checks, as I had done for my first European tour a couple of years earlier.  So all I had was cash.  And I was almost out of it the night I rested under the stars in a graveyard.


I knew that I was in New York State, somewhere near the point where its borders with Massachusetts and Connecticut meet.  I knew that because I crossed, during the course of that day's ride, from Massachusetts into Connecticut before seeing a sign that read "Welcome to the Empire State," or something like that.  


It was, as I recall, the fourth day of a ride I took from Montreal to New Jersey.  I'd carried a sleeping bag with me, which I didn't use until that night.  The day was hot, though not humid, which is unusual in most of the Eastern United States. I was tired: As young as I was, riding more than 80 miles with a load (small as it was) through a hilly area was a lot for one day.  


Most people's navigational skills decrease as they grow weary.  When your skills are like mine, they shrink into non-existence at times like that night.  If someone had told me there was a hostel or some other place fifteen feet in a straight line in front of me, I probably wouldn't have found it. 


Tired, broke (almost, anyway) and lost.  What did I do?  I rolled out my sleeping bag.  At least the night was clear and full of stars, with absolutely no threat of rain.  And it was quiet.  Very quiet.  But I was too tired to be disconcerted by anything, so I fell asleep almost as soon as I got into my bag.


I had a very long and restful sleep, as I had last night.

It Wasn't Hiroshima, But....

Seventy-five years ago today, American soldiers dropped the world's first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

I will not try to debate whether the bombing, or the one in Nagaski three days later, was necessary or ethical.  The effect of those blasts was, I believe, best summed up two millenia earlier in a Calgacus speech, as recalled by Tacitus:  Ubi solitudenum facient, pacem appelant (They make a wasteland and call it peace.)

I have seen the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and of various natural disaster.  I cannot, however, pretend to have ever seen devastation resembling anything wrought by those weapons. 

Even what I saw yesterday pales in comparison.

On the day after a not-quite-hurricane struck this area, I went for a ride in the direction of Connecticut.  Along the Pelham Bay Park trail, I had to detour around downed limbs and other parts of trees.  Still, my ride was going relatively smoothly until I crossed into Westchester County:

Less than a mile north of the city/county line, this tree toppled onto Mount Tom Road in Pelham.  So I backed up a bit and took a right, figuring that the road would take me, if in a more roundabout way, the direction of my ride.

Didn't get very far.

On that road, a couple of guys were sitting in their car.  "Be careful out there," the driver yelled.  He explained that his friend had just been out cycling and encountered broken power lines as well as downed trees.

At his suggestion, I cut through the golf course into a residential area of Pelham Manor.  I knew that I would end up at or near Boston Post Road, a.k.a. US 1, where I could re-orient myself.  At worst, I figured, I could ride US 1 for a bit, as it has a decent shoulder--and, I thought, was less likely to contain obstacles and hazards like the ones I'd encountered and been warned about:

So much for that idea, right?  I turned down another road blocked by a tree.  For a moment, I thought perhaps the storm was some cosmic conspiracy that threw down those trees as a "wall" to keep riff-raff like me out of the upper reaches of Westchester County and Connecticut.

Of course, that thought was no more rational than any comparison between what I was seeing and what the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki carried with them. 

When Nobody Wanted Our Flags

If you are here in the US, you know that it is Flag Day.

Even if you aren't here, you've probably seen bikes--or, at least, bike parts and accessories--adorned with the Stars and Stripes.  Back in the days when CNC-machined aftermarket parts were all the rage, it seemed that they all had an image of Old Glory painted or emblazoned on them.  And one of SRAM's early mountain bike derailleurs was called the Betsy, in honor of the flag's creator:

And most of us, at one time or another, have had bikes, parts or accessories with an image of some flag or another on it.  I've owned Italian and French bikes that had little likenesses of their respective country's tricolore on them, and of course I've had handlebar plugs and such with those flags and others on them.  Interestingly, I can't find a Union Jack anywhere on my Mercians.  And I don't recall seeing a Rising Sun on my Miyata.  Oh well.

But there is another kind of flag I associate with bicycles.  When I first became a dedicated rider--late in the '70's Bike Boom, one could buy a triangular "safety flag", usually in bright orange, perched atop a plastic pole that attached to the rear axle or some other part of the bike.

I think they may have sold when they were first offered. But I never saw very many of them--and, usually, they were on recumbents, tandems or bike trailers.  It's hard to imagine a racer riding with one.

Someone, however, thought they were going to become the hot new bike accessory.  At least, that's what I thought when I went to work at American Youth Hostels.  Among my responsibilities was buying and inventorying bike equipment in the outdoor shop and mail-order service AYH ran from its headquarters, then located on Spring Street, near Sullivan Street.  Mostly, we sold panniers, handlebar bags and other bike luggage, racks, a few accessories (like pumps and fenders) and some commonly-replaced parts such as tires, tubes, chains, brake pads and cables.  We had a few components--mainly SunTour derailleurs and freewheels, which people often bought to replace their sick or broken Simplexes or Hurets, as well as a few high-end pieces such as SunTour Superbe brakes and Sugino triple cranksets.

Among the stock of bicycle equipment were boxes full of bike safety flags.  Turns out, there were about 1000 of those pennants, all told, all of them in the same corners of the store and stockroom where they'd been residing since the day they were delivered, nearly a decade earlier.

"Can you think of a way to sell them?"  That was one of the first questions David Reenburd, the manager, asked me.

"Sell them?".  I could just barely suppress a chuckle--and the impulse to say that my degree was in liberal arts, not marketing.

He explained that his boss wanted them sold.  Everyone else wanted to simply get rid of them, as they were taking up space. 

"Why don't we just give them away?", I wondered.

"He", meaning his boss, "said to sell."

"Did he say for how much?"  

I noticed that they had price tags of $7.95:  what they would have sold for (if indeed they had sold) a decade earlier.  David agreed we'd never get a price like that, but his boss wanted to get "as much as we can" for them.

"How about if we sell them for $1.00 with the purchase of anything else in the store?"

His eyes lit up.  And I thought that sooner or later they'd be running up the flag for me.

One week later, we had no takers.  So I came up with an idea that couldn't be carried out today.

In those days, bar codes for store merchandise weren't yet in use.  At least, they weren't in the AYH store.  So we entered the prices of items by hand in the register.    I realized that I could enter, say, a handlebar bag that cost $29.95 at $28.95 and enter $1.00 for the flag.  Then, if the customer questioned it, I could say that I "mistakenly" entered the wrong price and simply added the difference.  And they could take one of the flags.

A couple of days later, we still had no takers for the flags.  Even when I tried giving them to customers as "gifts" with their purchases, nobody wanted them.  

We even offered them to riders on the Five Boro Bike Tour--which, in those days, AYH sponsored.  Still no takers.  Perhaps I was hallucinating (from what, I don't know), but those orange safety flags were starting to look more like white "surrender" flags.

A few months later, AYH moved its facilites up the street, to a building on the corner of Crosby and Spring that today houses a Sur La Table store.   The boxes of flags got "lost" somewhere along the way! 

Did they send up a distress signal?  If they did, we never got it. 
 

Two Stops, Two Conundrums

Today I rode to Point Lookout again.  It was not a perfect day, by most people’s definitions, but more than good enough for me:  clouds moved across a sunny sky, seemingly carried by the wind that I rode into on my way out to the Rockaways.  The temperature didn’t seem to rise above 25C anywhere I rode—the ocean water was only a couple of degrees cooler.  That might be the reason why I didn’t see very many people on the beaches or boardwalks, and the Point, like Jones Beach, across the cove, was deserted.  

The ride made me happy, even if it didn’t include any great developments or epiphanies.  I felt as if I got into a good rhythm while riding Arielle, my fixed-gear Mercian.  Most important of all, I didn’t feel achy or fatigued at the end of my ride:  I just felt as if I’d gotten a good workout and had a good time.  I really don’t ask for anything else.

Probably the most unusual things about this ride happened at two traffic stops—one in Atlantic Beach on my way out and the other in Sunnyside on my way back.

At the first stop, the light had just turned red.  I had about another half an hour—maybe forty minutes, given that I was riding into the wind—of riding to get to the Point.  Not that I was in a hurry:  I wasn’t worried about any commitments or even about the coming of night.  But I had, as I mentioned earlier, gotten into a good rhythm, and was trying not to stop. 

The light had just turned red and a man who looked like he had a decade or two on me was crossing the street.  Some guy in a Lexus tore through the intersection, against the red light.  Fortunately, the old man hadn’t gotten very far into the street, so he was in no danger of being struck.

What I found strange about the encounter, though, was the man kept on staring at me.  I wasn’t sure of whether he was surprised that I, and not the driver, stopped for the light. Or, perhaps he’d been directing stored-up anger over other cyclists who’d ignored traffic signals—or, maybe just stories he’d heard about them.  Whatever his motivations, he kept his head turned toward me until he stepped onto the curb on the other side of the street.

At the other stop, I was about two kilometers from my apartment.  Sunnyside is, like Astoria, an old blue collar-to-middle class neighborhood that never really deteriorated and is becoming home to increasing numbers of young professionals and creative people who work in Manhattan.  It’s also one of those neighborhoods where, at one time, I wouldn’t see anyone else on a bike but, over the past few years, I have been seeing more and more cyclists every time I ride through it.

Anyway, I stopped at an intersection of 48^th Steet, one of the neighborhood’s main arteries.  Trucks often come barreling down 48^th, coming from or going to the factories and rail yard that separate the neighborhood from Long Island City, so I don’t take chances when crossing it.  Neither do most people who live in the neighborhood.

A woman who looked like she was thirty, at most, crossed in front of me, with her son and daughter—neither of whom looked more than four years old—in tow.  She seemed like a nice person; we exchanged smiles.  “I’m sorry,” she simpered.

“For what?”

“For stopping you.”

“You didn’t stop me.  The light did.”  I pointed to the signal; it was turning yellow. She and her kids scampered to the curb.  “Have a nice day,” she shouted.

“You do the same.”

As pleasant as she was, I am still as puzzled by her reaction to my stopping for a light as I am to the man for his.

Photo by Darryl Kotyk