24 November 2021

They See You While You're Shopping

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day--and, unofficially, the beginning of the "holiday season"--here in the US.

Although this time is festive for some, it comes with increased dangers.  Among them are "crimes of opportunity," especially in shopping and touristic areas.  Such incidents include car break-ins, purse snatchings, other kinds of theft and sexual harassment and assault.  As one shopper pointed out, a woman alone in a parking lot is especially vulnerable at this time of year, as darkness arrives earlier in the day.

Knowing that, police departments typically increase their presence in such places at this time of year.  Typically, constables pass by in patrol cars; sometimes cops do their work on foot.  But at least one police department has figured out that sending officers to such areas on bicycle is perhaps the most effective means of fighting and deterring crime.

That is what the Kyle, Texas police department will be doing for the fourth year.  The Austin-area city's department specially trains officers for bike duty.  One benefit, according to officer James Plant, is that "we can get into areas that police cars can't." Moreover, he says, bikes are quiet, which allows officers to "be stealthy" and "sneak up on the criminal."

The real value, he says, of the bike patrols is not so much in busting criminals but in deterring them.  The officers on bikes, he explains, are "an extra set of eyes and ears in the community."

And, it seems, people like the bike patrols.  "We get a lot of thumbs-up," Plant says.



23 November 2021

Black Cyclone Coming

There are a number of athletes I admire for their accomplishments in their sports.  But there is a much smaller number whom I respect equally, or even more, as human beings.  They include Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaerpernick, Simone Biles--and Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor.

Some day, I'm sure, a documentary or biopic will be made about Ms. Biles.  Films have already been made from the triumphs and struggles of Robinson and Ali.  Five years ago, "Battle of the Sexes" focused on King's 1973 match--which she won--against Bobby Riggs.  While it was a good film, I think it also helped to reinforce the tendency to think of Ms. King only in terms of that, and not on, not only of the way she dominated her game as Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams would later on, but also of her advocacy for women and LGBTQ folks. 

But, to my knowledge, Major Taylor hasn't received cinematic canonization.  One reason for that may be that there isn't anybody alive who saw him ride or can even remember how he dominated bike racing to the same degree as the other athletes I've mentioned towered over their sports.  Thus, most people who aren't familiar with the history of cycling or African Americans don't realize that he was the first African American champion of any sport half a century before Robinson set foot on a Major League baseball field.


Clement Virgo (l) and "Major" Taylor




It seems that situation is about to change.  Canadian director Clement Virgo, who also helmed feature films "Rude" and "Lie With Me" as well as the six-part miniseries "The Book of Negroes," has been tapped to direct "Black Cyclone."  The title comes from one of the more flattering nicknames given to Taylor. (As a black man in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, he also was called names that I, someone who isn't exactly profanity-adverse, won't repeat.)  John Howard, a three-time Olympic and four-time U.S. Road Champion cyclist (who also set a land speed record that stood for a decade) will serve as a consultant on the project.

Production is set to begin next year.   

22 November 2021

A Signal--Of What?

 Friday afternoon, I pedaled along the North Shore--into the wind most of the way out, with it on the way back.

On my way back, I stopped in Fort Totten.  As its name implies, it was an active military base.  Now one section of it is used for Army Reserve training exercises; the New York Fire Department uses another.  The rest is a park with some great views of Long Island Sound and, on a clear day, the New York skyline.

When I stopped, I chanced upon this:





I got to thinking, ironically, about a long-ago conversation with an Italian olive grower.  The trees take 100 years to bear fruit, he told me.  So, he said, I am not planting a tree for me, for my children, or their grandchildren.  Rather, he is planting for their grandchildren.

A few weeks after that trip--during which I pedaled from Rome to Avignon and took the TGV (still pretty new then) to Paris--I went to  to see my brother in SoCal, with a stop in NoCal.  I took time from doing all of the things that could have gotten me into trouble (yes, even in San Francisco) to see the millenia-old trees on the other side of the bridge.  Later, I would try to write about how it felt to look at living things--olive, sequoia and other trees--that were older than any other living thing I'd seen, and any civilization or race I'd ever read about.  They were, it seemed, almost as old as the earth itself.





Here in NY, the trees aren't quite that old.  But at least a few have been around for a century or more and have weathered all manner of natural cataclysms and human-made traumas.  But this year proved to be too much for some that fell or broke, like the one in the photo.

Somehow it made the mostly-clear sky even more stark and a harbinger of winter.  Or, could it be a signal to some other direction we (or at least I) cannot yet discern?  Was it directing me to some place I haven't seen or imagined?





I'll spare you any comparisons to the green light in the Great Gatsby!