Bicycle Stories

10.

Summer morning in a major university campus... I was locking up my bicycle and saw two young women in black and pink cheerleader tutus race by on kick scooters.

2013.

9.

On Monday I was bicycling on the Taylor Docks, which stretch across one end of Bellingham Bay, connecting Fairhaven with Downtown, and I passed a racing scull, three kayaks, a sailboat and five llamas. The llamas, for the record, were on the Docks, not the water.

2013.

8. 

Today is my birthday. I was bicycling downtown and paused at a 4-way-stop to adjust my sunglasses. A woman driver with a hoarse voice shouted to me "Come on, Papa! I stopped for you, Papa." And when I started again she yelled "There you go, Papa." Below is a picture of some of the dirt than which I am older.

2024.

All reactions:

172Flip Breskin, Josh Pachter and 170 others

7. 

"Mommy, that man on the bicycle just started laughing for no reason. Is he crazy?"

"Well, dear. He might just be a writer who figured out a plot point in his next story."

"Is that less dangerous than being crazy?"

"Hmm...."

2018.

 6. 

Downtown I bicycled past two men who appeared to be homeless.

"Excuse me," one asked. "Can you answer a question for us?"

"Maybe."

"Is Joseph the same as josé?"

"José is Spanish for Joseph."

"Thank you.

2019.

5.

I was bicycling on Lakeway today and stopped at a red light, as I often do. A pedestrian, even older than me if you can believe it, said "I want to ask you a question."

"Okay."

She pulled from her shopping bag a large can of Popeye Energy Drink. "Have you ever had this?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't drink energy drinks."

"Why not?"

"I don't need energy."

"That's a good answer."

"Thank you." And the light changed.

2024.

4.

I was bicycling downtown yesterday and someone stared at me for a few seconds and then burst out laughing. That was rather disturbing until I remembered what shirt I was wearing.

2018.

3.

The other day I was thinking of some of the characters I have noticed in this town over the years. The legally-blind man who rode his bicycle with his white cane over the handlebars. The obese man who stood around the highway exit in a sequinned tutu (really). A gentleman who jogs through downtown in a long raincoat.

Then it occurred to me that the person thinking this was a sixty-four year old gray-beard bicycling around in the cold rain. My God, I am one of them now.

2018.

2.

Had a lovely afternoon on the bicycle until my tire went flat on the new trail near the cemetery. Walked it down the hill and across the street to the bus stop. Waited fifteen minutes for a bus downtown. Walked to the bike shop, which used to be Kulshan Cycles (local, funky, competent) and is now Trek Cycles (commercial, slick). Young man fixed my tire in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes later it was flat again. Rain started. Terri drove over and picked me up. To get the bike in the car my knees were squashed up against the glove compartment. How was your day?

2019.

1.

I was bicycling through Salmon Woods Open Space today (see below for a sample view) and there was a young man with a guitar, camera on a tripod, and some audio equipment, singing a song. The next Jesse Welles?