Wow. School started. It’s one thing to extol bike commuting when your first obligation is at 10:30 a.m. and you get to head home at 4:00. It’s a bit more challenging to leave at 6:45 and come home at 8:30, finding space to schlep along changes of clothing, school gear, and two meals. This has been my excuse.
Then last week my truck decided to add a little clinking noise to its growing lexicon of small, disturbing, but not necessarily life threatening problems. (For instance: the blinkers have been increasingly unreliable, but every good Atlantean knows that blinkers are for pussies.) So, rather than waiting till the clinking wheel decided to strike off on its own, I finally took her in and relinquished her to the guys at Quantum Mechanics. Downside: inconvenient and expensive. Upside – forced me onto my bike.
7 a.m. is not my choice time to ride. It’s not actually my choice time to do anything, actually, besides sleep. (Or graciously receive breakfast in bed. I could probably handle that, too. . .) But two things made it kind of awesome.
1.) Kids on the path! I was riding through town just in time for all the kids to be going to school. I got a brief, gap toothed grin from a small girl furiously pedaling her hot-pink bike to stay ahead of her older brother. He gave me sort of a dubious smile, probably wondering why this random stranger was so delighted to see him. Probably it wouldn’t have made sense to him anyway; he’s grown up safe and in Decatur, so he doesn’t have to understand why it’s so awesome that kids in the community are using healthy modes of transportation and feel safe enough to do so.
2.) Crossing guards. Dude. I love them. Every bad-ass-grandma glares-right-through-your-windshield one of them.
I love this blog. It’s funny, cynical and sweet all at the same time.