Another Trip to the Vet
At a little after ten in the morning I
gotta stop for a moment and pull off a couple layers. The morning
started chilly, maybe forty-five degrees, but the sun is up and
running now and it is warming up just fine. This ride was planned as
an intermodal bus/bicycle combo fast run, but due to the
lackadaisical schedules of the local mass transit and my general lack
of patience it turned into a fast run by bike only. Fine with me,
except for my persistent yearning for some kind of Pony Express style
rapid transit that has me swinging down from the bus or train with my
bicycle already half launched as I leap into the saddle and barrel
off to the next station.
While I stuff the layers of fleece and
cotton into my Goodwill Messenger Bag a glint from some bright
reflected light catches the corner of my eye. My first bus stop of
the morning is across from our little airport. We are a quaint and
artistic tourist trap and quite humble. But we also got one of
these:
Is that thing gorgeous, or what?! Man.
I have another twenty minutes before the terrapin bus is due, so I
walk across the morning highway for a closer look. Wow.
Return to Forever
Going back to the bench, I notice an
advert for bi-plane rides. Being an inveterate bi-cycle junkie I
pause to reflect on the whole Wright Brothers thing. Seven minutes
have passed and the bus is still a ways off, behind me. I notice
that Little Miss Dangerous is looking a little less ladylike than
when I did a full rebuild and paint over a year ago. But what
of that? Like her owner, Little Miss lives close to the street and
is a bit of the rough and ready kind. Plus, neither of us is getting
any younger. Also, as near as I can tell, that damn bus ain't
getting any closer.
Whatever
I grab my rag-tag single-speed antique,
swing my bag over my shoulder and hit a lick. My goal: Beat the bus
to the Transfer Station, ten miles away. I'm headed for my bi-annual
checkup at the VA Clinic. They are convinced I am borderline
cardiac-bound; (at least their charts and machines say so) but when I
tell them I just rode over twenty-five miles in traffic in under two
hours they get a little confused, then close my folder and send me on
my way.
Reality
I'm stroking North and I'm weak as
hell. I have not ridden even two or three miles a day since starting
work again and my butt is reminding me of this fact, but my legs are
strong. I spend a lot of my work day standing in a hi-lift
installing the framing on these McD's that have taken over my
existence. There is no walking involved, but in that basket you are
like a sailor at sea; there is a constant subtle movement and you
are always balancing and bobbing about and also, we lift very heavy
sheets of plywood using only our upper bodies and we attach these
sheets with a multitude of screws that do not want to go in all that
well. It's hard and goes on for ten hours a day and as I pedal
firmly and with malice over the three bridges north of town (on my
way to be told that I am old and tired) I feel pretty good. My legs
are good and I am breathing pretty good and except for my butt, we're
getting there just fine.
The Truth Cannot Be Escaped
But I am an experienced cyclist and I
know the truth: I'm strong now but as a cyclist I know: it won't
last. I'm secretly weak as hell but I'm out in front of the bus with
a thirteen minute head start and I'm kickin' hard and if I lose it, I
can always get on the bus. It is early and the bridge fishermen are
pulling in and getting their rigs ready. The seagulls, always rowdy,
are doing their thing, ripping around overhead and demanding their
fair share and far away, over the crystal water shining her morning
colors is the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, old, an old structure, old
before we were born and still here, brick-solid and stunning and a
reminder that sometimes, maybe, things last longer than we thought
they might and that Lighthouse is still there and so am I and so is
Little Miss Dangerous and we're blasting along on the other side of
the bridges now and I have to be slick and smart and careful or
morning traffic will put an end to all this longevity I am bragging
about.
Survival Is Everything
These painted bike lanes are insane and
when I'm doing this run to the Clinic I ride like I never do. I use
the bike lanes and practice vehicular riding and obey the laws and I
also find myself pedaling really fast, way faster than I would on my
fun rides. This is commuting and I guess I could get used to it, but
I don't plan to try. It isn't that far now to the bus transfer
station. I'm in three lanes of morning traffic and I can't help but
wish I was somewhere else, preferably with a beer in my hand. But
I'm almost there.
Oh, By the Way...
I bought a truck. My original choice
was a little Nissan pickup but one afternoon, late in the year when
the first welcome cool breezes begin to feather down from the North I
was out on my big loop country ride, beside myself with the inherent
pleasures of country and solitude and being on my bicycle after weeks
away. I was lost in that Other Place I go to when it is all just right:
the ambient temperatures, the quiet of the road and a mellow
wind; the mesmerizing tempo of a steady and absent cadence...and, as
usual, there she was. It always works this way. You just know when
it's right. A well-aged 1984 Ford F150. There was no question. I
took out my bedraggled much-folded scrap of notepaper and copied down
the phone number. The two-thousand dollar price on the windshield
meant nothing. This was my truck and I would buy her for
fifteen-hundred dollars, which (of course) I did.
Doesn't she look fine in that dramatic
night shot, perched on a big flatbed tow truck? I think so. That is
a shot of her, after a month of diligent service hauling me and my
tools to various jobs around Florida, on her way to have a new
transmission installed. As an honorary good ol' boy, I am an ad hoc
member of a hillbilly network that can get such things done cheap.
The tow truck cost nothing, and the new transmission, a unit built
for a 5.0 Mustang that had to leave town before receiving its new
tranny, cost a painful yet affordable $750. And so, as I predicted,
I am earning again and saving but also an owner of a motor vehicle.
They are insatiable. And yet...
HA!
There it is: the Votran Bus transfer
station. I did it. I beat the bus, again. As I pull up, I hear the
terrapin coming up from behind. I just barely beat it. And this is
only the transfer station, the VA Clinic is still another five miles
away. But I have plenty of time, after that sprint. I can poke
along and cool down and make it to the Clinic with plenty of time.
If my new Old Truck was available, instead of out in a barn getting a
new hot rod transmission put into her, would I have driven her here,
or would I have rode my bicycle? I don't know. As a dedicated
cyclist, I have a rule: I only drive for work, when I must carry my quarter ton of tools from job to job. Everything else I do by bicycle.
But I really love my truck. I love
cruising to the job, windows down and radio playing, my left arm out the window. I feel quintessentially American and redneck and somehow honest all at the same time. But gas is VERY expensive and I am,
after all, saving hard for the seed money for Comstock Farms,
even if it is only one trailer on one acre...I'm saving...
So...
Here's what I did: I took some of my
earnings and rented a twelve by twenty four foot storage unit about three
miles from the Whispering Pines. I put almost all my stuff in there
and I park my truck there when I am home from the road. So if I want
to drive somewhere, first I have to ride three miles to the storage
unit. It works. I still ride everywhere. My cool old truck sleeps
inside when she is not on duty and I still ride everywhere.
And, Finally:
My new doctor at the VA was lecturing
me about my cholesterol and my drinking and my blood pressure and
something called Metabolic Syndrome but when I told him I had just
come twenty five miles fast by bicycle and had twenty five more to go, fast, to beat the sundown...
Well, you know.
tj
