“Learn to ride a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.”
The weather is taking a turn. It is colder today, in the mid 40’s, and will get colder tonight, more seasonable. The sky is cloudy making for a dark day. The only saving grace is the still air, nothing is moving.
I have the usual chores I’m avoiding. Laundry tops the list. I avert my eyes when I walk by the almost full basket. Maybe tomorrow.
Today it seems my muse has deserted me. I keep starting a thread then stopping and deleting it when it goes nowhere. Being around the house so much means fewer adventures. When I go out, it is usually to the dump or the store and, of late, to physical therapy. I find it all a bit boring. I do have uke, the only bright spot in my week. Maybe I’ll just take a ride and meander a bit.
When I was a kid, we lived in a duplex almost to the top of a hill. That’s important. In the snow we sledded down that hill, and during the rest of the year, we’d ride our bikes to the bottom. Going back up was a different story. I remember holding the rope from the front of my sled and pulling it up the hill. The rope got heavy with ice, and my mittens got soaked. As for my bike, I could ride it only halfway up the hill for a long time then I’d walk it. I still remember the sense of triumph when I rode it all the way up to my house. I kept listening for applause.
It seems when I’m stuck I head back to Ghana. The memory of that hill brought me there today. My school was down a dirt road at the top of a hill. Between the school road and town there were mostly fields with a compound here and there. The hill was not steep, but it was long. I’d borrow a bike and ride down the hill to town. When my shopping was finished, I’d put the bag filled with fruit on the handlebar of the bike then I’d ride back up the hill as far as I could pedal. I’d end up walking the rest of the way.
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November 29, 2022 at 6:45 pm
Hi Kat,
Today we almost got to 80° under clear skies. But the cold weather is coming back in the morning. Tomorrow morning at sunrise we will be in the mid 30s with a high temperature in the 50s.
When I lived in Queens New York, there’s a hill that runs nearly the entire length of Long Island. We had to walk down it to get to the subway station on Hillside Avenue. I learned in Earth Science class that this particular hill and all of Long Island are the remnants of the earth that the giant glacier from the last ice age pushed down from Canada. This hill was where the glacier stopped. When the ice receded, the dirt remains is Long Island. Of course, we had to trudge up the hill on our way home. 🙂
November 29, 2022 at 8:18 pm
Hi Bob,
We will be down to the 30’s tonight. I don’t remember if it is tomorrow or Thursday, but we’ll be warmish again, in the high 50’s.
Trudging up the hill was mostly worth the ride., but it did get tiring after a few runs.
The cape is mostly flat. Kids sled on the hills at the golf course as there are few others, but they use the round saucers instead of our sorts of sleds. My driveway is steep, and the neighborhood kids would saucer down it, but then I fenced in the whole yard so no more rides.