Span

Back in the Naughty-Aughties, a goateed guy named Ro used to ride bikes (and sometimes, on camping trips, a motorcycle) with us; he was 67 IIRC, which to me, a wee lad in my early 50s at the time, seemed legitimately old.   During the same period, there were a handful of minors who came out on Thursdays as well; the youngest, Alec, was probably seventeen; charmingly, he would sometimes wait like a faithful puppy outside whatever bar we had holed up in, to join the inebriated for the group ride home.

So figure a span of fifty years between the senior and junior members of said crew; that’s surely the record.

Last night, though, did pretty good: there was, me, yours truly, at, as Fancy Fred pointed out, sixty one-derful years, and our young tag-along capture, Windy City Carlos, who boldly admitted he was just sixteen years old, meaning there was a four and a half decade age span between the firstborn and lastborn riders in attendance.

It’s kind of amazing, and surely heartwarming, as well, that the delights of two-wheeled shenanigans can be enjoyed by folks so far apart chronologically, (in marked contrast, for example, to whatever pleasures attend to one’s choices in music, a point brought home particularly uncomfortably when the youngster kept blasting N-word filled rap songs from his backpack speaker as all us white folk pedaled past houses which—during my lifetime (but not his, admittedly)—only white-skinned people were permitted by neighborhood covenant to own.)

But I guess back in 1973, when I ductaped a transistor radio to the handlebars of my Raleigh Record and blared Led Zepplin’s “The Lemon Song” while riding through the quaint streets of Pittsburgh’s Highland Park district, some guy born 45 years before me, in 1912, wouldn’t have liked it, either.

On the other hand, I’ll bet if he hopped on his penny-farthing and joined in careening down winding streets on two wheels, we'd have both felt like kids.

Sight

Just when you think you’ve seen it all (and thanks to upper air aloft, you actually could see, for the first time in days, all the way from the West Seattle superfund site park to the downtown Seattle skyline), you witness the absolutely unprecedented experience (at least in your own experience) of being denied service at of all places, one of the diviest of dive bars; so what else is there to do but take it as a sign that the bridge should be crossed before further shenanigans occur; the result being, after a look-see at a potential new haunt, you find yourself observing the most familiar of walls, one with mirrors on them, to boot, gazing on that very reflection you’ve reflected upon all of your born days.

I mean sure, a person’s going to be a little tipsy after sharing the traditional twelve-pack at the traditional nut-punching platform above the Duwamish, and yes, I’ll admit that a guy might stumble a bit after hopping off his bike and wandering into a watering hole that requires navigating around a person with a microphone belting out their favorite country music tune, but it’s hard (entirely opaque, honestly) to see what the bartender saw to make it impossible to order even a Coca-Cola, but who knows what they might have been eyeing?  Maybe she just doesn’t like your face or perhaps it’s the new short hairdo.

In any case, it was hardly a blot on an otherwise fine night for observing (and breathing); an almost full moon rising over the industrial wasteland was its standard issue yellow as opposed to “new normal” red, blue sky was visible behind wispy cirrus clouds, and three, count ‘em three! Ryans outnumbered just a pair of Kevins on the way out of Westlake.

So all’s well that ends well, I guess, and besides, it does mean you get to watch the birthday girl drink a mai-tai, a sight, clearly, never to miss!

Leap

Call me a sissy scaredy-cat coward while pointing out that even children and nearsighted tech-nerds braved the attempt and I’d have to agree; nevertheless, discretion (such as it is) remains the better (perhaps only) part of valor for this chicken-hearted chicken when it comes to hurling oneself off a plastic ramp into Lake Washington atop a janky BMX bike after careening down an increasingly wet and slippery runway especially when well-lubricated already with apparently not quite enough liquid courage to overcome the survival instinct part of the lizard brain for yet another year running.

Long story short: as usual, I preferred the view from the water and was rewarded with the sight of one more hilarious splashdown after another as less fearful, younger, or maybe even drunker souls than me piloted the floating two-wheeler into the drink much to the cheers, jeers, and sympathetic groans of the assembled.

It was the perfect night for launching, one of those magical Seattle summer evenings where the lake water and air temperature align so that it’s just as warm to be wet as dry; the watery choice, of course, has the secret advantage of providing a full-time conduit for beer-processing, a point we need not belabor, but bears noting because why the hell not, everyone does and it’s awesome, right?

For some reason, the younger, cuter version of the bike gang declined to stop and join, but oh well, these kids today with their appetites for exposure, more power to them, but this lily-livered old-timer will continue to capture life in the time-honored manner of imprinting memories directly onto the grey matter and then making up stories about them, like the one where Shows Up Joe flies far beyond the handlebars as he splashes down atop the lake’s silvery surface in the waning twilight of the August eve, just at the point where everyone turns into luminous shadows, backlit by reflections, glowing at the edges, walking (and riding) on water.