Ultimate

On the last Thursday of the year, which was also the first Thursday of season on which the days were growing longer, a small contingent of bicycle riders met up by the holiday carousel in Seattle’s downtown retail core and rode downhill and around the corner before ascending for warmth to the topmost top of a concrete structure for storing automobiles in order to enjoy a Viaduct-free view of maritime industry while conjecturing as to the original purpose of a brick smokestack over shots of whiskey and cans of beer.

Soon afterwards, they circled back down the marble raceway, managing, somewhat surprisingly, to avoid hitting anyone’s helmeted head on the low ceiling, and hightailed south for an indoor firepit (and the false promise of singing) to quaff a bit at a place whose name calls forth the spirit of summer swimming pool games where at least a couple of their number got to see how much easier it is to notice differences when a person isn’t distracted by what distracts them.

Eventually, northward movement was effected which eventually resulted in the standard admonition to drink at the bar one shows up to; that happened, and soon enough some who thought they were leaving stayed and vice-versa—a fitting end to the end of a year that had many a fitting end.

The upcoming 12 months promise to hold the promise of better things, presuming our long national nightmare draws, at last, to a close.  As T.S. Eliot (no doubt spinning in his grave at the newly-released theatrical version of his book of practical cats) reminds us in “The Hollow Men,” the world ends not with a bang but a whimper, a state of affairs that doesn’t, apparently, apply to the teens decade of the 21^st century, which seems to be drawing to its conclusion with something more like a cheer, even if said cheer is more of the Bronx-style than the unalloyed encomiums resulting from one final ride of the year.