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In some ways, not that much has changed since 2006.  

Beyoncé and Mariah Carey are still making hits, the Seattle Mariners remain mediocre, and you can continue to tune into new episodes of The Simpsons on a regular basis Sunday nights during the school year.

But lots has changed, too: there are way more flavors of Cheetos than back in the “Aughts”; you never saw a radio-controlled flying drone lift off the ground vertically and soar over Elliot Bay in those days; and the Seattle Big Wheel didn’t dominate the downtown shoreline of our fair city, whereas the viaduct, may it rest in peace, did.

Jack Block park was there then and already provided its unsurpassed view of the Seattle skyline, (almost equaled, we’ve learned, however, by the vista provided from the pedestrian bridge over Harbor Island’s main thoroughfare), although its shoreline wasn’t, at that time, accessible to humans (other than those like the legendary Daniel Featherhead, who was able to fly down and up from it—just like a drone!)

Nevertheless, seventeen years later, there’s still nothing like being out on your bike, during a perfect summer evening in Seattle, with pink clouds turning orange and red to the west, drinking beer and smoking weed, telling lies and doubting claims, just as you did verging on two decades ago, before the iPhone even came out and back when people still believed the US Supreme Court was a legitimate component of our government’s famous system of “check and balances.”

I hadn’t even hit the half-century mark that first time I ever stood on the magnificent concrete platform suspended about the Superfund site, and yet now, at closer to seventy than sixty years of age, I still delight at way it vibrates when those mighty cables are shaken.

Quantum physics—or maybe just South Park—tells us that time is an illusion; past and future don’t exist, there’s only the present and my, what a gift it is!

Script

A Broadway theater actor does eight shows a week, Tuesday night through Saturday, with a matinee on both weekend days.  And yet, somehow, they great ones keep it fresh, as if they’re saying their lines for the first time, every time.

A schoolteacher typically teaches the same subject, year after year, same content, same questions, September to June throughout their entire career.  And yet somehow, the best educators make their subject matter come alive no matter how many times they’ve covered it before.

And pity the poor IT help desk person: how many times are they asked the exact same question from another person with the very same computer problem they just solved moments before for someone else?  And yet, somehow, the really helpful ones manage not to be snide when suggesting that the offending CPU be powered off and on just in case.

The same sort of principle applies when it comes to Thursday night rides.  

After all, you may be following a route followed many a time before, complete with the requisite spin around the Seattle Center “ghettodrome,” a spin up to the nearby parking garage rooftop pea patch, the standard massing up by Seattle’s fanciest restaurant and the usual sunset crossing of the scary bridge that’s way less scary en masse, but even while doing so, it’s important to find new wrinkles that make the usual unusual, like riding higher than ever before in the bowl of the fountain, or taking a more roundabout route to the top of the parking structure than is typical, or for once, not spreading out into a long thin line, but rather, staying pretty packed together as you cross over Fremont from above.

And never before was it that if Derrick don’t come to the ride, the ride comes to Derrick, the result of which was an oft-visited firepit hosting a blaze started in a way it never is anymore.

And what’s old is new all over again.

Imperfecdt

Sure, in the perfect world, (assuming, contrary to old Dr. Pangloss, it isn’t this one), the first swim of summer would be on a perfectly clear day with temperatures in the eighties, but if it takes place on a comparatively cool and overcast evening on which the early-season water temperature was a degree or two warmer than the air, that’s plenty good enough.

And yes, of course, on the ideal Thursday night out on two wheels, no one from the group would miss the start, leave early, or be dropped or misplaced, but when, thanks, in part to the new technological beacon as well as old skool cellular phone calls, everyone eventually convenes, then what’s to complain about, really?

And no doubt, if one was scripting life to have all the dials turned up to eleven, then the single-track meander through the woods would be longer, greener, would include a water element or two, and the only sounds you’d hear would be the chirping of birds and the ratcheting of pawls, but even with a soundtrack and the dust, it’s plenty rad, especially given its urban setting and accessibility.

Moreover, one can’t deny that the Platonic form of campfire isn’t composed of logs made from pressed sawdust engraved with the name of that fragrant city to the south, and probably doesn’t involve the combustion of fluids best left to internal combustion engines, but honestly, you’ve got to admit that with enough lighter fluid and sufficient determination to see flammable things in flames, the minimum bar for success has not only been achieved, but surpassed.

Agreed: a sunset where you can watch our nearest star descend all the way to the horizon, sparking that mythical “green flash” is the one you’d hold up as the apotheosis of such events, but surely one which paints the entire western sky achingly lovely hues of purple, fuchsia, and pink and makes cardboard cutouts of the city skyline ain’t half bad, either. 

Gizmo

When someone makes that classic assertion, “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid,” I take them to mean  that while they might be dull or uneducated, at least they aren’t willfully ignorant.  You can fool them once (or they can fool themselves once), but shame on them if you fool them (or they fool themselves) a second, third, even 327th time.  

The dumb person screws up because they aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but they learn from their mistakes and exercise greater discrimination and acumen next time around.

If that’s the case, then you can certainly count yourself as one of the stupid, because after nearly 500 Thursday nights out on two wheels with the usual suspects, including a truly vintage collection on the most recent one, all you’ve really learned from your mistakes is how to reliably make them again and again and again.

Good judgment is probably overrated, anyway, and indubitably, the concerted exercise of stupidity results in many more memorable memories, many of which you can’t even hardly remember, along with all the ones that, despite your best efforts, you’ll never be able forget.

It was, indeed, an unforgettably beautiful spring evening here in the Upper Left, with an almost full moon blotting out all but the most persistent stars and planets.  We won’t be surprised to see the typical “Juneuary” upon us at any time, but for right now, at least, wool and Gore-tex remain in the bag all night.

And in spite of a tendency towards technological Ludditism, one has to hand it to the satellite tracking gizmo that made it all possible. You would have ridden right on by had not the little round “Drain” button shown itself on your mobile screen.  

Welcome to the 21st century, it ain’t all bad.

“You can’t fix stupid,” goes the old saw, and to tell you truth, it’s not obvious you’d want to; think of all you’d miss if you did.