Bicycle Day

Every spring, Robert Frost's line comes to mind --- "Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold."


Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Got my bike out Friday - put on 2 miles going to get some air in the tires, and Saturday got to one of my favorite spots - a bridge over the Genesee River. Very little spring green to be found yet. The lilac in the yard has tiny leaves emerging- the hedge seems to have had a hard winter - very brown, but close inspection shows very tiny buds with tiny green lines between the scales! Those daffodils are out again, but may soon have to give way to the new gas line going down our street.

Bicycles seem to be emerging from basements and garages. Like mine, they are a bit soft in the tire, and a little stiff - like their owners after a winter of sitting around? Other odd references to bicycles recently --- Bicycle Day was this past week - seems the person who discovered LSD rode his bike home after trying it for the first time in 1943 --- evidently quite an experience? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Day#Bicycle_Day

Today's Writer's Almanac - a Garrison Keillor production that hits my e-mail box every day - includes a poem called "Bicycle Spring" by Kevin FitzPatrick. Check it out at http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=148124&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=15da4f022a

Subscribe if you really like a moment of uplifting each day.

Anyway, my bike still serves me well all these many years after my Dad propelled me down that cinder driveway sometime back in the 1950's. Between my Dad's good advice, and those sharp cinders I learned quickly. The lesson stuck, and even my arthritic hip that does not like a walk down the block seems to enjoy a few miles on the bike!

I think I'll add a new Label - "The old Erie Canal" because for the next few months a lot of my good moments and stories will come from the canal, the folks who ride along it with me, and my bicycle.