Friends?

image edited to protect the guilty

1 March 2015

TEW and I have been asking the same question: Out on the road, we Hill Slugs are one big, happy family.  When we're housebound, we never see each other.  If we're not on our bikes, are we still friends?

Mid-week, today's forecast looked promising enough for us to get out mid-day.  By Friday, things weren't looking so good.  Snakehead Ed was holding out hope and got two routes ready so that we could dodge the snow.  By last night, though, the storm's arrival had moved up to mid-morning.

Jim suggested we meet somewhere for coffee instead. I jumped on that; I could bring Jack, who, by now, knows Jim and Ed well enough to hold his own. Ed said he'd decide in the morning. If the storm were to hold off, we'd start from Six Mile Run at 10:00 a.m.  I got Kermit ready.

At 7:00 a.m. my inbox was empty.  The National Weather Service was calling for snow at 10:00.  I sent out the first message: "Well, fearless leader, should I suit up?"  Jim answered first.  "I'm out," he said.  I agreed.

Ed wasn't yet convinced that we couldn't squeeze a few miles in.  I told him to read this.  It took another 40 minutes for him to come around.

Now it was down to Better World in South Brunswick, or Main Street in Kingston.  Jim wrote, "I popped to make the decision to wimp out; I'm leaving the choice of place to Her Perpetuality."

"Her Perpetuality!  This might stick. That makes you His Plainness, of course." We decided on Main Street at 10:00.  "I don’t like the trend here if I have to become His Sibilance or such like," Ed replied.

I had time for half a breakfast before we headed out.  On the way, I looked at the ice on the shoulder on Princeton Pike.  In a week I need to see at least half of it or I won't be able to bike to work safely.

We took a round table in the back. Ed and I had big mugs of coffee.  Ed went for the flaky pastries.  I found something in pumpkin.  Jack went with a cookie.  Jim slid in with a lump of sugary mess that none of us dared define.

Frames and shifters, wheels and obsolescence.

Computers and software, code and obsolescence.

What Truman knew about the atomic bomb.  What the public knew.

Shakespeare's first folio, greasy fingers preserving pages.

Mummies as a source of paper.

 from "Double Fold" by Nicholson Baker

"An endless supply of mummies?"

"Sustainable mummy harvest?"

"Do I want to come back as USA Today?"

"You could be the next great American novel."

"Or some politician's leaflet."

"Naah; mummy paper is too expensive for that."

"Or the second-to-last ever edition of the Yellow Pages. Not the last.  The last would be historic.  But the second-to-last nobody would care about."

"This is going in the blog."

The PennEast pipeline.  The Pilgrim pipeline.

Bass, drums, and guitar.  Friends who can't sing.

"We should go," Jack said.

"It's snowing," I said, which is something I've said at Main Street before.

"Before we go," Jim said, "I just want to say that we should do this more often. When we're not on our bikes, we don't see each other."

"We email," I said.

"It's not the same."

"Yeah, I know.  When I lead rides, I treat everyone as a potential friend.  I guess that's why my group is small. Most Freewheelers just want to do 40 miles and go home." Whether I like it or not, I'm looking for more than that.

I turned my gaze away from the table, at the adjacent wall, decorated with wire letters spelling "yum" and "eat."  I said, "This winter, cooped up inside, I kinda lost part of my identity."



It's 3:00 now, and the snow has turned to rain, making for a slushy mess.  I'll watch it from Gonzo as I do another bout on the trainer.  May this be the last.

*****

Postscript:  Jim and Jack agree that "Her Perpetuity" is superior to "Her Perpetuality." I'm still fond of the latter, but this is clearly not my decision.