A long time ago I found this bike at a garage sale in my old town. Its a vintage Sun Country bike with brown tones but all rusty. It also had a huge wicker white basket with fading flowers on the front.
"How much for this bike?" I ask the Hispanic man as he is about to leave in his SUV, picking out one of the bikes that has been thrown over the freshly cut grass.
"Those bikes? All Free, just take them" He throws his hands in the air as he slams his car door and drives away. I think I picked the Sun Country strictly because of the basket. Ever since the Wizard of Oz Ive always fantasized about having a bike basket and putting animals in it. Recently it's been my bunny friend and we would ride around the city.
I don't ride my bike very often. In the Twin Cities bike culture is blooming, people are getting freaky about riding their bikes everywhere. I'm really not one of those people. Most of the times I just like riding my bike to the bar and then having the scary but adventurous bike ride back. Every once in a while I get this crazy idea that I'm going to go on this long biking adventure, this huge trek that will take miles so I can say.."yea hell yea I did it" but it always ends up in this huge failure. We have this trail that extends 20+ miles from the city to the country. Once I decided to do it and got to the country and realized there was no way of biking back. At least not with my legs since they felt like putty..maybe with my hands. But how would I sit? On my shoulders probably, but could I really bike 20+ miles on my shoulders with my hands alone? Probably not..It was time to scratch out plan B and just continue on the plan C which was to call Deb (my mother) to give me a ride home. In which she would complain " the bike won't fit..it's going to fall out!" while I tried to shove it into her tin can golf cart like car saying "no it wont its fine" while looking at the front tire wheel hanging over the edge of the bumper.
Dave and I biked to the bar to celebrate his new job and his first day. He has worked 5 years with kids, at risk youth who are homeless and now he will be dealing with adults who are homeless trying to reach out to them, helping them find health care, employment, a life besides underneath a bridge or city camp basically. People like Dave are amazing I think to myself...what would humanity do without people like Dave? We continue to talk about wedding plans. Dave and I are going away to a music festival to get married. We are huge hippies. Today I saw two old lady hippies dancing in the park and thought "wow those are some crazy bitches" I continued to think..what makes one do that and then realized that could be me on some middle age crises bender where all I want to do is be free and live how I did in my youth by doing nothing I ever did in my youth like dancing randomly in the park to Bob Marley. Dave and I continue to talk about other things in life like jobs, dreams, etc. We have these talks periodically and you think they would get really old but they never really do. I think it's because they are basically checking in talks. What do you still want to do with your life and do you still want to do it with me?
Its a beautiful night as we ride back. The sky is clear and you can see the stars, we have a whole bike lane to ourselves and cars ride past us blasting Hold Steady. My bike sometimes looks like the bike the wicked witch rides. I like to pretend, like tonight, that I'm being blown up into a tornado. I point to things but really I like to just peddle really really fast and the feeling of not going no where. As I turn onto streets and ride over pot holes my bike creeks and moans but never stops. The brakes are out except on the front tire held together by a thin tiny thread that resembles a teenage male bicep. I will try to save you at least it says every time I break down a hill. Its rusty, the paint is worn but it still keeps going, always getting me to my destination. Being such an old bike it should be hung up on a shelf somewhere, admired in a museum. Its not really ready to move on to the next phase like myself. It's tired and while it's starting to see the path that it should eventually take it's still going to party at least for a little while longer.
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