Old Bikes Quotes

Scott's mind was racing, struggling to comprehend the events unfolding around him. They were talking about disposing of Twinkle like he was a rusty old bike that no-one rode anymore.

She felt one thousand years old. She also felt like maybe she was a condescending brat. She wanted her bike. She wanted her friends, who were also one-thousand-year-old condescending brats. She wanted to live in a world where she was surrounded by one-thousand-year-old condescending brats.

I like places like this," he announced. I like old places too," Josh said, "but what's to like about a place like this?" The king spread his arms wide. "What do you see?" Josh made a face. "Junk. Rusted tractor, broken plow, old bike." Ahh...but I see a tractor that was once used to till these fields. I see the plow it once pulled. I see a bicycle carefully placed out of harm's way under a table." Josh slowly turned again, looking at the items once more. And i see these things and I wonder at the life of the person who carefully stored the precious tractor and plow in the barn out of the weather, and placed their bike under a homemade table." Why do you wonder?" Josh asked. "Why is it even important?" Because someone has to remember," Gilgamesh snapped, suddenly irritated. "Some one has to remember the human who rode the bike and drove the tractor, the person who tilled the fields, who was born and lived and died, who loved and laughed and cried, the person who shivered in the cold and sweated in the sun." He walked around the barn again, touching each item, until his palm were red with rust." It is only when no one remembers, that you are truely lost. That is the true death.

And in a small house five miles away was a man who held my mud-encrusted charm bracelet out to his wife. Look what I found at the old industrial park," he said. "A construction guy said they were bulldozing the whole lot. They're afraid of sink holes like that one that swallowed the cars." His wife poured him some water from the sink as he fingered the tiny bike and the ballet shoe, the flower basket and the thimble. He held out the muddy bracelet as she set down his glass. This little girl's grown up by now," she said. Almost. Not quite. I wish you all a long and happy life.

I'm gettin' old babe. Got grown ass kids and gray fuckin' hair. Spent too much time married to a bitch I couldn't stand, too much time beatin' myself up for wishin' I was balls deep in a bitch eighteen years younger than me. Add that shit together and that equals me being fuckin' miserable for a long fuckin' time. So yeah, I can't do this anymore. Can't fuckin' live without you. Want you on my bike and in my bed. Want my kids inside you. Want you by my side babe for as long as I got left - Deuce West

So very many times over the next three years i heard her laughter - no silver bells or sweet rippling sounds was her laughter, but like a five-year-old's bellow of delight, a cross between a puppy's yelp, a motor-bike and a bicycle pump.

I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want you to be anything,” I snapped. Her expression was the final straw. Of course she didn’t want to be around me. I was an infantil asshole that had the emotional control of a three-year-old. I shoved away from the table and pushed through the door, not stopping until I was sitting on my bike.

He didn't just want to fuck her, he didn't just want her in his bed... He wanted her on the back of his bike. Yeah, he wanted to lay claim to Danielle West, ink his name on her body and slap an old lady patch on her ass. And worse, he wanted the world to know it.

Live. And Live Well. BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now. On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun. If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE. Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time. If you bike, pedal HARDER and if you crash then crash well. Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done-a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed. If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old's nose, don't be disgusted if the Kleenex didn't catch it all because soon he'll be wiping his own. If you've recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well. At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you're eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because-it-is-most-definitely-a-Gift.

There is a river running through this city and every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!  I want to spend the next eighty years together, eating Doritos and riding bikes.

Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos. There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means. Every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout “Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!” I want us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun. There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline. There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches. There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days. Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.

Barrons stood inside the front door, dripping cool old-world elegance. I hadn’t heard him come in over the music. He was leaning, shoulder against the wall, arms folded, watching me. “ ‘One eye is taken for an eye . . .’ ” I trailed off, deflating. I didn’t need a mirror to know how stupid I looked. I regarded him sourly for a moment, then moved for the sound dock to turn it off. When I heard a choked sound behind me I spun, and shot him a hostile glare. He wore his usual expression of arrogance and boredom. I resumed my path for the sound dock, and heard it again. This time when I turned back, the corners of his mouth were twitching. I stared at him until they stopped. I’d reached the sound dock, and just turned it off, when he exploded. I whirled. “I didn’t look that funny,” I snapped. His shoulders shook. “Oh, come on! Stop it!” He cleared his throat and stopped laughing. Then his gaze took a quick dart upward, fixed on my blazing MacHalo, and he lost it again. I don’t know, maybe it was the brackets sticking out from the sides. Or maybe I should have gotten a black bike helmet, not a hot pink one. I unfastened it and yanked it off my head. I stomped over to the door, flipped the interior lights back on, slammed him in the chest with my brilliant invention, and stomped upstairs. “You’d better have stopped laughing by the time I come back down,” I shouted over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure he even heard me, he was laughing so hard.

Jack Travis was a novelty in my experience, an old-fashioned man's man. None of the boys I had gone to college with had been anything more than that, just boys trying to figure out who they were and what their place in the world was. Dane and his friends were sensitive, environmentally aware guys who rode bikes and had Facebook accounts. I couldn't imagine Jack Travis ever blogging or worrying about finding himself, and it was pretty certain that he didn't give a damn about whether or not his clothes were sustainably produced.

I’m going to swim 0.93 miles, ride a bike 24.8 miles, then run a final 6.2 miles. And what’s all that supposed to prove? How is this any different from pouring water in an old pan with a tiny hole in the bottom?

Old love was like riding a bike, after all. You never quite forgot how it felt.

I never rode on the back of an old Chopper down the highway Holdin' on tight just him and I Makin' our getaway I've always been the good girl Walked the straight and narrow path all my life, I like a man with a tan and a twisted chrome kickstand Leanin' on a big old bike The low rollin' sound that'll shake the ground Comin' out of long pipes I like a tattoo or two Or even more if they're cool On the big old arms of a long-haired dude Inside of me, there's an all I wanna be Biker chick

So I take it you and Gansey get along, then?” Maura’s expression was annoyingly knowing. “Mom.” “Orla told me about his muscle car,” Maura continued. Her voice was still angry and artificially bright. The fact that Blue was well aware that she’d earned it made the sting of it even worse. “You aren’t planning on kissing him, are you?” “Mom, that will never happen,” Blue assured her. “You did meet him, didn’t you?” “I wasn’t sure if driving an old, loud Camaro was the male equivalent of shredding your T-shirts and gluing cardboard trees to your bedroom walls.” “Trust me,” Blue said. “Gansey and I are nothing like each other. And they aren’t cardboard. They’re repurposed canvas.” “The environment breathes a sigh of relief.” Maura attempted another sip of her drink; wrinkling her nose, she shot a glare at Persephone. Persephone looked martyred. After a pause, Maura noted, in a slightly softer voice, “I’m not entirely happy about you’re getting in a car without air bags.” “Our car doesn’t have air bags,” Blue pointed out. Maura picked a long strand of Persephone’s hair from the rim of her glass. “Yes, but you always take your bike.” Blue stood up. She suspected that the green fuzz of the sofa was now adhered to the back of her leggings. “Can I go now? Am I in trouble?” “You are in trouble. I told you to stay away from him and you didn’t,” Maura said. “I just haven’t decided what to do about it yet. My feelings are hurt. I’ve consulted with several people who tell me that I’m within my rights to feel hurt. Do teenagers still get grounded? Did that only happen in the eighties?” “I’ll be very angry if you ground me,” Blue said, still wobbly from her mother’s unfamiliar displeasure. “I’ll probably rebel and climb out my window with a bedsheet rope.” Her mother rubbed a hand over her face. Her anger had completely burned itself out. “You’re well into it, aren’t you? That didn’t take long.” “If you don’t tell me not to see them, I don’t have to disobey you,” Blue suggested. “This is what you get, Maura, for using your DNA to make a baby,” Calla said. Maura sighed. “Blue, I know you’re not an idiot. It’s just, sometimes smart people do dumb things.” Calla growled, “Don’t be one of them.” “Persephone?” asked Maura. In her small voice, Persephone said, “I have nothing left to add.” After a moment of consideration, she added, however, “If you are going to punch someone, don’t put your thumb inside your fist. It would be a shame to break it.” “Okay,” Blue said hurriedly. “I’m out.” “You could at least say sorry,” Maura said. “Pretend like I have some power over you.

Some bikers have a code about who they put on the backs of their bikes and when. Rally, party, road trip, could be whoever you pick up. Your wheels are takin’ you home, for me, for Chaos, only the old lady. A woman comes up here, she has her own ride. That way, I’m done, she can go. You gotta wait for me to take you where you need to be. This means, unless I take you, you aren’t goin’ anywhere.

They were giving their childhood to this woman! They were starting at seven, and by the time they were sixteen they were still reading bloody Harry Potter—sixteen-year-olds, wearing wizard outfits, who should have been shagging behind the bike shed and smoking marijuana and reading Camus.

The wrought-iron gate squeaked as Lucas opened it. He lowered the rented bike down the stone steps and onto the sidewalk. To his right was the most famous Globe Hotel in Paris, disguised under another name. In front of the entrance five Curukians sat on mopeds. Lu-cas and his eighteen-month-old friend then shot out across the street and through the invisible beam of an-other security camera. He rode diagonally across the place de la Concorde and headed toward the river. It seemed only natural. The motorcycles trailed him. He pedaled fast across the Alex-andre III bridge and zipped past Les Invalides hospital. He tried to turn left at the Rodin Museum, but Goper rode next to him, blocking his escape.

I wanted to ask you to marry me. Really and truly. Take my last name, be my partner for the rest of my life. Have kids with me, grow old with me, ride on my bike with me until we’re so old we can’t stay upright, wear my property patch until the name fades so badly that I’m the only one who knows what it says.

I change the channel to another movie. An old one, but new to me. And, ironically, a thin, gorgeous blonde—Meg Ryan, maybe—rides her bike on a country road. She smiles like she has no cares in the world. Like no one ever judges her. Like her life is perfect. Wind through her hair and sunshine on her face. The only thing missing are the rainbows and butterflies and cartoon birds singing on her shoulder. Maybe I should grab my bike and try to catch up with Mom, Mike, and the kids. They can't be going very fast. I would love to feel like that, even if it's just for a second—free and peaceful and normal. Suddenly, there's a truck. It can't be headed toward Meg Ryan. Could it? Yes. Oh my God. No! Meg Ryan just got hit by that truck. Figures. See what happens when you exercise?

But people don't change their beliefs easily. Even when their deepest convictions are challenged - by the failure of the world to end, for example - they continue on their way, sticking to the old routine: they get back on their weird bikes and ride again.

Adults aren’t allowed to cry when they fall off a bike or hit their thumb with a hammer, but they can howl like five year olds when they’ve got a duty free bag in their hands.

One had to live in the new world and do one’s best, forgetting about the old; now it was push bikes

You're everythin' I want, Icy. Believe it, you're it for me, for the long haul, my old lady, want you on the back of my bike squeezin' me with your legs, holdin' my waist, I wanna fuck you every night, make you feel good, have you screamin' my name, wanna see that smile and know it's just for me ‘cause I make you happy. I want every last thing from you and to give you more back, you and me every day. Need you to know this goin’ in, where my heads at. It’s you.

bouncing old retired general--he's dotty over motors. Roars around on a shocking old motor bike--mustache and dignity flying in the morning breeze--atrocious bills for all the geese and curates he runs over.

And who thought it was a good idea to rent bicycles to Italian adolescent language students? If hell did exist, which Jackson was sure it did, it would be governed by a committee of fifteen-year-old Italian boys on bikes.

Hey, I got an idea, let’s go to the movies. I wanna go to the movies, I want to take you all to the movies. Let’s go and experience the art of the cinema. Let’s begin with the Scream Of Fear, and we are going to haunt us for the rest of our lives. And then let’s go see The Great Escape, and spend our summer jumping our bikes, just like Steve McQueen over barb wire. And then let’s catch The Seven Samurai for some reason on PBS, and we’ll feel like we speak Japanese because we can read the subtitles and hear the language at the same time. And then let’s lose sleep the night before we see 2001: A Space Odyssey because we have this idea that it’s going to change forever the way we look at films. And then let’s go see it four times in one year. And let’s see Woodstock three times in one year and let’s see Taxi Driver twice in one week. And let’s see Close Encounters of the Third Kind just so we can freeze there in mid-popcorn. And when the kids are old enough, let’s sit them together on the sofa and screen City Lights and Stage Coach and The Best Years of Our Lives and On The Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show and Raging Bull and Schindler’s List… so that they can understand how the human condition can be captured by this amalgam of light and sound and literature we call the cinema.

I'll tell you what kind of red hair he had. I started playing golf when I was only ten years old. I remember once, the summer I was around twelve, teeing off and all, and having a hunch that if I turned around all of a sudden, I'd see Allie. So I did, and sure enough, he was sitting on his bike outside the fence--there was this fence that went all around the course--and he was sitting there, about a hundred and fifty yards behind me, watching me tee off. That's the kind of red hair he had.

You ready to go home?” I asked. “I’ve been ready to go home all night. I still hate you.” “You need to find new insults. That’s getting old.” “Fuck off.” Grinning, I climbed onto my bike. She climbed up behind me, tucking in tight and wrapping her arms around my waist, tits pressed against my back. For the first time in forever things in my world felt right, twisted as that sounds. She was mine. She’d always be mine.

I always wondered, though, what the fathers felt as they drove up the street they used to drive down every night, and whether they really saw their former houses, whether they noticed how things got frayed and flaky around the edges now that they were gone. I wondered it again as I pulled up to the house I’d grown up in. It was, I noticed, looking even more Joad-like than usual. Neither my mother nor the dread life partner, Tanya, was much into yard work, and so the lawn was littered with drifts of dead brown leaves. The gravel on the driveway was as thin as an old man’s hair combed across an age-spotted scalp, and as I parked I could make out the faint glitter of old metal from behind the little toolshed. We used to park our bikes in there. Tanya had “cleaned” it by dragging all the old bikes, from tricycles to discarded ten-speeds, out behind the shed, and leaving them there to rust. “Think of it as found art,” my mother had urged us when Josh complained that the bike pile made us look like trailer trash. I wonder if my father ever drove by, if he knew about my mother and her new situation, if he thought about us at all, or whether he was content to have his three children out there in the world, all grown up, and strangers.

She had felt good for a few moments, racing across the face of the hill on her old bike, but the happy feeling had burned itself out and left behind a thin, cold rage. She was no longer entirely sure who she was angry with though. Her anger didn't have a fixed point. It was a soft whir of emotion to match the soft whir of the spokes.

We stepped a little quicker, laughed a little louder and chatted over the fences a little longer. We gathered bouquets of wildflowers, dined on fresh strawberries and began to ride our bikes up and down the Third Line again. We ran up grassy hills and rolled back down through the young clover, feeling light and giddy, free from our heavy boots and coats. There were trilliums to pick for Mother and tadpoles to catch and keep in a jar. Spring had come at last to Bathurst Township and was she ever worth the wait!

I w-want you too. F-fuck, I want you in m-my bed, by my side, on m-my bike. I w-want you as m-my old lady. Taking c-care of me, n-needing me… letting me inside you.

Make every negative into a positive,” as my mother says. Nothing goes to waste, you put it all to use, the old wounds and long-ago slights become the stuff of competitive energy.

This was the part of the road he knew best, the part his old blue Schwinn had known so well that at one time, the bike might have found its way back home without anyone riding it.

Two men as old as my dad on a noisy bike passed by and yelled, ‘I wanna eat your cunt!

...the concept of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself...suffice it to say here that it took almost no time for a wily serpent to sell Adam and Eve on a shiny apple from the Tree of Knowledge, at which point they became not only the first humans but also the first marketing demographic, and God expelled them from the Garden of Eden for being total consumerist dupes. (p. 40)

I have five flashlights and each performs its own trick. I have a raincoat with zippers and net material so I never get too hot in a downpour. I have a shelf crammed with books and a shortwave that speaks Arabic, Japanese, Dutch and Russian. They have mud huts with maybe a few chairs and faded pages of old magazines fastened to the wall. I ride my twenty-one speed Peace Corps-issue bike to Ferke not to save a dollar on transport but for the luxury of exercise. They ride in from their settlements on cranky old mopeds or bikes with a single cog because it's the only option. And they give me charity. I just stare at it - near tears. To refuse their offer would be pure insult. So I do the rounds again shaking hands with all the men in boubous saying over and over "An y che " Thank you.

Things I Used to Get Hit For: Talking back. Being smart. Acting stupid. Not listening. Not answering the first time. Not doing what I’m told. Not doing it the second time I’m told. Running, jumping, yelling, laughing, falling down, skipping stairs, lying in the snow, rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, walking in mud, not wiping my feet, not taking my shoes off. Sliding down the banister, acting like a wild Indian in the hallway. Making a mess and leaving it. Pissing my pants, just a little. Peeing the bed, hardly at all. Sleeping with a butter knife under my pillow. Shitting the bed because I was sick and it just ran out of me, but still my fault because I’m old enough to know better. Saying shit instead of crap or poop or number two. Not knowing better. Knowing something and doing it wrong anyway. Lying. Not confessing the truth even when I don’t know it. Telling white lies, even little ones, because fibbing isn’t fooling and not the least bit funny. Laughing at anything that’s not funny, especially cripples and retards. Covering up my white lies with more lies, black lies. Not coming the exact second I’m called. Getting out of bed too early, sometimes before the birds, and turning on the TV, which is one reason the picture tube died. Wearing out the cheap plastic hole on the channel selector by turning it so fast it sounds like a machine gun. Playing flip-and-catch with the TV’s volume button then losing it down the hole next to the radiator pipe. Vomiting. Gagging like I’m going to vomit. Saying puke instead of vomit. Throwing up anyplace but in the toilet or in a designated throw-up bucket. Using scissors on my hair. Cutting Kelly’s doll’s hair really short. Pinching Kelly. Punching Kelly even though she kicked me first. Tickling her too hard. Taking food without asking. Eating sugar from the sugar bowl. Not sharing. Not remembering to say please and thank you. Mumbling like an idiot. Using the emergency flashlight to read a comic book in bed because batteries don’t grow on trees. Splashing in puddles, even the puddles I don’t see until it’s too late. Giving my mother’s good rhinestone earrings to the teacher for Valentine’s Day. Splashing in the bathtub and getting the floor wet. Using the good towels. Leaving the good towels on the floor, though sometimes they fall all by themselves. Eating crackers in bed. Staining my shirt, tearing the knee in my pants, ruining my good clothes. Not changing into old clothes that don’t fit the minute I get home. Wasting food. Not eating everything on my plate. Hiding lumpy mashed potatoes and butternut squash and rubbery string beans or any food I don’t like under the vinyl seat cushions Mom bought for the wooden kitchen chairs. Leaving the butter dish out in summer and ruining the tablecloth. Making bubbles in my milk. Using a straw like a pee shooter. Throwing tooth picks at my sister. Wasting toothpicks and glue making junky little things that no one wants. School papers. Notes from the teacher. Report cards. Whispering in church. Sleeping in church. Notes from the assistant principal. Being late for anything. Walking out of Woolworth’s eating a candy bar I didn’t pay for. Riding my bike in the street. Leaving my bike out in the rain. Getting my bike stolen while visiting Grandpa Rudy at the hospital because I didn’t put a lock on it. Not washing my feet. Spitting. Getting a nosebleed in church. Embarrassing my mother in any way, anywhere, anytime, especially in public. Being a jerk. Acting shy. Being impolite. Forgetting what good manners are for. Being alive in all the wrong places with all the wrong people at all the wrong times.

How fun it would be to bounce on the back of Lidewij Vliegenthart’s bike down the brick streets, her curly red hair blowing into my face, the smell of the canals and cigarette smoke, all the people sitting outside the cafés drinking beer, saying their r’s and g’s in a way I’d never learn. I missed the future. Obviously I knew even before his recurrence that I’d never grow old with Augustus Waters. But thinking about Lidewij and her boyfriend, I felt robbed. I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up that you can’t make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn’t see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

In a few minutes I'm going to swim .93 miles, ride a bike 24.8 miles, then run a final 6.2 miles. And what's all that supposed to prove? How is this any different from pouring water in an old pan with a tiny hole in the bottom?

Kingsley could ‘do’ the sound of a brass band approaching on a foggy day. He could become the Metropolitan line train entering Edgware Road station. He could be four wrecked tramps coughing in a bus shelter (this was very demanding and once led to heart palpitations). To create the hiss and crackle of a wartime radio broadcast delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt was for him scant problem (a tape of it, indeed, was played at his memorial meeting, where I was hugely honored to be among the speakers). The pièce de résistance, an attempt by British soldiers to start up a frozen two-ton truck on a windy morning ‘somewhere in Germany,’ was for special occasions only. One held one's breath as Kingsley emitted the first screech of the busted starting-key. His only slightly lesser vocal achievement—of a motor-bike yelling in mechanical agony—once caused a man who had just parked his own machine in the street to turn back anxiously and take a look. The old boy's imitation of an angry dog barking the words 'fuck off' was note-perfect.

Pulling to a stop in front of Aly’s house, I take a deep breath. With a flick of my wrist, I cut the engine and listen to the silence. I’ve sat in this exact spot more times than I can count. In many ways, Aly’s house is like my sanctuary. A place I go when my own home feels like a graveyard. I glance up at the bedroom window of the girl who knows me better than anyone, the only person I let see me cry after Dad died. I won’t let this experiment take that or her away from me. Tonight, I’m going to prove that Aly and I can go back to our normal, easy friendship. Throwing open my door, I trudge up her sidewalk, plant my feet outside her front door, and ring the bell. “Coming!” I step back and see Aly stick her head out of her second-story window. “No problem,” I call back up. “Take your time.” More time to get my head on straight. Aly disappears behind a film of yellow curtain, and I turn to look out at the quiet neighborhood. Up and down the street, the lights blink on, filling the air with a low hum that matches the thrumming of my nerves. Across the street, old Mr. Lawson sits at his usual perch under a gigantic American flag, drinking beer and mumbling to himself. Two little girls ride their bikes around the cul-de-sac, smiling and waving. Just a normal, run-of-the-mill Friday night. Except not. I thrust my hands into my pockets, jiggling the loose change from my Taco Bell run earlier tonight, and grab my pack of Trident. I toss a stick into my mouth and chew furiously. Supposedly, the smell of peppermint can calm your nerves. I grab a second stick and shove it in, too. With the clacking sound of Aly’s shoes approaching the door behind me, I remind myself again about tonight’s mission. All I need is focus. I take another deep breath for good measure and rock back on my heels, ready to greet my best friend. She opens the door, wearing a black dress molded to her skin, and I let the air out in one big huff.

Roller Boogie is a relic from - when else? - the '70s. This is a tape I made for the eight-grade dance. The tape still plays, even if the cogs are a little creaky and the sound quality is dismal. It's a ninety-minute TDK Compact Cassette, and like everything else made in the '70s, it's beige. It takes me back to the fall of 1979, when I was a shy, spastic, corduroy-clad Catholic kid from the suburbs of Boston, grief-stricken over the '78 Red Sox. The words "douche" and "bag" have never coupled as passionately as they did in the person of my thirteen-yer-old self. My body, my brain, my elbows that stuck out like switchblades, my feet that got tangled in my bike spokes, but most of all my soul - these formed the waterbed where douchitude and bagness made love sweet love with all the feral intensity of Burt Reynolds and Rachel Ward in Sharkey's Machine.

She felt one thousand years old. She also felt like maybe she was a condescending brat. She wanted her bike. She wanted her friends, who were also one-thousand-year-old condescending brats. She wanted to live in a world where she was surrounded by one-thousand-year-old condescending brats.

It was even more seriously fucked because I didn’t care. I wanted her. I wanted her worse than I’d ever wanted anythin’ in my life, even my first Harley that I’d saved for startin’ when I was eight years old and first saw a bike in one of my uncle’s car magazines. I didn’t care that she was a little girl.

And yet often when I was out in the park or the woods, say, with my own little girls, I'd seen something and think to myself, That's just like the such-and-such scene, where we found the eight-year-old. As fearful as I was for their safety, seeing the things I saw, I also found it difficult to get emotionally involved in the minor, but important, scrapes and hurts of childhood. When I would come home and Pam would tell me that one of the girl had fallen off her bike and needed stitches, I'd flash to the autopsy of some child her age and think of all the stitches it had taken the medical examiner to close her wounds for burial.

Likewise—now don’t laugh—cars and trucks should view the bike lanes as if they are sacrosanct. A driver would never think of riding up on a sidewalk. Most drivers, anyway. Hell, there are strollers and little old ladies up there! It would be unthinkable, except in action movies. A driver would get a serious fine or maybe even get locked up. Everyone around would wonder who that asshole was. Well, bike lanes should be treated the same way. You wouldn’t park your car or pull over for a stop on the sidewalk, would you? Well then, don’t park in the bike lanes either—that forces cyclists into traffic where poor little meat puppets don’t stand a chance.

When I finally leave the market, the streets are dark, and I pass a few blocks where not a single electric light appears – only dark open storefronts and coms (fast-food eateries), broom closet-sized restaurants serving fish, meat, and rice for under a dollar, flickering candles barely revealing the silhouettes of seated figures. The tide of cyclists, motorbikes, and scooters has increased to an uninterrupted flow, a river that, given the slightest opportunity, diverts through automobile traffic, stopping it cold, spreads into tributaries that spill out over sidewalks, across lots, through filling stations. They pour through narrow openings in front of cars: young men, their girlfriends hanging on the back; families of four: mom, dad, baby, and grandma, all on a fragile, wobbly, underpowered motorbike; three people, the day’s shopping piled on a rear fender; women carrying bouquets of flapping chickens, gathered by their feet while youngest son drives and baby rests on the handlebars; motorbikes carrying furniture, spare tires, wooden crates, lumber, cinder blocks, boxes of shoes. Nothing is too large to pile onto or strap to a bike. Lone men in ragged clothes stand or sit by the roadsides, selling petrol from small soda bottles, servicing punctures with little patch kits and old bicycle pumps.

Mae Brussell began to study the pattern of Nazis coming to the United States after World War Two and patterns of murders identical to those in Nazi Germany. It was as if an early Lenny Bruce bit—on how a show-bit booking agency, MCA, chose Adolf Hitler as dictator—had actually been a satirical prophecy of the way Richard Nixon would rise to power. “How much violence was there in Nazi Germany,” Mae asks rhetorically, “before the old Germany, the center of theater, opera, philosophy, poetry, psychology and medicine, was destroyed? How many incidents took place that were not coincidental before it was called Fascism? What were the transitions? How many people? Was it when the first tailor disappeared? Or librarian? Or professor? Or when the first press was closed or the first song eliminated? Or when the first political science teacher was killed coming home on his bike? How many incidents happened there that were perfectly normal until people woke up and said, ‘Hey, we’re in a police state!

I adore these words, worship them actually, and yet I do not buy that part about ‘the last time in history.’ Because the narrator himself is having such a wondrous moment; because every American who comes to love this lovable, hateful place knows this wonder, too. Because screeching the brakes on my rental bike and watching a turtle that is who knows how old creep across the wilderness of palm fronds that juts against such a painfully cute subset of civilization, I know exactly why the painfully cute civilization wants to be here, build here, make their homes and babies at such a place. So what if they got it wrong? Is there anything more American than constructing some squeaky-clean city on a hill looking out across the terrible beauty of this land? While most of the rest of us have internalized these impulses, turned them into metaphors, at Celebration, Disney is attempting the real deal; like the Puritans and the pioneers, they’re carving out a new community. An eerie, xenophobic, nostalgic community I can’t wait to leave, but still.

What would you like for your own life, Kate, if you could choose?” “Anything?” “Of course anything.” “That’s really easy, Aunty Ivy.” “Go on then.” “A straw hat...with a bright scarlet ribbon tied around the top and a bow at the back. A tea-dress like girls used to wear, with big red poppies all over the fabric. A pair of flat, white pumps, comfortable but really pretty. A bicycle with a basket on the front. In the basket is a loaf of fresh bread, cheese, fruit oh...and a bottle of sparkly wine, you know, like posh people drink. “I’m cycling down a lane. There are no lorries or cars or bicycles. No people – just me. The sun is shining through the trees, making patterns on the ground. At the end of the lane is a gate, sort of hidden between the bushes and trees. I stop at the gate, get off the bike and wheel it into the garden. “In the garden there are flowers of all kinds, especially roses. They’re my favourite. I walk down the little path to a cottage. It’s not big, just big enough. The front door needs painting and has a little stained glass window at the top. I take the food out of the basket and go through the door. “Inside, everything is clean, pretty and bright. There are vases of flowers on every surface and it smells sweet, like lemon cake. At the end of the room are French windows. They need painting too, but it doesn’t matter. I go through the French windows into a beautiful garden. Even more flowers there...and a veranda. On the veranda is an old rocking chair with patchwork cushions and next to it a little table that has an oriental tablecloth with gold tassels. I put the food on the table and pour the wine into a glass. I’d sit in the rocking chair and close my eyes and think to myself... this is my place.” From A DISH OF STONES

Gotta remember that in the Dark Ages, people were getting married at age 7 and had to farm turnips or dig coal or kill dragons or something along those lines. Fast-forward to the industrial revolution and you had 14-year-old coal miners working a full shift and getting black lung. Yet my generation thinks we’re tougher because we rode bikes without helmets. FOH.

Procedural Memory is knowledge of how to do things. How do you get dressed in the morning? How do you ride a bike? Once learned, procedural memories tend to remain solid as a rock. Performance does tend to fall off with age due to the natural slowing of reflexes, although as of this writing, seventy-six-year-old Morgan Shepherd is still competing as a NASCAR driver.

Many kids would hit the streets at about 4 a.m., though early birds got started even earlier; the first calls regarding disorderly behavior usually reached the police by 2 a.m. Celebrants of Luilak (which means “lazybones”) would ring doorbells, beat drums, blow horns, crash pot lids together, scream “Luilak!,” sing a Luilak song, drag strings of empty tin cans behind their bikes, overturn garbage cans, bang windows, break windows, light bonfires, ignite fireworks, drink bottles of milk left out by the milkman, set buckets of water over doorways and trigger false fire alarms. They did anything and everything to annoy sleeping adults. This yearly debauchery—particular to Amsterdam and a few surrounding towns and with unknown origins—was centuries old.*

Everything happens at night. The world changes, the shadows grow, there's secrecy and privacy in dark places. First kiss at night, by the monkey bars and the old swings that the children and their parents have vacated; second, longer kiss, by the bike stands, swirl of dust around feet in the dry summer air. Awkward words, like secrets just waiting to be broken, the struggle to find the right ones, the heady fear of exposure --- what if, what if --- the joy when the words are returned. Love, in the parkette, while the moon waxes and the clouds pass. Promises at night. Not first promises --- those are so old they can't be remembered --- but new promises, sharp and biting; they almost hurt to say, but it's a good hurt. Dreams at night, before sleep, and dreams during sleep. Everything, always, happens at night.

As we sped downhill past my spot, past the olive groves and the sunflowers that turned their startled faces to us as we glided past the marine pines, past the two old train cars that had lost their wheels generations ago, but still bore the royal insignia of the House of Savoy, past the string of gypsy vendors screaming murder at us for almost grazing their daughters with our bikes, I turned to him and yelled, "Kill me if I stop.

As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the hill with fear and shame and who knows what else pressing on me, seemed to come back to me from summers and ages ago, as though I'd biked up to the piazzetta as a little boy before World War I and had returned a crippled ninety-year-old soldier confined to this bedroom that was not even my own, because mine had been given over to a young man who was the light of my eyes. The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life. I didn't know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth had I fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to drown in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.

I suddenly remember an old game I used to play when I was nine or ten, and I was allowed to ride my bike until it got dark. I used to make little bets with myself as I watched the sun getting lower and lower on the horizon: If I hold my breath to twenty seconds, the night won't come. If I don't blink. If I stand so still a fly lands on my cheek. Now, I find myself doing the same thing, bargaining to keep Kate, even though that isn't the way it works.

The flashy mountain bike blown sky-high, the old game machine that had accompanied him as he’d grown up, the drawer that had once hidden a little cat, the skewers with too much chili on them, the flowers left in the cemetery once a year, the countless mutually ridiculing quarrels… Today it seemed that all those past events were strung together on a golden thread, showing a faint outline in the thick black mist of his memories, lighting his past and future.

PART TWO Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways. —SIGMUND FREUD CHAPTER ONE Alicia Berenson’s Diary JULY 16 I never thought I’d be longing for rain. We’re into our fourth week of the heat wave, and it feels like an endurance test. Each day seems hotter than the last. It doesn’t feel like England. More like a foreign country—Greece or somewhere. I’m writing this on Hampstead Heath. The whole park is strewn with red-faced, semi-naked bodies, like a beach or a battlefield, on blankets or benches or spread out on the grass. I’m sitting under a tree, in the shade. It’s six o’clock, and it has started to cool down. The sun is low and red in a golden sky—the park looks different in this light—darker shadows, brighter colors. The grass looks like it’s on fire, flickering flames under my feet. I took off my shoes on my way here and walked barefoot. It reminded me of when I was little and I’d play outside. It reminded me of another summer, hot like this one—the summer Mum died—playing outside with Paul, cycling on our bikes through golden fields dotted with wild daisies, exploring abandoned houses and haunted orchards. In my memory that summer lasts forever. I remember Mum and those colorful tops she’d wear, with the yellow stringy straps, so flimsy and delicate—just like her. She was so thin, like a little bird. She would put on the radio and pick me up and dance me around to pop songs on the radio. I remember how she smelled of shampoo and cigarettes and Nivea hand cream, always with an undertone of vodka. How old was she then?

Pedaling down Dune Drive on a red beach cruiser, Dani ahead of her and Vanessa behind her, is a transporting experience. The night is quiet; the air on her face is soft; her hair streams behind her; the stars above are as brilliant as stars in a children's book. They could be nine years old, or fifteen, or twenty-one; they've ridden bikes down Dune Drive at all of those ages and all of the ones in between. There must have been so much more to those summers, but what she remembers are the two weeks she spent in Avalon with Dani and Vanessa—two weeks that always went by too quickly, but that in memory stretch to fill an entire season.

A 1997 study of the consumer product design firm IDEO found that most of the company’s biggest successes originated as “combinations of existing knowledge from disparate industries.” IDEO’s designers created a top-selling water bottle, for example, by mixing a standard water carafe with the leak-proof nozzle of a shampoo container. The power of combining old ideas in new ways also extends to finance, where the prices of stock derivatives are calculated by mixing formulas originally developed to describe the motion of dust particles with gambling techniques. Modern bike helmets exist because a designer wondered if he could take a boat’s hull, which can withstand nearly any collision, and design it in the shape of a hat. It even reaches to parenting, where one of the most popular baby books—Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, first published in 1946—combined Freudian psychotherapy with traditional child-rearing techniques. “A lot of the people we think of as exceptionally creative are essentially intellectual middlemen,” said Uzzi. “They’ve learned how to transfer knowledge between different industries or groups. They’ve seen a lot of different people attack the same problems in different settings, and so they know which kinds of ideas are more likely to work.” Within sociology, these middlemen are often referred to as idea or innovation brokers. In one study published in 2004, a sociologist named Ronald Burt studied 673 managers at a large electronics company and found that ideas that were most consistently ranked as “creative” came from people who were particularly talented at taking concepts from one division of the company and explaining them to employees in other departments. “People connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving,” Burt wrote. “The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable.” They were more credible when they made suggestions, Burt said, because they could say which ideas had already succeeded somewhere else.

The extent to which perception and, consequently, vision are dependent upon memory and imagination is a matter of every day experience. We see familiar things more clearly then when we see objects about which we have no stock of memories. The old seamstress, who cannot read without glasses, can see to thread needle with the naked eye. Why? Because she is more familiar with needles then with print. In man who can work all day at the office without undue fatigue of the eyes is worn out by an hour at the museum and comes home with a splitting headache. Why? Because in the office he is following a regular routine and looking at words and figures, the bike of which he looks at every day; whereas in the museum everything is strange novel, and outlandish.

She has so much pride that, even if I'm weary of her, of her fighting ways, her gauntlet-tossing, I can't say there isn't something else that beams in me. An old ember licked to fresh fire again. Beth, the old Beth, before high school, before Ben Trammel, all the boys and self-sorrow, the divorce and the adderall and the suspensions. That Beth at the bike racks, third grade, her braids dangling, her chin up, fists knotted around a pair of dull scissors, peeling into Brady Carr's tire. Brady Carr, who shoved me off the spinabout, tearing a long strip of skin from my ankle to my knee. Tugging the rubber from his tire, her fingernails ripped red, she looked up at me, grinning wide, front-teeth gapped and wild heroic. How could you ever forget that?

I wrote about a place called Alki Beach. When I had first crossed the bridge into West Seattle, I could see the city skyline over Puget Sound. I stood on a strip of purple-gray beach sand. A pier house sold hairy mussels and one-hour bike rentals. Copper and metal signs whipped against the wind. Old couples toted bouquets under wooden pergolas. Those singing and strolling on the beach eventually curved around the bend toward the northern arc and out of sight. I wanted to live here by its waters, read its signs, admire the wind as one admires an old friend. The skyscrapers across the water might be a bracelet across my wrist—the Ferris wheel, city stadium, ships in the harbor. I had never known that joy was a practice the way poetry was a practice. Somebody asked if they could

We pushed the bike down past the various college hangouts and cafeterias and looked into Robbie's to see if we knew anybody. Alvah was in there, working his part-time job as busboy. Japhy and I were kind of outlandish-looking on the campus in our old clothes in fact Japhy was considered an eccentric around the campus, which is the usual thing for campuses and college people to think whenever a real man appears on the scene-colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass nonidentity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.

I forgot the maid who works in my P.G. and struggles to make money, every day, who is in fear that one day her cruel husband will find her out eventually and beat her and her son to death. I forgot that auto driver I met on my way to M.G. road metro station, and who wanted to be in the army but gave up study due to the financial crisis. I forgot that security guard I met at IIT Delhi, and who was forced to leave the study and marry at the age of 15. I forgot those little kids I generally encounter at Railway stations and trains selling packets of pens @ Rs.25 per packet. I forgot that 75 years old ricksha wala I met in sector 23 market with only one eye and high power lens I forgot that washroom cleaning staff at my office who always welcomes me with a broad smile. I forgot the dead body of that martyred soldier I saw at the Kashmir airport, laden with garlands of marigold and people shouting," jawan amar rahe!" I forgot the scream of that pig near my office when a thick rope was brutally tied in its nose and it was forcefully taken by some people on a bike. I almost forgot everything!

Hey, I got an idea, let’s go to the movies. I wanna go to the movies, I want to take you all to the movies. Let’s go and experience the art of the cinema. Let’s begin with the Scream Of Fear, and we're gonna have it haunt us for the rest of our lives. And then let’s go see The Great Escape, and spend our summer jumping our bikes, just like Steve McQueen over barb wire. And then let’s catch The Seven Samurai for some reason on PBS, and we’ll feel like we speak Japanese because we can read the subtitles and hear the language at the same time. And then let’s lose sleep the night before we see 2001: A Space Odyssey because we have this idea that it’s going to change forever the way we look at films. And then let’s go see it four times in one year. And let’s see Woodstock three times in one year and let’s see Taxi Driver twice in one week. And let’s see Close Encounters of the Third Kind just so we can freeze there in mid-popcorn. And when the kids are old enough, let’s sit them together on the sofa and screen City Lights and Stage Coach and The Best Years of Our Lives and On The Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show and Raging Bull and Schindler’s List… so that they can understand how the human condition can be captured by this amalgam of light and sound and literature we call the cinema.

There was a noise out back and Megan stalked to the end of the hall to look out the window. The door to the shed was just closing. Finn. He was just as bad as his brother. Finn had stranded her that morning too and he hadn’t said a word to her about Spanish class, even though he never would have passed that pop quiz they had taken without her help. Megan turned and stormed down the hallway. Maybe she was too scared to say anything to Evan, but Finn…she was going to give that boy a piece of her mind. “You guys all suck, you know that?” Megan shouted, flinging open the door to the shed. Finn dropped his paintbrush on the leg of his jeans, where it left a streak of orange before hitting the dirty floor. “Sorry?” he said. “You! You suck!” Megan fumed. “We’ve been over this. I know I suck.” “Not your art. You! You…guys!” Megan shouted. Finn blinked. “Actually, I think I’m kind of an okay guy.” “Oh, please!” Megan said, squaring off in front of him. “I mean, what’s wrong with you people? Were you all born like this? Because it’s gotta be in your genes. Either that or you’ve all gotten each other in one too many choke holds over the years and you’ve deprived your brains of too much oxygen. Which is it?” “Megan, I think you need to sit down,” Finn said, carefully reaching for her shoulders. Keeping her at arm’s length, he steered her over to the old bench and pushed her down until she had to let her knees go and fall into the seat. “Now, is this about Hailey and Evan?” “No! It’s about you! You deserted me this morning,” Megan said. “And then I went to get my bike and the tires were flat. You guys popped my freaking tires! What is this? The McGowan Home for the Criminally Insane?

Let's get out of here. You and me, mi amor. !Vamos!" I breathe a sigh of relief as I straddle Julio and Brittany hops on behind me. She wraps her arms around my waist, holding on tight as I speed out of the parking lot. We fly through the streets; which eventually become a blur. I don't even stop when rain starts pouring down. "Can we stop now?" she yells through the deafening storm. I park under an old abandoned bridge by the lake. Heavy rain pounds the cement surrounding us, but we have our own secluded place. Brittany hops to the ground. "You're a stupid jerk," she says. "You can't deal drugs. It's dangerous and stupid, and you promised me. You'll risk going to jail. Jail, Alex. You may not care, but I do. I won't let you ruin your life." "What do you want to hear?" "Nothing. Everything. Say something so I don't stand here feeling like a complete idiot." "The truth is . . . Brittany, look at me." "I can't," she says as she stares at the pouring rain. "I'm so tired of thinking of every scary scenario." I pull her against me. "Don't think, muneca. Everything will work itself out." "But--" "No buts. Trust me." My mouth closes over hers. The smell of rain and cookies eases my nerves. My hand braces the small of her back. Her hands grip my soaked shoulders, urging me on. My hands slide under her shirt, and my fingers trace her belly button. "Come to me," I say, then lift her until she's straddling me over my bike. I can't stop kissing her. I whisper how good she feels to me, mixing Spanish and English with every sentence. I move my lips down her neck and linger there until she leans back and lets me take her shirt off. I can make her forget about the bad stuff. When we're together like this, hell, I can't think of anything else but her.

Meanwhile, Trucker and I, through all of this, had been renting that cottage together, on a country estate six miles outside of Bristol. We were paying a tiny rent, as the place was so rundown, with no heating or modern conveniences. But I loved it. The cottage overlooked a huge green valley on one side and had beautiful woodland on the other. We had friends around most nights, held live music parties, and burned wood from the dilapidated shed as heating for the solid-fuel stove. Our newly found army pay was spent on a bar tab in the local pub. We were probably the tenants from hell, as we let the garden fall into disrepair, and burned our way steadily through the wood of the various rotting sheds in the garden. But heh, the landlord was a miserable old sod with a terrible reputation, anyway! When the grass got too long we tried trimming it--but broke both our string trimmers. Instead we torched the garden. This worked a little too well, and we narrowly avoided burning down the whole cottage as the fire spread wildly. What was great about the place was that we could get in and out of Bristol on our 100 cc motorbikes, riding almost all the way on little footpaths through the woods--without ever having to go on any roads. I remember one night, after a fun evening out in town, Trucker and I were riding our motorbikes back home. My exhaust started to malfunction--glowing red, then white hot--before letting out one massive backfire and grinding to a halt. We found some old fence wire in the dark and Trucker towed me all the way home, both of us crying with laughter. From then on my bike would only start by rolling it down the farm track that ran down the steep valley next to our house. If the motorbike hadn’t jump-started by the bottom I would have to push the damn thing two hundred yards up the hill and try again. It was ridiculous, but kept me fit--and Trucker amused. Fun days.

Two fifty-five. It’s go time.” Chris unlocks the doors and gets out and hides behind an oak tree in the yard. My adrenaline is pumping as I hop out of Chris’s car, grab Kitty’s bike out of her trunk, and push it a few houses. Then I set it on the ground and drape myself over it in a dramatic heap. Then I pull out the bottle of fake blood I bought for this very purpose and squirt some on my jeans--old jeans I’ve been planning on giving to Goodwill. As soon as I see Trevor’s car approaching, I start to pretend sob. From behind the tree Chris whispers, “Tone it down a little!” I immediately stop sobbing and start moaning. Trevor’s car pulls up beside me. He rolls down the window. “Lara Jean? Are you okay?” I whimper. “No…I think I might have sprained my ankle. It really hurts. Can you give me a ride home?” I’m willing myself to tear up, but it’s harder to cry on cue than I would have thought. I try to think about sad things--the Titanic, old people with Alzheimer’s, Jamie Fox-Pickle dying--but I can’t focus. Trevor regards me suspiciously. “Why are you riding your bike in this neighborhood?” Oh no, I’m losing him! I start talking fast but not too fast. “It’s not my bike; it’s my little sister’s. She’s friends with Sara Healey. You know, Dan Healey’s little sister? They live over there.” I point to their house. “I was bringing it to her--oh my God, Trevor. Do you not believe me? Are you seriously not going to give me a ride?” Trevor looks around. “Do you swear this isn’t a trick?” Gotcha! “Yes! I swear I don’t have your name, okay? Please just help me up. It really hurts.” “First show me your ankle.” “Trevor! You can’t see a sprained ankle!” I whimper and make a show of trying to stand up, and Trevor finally turns the car off and gets out. He stoops down and pulls me to my feet and I try to make my body heavy. “Be gentle,” I tell him. “See? I told you I didn’t have your name.” Trevor pulls me up by my armpits, and over his shoulder Chris creeps up behind him like a ninja. She dives forward, both hands out, and claps them on his back hard. “I got you!” she screams. Trevor shrieks and drops me, and I narrowly escape falling for real. “Damn it!” he yells. Gleefully Chris says, “You’re done, sucker!” She and I high-five and hug. “Can you guys not celebrate in front of me?” he mutters. Chris holds her hand out. “Now gimme gimme gimme.” Sighing, Trevor shakes his head and says, “I can’t believe I fell for that, Lara Jean.” I pat him on the back. “Sorry, Trevor.” “What if I had had your name?” he asks me. “What would you have done then?” Huh. I never thought of that. I shoot Chris an accusing glare. “Wait a minute! What if he had had my name?” “That was a chance we were willing to take,” she says smoothly.

Putting Lotion on the Hurts Materials: You will need a bottle of hand lotion, preferably a bottle with a pump spout. Preparation and Instructions: This is a wonderful game to play with children after they have experienced some pain—either physical, as after a fall off a bike, or emotional, as after the death of a pet. Search the child for boo-boos—old scars or new scratches. The size or intensity of the scar or sore is not relevant. The Game: Begin the game by saying, “I am going to put some lotion on all your hurts. I see one right here. I will be very careful.” Continue looking over the child’s body for hurts. If the hurt is old, lotion can be put directly on the scar. If the hurt is new, be careful to encircle the wound with lotion. Put some lotion on one finger and apply it gently. It is important that you repeat the message, “I will take care of you. No more hurts for you,” as you apply the lotion. Sometimes the child will help you find the sores. While you are putting lotion on one sore, the child is locating the next sore. If this happens, say, “There are so many hurts, and you want me to notice them all. I will find them. I will not forget. See this one here. I am putting lotion all around it.” Sometimes a child will tell you stories of how he or she was hurt. It is important to listen to the child. Variations: A variation of this game is played with Band-Aids. You begin the game with at least two. Ask the child, “Where do these go?” The child will direct you to the spot where the Band-Aid should be placed. If it is a sore, speak to it, saying, “I am glad I found you. This Band-Aid is for you.

WHEN I WAS in school, I used to live for glimpses of Jun. Those were the years I helped my mother in the Big House after school, so that I could go sit on his chair and sometimes even his bed when my mother wasn’t looking. If my life was a drama, he would have fallen in love with me and battled his parents for a happy ending with the housekeeper’s daughter. But here we are, my friends and I, streaming into town on rusty, creaking bikes, going to peek at a lonely old man who has failed at love, who has a son and already thinks in terms of concessions. All for a joke, of course.

Notes on a Candy Cane Tree" What did I think about before you touched my thigh? Let me say this: I’m going to touch you until my fingers fall off. If my fingers don’t fall off, I will hold your hand even if it’s sweaty. And let me say this: You are lovelier than clouds that look like lovely things. I have only loved a few times and the last time was when you rubbed my neck under the monkey bars. We weren’t much younger than we are now. I still have the same haircut. You still have only one dimple. It’s on your left cheek and it looks like you fell on a pebble. I love that it looks like you fell on a pebble. Let me say this: You taste like candy canes. There was a candy cane tree in my old neighborhood. My neighbor hung candy canes on the branches of the willow and I snatched them in the middle of the night. It was December when I rode my bike the quickest, like I was going somewhere to meet you. I like you more than the candy cane tree. Let me say this: I am uncomfortable in my own skin, so I hold your face. I hold your face and your hips but mostly your face. You have a lovely face. Let me say this: I love you like monsters like scaring little kids. I make a list of words I can use to diagram your body: petite, mellifluous, comely, milk, necessary. Please, forgive the humming; you see I rarely taste candy canes in March. When I don’t taste you I taste sweat. Not good sweat, mind you, sweaty sweat from the men’s locker room. Sometimes I taste pizza, but that’s only because I loved pizza first. Let me say this: My love for pizza was fleeting. I was young and naive and thought that extra toppings meant something. These are fine days because they end with you. Let me just say this: I’m going to kiss you until my lips fall off. If my lips don’t fall off, I will kiss up your spine until I run out of spine. Then I’ll start over. — Gregory Sherl, [PANK] Magazine 4.09 / September 2009

If hell did exist, which Jackson was sure it did, it would be governed by a committee of fifteen-year-old Italian boys on bikes.

I've never met a thirteen-year old who said "My dad was never around because he was always working but I have a sweet mountain bike so it was all worth it.

Conversation turned to a case that was in the news—Donald Williams Jr., an African American freshman at San Jose State University, had been relentlessly bullied by the white students he lived with in a four-bedroom dormitory suite. The white kids, also freshmen, had insisted on calling Williams “three-fifths,” a reference to the clause in the original US Constitution that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person when determining population for representation in Congress. They clamped a bike lock around his neck and claimed to have lost the key. They wrote Nigger on a whiteboard and draped a Confederate flag over a cardboard cutout of Elvis Presley in the suite’s living room. They locked him in his room. And they claimed it was all just a series of good-natured pranks. In the end, three eighteen-year-old white students were expelled for what they did to Williams, and a seventeen-year-old was suspended. The three who were expelled were also charged in criminal court. The charge: misdemeanor battery with a hate-crime enhancement, which carried a maximum penalty of a year and a half in county jail. A jury eventually convicted all three of battery but acquitted one of the students of the hate-crime charge and deadlocked on the others. “Girl, they got misdemeanors,” Regis said. “Nobody got charged with any felonies. Three white boys on one black boy.

I’ve met parents who won’t let their seventeen-year-old take the subway. And I said to them, “What’s your long-term strategy for her?” . . . I see it all around me. I see kids afraid to be alone on the sidewalk. They don’t like walking places alone. They don’t like biking places alone. And it’s probably because they’ve been basically made to feel that they can be abducted at any moment.27

The shocks of life, he thought, biking along, what were they? Getting born, growing up, growing old, dying. Not much to do about the first. But—the other three?

Giampalo Boschetti, a dynamic real estate investor and hotel operator, is on a mission to create a better internet space by removing harmful content. Residing in San Francisco, CA, he enjoys staying fit through bike racing and cherishing old memories.

Rural Free Delivery (RFD) Home, upon that word drops the sunshine of beauty and the shadow of tender sorrows, the reflection of ten thousand voices and fond memories. This is a mighty fine old world after all if you make yourself think so. Look happy even if things are going against you— that will make others happy. Pretty soon all will be smiling and then there is no telling what can’t be done. Coca-Cola Girl Mother baked a fortune cake pale yellow icing, lemon drops round rim, hidden within treasures, a ring—you’ll be married, a button—stay a bachelor, a thimble—always a spinster, and a penny—you’re rich. Gee, but I am hungry. Wait a second, dear, until I pull my belt up another notch. There that’s better. So, you see, Hon, I am straighter than a string around a bundle. You ought to see my eye, it’s a peach. I am proud of it, looks like I’ve been kicked by a mule. You know, dear, that they can kick hard enough to knock all the soda out of a biscuit without breaking the crust Hogging Catfish This gives you a fighting chance. Noodle your right hand into their gills, hold on tight while you grunt him out of the water. This can be a real dogfight. Old river cat wants to go down deep, make you bottom feed. Like I said, boys, when you tell a whopper, say it like you believe it. Saturday Ritual My Granddad was a cobbler. We each owned two pairs of shoes, Sunday shoes and everyday shoes. When our Sunday shoes got worn they became our everyday shoes. Main Street Saturday Night We each were given a dime on Saturday opening a universe of possibilities. All the stores stayed open and people flocked into town. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds set up a popcorn stand on Reinheimer’s corner and soon after lighting a little stove, sounding like small firecrackers, popping began. Dad, laughing shooting the breeze with a group of farmers, drinking Coca Cola, finding out if any sheds needed to be built or barns repaired, discussing the price of next year’s seed, finding out who’s really working, who’s just looking busy. There is no object I wouldn’t give to relive my childhood growing up in Delavan— where everyone knew everyone— and joy came with but a dime. Market Day Jim Pittsford’s grocery smelled of bananas ripening and the coffee he ground by hand, wonderful smoked ham and bacon fresh sliced. He’d reward the child who came to pick up the purchase, with a large dill pickle Biking home, skillfully balancing Jim Pittsford’s bacon, J B’s tomatoes and peaches, while sniffing a tantalizing spice rising from fresh warm rolls, I nibbled my pickle reward.

When Geldermans told me that Anquetil always moved his water bottle to his back pocket during climbs, so his bike would be lighter, I began paying attention. I noticed that in all the old pictures of Anquetil climbing, his bidon is always in its holder. That’s straining at gnats. Geldermans’ story strikes to the soul of the rider, and is therefore true.

From the airport, we caught a taxi to the apartment building on South Beretania Street where Barack had lived with his grandparents during his teenage years while his mother was mostly away, doing anthropological fieldwork in Indonesia. I remember on that car ride being struck by how surprisingly big and urban Honolulu seemed to be, a city stacked next to a body of water not unlike Chicago was. There was a freeway, traffic, and skyscrapers, none of which I remembered seeing during the Brady Bunch’s visit, nor had they factored into my daydreams. My mind clicked furiously, taking everything in, processing it like data. I was twenty-five years old and seeing this place for the first time, alongside this guy whom I felt I knew and yet didn’t fully know, trying to make sense of what all of this was. We passed a series of tightly packed high-rise apartment complexes, where you could see terraces cluttered with bikes and potted plants, people’s laundry strung up and drying in the sun. I remember thinking, Oh, right, this is real life.

In a few minutes I’m going to swim .93 miles, ride a bike 24.8 miles, then run a final 6.2 miles. And what’s all that supposed to prove? How is this any different from pouring water in an old pan with a tiny hole in the bottom?

I still dated the occasional lady. I still played tennis twice a week and rode my bike at least six miles a day, which kept my stomach flat and my endorphins flowing. Sure, I saw a few more lines around my mouth and eyes when I shaved, but on the whole, I thought I looked about the same as ever. That, of course, is the benign illusion of one’s later years. It took going back to Harlow in the summer of 2013 for me to understand the truth: I was just another frog in a pot. The good news was that so far the temperature had only been turned up to medium. The bad was that the process wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon. The three true ages of man are youth, middle age, and how the fuck did I get old so soon?

When others give you advice about your skiing, consider the following: • Listen with an open mind. Half of the time you might think they’re wrong, and half of those times you might be right. That means that the majority of the time, you’ll learn something valuable. • If a coach, instructor, or anyone else tells you something that doesn’t make sense, don’t nod your head as if it does. Ask for another explanation. Get into a dialog about it. But if the person still doesn’t make sense, know when and how to politely move on. • No one other than you can make you a better skier. The best coaches, instructors, and equipment technicians can help, but ultimately, it’s up to you. These words could have been written 30 years ago and been just as true then as they are today. There are other lasting truths about skiing: We ski in places that are beautiful and that many of us would otherwise seldom, if ever, visit. People can learn to ski before they can ride a bike and keep on skiing after they’re too old to ride one. Skiing brings families and friends together. It makes people feel healthy and happy. So don’t forget that the most important reason to ski is that you enjoy the skiing itself, and the most important reason to improve is that you’ll enjoy it more. And if you’re happy when you ski, you must be doing something right.

our interviews suggest that many rural men migrate to the city precisely to prepare for marriage. Married men who do not already work in the city rarely migrate there (it is different for those who live in towns surrounding cities).     After the death of my parents and oldest brother, I took care of the siblings. In 1997, I came to Bujumbura to do different jobs and then I managed to buy my own bike and I started doing taxi-vélo. I have done this job since 2002 and it allows me to have everything I need. I managed to build a house and I married because of my work. I also managed to buy three goats and five parcels of land to cultivate. I think that with God’s help I will manage the development I wished for when I came to the city. (Twenty-six-year-old migrant, Musaga)     I am saving some money to buy a couple of cows. After that, I will seek a wife. I am busy building a house with a tile roof in my colline to prepare my marriage. (Twenty-year-old male migrant, Musaga)

giant whirlpool swirls above the entry to

Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches. Harry

I got a traffic ticket! For jumping a red light on my scooter. It turned out that I was being tailed by a policeman on a mountain bike. The cop didn’t accept my argument that since I was only going four miles an hour and making a right turn, I posed no danger to myself or others. “Red is red!” he said, adding with a touch of pride in his voice, “I think you are the oldest person I have ever stopped and booked.

Hey, you,” a voice calls out. I turn to look, and find Bob Caster perched on a gleaming motorcycle with wide, shiny handlebars. I point to myself and ask, “Who? Me?” “Yes, you,” he says. He squints at me like he’s trying to look inside me. I cross my arms under my breasts to block his piercing gaze, and his eyes drop down to my boobs. He licks his lips ever so slowly, and then his eyes travel back up. Heat creeps up my cheeks, but I refuse to fidget on my feet. I stare straight at him. “You want to take a ride with me?” he asks. He revs the bike. I point a finger. “On that?” He grins that sideways grin again. “Well, I wasn’t offering my personal services.” He glances down at his button fly, and then he laughs. He runs a hand lovingly down the shiny chrome handlebar, his touch reverent and respectful. “Of course on this.” I point to the center of my chest and then at the bike. “You want to take me for a ride on that?” He stares at me. I finally let that feet fidget thing happen and want to kick myself. “Is it safe?” He shakes a cigarette out of a pack and takes his time lighting it. He inhales deeply and holds it for a moment. Then he blows it out and says, “I won’t let you get hurt.” I look at my car and then at him. He revs the engine again. “Where are we going?” “For a ride,” he says with a shrug. “When will we be back?” I step closer to him and his eyes light up a little. And I like it. “When we get done.” Be still my heart. He flicks his cigarette into the grass. “Are you coming or what?” “Okay,” I say. He looks surprised. “Yeah?” “Yes.” He takes the helmet off his head and holds it out to me. I pull my ponytail free and tug the helmet on. He reaches out to buckle the strap for me, his fingers gentle. “How old are you?” he asks, his voice strong but quiet. “Nineteen.” “Good.” He grins. He motions for me to climb on behind him and I do, my thighs spread around his hips. He lifts my feet and shows me where to put them. “Why is that good?” I ask close to his ear. He looks back over his shoulder. “Because I don’t want to go back to jail.” He doesn’t wait. He hits the gas and I shriek as we take off through the parking lot and onto the open road. He reaches back with one hand and puts my hand on his waist, and I automatically follow with the other. I hold on tightly to the man who just told me he doesn’t want to go back to jail, and I wonder what the heck I just got myself into.

Sweden’s capital is an expansive and peaceful place for solo travellers. It is made up of 14 islands, connected by 50 bridges all within Lake Mälaren which flows out into to the Baltic Sea. Several main districts encompass islands and are connected by Stockholm’s bridges. Norrmalm is the main business area and includes the train station, hotels, theatres and shopping. Őstermalm is more upmarket and has wide spaces that includes forest. Kungsholmen is a relaxed neighbourhood on an island on the west of the city. It has a good natural beach and is popular with bathers. In addition to the city of 14 islands, the Stockholm Archipelago is made up of 24,000 islands spread through with small towns, old forts and an occasional resort. Ekero, to the east of the city, is the only Swedish area to have two UNESCO World Heritage sites – the royal palace of Drottningholm, and the Viking village of Birka. Stockholm probably grew from origins as a place of safety – with so many islands it allowed early people to isolate themselves from invaders. The earliest fort on any of the islands stretches back to the 13th century. Today the city has architecture dating from that time. In addition, it didn’t suffer the bombing raids that beset other European cities, and much of the old architecture is untouched. Getting around the city is relatively easy by metro and bus. There are also pay‐as‐you‐go Stockholm City Bikes. The metro and buses travel out to most of the islands, but there are also hop on, hop off boat tours. It is well worth taking a trip through the broad and spacious archipelago, which stretches 80 kms out from the city. Please note that taxis are expensive and, to make matters worse, the taxi industry has been deregulated leading to visitors unwittingly paying extortionate rates. A yellow sticker on the back window of each car will tell you the maximum price that the driver will charge therefore, if you have a choice of taxis, choose

I don't need a babysitter." She huffed. "I can take care of myself." "No, you can't," Sky and I both replied together. I'd been saying the same thing to Solange and Lucy since they were barely old enough to talk. She glowered at us both and folded her arms. Lucy once poured honey all over my favorite bike; a little glower didn't faze me.

stunned it. Santiago, schooled in the ways

Eton, for all its virtues, seriously lacked girls. (Well, apart from the kitchen girls who we camped out on the roof waiting for night after night.) But beyond that, and the occasional foxy daughter of a teacher, it was a desert. (Talking of foxy daughters, I did desperately fancy the beautiful Lela, who was the daughter of the clarinet teacher. But she ended up marrying one of my best friends from Eton, Tom Amies--and everyone was very envious. Great couple. Anyway, we digress.) As I said, apart from that…it was a desert. All of us wrote to random girls whom we vaguely knew or had maybe met once, but if we were honest, it was all in never-never land. I did meet one quite nice girl who I discovered went to school relatively nearby to Eton. (Well, about thirty miles nearby, that is.) I borrowed a friend’s very old, single-geared, rusty bicycle and headed off one Sunday afternoon to meet this girl. It took me hours and hours to find the school, and the bike became steadily more and more of an epic to ride, not only in terms of steering but also just to pedal, as the rust cogs creaked and ground. But finally I reached the school gates, pouring with sweat. It was a convent school, I found out, run entirely by nuns. Well, at least they should be quite mild-natured and easy to give the slip to, I thought. That was my first mistake. I met the girl as prearranged, and we wandered off down a pretty, country path through the local woods. I was just summoning up the courage to make a move when I heard this whistle, followed by this shriek, from somewhere behind us. I turned to see a nun with an Alsatian, running toward us, shouting. The young girl gave me a look of terror and pleaded with me to run for my life--which I duly did. I managed to escape and had another monster cycle ride back to school, thinking: Flipping Nora, this girl business is proving harder work than I first imagined. But I persevered.

When Warren was a little boy fingerprinting nuns and collecting bottle caps, he had no knowledge of what he would someday become. Yet as he rode his bike through Spring Valley, flinging papers day after day, and raced through the halls of The Westchester, pulse pounding, trying to make his deliveries on time, if you had asked him if he wanted to be the richest man on earth—with his whole heart, he would have said, Yes. That passion had led him to study a universe of thousands of stocks. It made him burrow into libraries and basements for records nobody else troubled to get. He sat up nights studying hundreds of thousands of numbers that would glaze anyone else’s eyes. He read every word of several newspapers each morning and sucked down the Wall Street Journal like his morning Pepsi, then Coke. He dropped in on companies, spending hours talking about barrels with the woman who ran an outpost of Greif Bros. Cooperage or auto insurance with Lorimer Davidson. He read magazines like the Progressive Grocer to learn how to stock a meat department. He stuffed the backseat of his car with Moody’s Manuals and ledgers on his honeymoon. He spent months reading old newspapers dating back a century to learn the cycles of business, the history of Wall Street, the history of capitalism, the history of the modern corporation. He followed the world of politics intensely and recognized how it affected business. He analyzed economic statistics until he had a deep understanding of what they signified. Since childhood, he had read every biography he could find of people he admired, looking for the lessons he could learn from their lives. He attached himself to everyone who could help him and coattailed anyone he could find who was smart. He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business—art, literature, science, travel, architecture—so that he could focus on his passion. He defined a circle of competence to avoid making mistakes. To limit risk he never used any significant amount of debt. He never stopped thinking about business: what made a good business, what made a bad business, how they competed, what made customers loyal to one versus another. He had an unusual way of turning problems around in his head, which gave him insights nobody else had. He developed a network of people who—for the sake of his friendship as well as his sagacity—not only helped him but also stayed out of his way when he wanted them to. In hard times or easy, he never stopped thinking about ways to make money. And all of this energy and intensity became the motor that powered his innate intelligence, temperament, and skills.

You're old enough to hear this, Randy. You're old enough to learn from it. Someday you'll be married, and at first it'll be a bed of roses, and then the humdrum starts in and you forget to do the small things that made that person fall in love with you in the first place. You stop saying good morning, and picking up his shoes when he forgets to take them to his closet, and bringing home the special kind of Dairy Queen he likes. After all, it's out of your way and you're in a hurry. When he says, Do you want to take a bike ride after supper? you say no because you've had a rough day, so he goes alone and you don;t stop to realize that you'd gone with him it would have made your day a little better, And when he takes a shower before bed, you roll over and pretend to be asleep already because, believe it or not, you become to consider sex work. You stop doing these things, and then the other one stops doing them, and pretty soon you're substituting criticism for praise, and giving orders instead of making requests, and letting sex fall by the wayside, and in no time at all the whole marriage falls apart.

On Freecycle, givers modeled a standard that seemed attainable. When members saw a ninety-eight-year-old man building bikes for kids, they knew they could do something too.

In the words of Enrique Peñalosa, who instituted bike and pedestrian streets and rapid transit in Bogotá when he was mayor, if a bike lane isn’t safe for an eight-year-old child, it isn’t really a bike lane.

Reacher said, “I’m looking for Jimmy Rat.” The guy glanced at one of the other bikes. Couldn’t help himself. But he said, “Don’t know him,” and walked away, stiff and bow-legged, to the door of the bar. He was pear shaped, and maybe forty years old. Maybe five-ten, and bulky. He had a sallow tan, like his skin was rubbed with motor oil. He pulled the door and stepped inside.

filled with all kinds of fun stuff: golf clubs, jet skis, mountain bikes, you name it. For many of them, “fun” has become an addiction. But as with most addictive substances, people build up a tolerance. So despite all the “fun” things people do, they’re still not having fun. What’s really missing is a sense of joy. People find that they no longer feel an authentic joyfulness in living, despite all the fun stuff they have or do. And this is the case whether they’re male or female, young or old, rich or poor, or at any stage of life. What’s happened to people is that they’ve lost a delicate, but critical, component of aliveness and well-being—they’ve lost their eccentricities. It happens to many of us as we grow up and make our way in the world. We fit in. We see how other people survive and we copy their style—same as everyone else. Swept along by the myriad demands of day-to-day living, we stop making choices of our own. Or even realizing that we have choices to make. We lose the wonderful weird edges that define us. We cover up the eccentricities that make us unique. Alfred Adler, the great 20th century psychologist and educator, considered these eccentricities a vital part of a happy and fulfilling lifestyle. Ironically, 14 Repacking Your Bags

Now, as a non-Amish person in the twentieth century who is not a part of the aging and thus noncoveted seventy-five-plus marketing demographic that views things like cell phones and iPads with that quaint, old-people mixture of astonishment, fascination, confusion, and abject fear, I spend as much time pawing my cell phone as members of the postpubescent marketing demographic spend pawing each other and themselves.

bike was old and loud and smelled like something was burning when he rode it, but it was also loaded with chrome, its tank was a sweet cobalt blue, and with the detachable windshield and leather saddlebags that came with it, it was in shape enough to carry him out onto the road all over again.

At last, she makes her choice. She turns around, drops her head, and walks toward a horizon she cannot see. After that, she does not look back anymore. She knows that if she does, she will weaken. She will lose what resolve she has because she will see an old bicycle speeding down a hill, bouncing on rocks and gravel, the metal pounding both their rears, clouds of dust kicked up with each sudden skid. She sits on the frame, and Masooma is the one on the saddle, she is the one who takes the hairpin turns at full speed, dropping the bike into a deep lean. But Parwana is not afraid. She knows that her sister will not send her flying over the handlebars, that she will not hurt her. The world melts into a whirligig blur of excitement, and the wind whooshes in their ears, and Parwana looks over her shoulder at her sister and her sister looks back, and they laugh together as stray dogs give chase.

Despite an icy northeast wind huffing across the bay I sneak out after dark, after my mother falls asleep clutching her leather Bible, and I hike up the rutted road to the frosted meadow to stand in mist, my shoes in muck, and toss my echo against the moss-covered fieldstone corners of the burned-out church where Sunday nights in summer for years Father Thomas, that mad handsome priest, would gather us girls in the basement to dye the rose cotton linen cut-outs that the deacon’s daughter, a thin beauty with short white hair and long trim nails, would stitch by hand each folded edge then steam-iron flat so full of starch, stiffening fabric petals, which we silly Sunday school girls curled with quick sharp pulls of a scissor blade, forming clusters of curved petals the younger children assembled with Krazy glue and fuzzy green wire, sometimes adding tissue paper leaves, all of us gladly laboring like factory workers rather than have to color with crayon stubs the robe of Christ again, Christ with his empty hands inviting us to dine, Christ with a shepherd's staff signaling to another flock of puffy lambs, or naked Christ with a drooping head crowned with blackened thorns, and Lord how we laughed later when we went door to door in groups, visiting the old parishioners, the sick and bittersweet, all the near dead, and we dropped our bikes on the perfect lawns of dull neighbors, agnostics we suspected, hawking our handmade linen roses for a donation, bragging how each petal was hand-cut from a pattern drawn by Father Thomas himself, that mad handsome priest, who personally told the Monsignor to go fornicate himself, saying he was a disgruntled altar boy calling home from a phone booth outside a pub in North Dublin, while I sat half-dressed, sniffing incense, giddy and drunk with sacrament wine stains on my panties, whispering my oath of unholy love while wiggling uncomfortably on the mad priest's lap, but God he was beautiful with a fine chiseled chin and perfect teeth and a smile that would melt the Madonna, and God he was kind with a slow gentle touch, never harsh or too quick, and Christ how that crafty devil could draw, imitate a rose petal in perfect outline, his sharp pencil slanted just so, the tip barely touching so that he could sketch and drink, and cough without jerking, without ruining the work, or tearing the tissue paper, thin as a membrane, which like a clean skin arrived fresh each Saturday delivered by the dry cleaners, tucked into the crisp black vestment, wrapped around shirt cardboard, pinned to protect the high collar.

Today my friend Julie let me bring her dinner. Her husband, Doug, had two very scary seizures in the last two days, and a zillion tests and scans and appointments with neurologists. They had just come home from the hospital, and they were sitting on the front porch when I drove up, and Lilly, their three-year-old, was riding her big-girl bike on the sidewalk in her pink underpants. It was ninety-four degrees today, and they were exhausted. Being with them made me think about the idea that everything is okay. That idea is cruel in its untruth. The bottom just falls out sometimes, and nobody is exempt. I can’t take away the seizures or tell Lilly that it’s never going to happen again, although I would if I could. But I can be there, and I can feed them, and I can listen to their stories, of funny things the doctors said, and the strange and infuriating things family members invariably say in tense situations. I can sit in silence in the heat and stillness of a sticky June night, knowing that everything is not okay, but that this tiny moment is.

There’s hardly anybody who hasn’t owned or at least ridden a bicycle at some point in his or her life. I mean, sure, you do come across people occasionally who never learned how to ride a bike, but it’s rare and a little unsettling. It’s like meeting Someone who can’t operate a washing machine, or a thirty-two-year-old guy who never learned how to pee standing up. You smile politely, you pity them silently, and then you move on down to the other end of the bar. Despite

So I saw that there is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in their work, for that is what they are here for, and no one can bring them back to life to enjoy what will be in the future, so let them enjoy it now. —Ecclesiastes 3:22 (TLB) Recently, I learned that a book on friendship that I’d written with my best friend, Melanie, was rejected by a publisher who had been very positive about it for over two years. I was devastated. All those months and years of writing, rewriting, and then reworking it again…only to have it rejected in the end. I was ready to give up my career altogether, retire, and concentrate on biking, swimming, kayaking, and traveling. Then I read something my pen pal Oscar had written about his own retirement twenty-five years earlier. He wrote that in retirement we must have direction and purpose, accept change, remain curious and confident, communicate, and be committed. The longer I looked at his list, the more it spoke to me. Why, those are the very attributes I need to be a good writer, I thought. So I decided to buckle down and rework other unsold manuscripts I’d written over the years. Using Oscar’s plan of direction, purpose, confidence, and commitment helped me to stop telling people that I didn’t have any marketing genes and to keep busy rewriting and looking for different publishers. I may never sell all of my work, but I’m living a life filled with purpose. And I’m a whole lot happier in my semiretirement than if I was just playing every day, all day. Father, give me purpose in life whether it’s volunteer work, pursuing dreams, reworking an old career, or finding a new way to use the talents You’ve given me. —Patricia Lorenz Digging Deeper: Prv 16:9; Rom 12:3–8

Debbie Simoncini-Rosenfeld, vice president of an insurance company, was trying to deal with her eight-year-old daughter, Jessica, “screaming and yelling” to stay up later than her 8:30 bedtime. Her daughter wanted to read later at night. So Debbie traded her daughter a 9:30 P.M. bedtime in exchange for no bare-belly shirts at school and no riding her bike in the street. Debbie valued her daughter’s decorum and safety more than a later bedtime; her daughter valued a later bedtime more than decorum and safety. “Children like to be involved in making the rules,” Debbie said. “If they get something, they will give up something.

It was too embarrassing to admit that a young woman was the most popular politician in the Islamic Republic. In the official tally she came in second, with slightly fewer votes than the older cleric—an injustice that must have riled Hashemi, given the nature of her platform. Hashemi had made her debut in politics by challenging conservative clerics who opposed women’s right to exercise in public. Using her standing as Rafsanjani’s daughter, she argued that there was nothing wrong with fully covered women exercising. An increasing number of old and young women already crowded parks to jog or play volleyball or badminton. But the Basij often harassed and intimidated them to discourage women from exercising. As part of her campaign to defend and expand women’s right to exercise, Hashemi built a bike path for women, increased women’s access to sports facilities such as golf courses and tennis courts, and set up the first women’s soccer and, eventually, rugby teams since the revolution. She also founded the Islamic Women’s Sport Foundation, through which she held games in Tehran involving Iranian athletes and Muslim women invited from other countries.

My favorite part about spending time in Key West is riding my bike everywhere. We have these old bikes: mine is orange, Amber’s is white, but they both have sweet and cheesy floral baskets. Our bikes are so old you can hear us coming from a mile away—we just squeak, squeak, squeak down the road. We always take the back roads and go past the cemetery. My favorite tombstone says, “See? I told you I was sick.” It’s so much the spirit of Key West that even the gravestones make you smile. But this time it was also Katie Couric

She felt one thousand years old. She also felt like maybe she was a condescending brat. She wanted her bike. She wanted her friends, who were also one-thousand-year-old condescending brats.

Even if kids had time left after all of this regulation, they’re increasingly unable to partake in the world outside their schools and homes anyway. The 1950s hunter-gatherer childhood of Gray’s memory is partly a nostalgic myth in the spirit of Thoreau, for one part. For another, kids are largely prohibited from meandering on their own or in groups today. Writing in the Daily Mail, David Derbyshire contrasts a contemporary eight-year-old schoolboy (Edward), with his great-grandfather (George) of the same age.5 In 1926, George was able to meander some six miles to a pond to fish. Eighty years later, Edward is driven everywhere, even to safe, predetermined venues for bike riding. This shift didn’t happen all at once. Edward’s grandfather Jack was afforded a mile of freedom from his house at age eight, in the 1950s. His mother, Vicky, was allowed to wander about a half-mile away, to the local pool, in the late 1970s. By 2007, little Ed was permitted to stray less than three hundred yards from his door, as far as the end of the street.

We are doing 55 on Indiana 65. Jasper County. Flooded fields. Iroquois River spread way out, wide and brown as a Hershey bar. Distances in this glacier-flattened planed-down ground-level ground aren't blue, but whitish, and the sky is whitish-blue. It's in the eighties at 9:30 in the morning, the air is soft and humid, and the wind darkens the flooded fields between rows of oaks. Watch Your Speed - We Are. Severely clean white farmhouses inside square white fences painted by Tom Sawyer yesterday produce a smell of dung. A rich and heavy smell of dung on the southwest wind. Can shit be heady? La merde majestueuse. This is the "Old Northwest." Not very old, not very north, not very west. And in Indiana there are no Indians. Wabash River right up to the road and the oaks are standing ten feet out in the brown shadowmottled flood, but the man at the diesel station just says: You should of seen her yesterday. The essence is motion being in motion moving on not resting at a point: and so by catching at points and letting them go again without recurrence or rhyme or rhythm I attempt to suggest or imitate that essence the essence of which is that you cannot catch it. Of course there are other continuities: the other aspect of the essence of moving on. The county courthouses. Kids on bikes. White frame houses with high sashed windows. Dipping telephone wires, telephone poles. The names of the dispossessed. The redwing blackbird singing to you from fencepost to fencepost. Dave and Shelley singing "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma" on the radio. The yellow weedy clover by the road. The flowering grasses. And the crow, not the Indian, the bird, you seen one crow you seen 'em all, kronk kronk. CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO TREAT YOURSELF TO THE BEST on an old plank barn, the letters half worn off, and that's a continuity, not only in space but time: my California in the thirties, & I at six years old would read the sign and imagine a Pony Express rider at full gallop eating a candy cigarette. Lafayette Greencastle And the roadsign points: Left to Indianapolis Right to Brazil. Now there's some choice.

Contrary to the old aphorism, I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to ride one. (bike).

Grace is also for strength: “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1). I was about twelve years old when my father passed away. I’ll never forget riding home that day on my little Schwinn bike with the banana seat and sissy bar. As I came down the street, I saw cars in our driveway, and I knew that my dad had passed away. I had seen him in the hospital the day before, and he had pulled me to his bedside and said, “Clark, I want you to take care of your mom.” I sat down on the little rock wall that my dad and I had built, and my next-door neighbor came over to me and put his arm around me. “It’s going to be okay, Clark,” he told me. “You’re young; you’re strong. You’ll get through this.” For years I thought that because I was young and strong, I would get through it. But that was a lie from the pit of hell. It’s God’s grace that strengthens us to get through the calamities and difficulties of life.

Look, I don’t mean to make light of your midlife crisis or the fact that your drunk dad stole your bike when you were eight years old and you still haven’t gotten over it, but when it comes down to it, if you feel crappy it’s because your brain is telling you that there’s a problem that’s unaddressed or unresolved.

the career criminal of tomorrow is the youth on a mountain bike snatching phones today, and the eleven-year-old smashing windows because he thinks it’s great craic and posting the videos on TikTok.

TRAIL DESCRIPTION Segment 4 begins along FS Rd 560, Rolling Creek Trailhead, mile 0.0 (8,279 feet), where there’s a small parking area and sign. Go west on the jeep road to another small parking area at mile 0.3 (8,354), where there is an information display and trail register. The Colorado Trail is on the right side of the parking area and heads in a northwesterly direction. At mile 1.0 (8,527), take a left when the trail joins an old logging road. After passing a fence, where there is a possible dry campsite, continue uphill to mile 1.9 (9,016), where the trail enters the Lost Creek Wilderness Area. As with all wilderness areas, bikes and motorized vehicles are not permitted. Expect none of the triangular CT confidence markers you’re used to seeing, as reassurance markers are not allowed in Wilderness.

If we all conceptualize the reality and possibility of the city uniquely, how can we be on the same page when it comes to building an equitable future? To the person just moving to New Orleans, all the white hipsters biking around the Bywater is not the sign of the displacement of 100,000 black people; to someone moving to Williamsburg now, the glass condos are as much a natural part of the cityscape as anything else. In this way, gentrification suppresses and displaces memory, and makes it harder to build lasting justice. This ignorance benefits the powerful - a new resident who has no memory of the old Mission District in San Francisco is much less likely to protest what others may see as its destruction when a condo comes along. So if we are committed to fighting for an ungentrified future, the first step is to build consensus about what a city should be.

I do not know what love is I do not know if this is love or what love is or if love's a thing, if it can be worn like an old coat, or felt like harsh fabric on naked flesh, or if it is a sensation, like that first time the brakes of my bike failed while riding downhill or the climax of masturbation, or if love is an invention, and we all manufacture our own versions - some bright, some dull, some marbled, but all with labels and stickers that say: this is love. I do not know what love is or if I can say what I think love is, could be or should be. If we were to ever sit on the marble floor, on one of those dry, electricity free, 45 degree Delhi nights, sharing a drink of Old Monk's and I were to tell you that this is love, slap me for I would either be drunk or a liar. and if i were drunk, I won't be drunk on love or your loving for I don't know what love is or if it can be known. Maybe, one night, after thirty years of searching for what love means, we will sit outside - you and I - amidst the debris of our meanderings, our bent backs resting on the rusted iron railing, our skin pimpled, throats scratched from prayers uttered to absent gods and we would be in love and believe that love is this: love is all the spaces, non-events, the unspoken words and everything in between the first second of these thirty years to this. Love is this.

I do not know if this is love or what love is or if love's a thing, if it can be worn like an old coat, or felt like harsh fabric on naked flesh, or if it is a sensation, like that first time the brakes of my bike failed while riding downhill or the climax of masturbation, or if love is an invention, and we all manufacture our own versions - some bright, some dull, some marbled, but all with labels and stickers that say: this is love. I do not know what love is or if I can say what I think love is, could be or should be. If we were to ever sit on the marble floor, on one of those dry, electricity free, 45 degree Delhi nights, sharing a drink of Old Monk's and I were to tell you that this is love, slap me for I would either be drunk or a liar. and if i were drunk, I won't be drunk on love or your loving for I don't know what love is or if it can be known. Maybe, one night, after thirty years of searching for what love means, we will sit outside - you and I - amidst the debris of our meanderings, our bent backs resting on the rusted iron railing, our skin pimpled, throats scratched from prayers uttered to absent gods and we would be in love and believe that love is this: love is all the spaces, non-events, the unspoken words and everything in between the first second of these thirty years to this. Love is this.

I stop thinking that overworking, overmanaging, over-volunteering is necessary for my part of the world to keep running. For everyone I care about to be okay. It turns out that the universe is requesting a much more manageable amount of contribution from me. A kind of spiritual arrogance where I put myself at the center holding things up. In fact, it has happened that when I do less, more good has actually opened up for me. Go figure. Like a spiritual magic trick instead and the best kind. If I’m not spending time trying to figure out how to help, how to make things better, how to get more done by myself, that leaves chunks of time to ponder doing something else. Like – something fun. Suddenly hobbies are possible. Time opens up to sit still on my back deck watching the flowers grow. Reading a good book just because. And the more I let myself try those things, the more fun things I think up to do. Kayaking on the lake, learning to ride a bike again. Yeah, you heard me, learning to ride a bike. Turns out that old cliché is wrong – at least with me. Even better is the payoff I didn’t expect. When things didn’t crash to the ground without me driving the bus, and weirdly even got better, I felt more like I was a part of the universe. I was snugly fit somewhere in the middle as just a piece of everything. I was never meant to try and take on so much. What a relief. I am just a passenger on the bus and I don’t need to know where I’m headed. I didn’t anyway, only raising my anxiety and probably my meddling. I was able to give myself permission to hang back, do less and still know I’d done my part. Go enjoy the rest of life. And that’s exactly what I’m setting out to do. Maybe a little later than most, but all we have is the day we’re in so – it’s never too late. Next week I’ll be sitting among the redwoods listening to the sea far below. More adventures to follow. AUTHOR NOTES - MICHAEL ANDERLE AUGUST 25, 2021 Thank you for not only reading this book, but this entire series and these author notes as well.

was the one who found Daddy dead, crammed in the little space where my old bike’s training wheels turned rusted.

I was the one who found Daddy dead, crammed in the little space where my old bike’s training wheels turned rusted. I hadn’t ever seen a dead body before, cept one funeral when all I really saw was one dead arm folded cross a still chest,

Initially I rode my heavy old mountain bike just to stave off the shakes, but I quickly realized riding made me feel better. And it was something to fill the time. Those first few days I just rode around aimlessly and only realized I’d been out for a long time when darkness gathered. Without ever thinking about it, I soon found myself riding around for eight hours a day—slowly, in flat areas, but all day long. My muscles ached each morning. I hadn’t exercised for years. But the soreness lifted my spirit. Not spirit as in mood, but my actual spirit—my body was so wrecked from abuse that my spirit was the only thing keeping me afloat, all I had left. After about a week of long flat rides, I began to challenge myself on the bike. Seattle is hilly and I had no trouble finding steeper and steeper climbs to test my endurance and my tolerance for pain. These increasingly hard rides came to represent a form of self-flagellation, a way to punish myself for all the damage I had done to myself and others. I could feel this healthy new kind of pain searing every muscle fiber and neuron in my body.

He’d learned that I have a small, almost imperceptible, scar on my forehead, which I got when I fell off my bike when I was ten years old. Two tellers from American National Bank testified that they’d seen the scar, proving the person who picked up the money was me. In fact, it wasn’t. It had been Taryn, who was visibly pregnant at the time.

when she turned to Orlando to speak to him, I saw she had what Pa Salt would have termed a Roman nose, which sat prominently in her striking face. She was certainly not classically beautiful and, from the look of her jeans and old sweater, did not care to make herself more so. Yet, there was something very attractive about her and I realized I wanted her to like me—an unusual feeling. “Are you coping back there?” she asked me. “Not far now.” “Yes, thank you.” I leaned my head against the windowpane as the thick hedges, their height exaggerated by the low car, flew by me, the country lanes becoming narrower. It felt so good to be out of London, with only the odd red-brick chimney stack peeping out from behind the wall of green. We turned right, through a pair of old gates that led to a drive so potholed that Marguerite’s and Orlando’s heads bumped against the roof. “I really must ask Mouse to bring the tractor and fill in these holes with gravel before the winter comes,” she commented to Orlando. “Here we are, Star,” she added as she pulled the car to a halt in front of a large, graceful house, its walls formed from mellow red brick, with ivy and wisteria fringing the uneven windows in greenery. Tall, thin chimney stacks, which emphasized the Tudor architecture, reached up into the crisp September sky. As I squeezed myself out of the back of the Fiat, I imagined the house’s interior to be rambling as opposed to impressive—it was certainly no stately home; rather, it looked as if it had gently aged and sunk slowly into the countryside surrounding it. It spoke of a bygone era, one that I loved reading about in books, and I experienced a twinge of longing. I followed Marguerite and Orlando toward the magnificent oak front door, and saw a young boy wobbling toward us on a shiny red bike. He let out a strange muffled shout, tried to wave, and promptly fell off the bike. “Rory!” Marguerite ran to him, but he had already picked himself up. He spoke again, and I wondered if he was foreign, as I couldn’t make out what he was saying. She dusted him down, then the boy picked up the bike and the two of them walked back to us. “Look who’s here,” Marguerite said, turning directly to the boy to speak to him. “It’s Orlando and his friend Star. Try saying ‘Star.’ ” She particularly enunciated the “st” in my name. “Ss-t-aahh,” the boy said as he approached me, a smile on his face, before holding up his hand and opening his fingers out like a shining star. I saw that Rory was the owner of a pair of inquisitive green eyes, framed by dark lashes. His wavy copper-colored hair glowed in the sun, and his rosy cheeks dimpled with happiness. I recognized that he was the kind of child that one would never want to say no to. “He prefers to go by the name ‘Superman,’ don’t you, Rory?” Orlando chuckled, holding up his hand in a fist like Superman taking off into the air. Rory nodded, then shook my hand with all the dignity of a superhero, and turned to Orlando for a hug. After giving him a tight squeeze and a tickle, Orlando set him down, then squatted in front of him and used his hands to sign, also speaking the words clearly. “Happy birthday! I have your present in Marguerite’s car. Would you like to come and get it with me?” “Yes please,” Rory spoke and signed, and I knew then that he was deaf. I rifled through my rusty mental catalog of what I had learned

When your three-year-old erupts in anger because there are no orange Popsicles left in the freezer, his downstairs brain, including the brain stem and amygdala, has sprung into action and latched the baby gate. This primitive part of his brain has received an intense surge of energy, leaving him literally unable to act calmly and reasonably. Massive brain resources have rushed to his downstairs brain, leaving little to power his upstairs brain. As a result, no matter how many times you tell him that you have plenty of purple Popsicles (which he liked better than orange last time anyway), he’s probably not going to listen to reason in this moment. He’s much more likely to throw something or yell at anyone nearby. As you know if you’ve found yourself in this situation, the best way to ease him through this crisis (and in his mind it really is a crisis) is to soothe him and help him shift his attention. You might pick him up and show him something else of interest in another room, or you might do something silly or off-the-wall to change the dynamics of the situation. When you do this, you are helping him unlatch the gate, so that the stairway of integration can once again become accessible and he can engage his upstairs brain and begin to calm down. The same goes for when the problem isn’t anger but fear. Think of an active, athletic seven-year-old who refuses to learn to ride a bike. Her amygdala produces such paralyzing fear that she won’t even attempt an activity at which she’s more than capable of succeeding. Her amygdala has not only placed a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, it has littered the stairway with the equivalent of balls, skates, books, and shoes—all kinds of obstacles that come from past frightening experiences and make it impossible to reach the higher parts of her brain. In this situation, there would again be many different possible strategies for clearing the pathway. Her parents might try to persuade her of the reward of taking on a new challenge; they might acknowledge and discuss their own fears; they might even offer an incentive to help her conquer her fear. Any number of approaches might work to help her clear the connection to her upstairs brain and quiet her amygdala, which is shouting the message that she might fall and hurt herself.

tiny seed of doubt sprouting inside her gut. Could this life-altering affair be nothing more than a one-sided mirage? She couldn’t keep her journalistic instincts from attempting to connect dots. She recalled every possible aversion of her lover’s eyes, each word of affirmation that may not have been as sincere and heartfelt as the previous. And now this. Karina released an audible breath and brought her hand to her head. She felt the sharp edge of her one-quarter-karat, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring, and thought about Reinaldo, her Brazilian husband of the last ten years. There had been some good times … moments she’d always remember. But as she recalled the hikes up Pikes Peak, the mountainous bike rides, and games of pool while drinking a few beers, she admitted that Reinaldo had been nothing more than a friend—a convenient friend at that. But one who had helped her produce two kids, two adorable little rug rats. Would they ever look at Mommy the same way, if they found out who the real Karina was? When they found out. Karina couldn’t let her insecurities question her new path in life—a path she’d ignored far too long. Determined to make this relationship work, her mind sharpened, and she leaned over the side of the bed and snatched her smartphone from the back pocket of her khakis. No sweet text messages. She licked her lips, then scrolled to her contacts and tapped the cell number. “Hi, Karina. Miss me already?” the voice on the other end asked. Karina couldn’t help but smile. “I just wanted to hear your voice again before I packed up my things and strolled back into my old life.” “I know what you mean,” Karina’s lover said. “You don’t have a spouse and two kids,” Karina said with a tone more harsh than she’d intended. “Oh, sorry.” “Not a problem. I get it. I really do.” A wave of emotion overcame Karina. A single tear bubbled out of the corner of her eye and she sniffled. “Are you okay, dear?” “I …” “You can tell me, Karina. We share everything.” “I just wanted our evening together to be special. You mean so much to me … how I see myself. How I see our future.” “I’m so sorry my work got in our way. Just know that you hold a special place in my heart.” Karina could hear sincerity, which warmed her heart. “I love you.” “I love you too, Karina.” Muffled sounds broke Karina’s concentration. Was that another person’s voice? “What was that noise? Where are you?” Tension rippled up her spine. “Oh, I just walked in my door. I’m exhausted, dear. Let’s make plans for early next week. We can both relax and have some fun at my new place. We can talk about our future.” The pressure in Karina’s head eased. They kissed into

Hey, babe." He walked over and kissed my neck. "Oh! She made it! Damn, I thought she was being delivered tomorrow." "Yeah, well, I hope that bike looks good wearing an engagement ring." Jagger laughed and left us, walking with tiny, excruciating steps back to his own house. "What?" Josh asked. "Do you need me to carry you, old man?" "It's going to be hard for you to walk once she kicks you in the balls man." He flippped Josh the bird and kept going.

My bike in one of those old-fashioned cruisers, with a mint-green body.

was a miracle or due to the lucky ministrations of a doddering old doctor, I had no place in this reality. All I should have been by now was a name on a headstone, lost in rows of other headstones stretching as far as the eye could see in some faraway cemetery. That first morning, my mother dropped me off at Willowbrook High. That, like many other things these days, didn’t feel right. I should have walked. I should have ridden a bike, like so many other kids, pedaling along the roadside, their backpacks giving them a happy hunchbacked look. But my mother had

On day three I am very excited to attend one of our special excursions for which you pay extra. We are going to get off the boat early in the morning in Bermuda, where we will be given bicycles. We will ride our bikes around the island with a guide to a special secluded beach where we can swim and have rum swizzles and then we will be taken back to the ship by a party boat. Sounds pretty good, right? That’s what I thought, too. I wouldn’t shut up about it. For weeks before we left I bragged about how I had chosen the best excursion. It was fun and fitness combined! It was a great way to see the island! My husband and I wait at the designated pickup point at 8:30 A.M. No one else shows up. A quick check of our itinerary reveals the heartbreaking truth. The bike trip was yesterday. In my excitement, I memorized it wrong. I cry. I cry like a three year old who just wants to take her toy cash register into the bathtub. I cry in a way that reveals that I’m not finding the rest of the cruise that fun. This is definitely the low point of the trip, until the fire. Oh yes, there’s a ship fire coming in this story. Wait for it.

Fitz was on his best behavior with Daniel, though. He usually is. He can sense Daniel likes animals. That’s how we met. A week after we moved in, Daniel brought us an injured squirrel. The old warden had taken in wounded animals, and Daniel had figured that was part of the job. As for what a five-year-old was doing riding his bike deep into a predator-laced forest, well, that says something about the level of parental care in the Bianchi household.

businessman. And the economy right now is terrible.” She turned to her father. “Do you mean that old dump on Arbor Drive? There’s nothing down there but empty buildings. No one will go down there for ice cream.” “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Virginia.” Her father pointed at her with one hand while gripping the arm of his chair with the other. “The city council wants to renovate the entire area. They’re adding a bike path and a new boat launch. That whole stretch along the lake will become just like the old Atlantic City boardwalk.” Like the fish that got away, every time her father told this story, it grew in size. There was just no telling

Jamie Smart has gone home and Adrian sits on the curb at the edge of the field, the bike propped against a lamppost. He can see the back garden. He’s drinking a can of Fanta. He’s feeling pretty good. He’s six years old. A van pulls up. The worried-looking driver gets out and jogs across the quiet road. He said, “Mate—what’s your name?

For most of the nights of my life I could hear Stewart coming home late from his university studio, the brakes of his bike — they had an old VW bus, but it broke down constantly — squeaking all the way from the bridge down the street. He’d glide down the slope of their yard, under the clothesline, to the garage. Sometimes he forgot about the clothesline and almost killed himself, flying backward while the bike went on, unmanned to crash against the garage door. You’d think they would have moved the clothesline after the second time or so. But they didn’t. “It’s not the fault of the clothesline,” Stewart explained to me one day, rubbing the red, burned spot on his neck. He’d broken his glasses again and had them taped together in the middle. “It’s about me respecting it as an obstacle.

Lennon was – whether by luck, accident or perceptive foresight – at the forefront of the psychedelic era’s passion for rose-tinted introspection, which channelled the likes of children’s literature, Victorian fairgrounds and circuses, and an innocent sense of wonder. McCartney, too, moved with the times when writing his children’s singalong Yellow Submarine. Among the hippie era’s other moments of nostalgia were Pink Floyd’s Bike and The Gnome from their debut album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, recorded at EMI Studios as the Beatles worked on Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, laid down in 1966 but released in the same month as Sgt Pepper, and which drew from Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories just as Lennon did; and many more, from Tiny Tim’s Tiptoe Through The Tulips to Traffic’s psychedelic fantasy Hole In My Shoe. The Beatles continued writing songs evoking childhood to the end of their days. Sgt Pepper – itself a loose concept album harking back to earlier, more innocent times – referenced Lewis Carroll (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds), youthful anticipation of old age (When I’m Sixty-Four), a stroll down memory lane (Good Morning Good Morning), and the sensory barrage of a circus big top extravaganza (Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!). It was followed by Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine, two films firmly pitched at the widest possible audience. A splendid time was, indeed, guaranteed for all.

We're caught up in a vicious cycle of debt. We borrow money to build a giant road project. That project attracts new development, which brings more traffic. Eventually the road needs to be expanded; the initial debt has not been paid off, so a new, larger loan is taken out to fund the new project and pay off the old one. The money is borrowed against the promise of further development to bring in new tax revenue. And so it continues.

So… this bike loan. How long?' 'A couple of days probably,' she said. 'Oh... and I'll need my old leathers and helmet, if you haven't flogged them. And a pair of good binoculars.

In the never-ending struggle against boredom, Pre wanted to run new routes. "All right, you guys decide where we're going to run," he would challenge Feig and Bence when they trained together on the roads. Feig would suggest the Bike Trail or Skinner's Butte, and Pre would respond with "That's not very original; everybody does that all the time." "So we'd end up with him going off in the lead and end up running the same old thing we'd done before," Bence says,

I’m still waiting for that Hollywood movie which shows two guys on a bike slowly moving towards an old lady, then when they’re near enough they grab her handbag, leave her fallen on the road, and they speed away. I’ve never seen that before and I think I know why: Only Malaysian thieves resort to shit like this.

Cherry is about to turn a year old and here I am, pregnant again. I’m not sad, mad or even angry… this baby was made with love with my husband. I’m just like… damn, a bitch about to be sitting down again. No bikes, drinks, or any damn thing.

It seemed to me that Mr. Sculley understood the very nucleus of existence, that he had kept his young eyes and young heart even though his body had grown old. He saw straight through to the cosmic order of things, and he knew that life is not held only in flesh and bone, but also in those objects — a good, faithful pair of shoes; a reliable car; a pen that always works; a bike that has taken you many a mile — into which we put our trust and which give us back the security and joy of memories.

Santa Ines is, on first impression, not the best, but not anywhere approaching the worst city Chant has found himself in. He’s seen it all. Palaces and slums, wide, sunlit marble boulevards flanked by ornamental gardens, and shanty towns drowning in mud and despair. This place is, at first glance, the same as any other West Coast city he’s ever drifted through. A twisted core of skyscrapers, apartments and office-blocks, wound round with freeways and dwindling out to cinder block suburbs with repeating fenced yards, bikes on the paths and barbecues in the back, not affluent but not dangerous, either. To the other side of the city, the buildings slope down to the seafront, built lower towards the ocean front as if the nearer they get to the beach, the more they want to get down on their knees and dig. Chant laughs under his breath at the thought: weird. Digging for, what, pirate treasure? Maybe. It’s an old beach town, after all. Zinging with life, thriving, but with that hidden current eddying in the shadows at the edge of the ever-present sunshine, ready to drag down the unwise into secret depths. Here, in Santa Ines, it feels like it goes deeper, somehow, but Chant doesn’t plan on sticking around long enough for that to be a problem. And anyway - he’s not new. Not as if anything like that can touch him, let alone hold him.

What would Jesus do? Jump on the bike — an old Honda with some guts to it — and give it his all.

When Barthemo Beele was two years old, he was trained to use a little potty stool that was kept in a cupboard with a hanging cloth in front of it. This little secret, with its aura of shame, interested him so keenly that he had to lift the cloth and look at it a dozen times a day. To this single episode, he later felt, all of his curiosity could be traced. For little ‘Themo’ developed an unfortunate habit of lifting hanging cloths to peer under them. And after he had lifted the skirt of a visitor, a bishop’s wife, ‘Themo’ received his first sound whipping. Yet, as if his motto were Video, ergo sum, Barthemo went on lifting hanging cloths and looking under them, and was unable to resist doing so. He would lift the corner of a tablecloth and stare at the table’s legs, fascinated, flushed with guilt and a strange pleasure he could not name. He grew to a skinny, secretive kid, addicted to tattling, to forming, with friends, secret clubs, and to writing what he hoped were dirty words on fences: FUDGE, SHAME, ORGANISM, and especially LOVE. One day by chance he lifted a blanket and found a couple of organisms making love: his mother and a man not his father. Barthemo hastened to tell his father, who thanked him for his information by spanking him and locking him in his room for a day. When he decided the boy had learned his lesson, the elder Beele relented and let him out – but on condition that he mind his own business. Barthemo actually did have a business at this time, which was selling information to the police. For nickels, dimes and quarters, he would tell them which members of which secret clubs were stealing bike tyres from gas stations and magazines from drugstores. Later, for larger sums, he told them about car thefts and burglaries. This continued well into high school, when his duties as a school reporter took up most of his free time. The police gave him a present of money when he left for college, and told him he was the ‘Best little

When twelve-year-old Isabella Farner disappears, Agent Tori Hunter races to the scene. Witnesses—including her partner’s son who was biking home with Isabella—saw a man throw her into the back of his blue van and speed away. Terrified that a child she loves like her own might be next, Tori knows every second counts in the hunt for the missing girl.

In 2018, Katherine Beiers, age 85, completed the Boston marathon.55 In 2019 another old competitor to finish the Boston marathon, Larry Cole, was also age 85. In 2018, Canadian Betty Jean McHugh, age 90, continued to run marathons. She began running in her 50s. She considers the age 90 to be “just a number.”56 Not to forget Spokane-based Sister Madonna Buder (b. 1930), aka “the Iron Nun,” who by her late 80s had competed in 400 triathlons, forty-five of them Ironmans (you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2-miles).57 Now that she is in her 90s though, she’s had to slow down. On her daily routine she swims a half-mile, rides a bike for twenty miles, and goes for a three-mile run.58

In one life she was a travel vlogger who had 1,750,000 YouTube subscribers and almost as many people following her on Instagram, and her most popular video was one where she fell off a gondola in Venice. She also had one about Rome called 'A Roma Therapy'. In one life she was a single parent to a baby that literally wouldn't sleep. In one life she ran the showbiz column in a tabloid newspaper and did stories about Ryan Bailey's relationships. In one life she was the picture editor at the National Geographic. In one life she was a successful eco-architect who lived a carbon-neutral existence in a self-designed bungalow that harvested rain-water and ran on solar power. In one life she was an aid worker in Bostwana. In one life a cat-sitter. In one life a volunteer in a homeless shelter. In one life she was sleeping on her only friend's sofa. In one life she taught music in Montreal. In one life she spent all day arguing with people she didn't know on Twitter and ended a fair proportion of her tweets by saying 'Do better' while secretly realising she was telling herself to do that. In one life she had no social media accounts. In one life she'd never drunk alcohol. In one life she was a chess champion and currently visiting Ukraine for a tournament. In one life she was married to a minor Royal and hated every minute. In one life her Facebook and Instagram only contained quotes from Rumi and Lao Tzu. In one life she was on to her third husband and already bored. In one life she was a vegan power-lifter. In one life she was travelling around South Corsican coast, and they talked quantum mechanics and got drunk together at a beachside bar until Hugo slipped away, out of that life, and mid-sentence, so Nora was left talking to a blank Hugo who was trying to remember her name. In some lives Nora attracted a lot of attention. In some lives she attracted none. In some lives she was rich. In some lives she was poor. In some lives she was healthy. In some lives she couldn't climb the stairs without getting out of breath. In some lives she was in a relationship, in others she was solo, in many she was somewhere in between. In some lives she was a mother, but in most she wasn't. She had been a rock star, an Olympics, a music teacher, a primary school teacher, a professor, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a glaciologist, a climatologist, an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hair-dresser, a professional dog walker, an office clerk, a software developer, a receptionist, a hotel cleaner, a politician, a lawyer, a shoplifter, the head of an ocean protection charity, a shop worker (again), a waitress, a first-line supervisor, a glass-blower and a thousand other things. She'd had horrendous commutes in cars, on buses, in trains, on ferries, on bike, on foot. She'd had emails and emails and emails. She'd had a fifty-three-year-old boss with halitosis touch her leg under a table and text her a photo of his penis. She'd had colleagues who lied about her, and colleagues who loved her, and (mainly) colleagues who were entirely indifferent. In many lives she chose not to work and in some she didn't choose not to work but still couldn't find any. In some lives she smashed through the glass ceiling and in some she just polished it. She had been excessively over- and under-qualified. She had slept brilliantly and terribly. In some lives she was on anti-depressants and in others she didn't even take ibuprofen for a headache. In some lives she was a physically healthy hypochondriac and in some a seriously ill hypochondriac and in most she wasn't a hypochondriac at all. There was a life where she had chronic fatigue, a life where she had cancer, a life where she'd suffered a herniated disc and broken her ribs in a car accident.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of TV. And I played even more video games. So much so that around the time when I was ten years old, my dad told he would pay me $500 not to watch TV for a year…I remember the feeling while at our grandma’s house that I had to go play outside instead of watching Nickelodeon. I remember getting home from school and having to wrestle with boredom and sort it out in the woods instead of in front of the screen. I remember missing video games and being sad when a friend went inside to watch TV and I couldn’t come. But I also remember the space that opened up to fall in love with new things: the pleasures of whole afternoons outside with my brothers, extended baseball games in the yard, setting up complicated bike courses on a side street.

In the final image, he is sitting atop the horse. We have not witnessed a victory or a conquering, but a love scene, a man who knows innately how connection happens, how we traverse emotional distance, how we calm one another's fears. Similarly, toward the end of the film, Brady goes to visit Lane. He is wearing his cowboy hat, green rodeo shirt, jeans, and a bandanna tied around his neck as if he's ready to go riding. With the help of the nurses at the rehab facility, he dresses Lane in boots, jeans, and his old maroon-striped rodeo shirt. Brady puts Lane's cowboy hat atop his head: "We don't want you to get a sunburn," he says. With great difficulty, they ease Lane over a saddle propped up on parallel bars. Brady holds the reins as if he is the horse and takes Lane riding again. "You're loping off into the distance," he says as Lane struggles to stay upright. Lane's head falls and Brady cajoles it back up with the patience of a parent teaching a child to ride a bike. Together they are in a rehab facility loping, smiling, tilting, riding, Brady talking softly, lovingly. Brady's man talk soothes me. I have been the horse and I have been Lane, broken through a transition, learning to allow my body to feel pressure, to be cajoled to walk two steps forward, to trust someone enough to help me imagine what it would be like to lope along in my cowboy hat protecting me from sunburn, to learn what it means to talk like a man.

I clock countless hours in the gym, where log thousands of reps and run and ride my bike obscene distances, to cultivate believe, Despite what you may think, I don't consider myself an ultra-athlete because those races are not who I am. They are tools. Each one provides me a stockpile of faith so when I get stuck in the maze of life like a broke-down savage, I still believe I am capable of achieving my unreasonable goals, such as becoming a smokejumper at forty-seven years old, no matter what society or the good doctors say.

I let go of any dreams of pro football shortly after getting run over on my bike at eight years old.

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Our carbureted bikes were running rich at that high altitude

we pulled into downtown Jackson Hole and parked our bikes in front of the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar.