Saturday Musette

Old books

I’m a sucker for old books. I rode around town today (Saturday), poking through boxes at garage sales and scanning the shelves of our local Goodwill store. At a yard sale, I found a copy of “Adventures in English Literature”, a 1963 edition in very nice condition considering its age. This was last issued in 1964 in the Tulsa public schools. The book is very dense, heavy in the hand, and the binding is stout. This book was made to last – unlike too many of my more modern, and vastly more expensive textbooks.

I rode my Centurion fixed gear with a small pannier on the rack. That prevents me from dragging home anything too big. And I feel better about buying something frivolous, but cheap, if I’m not burning expensive gasoline doing it. A text like this may not be frivolous, exactly, because I use books like this for reference material. But it’s not something I need desperately, either.

Almost immediately, I found a story by Eric Knight, titled “All Yankees Are Liars”, an account of a bicycle trip to an isolated village in Yorkshire. Trust me to find something about bicycling in a book of English literature!

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Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)

The Tulsa MDA office is organizing a “Stride & Ride” fundraiser. Here’s some text from their flyer:

“We are searching for men, women, and children to be heroes for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and all those we help. Your goal is to raise at least $63 (one minute of research) by riding or striding a mile in the air-conditioned comfort of Woodland Hills Mall on Saturday, January 21, 2006.”

Muscular dystrophy is an umbrella term used for over 40 different types of muscular diseases. I write about this because Mary has an adult form of MD. I’m thinking about trying to organize a bike ride that day. Given the wildly variable weather we can have here in Oklahoma, a ride could attract some die-hard cyclists, or some REALLY die-hard cyclists! But I suspect they wouldn’t let us ride inside the mall in “air-conditioned comfort”!

I’ve never organized a ride, so this could be a bit chaotic. This month’s issue of Bicycling has an article about ride organization, so once I get it back from one of my co-workers; I’ll have to read it.

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We go from one end of the literary spectrum to the other. I have a copy of the Weekly World News here in front of me, the world’s most reliable newspaper. It says so on the front cover. No, I’m not going to write about the new airplanes made entirely of sponges. And no, I’m not going to cover the Amish attempt to take over the world (though who’d suspect until it was too late.)

I know some cyclists who ride shirtless in order to have a more natural tan, one that covers more than just the arms and legs. The tan on my legs, for instance, starts about mid-thigh and goes to the top of my socks. I have gleaming white, almost glow-in-the-dark feet!

For those of you who prefer to ride shirtless, carrying keys, money, and such is a small problem – but not anymore!

“Dr. Phillip N. Case came up with a new, convenient and less bone-crushing way of transporting personal belongings. ‘I call them Body Pouches’, said Dr. Case…Body Pouches are surgically created pockets designed to hold objects of various sizes.”….Weekly World News, Sept. 12, 2005, page 17.

So instead of wearing a jersey, you could simply stuff everything into 3 Body Pouches created on your lower back! Imagine the possibilities! In my case, it would give new meaning to “Hey! Look at that guy’s six-pack!” I could probably manage a twelve pack and be REALLY impressive!

I think I could write for these guys if I could only drink more coffee and alcohol.