Ah! The butt end of February and so far I can say
I’ve had the scooter out every month this year! It was a magnificent day for a ride with the weather service
reporting that it’s currently 76 degrees here.
I spent two hours on the road and they were among the best hours of
2018, though I suspect that my sixtieth birthday party in a few weeks might
trump them a little.
The rose bushes are bare
as they usually are this time of year as I fire up the Piaggio’s engine and let
it warm up for a few minutes. I checked
the tire pressures since it had been a month since I had the bike out last and
gave her the once over to make sure everything seemed to be where it
belonged. I don’t know much about motor
vehicles, but a cursory check doesn’t hurt even by a dummy who might spot
something out of place if he takes a moment to look.
When I leave the house
here in the Wyoming Valley the basic choices follow the north to south flow of
the Susquehanna River. East and west
from here lead to the boonies for the most part with long stretches of nothing
in between so for a short ride such as I take on a day like this when the
morning is sunny with more clouds and eventually rain on tap, north and south
are the more prudent choices. Today I
decided to head south.
I really like riding
through the small towns strung together here in “da valley” with their 19th
century charm. The British who warred
with the natives to take control settled much of the valley proper in the
1700s. Toward the end of the 1800s came
in turn the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Polish, Slovaks, and Russians
to work on the railroads, in the coal mines, and various industries. Many of the homes I pass by on my rides
through the small municipalities were coal miners’ homes, and but for different
choices of modern siding, they look essentially the same as they did for the
past 150 years or so.
I was wearing my happy
face through Nanticoke where I started driving slowly up one of the streets,
past the home of my junior high school girlfriend, admittedly hoping to get a
glimpse of her. If she’d been sitting
on her porch enjoying the sunshine I don’t honestly know if I’d have the
gumption to pull to the curb and talk with her. It’s been many years since we last spoke, at my grandmother’s
wake sometime in the early 90s, and then only briefly. I think about her from time to time, hoping
she’s happier in her second marriage than she’d been in her first, and
generally just wishing that she’s having a nice life. We shared a lot when we were kids together, but we lost touch after
high school. I’ll always carry a small
torch for her and wonder now and then what life might’ve been like if we’d
stuck together and married.
I ended up passing this
market on the center square, still in Nanticoke, and felt just a touch of a
pang of misery that I experienced there when I was maybe 7 years old. I was sent into the market with a dollar
bill in hand to get a pack of nine-volt batteries. I was smart enough to realize that I had enough money for them before
getting them to the counter, but was devastated when the guy behind the counter
announced a price that included whatever the sales tax was at that time. I remember being horrified with the
embarrassment of not having enough money and having to return to my uncle’s car
without them. Of course he gave me the
nickel or whatever it was to go back and get them, but the damage to my tender
young psyche had already been done. From
my adult perch it was silly that I had felt totally humiliated in that instance,
but what a testimony to how well we remember such things from our youth even
after fifty some years have flown by in the mean time.
It was just past the
market as I was cruising slowly through the neighborhood when my radiator fan
came on and I realized that my engine seemed to be running just a little
hot. After the nightmare I had last
summer when the scooter was in the shop from mid May through late August I
wasn’t about to take any chances so I decided to scoot back through the valley
farther north to visit the motorcycle shop. I’d
expected that my mechanic would have little business in the middle of February,
but there he was all backed up with work just as much in the winter as during
peak riding season. He dropped what he
was doing to check my coolant, discovering that some air burped out of the line
when he opened the fill tank and then adding just a sip of water to top it
off. I was glad I made the trip because
on the way back to the house the heat needle was right where it was when I
parked the scooter in the fall and I felt much better about it.
The ride back to beat the
rain was thankfully uneventful. I
managed to spy a few things that touched different emotions.
I always take delight whenever I see another scooter in my travels. As with certain foods that make me feel sorry for my daughters in their not liking them, I kind of feel a degree of sadness for everybody who’s never ridden a scooter. They just don’t know what they’re missing I think to myself!
I was able to stop fast
enough to turn on the camera and work the zoom to get this decent shot of a
plane taking off at the Forty Fort airport.
I felt an extraordinary
amount of glee in seeing that the gates to the county park were open. They usually clamp them shut in late November
and don’t open them again till late April, but there they were, as open as they
could be! There’s really nothing beyond
them that’s worth seeing, just various ball parks, but for some reason getting
beyond those gates always makes me happy because it’s usually a sign that the
best of the riding season is upon us. I
often enjoy a lunch or a snack back there under a pavilion that I like because
I can park the bike right next to it.
I smirked today as I
usually do when I’m riding up this hill.
When I had the small 50cc scooter an old lady walking briskly could have
beaten me to the top and I often pulled over to let the lines of cars building
up behind me pass. Sometimes I miss
that the little scooter limited my speed and forced me to ride slowly enough to
smell the roses, but when I need it the power of the 250 can’t be beat.
I rode past the family
home of my best friend who now lives in Boston. The house is vacant now and while my friend has no claim on nor
responsibility for the property he’s still curious about it so I ride past now
and then since it’s only about a mile from here to let him know if anything is
going on. It hasn’t changed, though,
since his brother died last spring.
Going past it brings back such wonderful memories of all the times I
spent there with my friend’s family and him while we were in high school. Crisp fall evening, Christmases, summer
parties - they all seem like they were only
yesterday, but he’s been in Boston for the past 42 years.
Finally, as I dismounted
back at home, I grinned when I saw that there was still a little patch of snow
on the ground just ahead of the Piaggio’s front tire. I consider it a particular triumph even if a minor one when I’m
able to get out on two wheels while there’s still some snow around. While I was riding I encountered some big
piles of it pushed into mounds by plows, but it seemed a bigger deal that there
was still some in my yard while I managed to go out for a ride!
There’s a wintry mix in
the forecast for tomorrow. That’s
okay. There are warmer days just around
the corner!
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