Last Ride of Summer

I know already that this is going to be a brutally busy week and that my riding time is going to be more or less limited to the daily work commute.  Autumn will arrive on Thursday.  Thus it was that my ride today became the last official long ride of Summer 2010.

I set out heading south on US11 with no particular terminus in mind.  The air was cool enough to warrant a flannel shirt over my tee, and nobody with whom I was sharing the road seemed to be in a ridiculous hurry to get anywhere which kept me relaxed and enjoying every turn of the tires.  Well, that was until I noticed that I was being followed by a state police car.  Even when I'm not doing anything foolish or illegal, those guys unnerve me so when I saw him back there I turned into the riverside park developed by the electric company to make the area around the nuclear power plant less ominous looking.  Those flowers hide the twin cooling towers so perfectly!

I gave Mr. State Trooper a bit of a head start and then pointed the front wheel south again to head toward Berwick which would be the next populated place with a name that I know.  On my way I caught sight of a long trailer with cartoon characters painted on the side.  The blue monkey, Shrek, and the little South American girl wouldn't have stopped me, but Sponge Bob made me double back for some pictures!

Once I hit Berwick I had to decide whether to turn back or keep going.  Berwick was as far as I'd gone south on 11 in the past and I knew Bloomsburg was next in line.  When I saw a sign indicating that it was a mere 12 more miles I figured I'd go for it.  The sky was cloudy, but the clouds weren't dark and it was still early.   I got to Bloom, as the college kids call it, in little time and while rolling down their Main Street I noticed a sign indicating that Danville was only another 9 more miles.  I'd thought for a few years about taking the scooter there someday.  Today would turn out to be that day.

Danville is the home of the order of nuns who taught me in elementary school.  The grounds of their mother house are beautifully kept and on a typical day the stillness in the air there hovers about the place like a whispered prayer.  It was there to which I'd hoped to take the bike someday, perhaps to visit the few old gals who might remember me, but today wasn't the day to knock on the door and linger in conversation.  I'd begun to get tired between Bloomsburg and Danville and didn't want to tarry for long.  So it was that I visited the sisters who couldn't strike up some chit-chat - the ones in the cemetery.

I walked the rows and found some of my former teachers, and a few relatives.  I remembered my life all those years ago when, "Yes, Sister," and "No, Sister," were the order of the day.  How simple life was then, rich in a simplicity that I wish I could have appreciated when it was all around and about me and growing up was just a vision with which I toyed.  There are times when I'm in the front of my classroom when I wish I could somehow get my kids to stop and savor where they are instead of being in such a blooming hurry to grow up.

And that, I guess, is what makes riding this scooter the joy to me that it is.  Somehow when I'm on that saddle my spirit returns for a time to those days when my biggest worry was that they might be serving "tobacco soup"  (tomato soup with rice cooked in it) in the cafeteria and that the nun would make me eat every last drop of it.  If I could trade my worries now for a big ol' pot of that gruel I would.  I'd chug the whole pot down and not spill a drop of it.

So long, Summer!  I'm going to miss you.

Back at It

With my vacation days dwindling in late August I did a number of short and moderate rides as often as appointments and setting up the classroom would allow, each time wondering if it might be my last ride of Summer '10. I visited the usual old haunts and a few more distant places totally enjoying the freedom of the open road with its abundance of opportunity for introspection and soul searching. Not that I discovered nor encountered anything new in my own head, but it was nice to visit with myself just the same. Soon enough the leaves will put on their color show and then tumble to the ground, but for now I'm still savoring the green with which Spring was heralded and Summer was enrobed, trying to keep Summer's sweetness with me even as I begin to lament the eventual arrival of Winter's gloom and darkness.

School began two weeks ago and I was fortunate enough to have bike weather the whole time although this week isn't promising to be as nice. Not only have I been happy with being able to come and go on the scooter, but so far my days have been blessed with wonderful experiences with a great bunch of new kids and my kids from last year's classes whom I'll teach again this year at the next level. This is my 28th year with junior high school aged kids and call me crazy, but I still love it! Here I am complete with dress shirt and tie in my special half sized scooter parking space.

I greeted the weekend with an evening ride on Friday after a picnic style get-together at the school. The air was cool and crisp after the sun went down and the ride was brisk and refreshing.

And yesterday, Saturday, I took my longest scooter ride ever to visit my baby at college. It was a 174 mile round trip and taking it has me itching now to do one of my typical Somerset trips next summer which is 240 miles one way. I'm still skeptical that a "little" 250cc scooter is designed to be pushed that far and hard, but I was very pleased that it took to the highway yesterday with as much gusto as the Neon does. The cool air was almost intoxicating and the route I took was quite relaxing. Combined with a splendid visit with my little girl and lunch at a Chinese buffet, the day was next to perfect!

A quick stop at Harvey's Lake to snag a pretty picture.

I'm hoping to take the BV to school most days this year unless there's a threat of precipitation, frozen anything on the ground, or temperatures below freezing. I'll let you know how that works out!

Here We Go Again

It was on the last Sunday of the school year which ended in June when I wrote, "What will I do for the summer? I will live! I will live life richly and fully and deeply. I will love life with a hallowed adoration and praise the Maker of us all for having made me and given me this life I treasure." I lied, though I had no idea that what I was writing then would be so far from the actuality of how the summer would play out.

I remember where I went that day, with the camera hanging from my belt as it always is. I set it up on the tripod just to get pictures of myself sitting inside a colorful gazebo with a Cheshire cat grin on my face. I look back at this picture and the others I shot of myself that day and remember so easily what I was feeling - the depth, the focus, the keen exhilaration of being less than a week from the last day of school.

Now, all of a sudden it seems, today is the last Sunday before I begin the new school year which starts tomorrow. It seemed only fitting that I should return to that place where I'd celebrated the end of the past academic season, this time to bid farewell to the summer - the summer that kind of wasn't at all. To be certain I did have some great times in the past weeks, but they were punctuated with disturbing happenings, and human nature being what it is, it's easy to forget the good when the bad is sitting on your chest and banging you in the face.

The face that will greet my new kids tomorrow morning will not be this one - the one I was wearing when I got a head start on setting up the classroom a few weeks ago. They'll see my Mr. Rogers face all smiley and rich with saccharine that they'll think is certainly sugar. They'll hear a cheerful and happy tone. They'll have no idea that the grown man standing before them will be on the verge of tears in wanting to take back the past 12 weeks or so and to have a major do-over with them.

After a few weeks the saccharine will be gone and real sugar will be there. The happiness will be genuine. There will still be an ache to have the summer again, but the bomb blast of letting go of this one will be replaced with a longing for the one to come. All too soon Halloween will come and after that things will rush by. Thanksgiving! Christmas! Tell-tale signs of Spring! Once again I'll visit the place with the pretty gazebo and take a picture of myself smiling.

For now, though, there's only this one as the countdown of days has become one of mere hours.

There are many good things to be accomplished this school year. God, grant me the grace to do them joyfully especially when joy itself doesn't seem anywhere within reach.