Wheels

Hello, again, my Friends,
Well, here we are, once again on the brink of High Season. I've gotten to enjoy summer here, just as I enjoy every season, (well, Winter was a bit marginal this year, I must admit), the ups, the downs, the spectacle and the beauty. After all, let's not forget where we live. I never imagined, when I was younger, that I would live somewhere where I'd feel compelled to thank The Goddess every day for the glorious place around me. Maybe that sounds a bit over the top, but on my honor, it's true. Every minute here should be cherished.

Still, we're not perfect, and who wants to be, really? Such a heavy responsibility! There must be some flaws, else how would we recognize the perfections? Some years ago I recognized a few of those flaws in an article I wrote for LIP Magazine. I reproduce it here, at the risk of sounding like a crabby old woman, (which I sometimes am), but also in the hope that somebody, somewhere will take it to heart and be more careful.

Wheels
By Phoebe Otis
The summer season is here. I know this because today I was nearly run down by a cyclist going the wrong way on Commercial Street.

Each year, it seems, it takes me one or two close calls before I remember to look both ways when venturing across the "boulevard of broken limbs", as I like to call it. Each year I get angry, wondering what kind of madman would challenge all odds by speeding headlong into a jam-packed crowd of pedestrians and moving vehicles.

I have studied the faces of these bike jockeys and I can find no common characteristic. They come in all shapes, sexes, sizes, ages, colors and sexual persuasions. They are year-rounders and they are visitors. They are as diverse as Provincetown herself, having in common only the suicidal urge to run the gamut of Commercial Street backwards at high speed.

Some employ noisemakers: horns, bells and whatever. Others simply yell: "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Still others come deadly silent into our midst, relying upon us to somehow sense their approach and clear a path.
They zip through town like angry bees, scattering tourists right and left, terrorizing dogs and seniors. Mothers whisk strollers aside and hand-holding honeymooners break their clasps and run for cover. They often travel in pairs. Just when you think you've safely avoided disaster, you get sucker-punched from out of nowhere by a second biker.

And the bikes themselves? No slender 10-speeds here. The bikes today are more like the old two-wheelers of my childhood, but with today's technology. These are sturdy machines, made for hard use. I'm sure the tires don't really have teeth, but they would certainly leave an interesting pattern on anything they ran over. Like my foot.

Speaking of feet, roller skaters and skateboarders shoot through the crowds too, winding around cowering bunches of sightseers and playing chicken with the cars. Handicap ramps all over town have become launching pads for individuals with wheels attached to some part of their bodies. Some are even motorized, which brings up an interesting point: when does a person on wheels have to observe the traffic laws? Of course we all know no one here is going to ride a bike according to traffic laws. That would mean toiling up and down the hills of Bradford Street, instead of sailing blithely eastward on Commercial.

I don't like getting mad about this. I remind myself of my old lasa apso, who detested anyone on wheels of any kind and hurled herself, snarling at whomever dared roll by her. I have actually fantasized about a stout stick thrust into those Ben-Hur chariot-like whirling spokes, though I doubt I would do that. No, that's right. I wouldn't do that.

I guess I could get a bike and join the fun, but to be honest, I've never particularly enjoyed bike riding, a fact that no doubt obscures some of the charms of bucking the flow on Commercial. I know the vast majority of cyclists are careful, safe riders. Many people, bless them, walk their bikes in the downtown blocks. Probably the fellow dodging tourists on his Huffy is late for work, or only has 15 minutes to catch the bank, or is hurrying home to catch the birth of his first child. We all think we have good reasons, don't we?

Let's try to make it through the summer unscathed, shall we?