Despite our awesome heat, ever present humidity, and daily afternoon teeny rainstorms, it is otherwise the end of summer. Lazy, lazy summer. Sad, really. So my kids will be back on a schedule and re-start their academic ascension. Rentals and sales will receive more routine attention. And traffic. Woeful, ridiculous traffic. Will everyone stop driving already? New Orleans is a pedestrian town!
True, I drive more often than I should, but then you'll see me pedaling on any old bicycle about town too. Colleagues and acquaintances that spot me tend to do a doubletake. "Is that Jean-Paul riding carelessly down Freret?" Yes, it's me.
Some question things may not be going so good for me; they say the same thing when they see my truck. I say, things are great, couldn't be better, etc and so on (and my truck rocks, by the way). Truly, if I could take clients around the city via bike I would. But we'd be big puddles of perspiration within minutes of our journey, not the first impression either of us would prefer.
But with the end of summer and the more mild Fall days afoot might I tempt buyers to bike our broken streets with me as their guide? Possibly. My truck has hosted few in that regard, and that's okay. I understand the desire not to be seen in an iridescent housepaint green, bottle cap encrusted, cork boasting, children scrawled Ford that starts with the flick of a flathead; I do. Plus the mileage - oy.
So far I have imparted to only one of my daughters the feasibility of taking two wheels about town. In the Spring my four year old began riding her training wheel enabled purple velo one mile each way to and from her daycare. I can hear your scoff in disbelief as I type this. But she totally did - totally. There was no walking it, and she steadfastly tread forward as if she were Lance Armstrong's long lost something. The backstory is she's 'spirited' and needed some exercise to exorcise her energies. The bicycle did the trick.
Suppose then summer's end marks the beginning of more traffic, but then it also signals opportunity to not follow the herd - s-l-o-w-l-y - around town. That's what drives me craziest. It isn't the traffic per se; it's the pace. I guess I know where my 4 year old gets her 'spirited'ness from then. I never could sit still. And while I didn't ride my bike to school at such a young age, by middle school I was criss-crossing suburban Southeast Texas on my Sears 12 speed.
To the end of summer! To more bike pedals! And less accelerators ~
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