Mountain Trek - Current Metaphor

watching this again and again....."Watch your step."

Marathon Monday - Joy Fading.....

 Despite the fact that the wind was reasonably gusty at times, conditions proved to be impossible for me to ride.  There was no opening, no longer a good route to follow, no familiar decent place to ride anywhere, at any location.

After arriving at the bike garage, I realized I couldn’t even get near to the Philips Brooks statue to perform my routine devotional prayer. So, I lifted my dear scooter up for the prayer at the side of the garage pillars and repeated the Lord’s Prayer.

The wind was strong at that corner and I failed to sustain the balance above my  chin to finish the ‘Amen’.

It was mostly walking.

Walking. Walking.

Walking with my scooter and plastic bag.

Walking while looking for an opening.

Walking around the wide corners filled with people.

I was experiencing a solitary march with the music playing in my ears, in a wide circle around the now distant Trinity Church.

I proceeded down Huntington St. to the Christian Science Center. 

Some wind and ride there.

Then, I continued up Mass Ave. past Berklee College of Music, 

past Auditorium Station, past Newbury St. and down over craggy pavement, broken surfaces, gritty stoney sidewalks. These conditions were so bad, so disappointing for any kind of scooter-ride, so unaccommodating. So impassible  at times that I was forced to carry the scooter for blocks till  I reached the Charles River.

I thought to try some short pushes along the Esplanade.

But, predictably consonant with what I was experiencing, the wind  direction was predominantly against me so I continued to walk.

Walked along the bike path.

Walked past a few people enjoyed a riverside picnic. 

Walked past a few practicing their own performance skills at balancing on a short tightrope. 

When I walked along the wide open area along the lagoon, it was then that I cast my gaze over towards the Hancock Tower.

There was a cloud of smoke rising above the Back Bay buildings which I thought might be from a apartment fire somewhere over there.

Further along, when I could look up the cavernous route along Dartmouth Street, the main tent in front of the Boston Public Library became clearly visible. This trail of the same smoggy plume by this time resembled the kind of smokey fog after Chinatown’s New Years’ firecrackers. It still didn’t concern too terribly much. Just a curious incidental part of the event over there.

With the music still playing in my head, just continued my progress around the Hatch Shell, then out onto Arlington Street, a bit up Comm Ave, over to Newbury St. again, then back down to Arlington. No chances whatsoever to ride.

I followed back to Stuart St.  

I finally caught a few rides on Clarendon in front of the garage and the Post Office.

Started to notice that there were a lot of ambulances and sirens here and there. More came with minutes passing. 

Yet, I was still enjoying a few rides here and there myself as the crowds began to thin.

They were beginning to be on their cell-phones.

There seemed to be fewer smiles. There were these blank stares on people.

Why weren’t they responding to my antics?

Why were they all so quiet, sitting or standing along the streets?

Why such intense police activity and strange stares from volunteer workers?

Finally made it back to my bike realizing that it wasn’t going to be any better ride. Decided time to go home.

It was then that Bill, my postal carrier friend of many years, paused with me. He took me aside and asked if I had heard the blasts. “Oh, of course, you had your earphones on!” was his reaction when he learned that I was ignorant of the terrible event that had just occurred.

I felt dumbfounded. 

Maybe, more, I felt clueless, dumb, plain and simple.

Maybe, now, I’m struck dumb.

Confronted by this new situation, it was clearly Time To Go Home.

Dumb and numbed,  I rode home.

How's The Charles River Skatepark Coming Along Anyway?

To find out, click Charles River Conservancy.

Trouble Erupts Again Between Skateboarders and the Public

As one commented, "this has been going on for years!"
Yea.
I've witnessed it continually, and from all angles.

Before I had my Wind-scooter, I watched nervously, maybe even with a certain amount of hostility myself, the skateboarders riding the Copley Sq. fountain area.

But, it took me by surprise that, when I'd gotten my own "wheels", I was experiencing what I came to understand as unfair hostile resentment from a wide variety of people.

So, as an older person, who had sung in the Trinity Church as a boy in the early 1960's (a soprano! LOL)  and who had later worked on Newbury St. for 30 years, I found my situation, perspective unique.

Also, over the ten years I've been riding myself in the Copley Sq. area, I've managed to discover a fine niche, a balance between avoiding interference with public business and activity with my own practice of a select activity. And this has evolved into a reasonably safe and accepted one with some entertainment value thrown in. There are some self-imposed rules I follow, careful consideration of where I'm practicing my craft, and an ever-evolving understanding of public space.

I believe that there needs  a better opportunity for an honest dialogue concerning this issue. Just as the biking community has been sorting some very serious issues regarding sharing the roads, the 'alternative' transportation-sport/skateboard community needs a better forum to voice concerns and to hear others' concerns.

My sense is that it probably won't happen.
Or if there's a meeting of concerned people it won't even approach the  questionable success of the bike-city of Boston forums lately occurring.