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Just when I thought, “Well, I’m too old to have any more
‘strange and wonderful’ experiences in the wee hours, (though at 75 I have
continued to pedal 10 miles a day), I experienced another “situation” before
daylight today.
I began my 10 mile bike trek at 4:20am on 5-15-24, and
figured I would finish around 540am. Well, so I pedal 600 yards from my home to
State Road 540, turn right, and I find myself in the parking lot of CVS about 5
minutes later. As I round the left side of the store, and glance to my left, I
notice a twenty something guy and girl sitting on the curb. I inadvertently
blind them with my bike lights, and notice they have some non-descript jivy
song playing on their smart phone. In the meantime, a garbage truck arrives,
and has to wait for me to pedal out of his way.
I continue my trek crossing Spirit Lake Road, and climb an
incline onto the sidewalk. After pedaling another couple of miles on this
sidewalk, I find myself in the parking lot of the church my wife and I used to
attend, and where I counseled literally thousands of men, women, boys and girls
over the course of 15 years. After six or eight minutes, I make my way back
from whence I came.
Crossing a normally busy four lane road, (but the lack
thereof this time of the morning), I approach a small street on which I
delivered literally tons of UPS packages “in my day.” Turning right I pedal
about a quarter mile, and turn left into a large county park that I have
frequented numerous times in the past.
After around twenty minutes, I leave the park through the
same gate I had originally navigated. Five minutes later, the wooly buggers
came out. (Well, a singular wooly bugger).
I am pedaling back towards my home, and figure I will be
there in approximately twelve or fourteen minutes, when…
I pull over to do something my wife has instructed me not
to do. I lean over and pull up one of those cheap temporary signs that people
insist on planting next to the road. This one boasted an open house somewhere
in the neighborhood. And since it was a weekday, I figured the home owner had
placed it there the past weekend, and never retrieved it; (as is so often the
case).
As I drop the sign on the ground, I notice a guy pedaling a
bike across the street. The very second the sign hits the ground, the fellow
yells, “Hey!” And with that, I return his greeting with the same word with
which he greeted me.
At this point, Mr. ? turns his bicycle towards yours truly,
and begins to pedal, as if he intended to rendezvous with me.
And I think, “Uhmmm, I don’t think so” (and) “I have
absolutely no idea what your agenda is” (and) “But, I have no plans of
entertaining your whims at 515am on this street corner.”
And now, I decide, “I’m outta here” and I begin to pedal
down the sidewalk at a good clip. However, by now, Mr. ? is crossing the
roadway, and following me down the sidewalk, perhaps 100 feet behind me. I
decide to cross the same road he has just crossed, and select a residential
street. And now, my bicycle is traveling faster than it has ever traveled in
its inanimate life. I simply am not interested in making this guy’s
acquaintance. I realize that he could, for all I know, be mentally ill, and/or
have a gun on his person.
I feel the slightest chill of fear run up my spine, and I
look behind me. I see his bike light. He has crossed the road again, and is
following me down the residential street!!! I reach the end of the street, and
turn right. Twenty feet later, I turn right again down a parallel residential
street. Having ridden another fifty feet, I look behind me. Nothing. And
another fifty feet. I look behind me. Nothing. There is no sign of Mr. ? I
decide he has given up the chase. The further I pedal, the more my conclusion
is substantiated. I have lost him, and whatever agenda he happened to be
carrying around in his proverbial bosom.
And although I had apparently outpaced and out distanced
the fellow, I continued to look behind me for several more blocks. (So much
like the car which once pulled over 50 yards ahead of me, as I was pedaling
down a local sidewalk in the dark. When this situation occurred, I immediately
crossed four lanes to the parallel sidewalk. (And again, their agenda may have
been as innocent as I hope Mr.?’s agenda was). But I just won’t. I just can’t
say “Why not? It would be fun to do a ‘meet and greet.’”
You’d never know it from my choice of time and venue, but
my will to live is just too strong for that sort of shenanigan.
by Bill McDonald, PhD
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