On a Two-Wheelin’ Tuesday
pondering my bicycling past . . .
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Over my morning slug of java with a splash of Irish Creme, I wake up to the imaginative and illustrious strains of Charlotte Ella King:
After perusal, I suggest we all form an informal “Two for Tuesday” club of sharing other creators and their stuff. This pastime need not be regimented like prompts. I’m too frazzled and fricasseed to keep up with this website’s hyperactive prompting rituals.
Let this be a whenever-we-think-about-it routine.
A kid growing up in the boondocks, my life began at age ten doing five- or ten-mile bicycle jaunts. It took me an hour to reach the ranch of a school chum back in the day, so we could do our homework together. Not like when my family lived in the city and I ran across a neighborhood street to hunker down with my hoodlums.
Much later on, in my twenties, my bestie and I took long bike rides all over California, sometimes spending the night in our separate tents. Tom had long legs and a pricey bike, so I was at a distinct disadvantage while pedaling. Sometimes it seems I’m always catching up.
At the time, I fancied myself fit, having done a century or two. That’s a hundred-mile day of riding.
My job was documentation manager at an engineering firm where custom conveyors were designed and installed in factories all over the USA. Tom was a mechanical engineer and we sat side by side in hangar offices converted from world-war-two times. We were best friends.
There was another guy named Tom and I rue the day.
Our specialty was moving masses of empty aluminum cans, tricky because cans tip over, with customers the likes of Budweiser and Pepsi.
Before the turn of the century, beverages were increasingly bottled in plastic. To extend the shelf life of their livelihood, Alcoa Aluminum bought the company where I…
