Schwinn Varsity ‘66

I now own a bike that’s older than I am!  This Schwinn Varsity was born in December 1966:

Schwinny V

It was a $25 craiglist score that sat up in an attic for years.  The tires are flat and there’s rust speckle on the chrome, but otherwise it’s in good shape.

Why a vintage bike?  Because with the dropped frame I can wear a skirt and pedal lady-like style, without flashing the world.   I picture myself serenely gliding along in a sundress,  hair flowing in the breeze, with a bouquet of Farmer’s Market flowers wedged into the straw basket up front.  At home I gracefully kickstand my bike and walk into the kitchen, where I place the flowers in a perfect vase and make blueberry scones from scratch.

And Martha Stewart smiles approvingly down at me.

The problems with that image are many and varied, beginning with the tank-like weight of the bike.  I picture myself pushing the bike uphill, sweaty and annoyed.  There are no scones in that vision.

After I got home with my possession I searched for “Schwinn Varsity” on the craigslist bike forum.  I was taken aback to find…derision.  Contempt.  Wrath and hatred!  Apparently vintage bikes have become popular–but not among the people who trade quips and gossip on the bike forum.  There, the cognoscenti fall over themselves to belittle the bikes and the hipsters who ride them.  “Posers!” they sneer.  Schwinn Varsities are singled out for particular scorn; “bomb-proof” was the kindest adjective I could find.

Yowza.  On the wrong side of the cool line, yet again.

Questions of the day

1. What’s the point of setting an alarm clock for 6:30 if I actually roll out of bed 2 hours later?  Or rather, what’s the point of that clock?  There’s obviously nothing alarming about it.  That beeping noise is just a signal to roll over.

2.  Can a 5-months-pregnant woman hike the CO Trail?  I’m guessing she could but probably shouldn’t, for a variety of reasons.  Kudos to me, for correctly predicting this turn of events, and hosannas to Wendy, for getting knocked up.

3.  What should I do in July, now that I’ve lost my hiking partner?  Please don’t suggest “studying”.  There’s only so much misery I can take in a year.  And since I’m blathering away on a blog, rather than attending to my looming paper deadline, I’m clearly not a motivated student (see, for example, #1).

4.  Why is it that 10 minutes after I get back from a cold, windy, snow-flurrying run, the sun comes out?

Actually, that last one’s just to pad the questions.  The only–ONLY!–benefit to limping around with an injury for weeks is the joy and gratitude of the recovery honeymoon.  “I love running!” I was thinking, leaning into the headwind.  “I don’t hurt!” I exulted, puffing up the hill.  I immediately start making plans: a 5k, a 10-miler…..silly me.  But hope will abide.

Celebrations

T o get to my YMCA garden patch I cross a busy road and then cut through a cemetery.  I enjoy the walk, though I feel self-conscious when I’m carrying a shovel or pitchfork.  People stare.  I assume that one day a call will be made, and I’ll have a pleasant chat with a cop about my grave-robbing implements.

I also feel self-conscious if a burial is going on.  Today I was meandering through the cemetery, bucket of compost in hand, when a couple of large SUVs drove slowly past me down the single lane.  They parked near the curve, just below the garden.  “Ah, drats,” I fretted.  I’d have to pass right by them.

People were clambering out as I approached–a couple of teenagers, parents, a few older types; it looked like a family gathering.  They seemed rather bubbly for a burial, I thought.  One of them was cheerfully talking about something she had bought: “I just couldn’t resist!”

I skirted around them and continued to the garden, where I dumped the compost into the bin and looked over the rest of the plot.  It’s distressingly bare where the garlic shoots should be sprouting up.  I consider myself a pacifist, but if I collar the deer that’s been snacking on my garlic tops  I’m going to shake its antlers off.

I was pulling up weeds when the singing started: “Happy birthday to you,  happy birthday to you….”.  There was some chatter and laughter, then the sound of car doors slamming, and the SUVs drove off.  On my walk back  I veered off to look at the gravestone.  There was a large cupcake on it, made out of carnations, with a single candle.  Elizabeth died in December, and it will be her 81st birthday on Tuesday.

Bike cheating

I was walking past a row of bikes on campus yesterday when I smelled gasoline.  “Weird,” I thought.  “Why would a bike smell like gas?”  I doubled back to take a look.  Turns out someone had modified their campus cruiser:

Gas bike

You get a better view of the dual chain mechanism from the other side:

It’s very clever, but it seems kind of like cheating.  And gas had leaked all over the tank,  so I hope the cyclist isn’t a smoker.

Revolution begins with a Corona

I feel bad for the VT police.  They probably viewed Blacksburg as a wonderful, laid-back place to work. Sure, there’s a lot to do in a university town, at least on weekends:  busting teenagers for fake IDs, hauling drunken frat boys off for a sobering night in the can, ticketing alumni who forgot the byzantine parking regulations.  But in general, life is probably fairly tame.  For real, heartpounding action, cops probably looked forward to the occasional invigorating 1/2-block footrace to collar the pothead who swiped a muffin from Bolo’s.

Then came April 16, and suddenly, “small town cop” meant dealing with well-armed psychos.  The VT administration rolled out an emergency alert system after the incident; students get warnings via email or text message about incidents the police view as potentially threatening.

Everyone probably thought we were due for a few easy years of petty campus larceny and minor thuggery, and warnings would be conscientiously serious, of course, but infrequent and appropriately low-key.   Then came the Bluebeard grad student who hacked off his ex’s head.  The messages became a lot more scattershot since then; it’s obvious that people are rattled.  Last week we were all warned about a hostile encounter that was later downgraded to “public lovers’ spat”.

So when the Molotov cocktail came sailing into our parking area last night and started a fire, Scott and I were reluctant to call 911.  True, it was unnerving to look outside at midnight and see the impromptu barbeque (and bewildering: there was no plate glass to break, no riot police, no tear gas, no angry mob.  It was way too calm for an M.C.)  But we doused the fire, and since nothing else was lobbed in afterward, we went back to bed.  No sense in rattling the cops even more.

This morning I went out to check out the scene of the crime.  The unknown parking lot assailants used a tube sock and a Corona bottle, which still had a lime wedge in it.  I guess there’s no point in dumping out perfectly good beer before launching a revolution.

The cocktail