I work at a grocery store. Most people get Saturday and Sunday off, but those are the busy days for the grocery store so I work on Saturdays. It is Saturday that I most look forward to riding my bike to work.
Bicycling to work on the week days causes a lot of worry and tension. There is the traffic and the congestion, there are school buses that stop and interfere with the flow of traffic. There are sanitation trucks that smell of trash stopping every few feet to pick up garbage. People are in a reckless hurry to get to work, or to school on time. Cars turn corners without looking as you approach the intersection. Cars so not have room to give you a safe distance as they pass. Kids are everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the intersections, standing in the road waiting for the bus or getting out of a car without looking.
Saturday is different. The schools are closed so the buses are in the yard, the union does not allow the sanitation trucks to run on the weekend, and any one going to the office seem to feel the office is lucky to have them so there is no need to hurry. The kids are gone.
The roads are empty and the cars are few. You have the road mostly to yourself, and can go for blocks without seeing a car; and when you do they pass wide since there is room. The anxiety of watching over your shoulder and checking the mirror is almost gone.
The neighborhoods are quiet; all you can hear are the birds. (I have seen deer on Saturday mornings which one does not see except in the dead of night.)
On Saturdays you can concentrate on biking and not on staying alive; you can take your time since there is less activity to stop you and slow you down, you can look around and enjoy the ride. You say to yourself, "This is what it is all about."
Bicycling to work on the week days causes a lot of worry and tension. There is the traffic and the congestion, there are school buses that stop and interfere with the flow of traffic. There are sanitation trucks that smell of trash stopping every few feet to pick up garbage. People are in a reckless hurry to get to work, or to school on time. Cars turn corners without looking as you approach the intersection. Cars so not have room to give you a safe distance as they pass. Kids are everywhere, on the sidewalks, in the intersections, standing in the road waiting for the bus or getting out of a car without looking.
Saturday is different. The schools are closed so the buses are in the yard, the union does not allow the sanitation trucks to run on the weekend, and any one going to the office seem to feel the office is lucky to have them so there is no need to hurry. The kids are gone.
The roads are empty and the cars are few. You have the road mostly to yourself, and can go for blocks without seeing a car; and when you do they pass wide since there is room. The anxiety of watching over your shoulder and checking the mirror is almost gone.
The neighborhoods are quiet; all you can hear are the birds. (I have seen deer on Saturday mornings which one does not see except in the dead of night.)
On Saturdays you can concentrate on biking and not on staying alive; you can take your time since there is less activity to stop you and slow you down, you can look around and enjoy the ride. You say to yourself, "This is what it is all about."
