TIME MOVES ON WITH A DEGREE OF SADNESS

Time moves on when you see is a collection of kid bikes, the same collection Toys R Us sold.

The same bikes the rich kids rode, the hand-me-down bikes, and the bikes kids rode into teen hood.

Lots of bikes going one place: The scrap yard.

For kids it’s a memory of their recent past. I happened to be at the scrap pile with memories of a longer past.

Time moves on when I decided to do the one thing that tied me to another era.

The day after the Army cut me loose from Fort Dix New Jersey I headed to Oregon, the University of Oregon and my future.

While I was a student I met someone who had a silver Fuji I liked. That someone had come to Oregon from the east coast, which seemed like a smart move.

This was a moment I remember so well because my fellow student and I became engaged, then broke up. I call it one of my cross country adventures that became a habit.

We broke up. I wasn’t the right one for her, and more importantly her family. They were, as a group, a pretty strong group of women with their men either fading into the woodwork, or living somewhere else.

I beat the rush when I had what I thought was private conversation that got reported to my future mother in law. A tip I took away from then: never trash talk a grandma after she trash talked her husband. Not allowed.

We broke up, I got dumped, whatever, but I didn’t move home like a delicate love bird with a broken wing. Instead, I moved to New York City, specifically Brooklyn. Why Brooklyn? Because that was the connection I needed and I needed it fast.

Now, breaking up is hard to do, and having a place to move to makes it look like you planned on breaking up. Maybe I planned, maybe she planned, maybe momma planned?

A year later I moved to Portland to finish my cross country saga. I dated a wonderful woman who knew ahead of time we weren’t going anywhere big, like getting married, which saved me from explaining why we wouldn’t get married.

And I bought a silver Fuji bike. That bike was a sweet memory of earlier days, but back then I wasn’t that old.

I rode the bike and rode the bike and rode the bike, my biggest ride being from Eugene to Portland with the wrong seat, pants, and a bruised gootch.

My mom used to say, “Who do you think you’ll attract riding a bike.”

I knew the answer right off: “A biker girl, ma.”

The woman I married wasn’t a biker girl, but she and I picked out her bike when we got serious. Her bike is in the crawl space looking as good as the day it rolled out of the store, while I rode one down to the bones and replaced it with another one I rode down.

One day, yesterday, it was time to cut the cord. I didn’t want to see my old bikes anymore, didn’t want to think about them, and learned how time moves on even for an old fart who rides a stationary bike in the gym.

Was it hard decision? Was there sadness? The jury is out.

It’s the end of an era without the bike and I don’t want a new one to replace it. What I do want is to ride a bike in Paris with the love of my life.

After watching Versailles on Netflix I’m not sure I share the same definition of ‘love of my life’ with Louis XIV, but I’m probably a better bike rider.

Lucky for me I was near my favorite tap house to weep and wail like heartbreak hotel.

Do we ever really let go? Some things more than others from what I can tell.