Now, I am a close-knit ethnic, Roman Catholic, meat eating (fish on Fridays), south side dwelling heterosexual and then some, moderate-to-savage cigarette smoking, fossil-fueled motoring, tax-paying and tubby middle aged male - not cool. Unless. of course, I change and change utterly . . .Nah.
I hear tell of mean folks. People who shout, "Hey That's My Bike!" whenever they spy two or more persons aboard a Schwinn and out for a two-wheeled speed. Just mean.
I mean bikes are okay. If Jesus rode a bike he'd look like this -
but He did not and the Romans nailed Him to Cross. Hey, I'm just sayin'!
Another morsel from the Right Sides of History - The Axis Armies used bicycles extensively in WWII
The Bataan Death Ride April 1942. Those ain't G.I.s aboard them Mitschwinbitsis.
I rode bicycles up to my twenty-fifth year on Mother Earth. I took a header when the front tire of ten-speed blew like Susan Sarandon in White Palace. I was biking back from a morning's fishing under Warner Bridge Road in Kankakee County, when this mechanical misfortune took me off the ten speed aficianado demographic for keeps.
The hike back to Kankakee City which followed my ergonomic tossing of the bent frame in a big-assed dumpster somewhere near the Parkway Inn Tavern (above) in the region known as Altorff. Fine folks there about the Brady family dominates the woods along the river -taught most the children, I did. Bandaged and spirited the seven mile perambulation to my windowless apartment above Home Appliances on Station Street was dedicated to Peace with Bikes.
Bikes are fine. Most cyclists are grand folks, but every NPR listening jerk with a trust fund deemed it most important to become a mirror image of the bicycle messenger on PCP. Congested,gentrified hipster communities attract bicycle fascists quicker than Obama makes a federal regulation. In recent years, after the new millenium, the bike lobby hooked Richard M. Daley through the gills and boated that bass. Lance Daley cleared the way for Critical Mass activism to its supreme achievement (be like Seattle) -turning the Chicago Dept. of Transportation in Der BikeStag.
I have nothing against bicycles nor the people who choose to ride them. I have a universal dislike of jerks, JOs and Janissaries of agendas large, loud and limited.
Divvy is owned and operated, I think, by the City of Chicago in the same way that Chicago owns the Skyway and Parking Meters. The concept is swell:
- Ride Public Transporation
- Be a Divvy
- Bike away traffic
- Bike the shopping
- Bike the dining
- Bike the concerts
- Bike to court to bring suit against the Mexican Lanscapper you cut off when giving the finger to an elderly Jewish lady trying to cross Dearborn over by the Newbury library
- Bike the bars- you will not be charged with DUI unless you hit and scratch up Ald Cappleman's PriusLock the Bikes and make sure you lock it according to the code, People!
- Be Bangor, Be Bangalore, Be Bejing!
Already the the south and west side communities are Bike Deserts. Is it Progressive, is it Hip, is it Coo, Is it Chicago Proco Joe to deprive people whose ancestors survived Maafa, Jim Crow and CPS the opportunity to Divvy? Is it Chicago values to break out Break Away Everyday in white upper class arugula and Whole Foods communities?
Divvy stations are taking up parking spaces - no parking -no driver - no customer at Wicker Park gin mill but walk-in trade. N.B. Biker peddlars don't tip
Bicyclists are as rare as Progressive philanthropists here in Gresham, Englewood, Roseland and even Chatham. The bike lanes on Vincennes Ave. have faded like the last Rose of the 2012-13 Bulls Season.
