A "NISTY" (nippy plus misty, or "mippy" if you prefer) bike-hike this morn. From here on out, rider-readers, we are taking the KNEES for a walk. Not only the inanimate bike. The left knee had arthroscopic surgery in January 2001 taking its sweet time to regain some of its former zest. The right knee has been showing signs of sympathetic "flappery". [Thanks to the camera-nano, "flappery" is what the x-ray shows is hanging off your cartilage (pre-surgery) if you care to know.]. Just a flap of corpuscular stuff that looks pretty disgusting. So since both knees are reminding me they are twins, they are being taken out to pump metal on the mountain bike. O Blessed knees, don't fail me now! This is a personal chorale. What is global and species-specific is that we are all sleep-walking in a traumatic social epiphany. Spiritually, we have and continue to lose many fellow human beings on our beloved planet, many of those more recently as family members and friends. I, for one, hope the epiphany goes on as an eternal here-and-now.

Fall mists in Boston (not to be confused with the London cousin) are bearable because they are episodic. George Washington, still on horseback, is swathed in a misty patina making him shimmer in his bronze tan, but he still doesn't know to come in out of the rain. The green velvet lawns have quenched their thirst, variegated flora are still abloom, fountains have come to a grinding halt, and - thank the gods of rain - the tourists are gone. Sorry.

The knees take us down a repatriated Charles Street, hung heavy with American flags. In neo-bellum Boston there is nary a reproduction lamp post on Charles Street without a flag, windows in and out festooned, and while the Charles Street business Association probably planned this open declaration of allegiance, it seems a bit over done. Kind of like the porketta stuffed with prosciutto, provolone, and spices at Savenors. Sniff, sniff. Look, look. Oh yes- you got your turtle or camel meat (oh yeah..)- the usual unusual carnivore treats, but with your basic pork fatback and neck bones as working-class counterpoint. Patella-peddling from this gourmet paradise, I am moving on to pick up my apple typhoon(s) wishing they had a "bike-up" window, like a drive-up, so I wouldn't have to undertake the bicycle lock-unlock routine.

More than a month after September 11, America's recent infamy, business and recreation is overtly back to normal. I sit on a plastic grocery bag beneath an unmarked berry-bearing tree which I have decided to claim as my space in the Boston Garden, like dogs or apes who pee-imprint. "Robin's bench, Robin's tree, keep your butt off, or deal with me", signed "Sunday Easy Rider". Whadayathink? Anyhow, it is only one of many benches and I am not even declaring manifest destiny on one of the celebrity-tagged trees like the Mega Sequoia named 'Red Dawn'.

McCloskey's ducks have meager autumnal riders of the pre-school class and I am pursued this week by one lone pigeon who walks up to me, stares for about half a minute, wheedles over six inches for an additional three-quarter glare and moves on when he is sure there are no crumbs in sight as I am not in a sharing mood today. For sure, he looks like he's just walked out of methadone treatment.

Today I am getting the ethnic glare from both sides in a rather inflated form. Looking as I do, whites are wondering if I'm Middle Eastern or Arab and Middle Easterners, Pakistanis, and Asian Indians are looking for the immanent in-group nod or dilated pupil which signifies camaraderie. I just smile, sort of a smile, at everyone. Then there are, of course, the Vineyarders who are off-island for some business reason and are ogling my 'Black dog' cap to see if I am an official homesteader on Martha's Vineyard, maybe one they should recognize?

Referring to what we, collectively, are in the midst of as "neo-bellum" contains the hypermodern contradiction of bombing a once-abandoned country which you are now simultaneously bombing on the one hand, as you airlift humanitarian food aid on the other. It is also "neo-" because it is an undeclared declared war against a 'phantom menace'. Who are we aiming at? Further "neo" due to the war of wits undertaken to stabilize the U. S. and "foreign" stock markets, track terrorism's ubiquitously veiled bank accounts, conduct web surveillance, and await the next bomb. Explosives are a terrorists delight since they are cheap, easy to assemble, and you don't need a lab to make them. "Neo", I say, rider-readers, because we are more openly a police state now. Now I say, rider-readers, because any black or Latino male stopped on a DWB/L suspicion by police will affirm it has always been one. Police-profiling does not have to take the notorious form of the Stewart case, but exists in the daily lives of some people as de facto problemo. And what will flying be like now? More like El Al. Been there, done that. Not referring to net searches either.

I have encountered no old friends on this ride and, though I am pumping hard through the misty, nisty, mippy (say that fast three times) streets of the South End with a coffee belch or two, I am glad to be alive. I hope, pray, and behave that every other soul on the planet lives through another day, too, as each life is precious, no matter what country, no matter what race, religion, or class. Cut down on your consumption, my U.S. friends. As we are all now global citizens, love your global neighbor as you love yourself. Words by God in every religion. Let's do it!

© 2001 Robin M. Chandler

>> Go to Sunday Easy Rider archive