Guest Bird #8 – Stefan
Stefan Lanfer blogs about fatherhood at dadtoday.com and recently published a book for dads to be, The Faith of a Child and Other Stories of Becoming and Being Dad.
I have been a bike commuter through rain, snow, sleet, and hail, since I was a kid -
first to North Mianus in Cos Cob, Connecticut then to the OG School on my BMX,
then to Eastern Junior High on my Fuji 10-speed (stolen),
later to classes in Hanover, NH on my Marin Bobcat Trail (stolen) then on dad’s white Fuji,
then to work at the Limo House Medical Clinic in Eldoret Kenya on a 10,000 lb steel frame one-speed monster.
When I got back to the US, I biked with my friend Keith from Capital Hill to Georgetown and Paolo’s Restaurant in Washington, DC.
Then, in my year as an intern with the Seattle Repertory Theatre, I biked from the U-district to Seattle Center on the Burke Gilman Trail,
Then, in New Haven, CT, from 13 Pleasant Street to Long Wharf Theatre, where I worked amid the loading docks of the sausage packers and chicken hackers and the raw-chicken-scrap ice pile out back with the seagull swarm.
For eight years now, I have biked zig zags through every part of Boston -
rated three times the country’s worst biking city,
though with our just reelected to a fifth term Mayor taking to biking,
and sticking to biking – despite getting hit by a city employee driving to work (not fired),
and hiring a bike Czar, things are starting to improve.
They improved a lot for me two months ago,
when I started hauling this cute pair.
Though at times, hauling them up hills
in my lowest gear at 3 miles per hour,
leaning forward so my front tire doesn’t lift off the ground,
I get to feel a bit like a pack animal,
but I also can’t help but notice some remarkable changes -
less honking
less flipping me off
more waving me by,
fewer expletives,
more smiles,
more talking…
“Aww!”
“How cute!”
”That’s the way to ride! You got room for me in there?”
And MUCH less heckling -
like my lasting favorite,
from a mid-day ride down Washington Ave from Roxbury Preparatory Charter School back to our Dorchester office of the Project for School Innovation – “GET A CAR, ***HOLE!”
More grace
more joy
more connection with random random strangers,
like yesterday morning, as we biked past Java Joe’s,
a scraggly scruffy guy with coffee in one hand stood on his tip toes and reached his other hand and cigarette as high as he could over his head,
“Sorry for the smoke,” he said, an apologetic, not quite awake morning grovel.
It’s a different world.
