2-May-99 Shoes but no birds

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But first, a link to a story. Months ago, when I was just an online journal reader, Shelley of shelleyness.com said she might someday post some photos of her move across the country. I E-mailed and said, “Don't just show us scenery, we're more interested in the guy who was hitchhiking across Texas barefoot. Oh, maybe you didn't meet him; I met him 30 years ago” Ever since then, she has been after me to post the story. I finally wrote it down, what little there is, so you can now check it. There are some pictures which are a little beside the point.

I took my new road bike out on a Charles River Wheelmen ride in Carlisle this morning. The Tercel had 99998 miles on it when I left home, and turned 100000 on the entrance ramp to rte 128 on my way to the ride.

The bike trip was in character for the CRW. I was right behind two guys doing serious hi-tech networking (you should call so-and-so, our national sales manager for...) at the start. I talked to a couple of people about my bike seat, but rode alone for most of the ride. We started at the Great Brook Farm ski touring center and headed out through Westford and a little of Chelmsford, passing the Middlesex County 4-H fairgrounds where I had exhibited in the late 50's, and almost going by Heart Pond (well, that's how it showed on the official map for the ride, though I remember it as Hart Pond), where my family used to go swimming around the same time. Carlisle is full of genuine old New England farm houses, the kind that look like ordinary colonials from the front but keep going back and back as one addition after another was put on. I was interested to see the Assurance Technology Corp. sign on one building, the former Valleyhead mental hospital; ATC used to be downstairs in the former pickle factory building where I worked in Carlisle twenty years ago, and moved to bigger quarters on the other side of town just before I left that job. I guess they're still in business. I enjoyed all the gears my new bike has, but haven't learned to use them yet. Even at the end of the ride I was frequently shifting into higher gears when I wanted lower ones. I was OK on the flat and great downhill, but people passed me consistently on the uphills. That comes of only doing 7 miles a day (in two 3.5 mile batches) and now trying a 28 mile ride.

When I got home Arlene and I headed in to Brighton to the New Balance factory outlet store. It's really in their factory building, a good old brick mill on North Beacon Street, not one of these bogus outlet malls. I personally think New Balance shoes are as good as any, and they come in more widths than any other brand, so you can get running or walking shoes that really fit. If you live around here and can get to the NB factory store, between the fit and the prices it just doesn't make sense to shop elsewhere for athletic shoes. The checkout guy was super competent, too. Maybe he's from a generation and a culture that really cares about athletic shoes, but he checked the shoes and made sure I got all the insoles I was entitled to (I was wiling to buy inserts separately, but he got someone to bring up the ones that were missing from my shoes) and that the sizes hadn't got mixed up as people tried them and put them back on the shelves. We came home with two pairs of new shoes each. I found, believe it or not, a pair of black walking shoes, so I can actually look respectable in comfortable, usable shoes!

From Brighton we worked our way over to Mount Auburn Cemetery to check the bird situation. When it comes to Mt. Auburn, forget any feelings of creepiness you may have about cemeteries. It's like an arboretum, with beautiful trees and shrubs, especially when the flowering trees are in bloom in the spring. By all objective standards it's one of the prettiest places in the Boston area. Besides that, it's the best place for finding spring migrant birds in the state. It wasn't today, when we were there, though. We saw cardinals, bluejays, phoebes, crows, robins, and a swallow. Our backyard was better; Arlene saw two Carolina wrens there today.