(Excerpted from my weekly "Letters from Josh" publication for my senior buddies.)

Letters from Josh

The Singing Trees Letter 57 5/30/21

Howdy, folks! How ya feelin’ over there? I’m a bit dusty and sweaty, and the bathroom has no walls. That’s right, I took a sledgehammer to ‘em tonight, preparing for a complete renovation. While that’s worthy of metaphor and philosophical discussion, I’d like to take you on...a bike ride, or at least an imaginary one.

That’s right, “all of the sights, none of the sweat.”

It was my dad’s birthday. He wanted to go on a trek with his sons, so despite the 90 degree weather, Sunday afternoon found the four Urban men rolling down the hill, crossing Duke street, and setting out on a three hour adventure. “Click click click” went our gears, downshifting to tackle the overpass flying over Telegraph road. The May sun bleached the sidewalk, and a few cars drifted lazily on the highway below.

There’s a certain solitude that lives amongst the bustle, and is one of my favorites. A warm wind washed over my face, calling me forward to experience the Unknown in the Familiar. If the flow of the city is a great river, a bicycle is a leaf swirling in the eddies in the unnoticed pools by the shore. We wound under railroad bridges and through thickets, marveling at the din caused by Brood X, the trillion-strong cicada mob. They flew through the air, littered the pavement, and throbbed incessantly, great hordes a few blocks away, and then right above.

“Click click click” went our gears, shifting off the busy street, plunging down a leafy path to meet Holmes Run. A million little kids played in the questionable water, yelling with the invincible joy of summer. “Oooga Oooga!” I cackled as I sounded the clown bike horn bought expressly for the occasion. (I can be a pill, although a jolly one, I like to think.) Families strolled with picnics, dogs sniffed the wayside, and an angry young woman stalked by, wrestling with something in her mind. I hope she succeeds, and commend her for starting in the first place. Ahoy! A monster hill! Who puts a stop sign at the bottom? “Let’s blow it!” The graffiti on the railroad underpass barked slogans from unseen hands, and a tunnel lurked even deeper down a flight of stairs, a door to the underworld, or at least to the other side of the tracks. Warehouse doors lined a quiet street, sleepy faces readying themselves for Monday.

The cicadas sang on in the warm May afternoon, and our gears went “click click click” in reply. Oh, how I relish an adventure.