Bike Light Parade last Thursday

Well, I went to the parade. It was more like a community meeting to draw attention to the importance of lighting up one’s bike in the dark. Of course, most of the people who showed up were the ones that already knew that. I don’t know how many people were there – maybe 100 or so, all with very lit up bikes, some of them lit in ways so creative that they’d not only be seen by cars but would stop traffic altogether just by looking like a space ship.

Which is what we probably looked like to the unsuspecting public when we all set out on the parade together – a rolling mass of blinking, shining, flickering, pulsating radiance snaking through the neighborhood surrounding the Community Cycling Center outside of which the meeting was held.That’s a shop different from all others in that they not only promote the bicycle transportation alternative but make it possible for people to break into it with little or no income.

So we were seen and noticed, and some members of the public floated in to see what all the fuss was about, and if they floated in on a bike without a light they were sent right on over the “Get Lit” booth, representing a project to equip lights to lightless riders who’ve been procrastinating in the task of illuminating themselves due to lack of spare cash.

Sam Adams addressed the group and bestowed some accolades such as the Miss Safety Award and other titles indicative of glowing brilliance. Later as he was milling around I asked him the following question I’d been wondering about: if biking was officially a part of his job as city commissioner or was he bringing his own personal interest to it. He replied the latter, that as the City Commissioner-in-Charge-of-Transportation, he includes biking because as a bicyclist himself he recognizes bicycling as a form of transportation. So yay, I definitely voted for the right person.

Oh. Whoops. I almost forgot. In case you're wondering where the pictures are? My camera batteries ran out on me, and the extra camera batteries I always carry with me also proved to be poopie. I guess rechargeables don't last forever. So no pictures, but I don't know if I could've caught the effect of all those lights blinking away in the dark anyway. Use this as an opportunity to reach way back into your memory to the days when there wasn't a digital camera snapping away in the hands of every other fool on the street. Remember that thing we have called an imagination. Add that to the fact that we can read, and we're good to go. A thousand words is worth a picture.