Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Not sure why this occurred to me, perhaps owing to the time of year and the fact that one of our weekend walks placed us in contact with the roadway that will serve as a minor character in this “story”, but..

In the early 70s Betsy and I lived in Bowling Green, Ohio, waiting for some mistral wind to impose a direction on our lives. I made the acquaintance of a like-minded bicycle enthusiast, and we got work in a bike shop as philosopher-bicycle mechanics. He had a lot of experience with high-quality bikes, and I became a really good mechanic to the bicycles of the day under his example. Along the way, he became the closest male friend I’ve ever had.

One summer (perhaps the only summer I did this) we were at work when a young woman pulled in on a bike loaded with gear and a serious problem with her Raleigh International. She was diminutive, funny and absolutely cut, and we Ohio boys were mesmerized as her story unwound.

Turned out she was a school teacher in Nome, Alaska and, after the school year ended, she traveled to Seattle, bought her International and started riding, (solo) across the country, carrying all her own gear.

As we worked on her bike, we noticed a sticker on the seat tube that said, “Aurora Cycle, Seattle, Washington”. This was before I had been to Seattle, and both of us envisioned a sylvan spot in the rain forest where we might one day tuck into our toe clips just as she had, just as the sun crested the purple Cascade range to the east, and light out across the fruited plain.

She spent the night with Mrs. Perils and me, and headed east the next morning, and we never knew what became of her.

But that idea of a magical Seattle with its evocatively named thoroughfares resonated indelibly, and may have been a subliminal component of the zephyr that eventually impelled us west in 1974.

That Aurora Avenue turned out to be a hundred-mile-long strip mall when we eventually saw it only gave us a little chuckle because by then we loved the place. And it was a really good bike shop.