In Which CR Biker Is Mistaken for The Man

Or the woman…Anyway, the police.

I was biking home at dusk today, lights on.  It was still fading sunlight, but I was running with lights.  I crested Bowman Woods hill on Brentwood Drive, and a minivan coming from the opposite way slowed, driver’s window down.

A man’s head popped out.  “Are you a patrol officer?” said citizen inquired.

Jack Webb on Dragnet, from Wikipedia.
Just the facts, ma'm.

Talk about temptation.  Of course, I wanted to say “yes” and go all “Dragnet” on him, maybe give him a stern warning for sticking his head out his window.  It would have been a perfect time to try my Joe Friday scowl and clipped speech.

But no.  “I’m just a biker,” I said.

I didn’t get oodles of miles this weekend, but had several fun rides.  On Saturday, I went downtown early in the morning to ring bells on the MMU Handbell Choir float in the Freedom Festival Parade.  I wore, at the director’s request, my MMU bike jersey, as did Moira Blake, wife of MMU President Dr. Christopher Blake.

I didn’t take the trail down, because I was in a hurry, but the streets are quiet early Saturday, and bikers always get the best parking spots.

Bill Mulcahey's daughter kindly snapped this photo for me of our MMU group before the Freddom Festival parade.

We converted a borrowed Shriner Band wagon into an MMU hand bell wagon with some posters  and blue and yellow plastic.  The parade itself went fairly quickly, and it was a fun experience.  After the parade, I biked over to Wendy’s on First Avenue to have lunch with some hand bell compatriots, and then went over to the Cedar River trail for the ride home.

Sunday, my daughter Katy had an open house for the home she and her husband Wyatt have on the market.  After a fun afternoon featuring pool play, taco salad for supper and long naps, I took Mr. T for a trail ride around 7 p.m.

Tristan was fixated on water, as he often is, and counted (fairly accurately) the number of bridge we crossed.  We used the CR rail bed route to the Boyson Road trail, and went down the new side trail through the Frisbee golf course.  On an earlier scouting trip, when I found that the trail ended in a newish Marion subdivision, I assumed the subdivision was near the street where the nursing home my parents lived in is located, and I would find a side street that leads to a park at the end of the Boyson road trail—it would be easy to do a loop and end up on the Boyson Road trail.

Well, blog fans, route confirmed.  Despite not knowing the way, and having a talking 2-year-old to distract me, the route worked just as planned.  I found the park, and the trail end, and ended up taking the planned route back through Marion to deliver Tristan to the Sebers residence.

Which, he informed me, is not his mother’s house nor his father’s house.  “It’s Tristan’s house.”  Luckily he lets his parents and sisters live with him.

It was a fun ride.  I was on the way home, after dropping him off, that the citizen mistook me for Joe Friday.

Sure.  It’s a mistake anybody can make.