CR Biker: In Which I Contemplate a Butt for a Bit Too Long

Looking east at Blairs Ferry Road Wednesday morning, Sept. 30. Rain has been falling, and the pavement is a bit damp, but despite droplets in the air, it didn't rain on me on the way in.

I’ve been riding a fair amount this week—even Wednesday morning, when it rained, because the rain was mostly over by the time I left for work and I figured why have the Fancy Beast mountain bike for poor weather if I don’t sometimes ride it in iffy weather?

The equinox was back in September and now fall is for sure upon us. It may frost tonight, even though the prognosis for the month of October overall is warmer than average temperatures. I may have to dig out my biking jacket for my Friday ride. In cold weather, I layer up and I can keep biking down to about zero, as long as it’s not too windy.

Zero, by the way, means ’merican zero, not wimpy euro zero.

The dark is now longer than the light, and I have needed morning lights. But the clouds this week made the sky very attractive, and I haven’t minded the dark. The streets are getting slowly clearer, although the bike lanes on C Avenue are still clogged when I head south (heading north, I can use more of the C Avenue route now).

As noted, rain fell in the night before Wednesday morning’s ride, and the air was still damp. But it was not actively raining, and I decided to chance it on the mountain bike. It turned out to be a good gamble.

My wife and I drove Tuesday morning because we had to go to a credit union to sign some financial documents. After lunch, I biked to campus. Flower at the edge of campus--dandelions are among the first flowers of spring and the last flowers of fall.

The Fancy Beast at the Warde Hall bike rack--I think this is a Wednesday image, although I rode this backup bike three days this week. It just seemed like a fun bike to ride.

On the way to work, I paused at the corner of Collins and C Avenue. I’ve given up being a good boy and walking across that street as new, inexplicable city signs instruct, because the signs make no sense at all. It is hard for an old man pushing a bicycle to get across that busy four-lane road in the 10 seconds or so the walk sign is on. But I can bike it easily, so I do.

It was while I was waiting on my bike for the light at that corner, making images of the sky, that I saw the butt.

What have we here?

And I wondered. A pandemic doesn’t seem like a great time to take dried leaves and burn them in your face, although I suppose there isn’t really any good time. The butt bothered me for many reasons. Besides indicating a delusional pandemic smoker, there was the littering aspect. Cigarette butts are a particularly nasty kind of garbage to toss out, something with toxic chemicals that used to be in your mouth. It’s hard to think charitable thoughts about whoever tossed their butt at this busy intersection. And then the butt itself. It was a big butt, which I don’t like, I cannot lie. Our pandemic delusion litterbug was also an inefficient smoker. Trying to cut down by tossing out half-smoked coffin nails? And with all the combustible timber laying around town, it seems like a particularly contemptible time to be a butt chucker.

Collins Road is a very busy street, one of the main traffic arteries in Cedar Rapids, and despite C Avenue also being busy, it does not compare to Collins. Which means that when your biker correspondent has to stop for a red light at this corner, he often has time to think. Perhaps too much time.

Anyway, the light eventually changed, and despite my evil thoughts about a scofflaw, I did my outlaw, scofflaw biker thing. I biked my butt across that intersection.

Walk, says the man? I don’t think so. Take that, the man.

Thursday was a nicer, if cooler and windier, day with a still partly cloudy sky. And after images, the song that seems appropriate for this post, which was partly about rain and partly about garbage.

Wednesday morning. When I wasn't making images of trash, I turned my little point-and-shoot camera towards the eastern sky. Yes, this is trash corner.

By the time I got to campus Wednesday morning, the sky was clearing although the Rohde Family Plaza is a bit damp.

Waiting for light to change at Blair's Ferry on the way home Wednesday--looking west. I made it home just in time for a 5 p.m. zoom meeting, so this is probably 4:50 or so.