I was confronted by a cop while riding my bicycle yesterday. Alright, that sounds worse than it was, but juxtaposed, in retrospect, with it being the day the guilty verdict was announced against the Minnesota officer in the George Floyd murder case, I found myself pondering it further during my post-ride shower. At the time this happened, I didn’t not know the outcome of the case – I do not watch television – because I had not checked my Android headlines yet, that day.
I write this with a smile and not a frown. The officer did not turn my world upside-down when he noticed my bike was inverted – he simply wanted to help – unlike much of the banter about policing is these days. No. Today I come down on the side that most police people really want to help – not hurt good citizens.
Oh yes, by the way, I am a black American man and this officer is Caucasian; I only mention it to accurately paint the word-picture. I was wearing my “California Republic” kit (very stylish), my helmet, gloves and white wristbands.
My bike is relatively new, having been gifted to me by a former boss, and recently had it “tuned-up” at a local bike shop; my second time riding it since, and this day it threw the chain twice in less than a mile, when I tried to shift gears and this was the second time I had to stop.
The first thing that briefly ran through my mind when I noticed his cruiser’s police striping from the corner of my left eye was that, “Oh, here we go, he’s gonna tell me I’m not allowed to be in the parking lot of a closed business, or something…” As ridiculous as it sounds, during my six decades on earth, I’ve been told many silly rules! However, the officer quickly dispelled that thought with his genuine concern! He offered to help and told me about some tool he had that might assist my situation. When I described what I was going through, the interaction conversation continued friendly, with him telling me about a biking trail and me bemoaning the lack of bike lanes and safe cycling-friendly ways to get to it, which he related to.
We could have kept conversing that day, but I was anxious to get in whatever might be left of my riding exercise and so, I tactfully flipped my bike back upright and thanked him for checking on me, (making sure I used the word “officer” in the sentence) and it was smiles all around as we continued our separate ways, on a beautiful spring afternoon in my new neighborhood. I almost extended my fist, so we could do a sanitary and manly fist-bump, but thought better, not wanting to push it.
1 – Bachelor World: Where I’ve lived daily when not around other people and which is progressively irritating between my ears as an increasingly lonely, middle-aged man. I know how much “talent” I have, still do not “look [my] age and remember many things others do not, which makes them “amazed” at me. Right. This is the place of my principles; the jokes I tell myself which only I “get”; it is deciding to sleep-in or get up and go to the church on Sunday and cooking great meals that I wish I could share with one special person. It is where my frustrations, independence, insecurities, poetry and secret anger lives. It is the humidor of my greatest wealth to-date: the music of my life – the music in my mind that plays randomly, daily depending upon which curve ball life-in-general is throwing to me at the moment, from Classical to Solid Gold Oldies.
2 -Diverse World: This could also be called “the world in which many Black American
3 -Intercultural World: My favorite place to be and largely because my fiancee, Inna, responded to my repeated attempts to gain access to it in recent years and found me! Intercultural World is my future of travel, married life with Inna and happy, loving discovery of what I should have explored many years ago. We Black Americans of my ilk, who were not forced to travel overseas because of wars were not actively encouraged to escape our nation’s borders, and that is the current sadness and frustration of Intercultural World for me. It took an inordinate amount of time to get my first U.S.A. Passport precisely and partly because I had a past without international travel and some of the wrong kind of socio-government “baggage” a$$ociated with it. Intercultural World is the world of
5 -Family World: Speaking of my Mum,part Cherokee Indian, who I love to hear laugh at my jokes on the telephone, is my best friend and one of two women whose advice I will take without question – amazing for me – the other one being my fiancee`, and my late Dad “the Major” who once around this time in 1962 won everything in sight one night on the original TV game show, “The Price Is Right” with Bill Cullen as the host, my Family World is ever-shrinking from the vast body that is was when I was a boy. Maybe you can most-relate to this World if you are of a certain age. Maybe that is part of the reason I am finally ready to take a wife and not go into the “good night” alone if that be the Creator’s will – that and finally finding the true soul-mate; all timetables differ on that desire. If you have a parent over seventy years of age and/or siblings older or younger than you, you can relate to Family World. Outside of the occasional greeting card or even rarer birthday card from a remaining Aunt or my “Godfather”/Uncle, the only inhabitants of Family World are me and my Mum. We comb this world with a combination of past recollections of happy times, updates from her on who recently passed-away and me reminding her that she “just told “ me something she just said five minutes ago! I love how she takes those reminders with good humor and I take her cue to not let it “get” to me like it did a few years ago when she first began showing those symptoms. I still can happily mine her former school teacher mind when need be, garner sage advice and know I am surely blessed to still enjoy her company her in the physical Family World.
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