Déjà vu

I have to stop biking in an oven.  At least that’s how it’s felt the last two times out on the 606 Trail.  Next time, I crack an egg on the pavement and see what happens.

This must be why the Tour de France people use PEDs.  I managed five blocks short of 50 miles yesterday, at the end of which you could’ve stuck a fork in me; I was done.  That Irish saying about the wind at your back, well, I had that for 25 miles.  The rest of the time the devil knew I was coming and blew a gale-force hello my way.  I looked like Marcel Marceau on a Schwinn.

The silver lining to all this sweating and pedaling was the stream of consciousness that started about halfway through.  The thing about the 606 is that it’s an old elevated railroad spur converted into a biking-running-walking-(and standing in the middle daring you to run them over) path originally intended to serve area factories, now all gone or converted into loft space.  For example, across the west end of the trail is a large building where they used to make Lincoln Logs.  And then I started to think about how the logs tasted.  Like I said, stream of consciousness.

And then there was that unseen plane overhead, darting from cloud to cloud, its engine strong and loud echoing down to me on the path.  Well, then I started in on B-17s.  I’ve had a thing about these planes since childhood, building models of them, watching movies about them, climbing into them when I can.  If there is reincarnation, I’m probably coming back as a waist gunner on a B-17, circa October 1943.  That’s when my next-door neighbor flew in them.

Anyway, I dodged all the ME-109s and FW-190s that buzzed along the trail.  A normal bombing run from England to Germany took about eight hours.  I was home with three hours to spare.  The next mission depends on the ability of the ground crew to get my legs back in shape.  General Savage wants a full report….