June 26, 2013 Article

The Old Coot is in a fix.

By Merlin Lessler

Do you remember being a kid, peddling along on a bike, minding your own business and your pant leg got caught in the chain? You couldn’t peddle! You couldn’t put on the brake, at least not in my day when the brake was engaged by peddling backwards. All you could do was keep going forward, knowing when the bike slowed down it was going to tip over and you would skin your elbow or knee. Probably both! 

My worst  “pants-caught-in-a-bike-chain” experience took place when I was coming down a steep hill, headed for a busy street at the bottom. I had one chance to save my life, if I could somehow turn off onto a gravel construction road that jutted to the side just above the busy street. I knew I would fall when I made the turn, and most certainly would get banged up, but it was my only hope! Faster and faster I sped down the hill, flying by the Daley’s house, then the Almy’s house and finally past my friend Woody’s house, who was gawking at me out his bedroom window with a look of horror on his face. I steered toward the construction road and closed my eyes. That’s all I remember. Then, a neighborhood woman yelled out her kitchen window, asking me if I was OK. I looked down at the blood and cinder mosaic on the side of my leg, the skinless elbow on my arm and noticed that my torn pant leg was free of the chain. “I’m OK,” I shouted, got to my feet, picked up my bike, straightened the handlebars and peddled home. It was my third session that week with our bottle of iodine. I can still feel the sting.      

Now, I find myself back on a bicycle, rolling down a hill out of control with my pant leg caught in the chain. Except, this time the bicycle is metaphysical, and the hill is life, rapidly spinning by. That’s what it feels like to be old, any kind of old: 30 old, 40 old, 50, 60, 70 or 80 old. No matter what part of the hill you are on, the scenery is flying by way to fast. And, worse yet, there is no side street to pull off into. 

So, what’s my point? I don’t know. Someone asked me if I remembered getting my pants caught in a bicycle chain when I was a kid. And, like a typical old coot, turned it into a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life. How’s your bike ride going? Are your pant legs inching closer to the chain?