Another Decade Bites the Dust!

Our conversations with friends mark the passage of time. When we are young, we casually mention attending a grandparent’s 75^th birthday celebration or a great-aunt’s funeral. Then, our parents’ health leaks into the discourse and before long the occasional query becomes commonplace. “How is your mom doing?” Or, “I was sorry to hear about your father passing away.”

One by one they leave us, until we become the older generation, next in line for our own funerals. And, even though we attended each funeral and memorial service, we wonder, are we really that old?

I wasn’t old when my mother died, only 36; she was 63. We had no warning. We talked on Sunday night and Friday she was dead, from pneumonia.

She was the first of her generation to pass away. Just a few years later, an aunt died. My father was next. Then both uncles passed away in the same week. My mother’s baby sister, my last remaining close relative of that generation, passed away last year.

Now the funerals will be for my generation.

I was just coming downstairs to breakfast the other morning when Rob said, “Dr. Campbell died. It’s on the front page of the paper.” He was our dermatologist. We’d both been seeing him for annual checkups; he was a nice man, caught a patch of skin cancer on Rob’s back a couple years ago. We didn’t know he was ill. Apparently he didn’t, either. He died in his sleep, at the age of 53.

Fifty-three once seemed pretty old. Now it’s in the rearview mirror. Makes you think about the time you’ve been borrowing and wonder how much longer you can check it out.

Maybe that’s why we mark each decade with a big celebration, saying to the Fates, “Hah! So there! I’ve made it!”  Because we’re like turtles crossing a road. One car speeds by, and then another. The turtle in front of us gets flattened and, even as we mourn the loss of our friend, we breathe a sigh of relief that we’re still upright. And we just keep chugging along, until we get to the other side. Of course, like Sisyphus and his rock. we’ll just have to get back in the traffic, but for this one day we can party. We’ve made it this far. Good.

Now that I’ll be turning sixty, I am, quite frankly, perplexed. Sixty was my father's mother who complained about being old for as long as I could remember. Then sixty was my parents’ generation who never climbed a mountain, or went on a bike ride, or ran a road race. My mother and her mother both died in their sixties. 

I must be looking old because I get the senior discount without even asking. (It's the gray hair.) But I just don’t feel old. I have no chronic illnesses, still have all my original teeth. 

I’ve invited a few friends to help me celebrate my birthday with a 60-mile bike ride. We’ll ride to Kittery, Maine, and stop in at my new favorite donut shop, then cross over the Piscataqua River back to New Hampshire and wander down the coast a bit before heading inland to Exeter for lunch.  It’ll be a leisurely foodie ride.

So I’m thinking, if I ride 60 miles this year, does that mean 70 when I’m 70, and 80 when I’m 80? I’m going for the full century.

Going Shopping

I have of late been inspired by my friend Nancy who rides her bike everywhere she needs to go, whether to church three miles away, or to visit a friend in an assisted living facility in a neighboring city. Many of us avid cyclists are trying to take a page from Nancy’s book and use our bicycles not just for recreation, but for transportation as well.

In fact, here’s where I put in a plug for my son Tim, who has a gig writing for Bike Life Cities magazine. Check out his column where he describes the challenges he encounters when he decides to permanently garage his car (actually, our car) in favor of riding his bicycle everywhere he needs to go while living and working in Boulder, Colorado. It’s good writing, a whole lot funnier than mine.

So today I decided to combine a trip to Wildcat Fitness in Durham with an errand to a farm in Lee to pick up eggs and some meat. I was curious to find out how a couple dozen eggs would fare traveling in a pannier.

I checked out the distance to Coppal House Farm on googlemaps and it came up as 7 ½ miles. The ride to Durham is about 6, so I expected the total to be around 20 miles, just right for a training ride. And I’d feel good about not burning fossil fuels while supporting a local farm that raises happy animals. The chickens get to roam on 78 acres and the other animals get to run around in pastures, just like in the old days.

I recruited Nancy and another friend, Maura, to meet me at the gym for the ride to the farm.

Too cold for shorts but not so cold that I needed mittens when I left my house at 7:30 this morning, it wasn’t much warmer at 9 o’clock when I met up with Nancy and Maura. The trees haven’t greened up yet, but there are occasional hints of spring green here and there.  

Coppal House Farm in Lee, New Hampshire

From Durham we took an indirect route to the farm to avoid the state highway, staying on country roads, which is not hard to do in this corner of New Hampshire. Having been on only two short bike rides this spring I wasn’t too excited when some hills loomed ahead, but it all turned out okay.

When we arrived at the farm, Nancy said she’d pop over to Blue Bell Greenhouse across the road to pick up some pansies for her church. I wondered how she was going to get them on her bike, but she assured me they'd fit in her panniers just fine. I guess the people who sold them to her worried how they'd do riding on the back of her bike. But when we parted ways and she had just three miles left to go they were still looking pretty good. And my eggs arrived home unbroken.