My office is on the second floor of our house. We are on a street that goes nowhere, as it just loops back to the road that it came from. Once in a while, I see a bicyclist doing laps around the neighborhood, like my friend Vic getting in some exercise before work. But a more recent phenomenon is seeing someone on an electric bike or scooter doing laps around the block.
I struggle to understand the point of doing laps around the same block on a powered vehicle. Who does this, and why? Without the exercise component, wouldn’t it be better to venture a little further, and see a few more sights?
Yesterday, I was waiting in front of my house for Walt, my auto mechanic and friend, to pick me up in my just-serviced car, and a guy went by on a motorized scooter. As he went by, he said “white lives matter”. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was talking to me, as he just kept scooting by after saying it, and I wasn’t looking at him. I realized that he was commenting on the Black Lives Matter sign in my yard.
Well…weird. I had gotten the sign back in 2020, a few months after the George Floyd incident. I had visited my daughter in Portland several times after that, and I noticed that the neighborhood around her apartment had Black Lives Matter signs in front of half of the houses. I thought that it was time to say enough is enough, and show some solidarity with this movement for change. I had never been a political yard sign person before that, but that year, I got a Biden sign, followed by a Black Lives Matter sign.
The next time that Scooter Guy went around the block, Walt was right behind him in my car. I ignored Scooter Guy and got in the car. Before I did, however, he said a couple of things. First he said “yellow lives matter too”. Yes, I had suspected all along that he was a rainbow warrior, anxious to see justice for people of all colors. Finally, as I was getting into the car, he muttered something about “goddamn liberals”. Ah, there we go.
So, these are the guys who go around in circles. I had thought of my sign as a show of solidarity, and I have gotten nothing but positive comments about it from neighbors. Well, except from Sean across the street, who put up an opposing Thin Blue Line flag that I was too ignorant to notice until my daughter from Portland pointed it out to me. Sean moved his family to Texas last year, but he’s not part of this metaphor. It’s about the guys who go around in circles, seeing the same thing over and over, instead of seeing something new or surprising, or getting any exercise, physical or mental.
