This is Don. While I was out for a walk with my wife and daughter last week, we saw this vehicle parked at the side door of a house we were passing. It was something that the current “social distancing” orders due to the coronavirus pandemic made possible—we usually walk the nearby lake, but it was crowded and keeping a six-foot distance between the groups crowding the paths with the day’s nice weather would have been impossible. So, we walked deep into our surrounding neighborhoods—a regular routine now.
The vehicle looked to be one of those prototype racers one might shoot across the salt flats in Utah. “Motorized or not?” we wondered. “Eh, looks like bike tires.” My wife recognized the art on the bike as the Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian. I took a quick photograph, and we expected to move along, but a man (Don) appeared at the door. “Feel free to linger and look,” he said with a smile, and stepped out. We asked some questions and he told us about the bike, and verified the artist. He ordered the bike from overseas (Denmark, if I recall correctly) and the art is a custom decal, a 3M product.
“I used to keep a record of the interactions I have with people about it, whether a thumbs up or ‘nice ride’ or a conversation,” he said. “I think I was up to 12,000.”
His plan later that day was to take the bike path out Como and Wheelock, which leads to Phalen. He rides where he likes but tries to be smart about it, given he is so low to the ground. “It’s a pretty sturdy frame. If I did get hit, I would take a tumble, but it wouldn’t be like me hitting the pavement.”
“So,” he asked. “How are you guys holding up with all this?”
“Oh, we’re doing fine,” my wife answered, and filled him in on a bit of her work as a teacher getting the virtual lessons together. “How about you?” She asked.
Don said he worked from home a lot, so the stay-at-home order hadn’t impacted him much in that regard. “But, I like to say that work for me is what I do between bike rides, and I would bike into the office for meetings and then bike back,” he said. “So, I do miss that (interaction).”
Seems we’re all hungry for a little conversation these days, an interaction beyond our family, even if we’re lucky enough to have those options. Make a point to stop and chat when the opportunity arises! If there is one good thing happening now, it’s that while people must keep their distance, they are reaching out.
