Die In

    Although I never learned to ride a bike myself, the bike safety is an issue close to my heart because my Dad rode his everywhere.  He started after being drafted for World War II.  He showed up for his physical and an old army doctor looked at his legs, specifically his knees – which turned inward – and asked him if he could run.  Dad said no since he had already broken his leg when a gym teacher forced him to run in high school, and was removed from the military.  Before he left, the doctor told him to get a bike to help keep his knees in shape.  It was not as common back then, but Dad biked everywhere. 

     He commuted to his job at Benjamin Franklin High School by bike, cutting diagonally through Central Park, entering at the southwest corner and exiting at the northeast.  I don’t know if bike fatalities were less frequent back then, or if Mom and I just had no idea because what we worried about was not the traffic but about Dad, with his increasingly poor vision hitting a hole or a rock and going flying.  This happened a few times.  Dad called it “cracking up,” an old fashioned use of the phrase which always made me think of Humpty-Dumpty falling off the wall.  He was never seriously hurt, but he would show up at the school nurse’s office bruised and bleeding.   

After 3 bicyclists died in hit and runs in one week, in a year when bike fatalities are up by 70% to 17 in the first 8 months of 2026 people decided to take action. Transportation Alternatives and a group of families who lost loved ones sent out a call for people to die in at city hall park to call on the administration to implement safety measures like universal daylighting.   I made my way gingerly from Canal St to the park feeling for the curb edges with my feet and squinting at the walk signs since my glasses were missing. I got to the park a little early, and realized I didn’t know exactly where and I couldn’t just walk around so I sat down by the fountain. As it got closer to 5:30pm, I saw some blurry ppl with bikes gathering so I went and sat near them.  It was interesting being in a growing crowd of activists that I didn’t know.  Eventually Ben, who I can recognize by shape and the energy with which he moves, showed up. We gathered Yana, who I know from several long DC trips in Ben’s car and another friend and joined the milling crowd.  “This is not one of Ride and Resist’s precisely timed actions,” I said to Ben and it got later and people wondered what the plan was. Eventually there was the usual barely audible megaphone speech, followed by a bereaved mother. Then the instructions. The crowd was packed tightly and they should have instructed to spread out before lying down to make room, especially with the bikes which were dying in too, upside down with wheels in the air. We all squeezed in and I stiffly sank to the ground. A saxophone began playing a hauntingly mournful song and it was quiet after the initial flurry of press getting their photos. I looked up at the late summer 6pm sky and the branches overhead and fell into the spell of the moment. I think everyone else did too, because when the bagpipe stopped, nobody moved for a few more minutes and then we began clambering to our feet, most more gracefully than me. Sometimes I think I should practice getting up and down from the floor to be ready for occasions like this. I just finished neck pt but I laughed inwardly at the idea of asking for pt exercises specifically to facilitate activism. It could be a book “Exercises for Aging Activists”.

    I  got on the train to Brooklyn,

fell sound asleep and then made my way home afraid that I might find Gretchen dead. Although still very sick, she was alive and so I resumed my feline nursing duties.