Just in time!

The moment I threw back the duvet this morning and projected myself from the virginal lair onto the precious Persian I peaked through the patio drapery to check the weather.  Although the forecast on my iPhone was 100‰ snow precipitation for the next hour, the driveway was clear and there was only an ominous bank of grey clouds in the distance. I speculated that before the snow showers overtook us there was yet time for a bicycle ride! But we hadn’t any time to lose – not even time to make the bed.  That could wait.  Just dress and begone!

We made it half-way along our traditional route before the first big fluffy snowflakes began to fall softly from the heavens. Our time to complete the entire run is normally about 35 minutes so we hadn’t much exposure for the next fifteen minutes or so. We wound around the subdivision on our usual course, eliminating only one short tributary from the regular outing. It was mere moments after our return to the garage that the snow began falling in earnest. Now the entire landscape is covered in a blanket of white. Our window of opportunity has closed!

I am always happy to get some fresh air and a bit of exercise. These current jaunts hardly qualify as Olympic but they certainly succeed to a relieving level of penitence. In the present atmosphere of pandemic and old age there are limited amusements available. Reposing in one’s drawing room, reading and writing, listening to the mellifluous themes of Apple Music’s latest algorithms of choice is I find a collective pleasure best appreciated as a reward for at least some measure of prior application. I hate to say it but I’ve never fully estranged myself from the Protestant Work Ethic, a conviction that noticeably goes back to my boarding school days when I unwittingly succumbed to the ingrained system of penalty and prize, everything from colours on the football field or the clan competitions, academic honours, appointments as House Captain and Prefect, regimental highland gear and band ornaments, sweater coats and school ties, each with its mark of favour and inferiority or superiority.

We are not however the only ones devoted to exercise.  Each day that we bicycle we see usually the same people walking with others or their dogs; the same lone traveler coping with heart disease, the gentleman sporting a stick fulfilling his morning constitutional, the recovering alcoholic doing what he can to distract himself, the tall young father maintaining his race horse figure, the students on their way to school, the athletes clad in lycra running gear, the elderly woman bent into the wind preparing her afternoon account to her indolent friend. Only once during this winter have we encountered another cyclist, a remote and seemingly young man clad in endless clothing, carrying on the handlebars of his bicycle two green garbage bags which he loaded with goods retrieved from the recycle bins deposited on the side of the road at the edge of the driveways. His preoccupation was manifestly more mandatory than our own. For a brief moment I wondered about his story.

The only other junk collector of whom I have any knowledge was a chap from Carleton Place who ran a second hand goods business.  His sons came to see me following their father’s death and asked me to investigate and settle their father’s estate.  They had already been to see a notable lawyer elsewhere but there were unhappy with that lawyer’s work.  I had no trouble retrieving the file from the other lawyer who was I believe just as happy to relinquish the retainer – perhaps as much as I was initially uncertain about assuming it.  I recall a tale the boys told about their father driving his truck in northern Ontario en route to collect a load of junk somewhere.  On the way the old gentleman’s truck broke down and he was obliged to walk a considerable distance alongside the road in the rain hoping to get to a gas station and garage.  While doing so a police car passed him and stopped to inquire.  The old man explained his conundrum.  The police officer – who suspected the old man was merely a vagrant looking for trouble – told the old man that he should not be walking on the road unless he had some cash on him.  The old man asked, “How much cash do I need?” to which the officer replied, “How much have you got?”.  The old man replied, “Forty thousand dollars”.  The officer invited the old man into his cruiser and drove him to the nearest garage!