Waiting at the Hayward BART station, quarter to 8pm on a Thursday night, February. There's the usual, off-peak atmosphere on this Northern California night. Not many patrons and the few people here run the gamut from hyper-speed-freak energy to comatose office worker burn-out. Too many hours in the cubicle or too much white powder, it's the same obsession, different excesses.
The short, two and a half mile night time ride to the station was equal parts invigorating and hair-raising. Savored the cool, dark, off-beat feeling like I was 25 years old, up for anything. Truth is, I'm 50 something, striving to hang onto that young-at-heart feeling for as many more years as blood, bone, and sinew will permit. After that it's too dark to see, too hard to contemplate.
Nearly thirty years ago I came to the Bay Area. A computer programmer, fresh from the Illinois cornfields. Now I'm a pilot and flight instructor. What a strange trip it has been. My belt-drive bike proves I still embrace innovation, that I'm not yet an old-timer.
There are still a few more miles to ride at the end of the BART ride, but my legs tell me it won't be a problem. The last part of the ride will be hilly back streets, dark and quiet. And later I'll sleep. Not the sleep of a 25 year old, but the tired, heavy, dense sleep of a man, not young, but not yet old. Perhaps I'll dream of bike riding, or running the way it used to be.
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