My MIND out-thinks my BODY!!!
...it's just another thing that tells me I'm gettin' old...

In last night's post, I wrote about the advent of bicycle-riding weather. I wrote all about how I was gonna go and complete a nice, flat, semi-lazy 15 to 20 mile bike loop. I wrote about how easy it was. Well, normally, it IS easy. And I did HALF of it today. I went thru town, around the dike road, and out along the new west part of the Centennial Trail along the Spokane River. I turned around, came back thru the park, and made it as far as Sanders Beach, when all of a sudden the heat started nailin' me, the ol' thirst mechanism kicked in, the knees were aching, so instead of heading EAST along the Centennial Trail bordering CDA Lake, I just went home, picking up a bottle of Sport Drink along the way. I told the guy at the convenience store about how I had to shorten my ride, how I couldn't go out along the lake. His reply? "Well, that's what TOMORROW'S for." So, that's my rationalization, and I'm sticking to it!

What are they doin' up thar dept.: On my bike ride today, after leaving the Sanders Beach area, I headed up Lost Avenue; on one side of the street are houses; on the other is a woody hillside kids play on. It's that "ridge" which borders the road that goes to Jerry Jaeger's house (behind the Jewett House). Only kids don't play there any more. It's all fenced in. And as I was riding along, I looked way up on the ridge, and there were dozers leveling the ground up there. So, more of the land is getting plowed under, probably for some big glitzy new house for another member of the ruling class.

What's he doin' thar dept.: So anyway, after surviving my bike ride and almost drowning myself as I chugged my bottle of PowerAde Fruit Punch (MMMMMM!), I went back over to the park with my guitar and thrashed on it for a while. As I returned to my car, I spotted that maroon "unmarked" CDA Police car sitting in the museum parking lot; the cop inside was evidently monitoring City Park. In past years, I would've been paranoid about so much police presence, but I was kinda glad to see that the Park is being watched. The times are changing; kids' behavior after dark is changing, and my outlook concerning police presence is changing.

What's he doing on thar dept.: I'm watching "Nightline" as I'm typing this, and 64-year old Paul Simon is the subject of one of the show's segments. I don't "get" a lot of his newer music; it's multi-rhythmic, sung off-handedly, and it almost sounds like he's trying to outsmart the listener. People raved over how great the "Graceland" album is. I found a second-hand copy of it a few years ago, and while the music is good enough, it's nothing that sticks in my memory. I'll just go ahead and listen to Neil Young's crude "Living With War" CD; that one's 'direct' enough for me. I'm not really into the whole sensitive singer-songwriter thing, but Neil Young RULES!

Why are they doing what they're doing dept.: One of the scandalous stories circulating through our humble town is the banning of a local newspaper's blogsite by a lame-duck Kootenai County Commissioner. There was a lot of, well, let's say, "comment" on the blogsite about issues the commissioners weren't addressing. SUCH AS HIGH PROPERTY TAXES! And two of those commish's got voted OUT. So, at least one of the lame-duck commissioners is operating under the grand delusion that somehow the blogsite is responsible for his demise. How can a lame-duck commissioner BAN courthouse computer users from reading "Huckleberries Online" (www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/hbo) when HE'S on the way out? Maybe he wants to FIRE people who work under him so they can feel as bad as he does. Just because yer a hometown boy doesn't mean you can hold office and IGNORE VOTER CONCERNS. You don't believe all this? Click on the above link and see fer yerself!

What's this here thang doin' here dept.: Well, it's here because I've gotta end this post with something. I'm talking about the picture included below. It's a nice tranquil shot, taken by Leo's Studio of Spokane back in the '40's...



...here is Heyburn State Park; this view is overlooking Chatcolet Lake, which is at the southern end of Coeur d'Alene Lake. This is the end of the lake I almost never visit, although I remember our family going there back in the '60s. "Everything looks worse in black and white", Paul Simon once wrote, but this doesn't look too bad.
____________________

The heat is scrambling my brain, and although I read the papers every day, right now nothing "sticks". Just all of the same re-heated bad news, over and over and over. So I resort to ephemeral musings such as this.