The Old Coot is on a runaway bike! - Published August 2023 in the Binghamton Press

 The Old Coot was in a fix.

By Merlin Lessler

 Do you remember being a kid, peddling along on a bike, minding your own business and your pant leg gets caught in the chain? You couldn’t peddle forward; you couldn’t pedal backwards. The chain was locked in place. Bikes back then had coaster brakes that engaged when you pushed the peddle backwards; most bikes today have hand brakes (except for some cruiser and city bikes). All you could do when your pant leg got caught in the chain was keep going forward, knowing you were going to tip over and skin your knee or elbow when you came to a stop.   

 My worst “pants-caught-in-a-bike-chain” experience took place when I was ten-years old and coming down a steep hill on Denton Road on the southside of Binghamton, headed for a busy Vestal Ave at the bottom. I had one chance to save myself; I had to turn off onto a cinder construction road that jutted to the side, one block from the bottom. I knew I would fall when I made the turn, and most certainly would get banged up, but it was my only hope! Faster and faster, I sped down the hill, flying by the Daley’s house, then the Almy’s house and finally past my friend Woody’s (Walls) house, who was gawking at me as I flew by. I steered toward the construction road and closed my eyes. That’s all I remember. Then, a neighborhood woman yelled out her kitchen window, asking me if I was OK. I looked down at the blood and cinder mosaic on the side of my leg, the skinned elbow on my arm and my torn pant leg, now free of the chain. “I’m OK!” I shouted, got to my feet, picked up my bike, straightened the handlebars and peddled home. It was my third session that week with a bottle of Merthiolate. I can still feel the sting.      

 Now, I find myself back on a bicycle, rolling down a hill, out of control with my pant leg caught in the chain. Except, this time the bicycle is metaphysical and the hill is life, rapidly spinning by. That’s what it feels like to be old, any kind of old: 30-old, 40-old, 50, 60, 70 or 80-old like me. No matter what part of the age hill you are coming down, the scenery is flying by way too fast. And, worse yet, there is no side street to pull off into. 

 So, what’s my point? I don’t know. Someone asked me the other day if I remembered getting my pants caught in a bicycle chain when I was a kid. And, like a typical old coot, I turned it into a philosophical treatise on the meaning of life. How’s your bike ride going? Is your pant leg inching closer to the chain?