Fresno woman makes new connections, and insights, on her neighborhood bike rides

Because it was love at first sight, I bought a 3-speed bicycle like the one my friend had. (Hi Tressa!) I deemed it my Magic Bike. Not only has it been fun to ride, but people often respond to its Dutch style with more vigor than they respond to me. The bicycle pulls you in.

In the late summer evenings of my childhood, I rode another bike. The scent of caramelized sugar was thick in the air as I traveled between fields of grapes that had been laid to bake in the sun. I moved across a quarter mile of country road, back and forth, up and down, dreaming my dreams, watching the sky blast its last colors before dark.

Fifty years have bridged the gap, but I still relish bicycle rides at dusk. Sometimes I make my way to Van Ness Extension, a 10-minute pedal from my home, a place where stubs of fig trees echo my lost grapevines.

One evening, while making a trip down the boulevard, I saw a group of kids clumped outside the Bonadelle estate. The boys and girls looked to be 13 or so, smiling and chatting with an easy focus. As I rode past them, one of the kids may have shouted in my direction. I doubted the sound, so I kept pedaling.

Ten seconds later, a mop-haired boy on a bike whizzed up to me. Magic.

“Can I ride with you?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. Then I waited two beats. “Did your friends dare you to ask me?”

I smiled. The boy looked at me, eyes wide. “No, my friends wanted to come too, but they didn’t.”

He flipped his bike around and returned to his pack. I proceeded down the road. Don’t try to pull one on the old lady, I chuckled to myself. But I also gave him props. He took a chance to make a connection — on a dare or not.

Behind our current doom scrolling, people dodging, and political sparring lies a fundamental truth: we all need each other.

Recently, I received an email from a Selma man who knows me only through my writing. (Hi Moses!) I’ve never met him in person, but I’m convinced he is a great human being. Attached to his message was a small act of kindness: an old picture of his junior high class. In the photograph, he stood with a hundred other kids, one of whom would become my father.

I shared the image with another Selma fixture, a lifetime friend who knew my dad when they were boys living on neighboring vineyards. (Hi Pete!) Goodness has a ripple effect.

My Twitter account has allowed me to acquaint myself with a farmer I know only through social media. (Hi Joe!) Last month, I ventured to the west side of Fresno County to buy his delicious melons. He barely knows me, but he has been nothing less than kind during our simple interactions. I value this type of generosity.

I often walk in the same neighborhoods where I ride my bike. Recently, at the intersection of Barstow and Forkner Avenues, I heard someone call my name. I turned my head to see a former colleague waving from her vehicle. (Hi Lynn!)

She turned the corner and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. Her 12 year-old son sat patiently in the passenger’s seat while we had a socially distanced conversation through his window. (Hi Tiernan!) Since retiring, I’ve missed the good people I used to see every day. I was grateful this busy mom took the time to chat.

In Fresno, everyone seems to be linked by two degrees of separation. When I tweeted a picture of zinnias and a video of a 3-year-old girl irrigating her father’s cornfield, three elected officials liked one, or both, of my tweets. (Hi Garry! Hi Steve! Hi Buddy!) Any of us can choose to mute divergent ideologies to share common ground.

At the intersection of Van Ness Boulevard and Palo Alto Avenue, I often see hawks circling above the grand eucalyptus trees. The birds appear beautiful or ominous, depending on my mood. As we navigate uncertain times, do we build hope or brandish angry despair?

My bicycle doesn’t create magic. Instead, I position my rickety body on its seat so I can feel the wind on my skin.