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Bicycles For Sale "[R]ecognize that a person can be
whole and well in the best sense of these terms even if disabled
- say, without a leg or an arm, blind or deaf, or suffering from
paraplegia or mental retardation. Such a person can be inwardly
sound as a bell, with a warm and joyful heart that doesn't constantly
grumble and rail against life." Our ride to Gananoque was uneventful other than the rain and one van cowboy who passed a line of traffic on a double-solid blind corner. Sharon and I, in the oncoming lane, had to swerve off the road to avoid becoming pothole filler. My brand new knobby front tire was already proving its worth. "When people buy vans," Sharon asked, "do they have some kind of operation that sucks out half their brains?" "Naw," I answered. "I think it's more likely the detrimental effects from a lifetime of substance abuse."
A bike path connecting Gananoque to Brockville ran 50 glorious van-free kilometres. Not having to worry about fluffy-headed van drivers was liberating. I stared at the thousand little green islands dotting the Saint Lawrence River. "How'd you like to live on one of those islands?" I asked. "Really get away from it all." "No man is an island," Sharon responded. "True," I agreed. "But some are peninsulas." Rideau River Provincial Park campground was our intended destination. But, in Merrickville, somewhat short of our goal, we admitted defeat. Nonstop rain had thwarted our progress and brief daylight hours had foiled our best efforts. By the time we stopped, my 'storm shelter' gloves were two waterlogged sponges. My frozen fingers felt about as ungainly as the clumsy feet inside my soaked shoes. I tripped into a nursing home, planning to ask permission to set our little tent on the large expanse of lawn out back. A goosh-goosh emanated with each step of my saturated cycling shoes. With each footfall, tiny air holes in the shoe's toes fabricated a miniature watery fountain display. No one manned the nurse's station. I waited patiently. In a few moments an aged patron rolled up in a wheelchair and stopped directly in front of me. "Can I help you?" she asked, gazing up, a wooden-toothed smile dimpling her sallow cheeks. A drop of cold water dangled from the tip of my endlessly dripping nose - not unlike a faucet in need of a washer. "Do you work here?" I asked. I had expected someone younger. "The girls are in the dining room," she answered sweetly. "Do you have a message I can relay?" I explained to our good Samaritan that Sharon and I were bicycling across the country. "You have bicycles to sell?" she interrupted. "Huh?" The woman was as deaf as a post. My simple question wasn't going to be as quick or as easy as I had first imagined. I tilted my head upwards, thinking. An icy rivulet streamed down between my shoulder blades. At that moment, I admit, the old lady's idea of selling our bikes didn't sound half bad. But, being slow, instead of shouting "Sold!" I carefully re-explained my quest - pausing at appropriate intervals; enunciating syllables like a sopping Mr Rogers - hoping the information was sinking in and being interpreted correctly. I finished what had quickly deteriorated into an ordeal. It would have been quicker if I had written it down. But she was probably blind too. "You want a safe place to store your bicycles?" "Huh?" I said again. Working here would be fun! She had caught that we were from Alberta (why had I mentioned that in the first place?). "Do you know where Wainwright is?" she asked, looking up at me with those sweet eyes. Without waiting for my response, she carried on. "I have a friend there. She has a 4,000 acre pig farm." Sharon's going to make pork chops out of me, is what I thought. Ah, yes, Sharon. She was still standing outside with our bikes ... in the dark ... in the pouring rain. That was, if she hadn't already sold them. Fortunately a nurse appeared and rescued me before I had to admit myself. "No, you aren't allowed to camp on the lawn," she said, but she gave me directions to a "town park alongside the canal, where you will be more than welcome to spend the night." I exited to the awaiting Sharon. "Along the canal?" she said before I had a chance to even open my mouth. "How? How did you know that?" I stammered. Apparently, a more astute patron, having overheard my lengthy but-going-nowhere hallway conversation with deaf Granny, had come out and supplied Sharon with the information. "About ten minutes ago," Sharon
laughed. |
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