« Hollywood! (The visual weekend summary!) | Main | Me talk pretty one day. Plus, brief, pretty uninteresting knitting content. »
September 26, 2006
Ghost Bikes installed
On Sunday, a small group of riders installed two new Ghost Bikes.
It was a Septemberish evening and a fallish errand- remembering the dead, in a quiet way, not attracting much attention. One of us pulled a trailer carrying the two bikes, the signs, locks, and paint. The rest of us followed along and we were a 5-bicycle procession in the hush of Sunday night.
Since I painted the sign for George Chavez's bike, I felt a particular sense of connection to him, even though I knew nothing about him or his life. As I worked on the sign I thought of his friend, a woman who had contacted Howard to put up the bike, then disappeared. I wondered why he spelled his first name with the anglo G, and not a J, and if his family called him Jorge, and I thought of his friends and if he was on his way to work when he was hit and who it was that ran away from the scene. As always, with the Ghost Bike projects, too, I thought about how easily it could have been me, or any bike rider. And how I would want to be remembered.
We locked his bike to a yellow caution sign with a fire truck and the word SLOW on it.
In the neighborhood where we installed Chris's bike, whose name we didn't know until a man who was acquainted with him, and knew what happened, told us. He also pointed us to exactly where the accident had happened on the street, although he let us know that he heard Chris had been dragged for a block.
We placed his bike in front of a storefront church, in hopes that the people might adopt and tend to it.
After a brief police interaction- they just stopped to make sure we weren't up to anything, before warning us to be careful and cruising off- we stood watching a slow-moving freight train.
On the way home, Dan and I received this message from the universe-
colorful, blinking, spinning lights in the distance, and as we got closer we found a carnival in the middle of the city, in the process of shutting down, but with rides still moving, whirling in the early September air. We paused to take in the sound of whirring machinery, the flashing and spinning, the carosel ponies, trucks painted with cherubs and merry-go-round horses, and people rushing around taking it all down.
Signs and wonders.
Possibly orchestrated by those who've gone ahead of us to let us know we don't need to grieve so long, because they're right there in front of us. All we need to do is look around..
p.s. thanks to Howard for ghost bike photos.
Posted by pippypippy at September 26, 2006 12:49 PM
Comments
Velo con dios.
Posted by: David at September 27, 2006 01:53 PM
very nice.
Posted by: juan jorges jesus at September 28, 2006 10:56 AM
Rest in peace, George and Chris.
May we all ride in peace.
Posted by: Riin at September 29, 2006 08:03 PM