The Saunter

First day of May feels like the first day of summer. Supposed to get near ninety. I took the bike out for the ride up to the Little Red Lighthouse, then down to 59th and back up to 125th. Eleven or so miles. Everybody passes me now, even the overweight. I wore shorts; the right leg remains all swollen, though much better. But it still looks foreign. Once on the Hudson bike path, I immediately began seeing walkers with numbers on their backs or chests and "The Great Saunter 2010" printed on them. And so they were omnipresent all up and down my route. Finally, heading back up from 59th I stopped and asked three women what the Great Saunter was. As I suspected, the idea is to walk the perimeter of Manhattan. It's been going on for 25 years; it's 32 miles. I said to them, "The East Side must be much harder to follow the shoreline than the West." One of them replied, "I wouldn't know. I've never made it that far." Probably not this year either since it was close on to noon.