The summer is pretty much at an official end, but yesterday I made a surprising discovery: Brooklyn Bridge Park, a remarkably beautiful swell of grass and wine bars under the namesake span of steel. How had I missed this place before?
Well, it’s pretty obvious: It’s a pain in the butt to get Sasha there on foot. We’d have to schlep to the subway, blah blah blah.
But now we have this fine machine to get us there and back—and wherever else we want to go. Sasha loves it: She cried “Wheee!” as we sailed through the streets of Brooklyn yesterday, and she sang “Old MacDonald” and recited her ABCs. (Note: “Wheels on the Bus” is not a good bike song. Kids love to act out the “up and down” verse.) Today I’ll even be picking her up from school in Manhattan, and huffing and puffing back over the bridge.
Today I’ll also be giving up any pretense of not being a disgusting Brooklyn hipster dad. In the past, I may have denied it, or argued around it, but there’s no point hiding any longer: I’m a nearly middle-aged, skateboarding Jewish travel writer who’s married to an Asian fashion designer and picks up his adorable mixed-race child from a bilingual preschool on a tricked-out Italian bike. Fuck me, you might say. Or, as Sasha might put it, wheeeeeeee!
Bikes are beautiful, and having them outfront is the best way to slow down and chat with the lovely little beastlies! Here’s my (abandoned blog) way of getting there … the thing fits four kids if one of mine wants a playdate after school, unlike my car.
http://allonabike.tumblr.com/
Bike on, daddi-o!
F you.
(you invited it)
by the way, you are middle aged. I just realized it about myself over the weekend on my middle-aged escapist kayaking/hiking adventure trip — so, you’re there too.
I’ve got E on the tandem bike now and it’s working out ok — I wish I could stop living at the top of massive hills though. would make family bike commuting easier (I’ve got a 1000 ft elevation gain from home to her school…)
I am also a denier, but should probably fess up about the multiple squares of hipster-parent-bingo you’d fill in just looking at us/our professions/our consumer profile. I was called a “hip urban mom” by a fellow midwestern parent once, not a minute past introductions. Confusing, as she and I live in the same small college town, but maybe urban is a state of mind? Usually when people, particularly politicians, from this state use “urban” they mean “Milwaukee” and by extension they really mean “African American.” So I’m all kinds of confused, being that my blinding whiteness is also cited as a prerequisite for my (alternately contested and grudgingly acknowledged) hipster-parenthood. Shrug.
Don’t worry pal. The cargo shorts give you away as a hipster-hater. Unless you’re wearing them ironically?
Ironically? No. But I did buy them in Hong Kong.