Colleen, I like this one the first time you posted it. Good job!

Colleen,

I read your poem and realized that you have the same sense of longing that I sometimes feel about growing old and having my expectations and experiences let me down.

I loved the picture you painted and the line about Dorian Gray was wonderful. Spot on!

The lines you wrote reminded me of the disappointment I felt the first time I walked past a construction site and no one whistled..Oh, how I miss those sounds of approval..All gone now. Sigh!

Such a clever poem. I love it. Plan to share it with my "Silver Pens" writers' group--all 60's, 70's and 80's.
Fortunately I get lots of appreciation for "inner beauty" so I don't miss the other stuff as muich!

Clever poem…It reminded me of when I went back to work as a secretary once my son entered school. The first time I was called by the boss to be present at a meeting I walked out with a pile of work. I remember laughing to myself as I walked back to my desk. In past years, I was constantly being called in for meetings and many times wondered why I was there.

I don't know how many of you are self interested enough to be running a google search on your own name. Maybe it my journalist background that makes me do it

It's actually not vanity but a useful way to see who's looking at one internet offerings.

I was surprised that my google search this morning led be to the Elder story Telling Place since I have not submitted a story for a very long time.

A few years ago I was helping Olive Riley put up posts on her blog as the oldest blogger in the world. Dear Ollie died in mid 2008 at 108, and I turned to
other interests, indeed, passions.

I became a passionate push bike rider, not a racing type, but a rider of those stately sit-up bikes on associates with Europe.

Indeed my life now revolves, since I'm a crusader born, around getting older folks back onto bikes.

Do you know that in the big biking countries they ride into their 80's and even 90's, and that they have no obesity problems, lower blood pressure, cholesterol etc. I was type 2 diabetes, on a slew of pills for that. No more

I imagine your eyes glazing over. I've lost you. I've lost you. "Way past bikes," you muttered a nano second ago.

But why? Just for a moment imagine yourself as stately as royalty on one of the classic up right bikes, gliding down some lovely path,making a slight but pleasant effort, that circular motion you once knew so well, to propel you along.

The smells of the green world envelop you, and no noise intrudes on your dreamy reverie.

It is a feeling like no other and having come back to thi sort of cyclingat 71, I just wish more might join me on the path.

As a simple self identification test, a sort of; "can I see myself." test, do go to my new blog, the one after Olive Riley, and take a look at one of the film's I put up there. The Waltz of the Bikes.

http://situp-cycle.com

For a few minutes you'll be transported to Amsterdam, to streets full of cyclists, gliding with balletic ease to the strains of the Blue Danube.

Music that, as they went they way that day, they never knew would be one day buttered on them

Note the older riders, note the shere beauty of the process.

You know, our cars in one sense freedom machines, have a lot to answer for. They, and the real estate they have demanded as their right of ways, have stolen from us countless pleasant simpler journeys we cculd have taken on two wheels.

My car now sits on the drive, virtually unused, as I acknowledge it's been not a a life style choice, but a life-steal choice.

I go, I shop, I do almost everything on the bike, that is within a range of five miles. The hills? Oh yes, we do have hills around here.

But then, I've added a discrete little electric motor, and so whilst I sill pedal hard enough, the hills go on the ironing board, and I stay serene not sweaty.

How did that result in a loss of 15 kilos? Well, when it becomes part of your life, being back on a bike, the getting back in shape it just seems to happen.

But if this makes you are all curious, do remember my key discovery. All this must happen on a sit-up bike. No mountain bikes, no racing bikes of any sort, no flat bars.

The handle bars must curve back to embrace. The seat must be ridiculously comfy. Ideally, the chain totally enclosed and a neat packet of 7 gears or so hidden, in the rear wheel.

If you also watch, Talking to David Hembrow on the blog http://situp-cycle.com. he'll explain the secrets of the Dutch bike.

Now, I do promise to write a bike story, now that I'm back. And in the meantime, if you do have any bike stories of your own, coming back to, or otherwise, do leave them on the blog.

Cheers, Mike Rubbo

Yes, here here.