Is It Over, Yet?

I voted early last week because this twisted election year has beaten me down, and I figured that if I got it out of the way, I'd feel a bit better. I did feel a bit better immediately after I voted. I'm almost 50 years old, but I still get a thrill every time I cast a ballot in an election. I feel so patriotic and American. Not in a flag-waving, 'Murica kind of way, but in a thoughtful and appreciative way. I think of all that came before--the sacrifices and the deep thinking--that allows me to cast a ballot. I was concerned that by voting early I'd miss out a bit on that feeling, because I also like the feeling of voting with other people. You know, the energy of election day. But I didn't experience a lull.

Afterwards, though, the cacophony didn't stop. That was a weird feeling. Every other time I've voted, I've done it on the day of the election and then the noise has died down within a few hours. Not this time. I guess my actions don't control the universe after all!

But I looked at the odds of Trump winning on fivethirtyeight.com and I got nervous again. I've done some gambling and I know that longshots do come in, and I also know that medium shots come in more often. A one-in-three change doesn't make me feel comfortable. I want election day to come and go, and I want it to be a victory for sanity over insane change-for-change's sake.

And don't even get me going on what it might be like if there's a tie or some other such nonsense, causing the election to go to the courts.

October's End

It's an election year, in case you haven't noticed. Here in western Massachusetts, an ultra-liberal section of a liberal state, there isn't as much local vitriol as there is in other places, I'm sure. I met someone from rural Pennsylvania a few weeks ago and he described the divide in his town and how it manifests itself: the municipal waste removal workers have been known to treat rather shabbily the garbage cans at houses with lawn signs in support of candidates they don't approve of.

I find myself wondering how my experience in this election would have been different if Trump supporters were more than mere curiosities and instead were a more prominent part of my day-to-day existence.

I find myself thinking back to something that my father told me when I was a teenager. We were watching a documentary on World War II and Hitler, and he said to me, "Don't ever think that something like that can never happen here." I didn't believe him at the time, of course, but he's gotten a lot smarter as I've gotten older, so I now see the wisdom in what he's saying.

Massachusetts has early voting now. I'm trying to decide whether to vote early or not. On the one hand, it might be nice to get it over with. On the other hand, I like the feeling of civic pride I get when I go to the polls with everyone else.

Is Your Blog Running? Who Left This Thing On?

There's an awkwardness here, to be sure. I mean, we haven't seen each other in over three years, and we then we bump into each other out of the blue. Well, mostly out of the blue, I guess, since admittedly there was some method to my madness. After all, it wasn't like I cut all ties: deep in my Internet history, I still had your number, so to speak, in the password to get in.

So how have you been? I bet you've been lonely, or am I projecting that? It's just that you're here, kind of waiting for something to happen, and I haven't held up my end of the bargain. I haven't provided you with, well, anything.

I'm not going to stand here and tell you that everything is going to change overnight. About the only thing I can promise is that it won't be another three years before anything happens. I'm still trying to figure some stuff out, but I think that we had some good times here, and if you're still willing, I'm in. I know it won't be exactly the same, but maybe we can make this blog thing even better. What do you say?

Father's Day

It's almost 10:00 a.m. and I haven't gotten any Hallmark cards yet, so I can't say for sure if Father's Day is a Hallmark holiday or not.  I can say that each Father's Day I've celebrated as a father has gotten richer over the years, if also more complicated.  When I went downstairs this morning to make the coffee, after debating with myself whether I should really get up or not, and cursing myself for not taking the time to make sure that at least one of my two sons knows how to make a decent pot of coffee so that I could save myself the trouble, I did get a big hug from my 10-year-old.  That was nice.  My 13-year-old son is still sleeping.  That's fine.  I wish I were still sleeping. 

My plan today is to go for a run, eat some breakfast, and then go coach my younger son's championship baseball game. He doesn't know that I know this, but my son wants to give me a championship for Father's Day.  Okay.

I never thought that the best part about Father's Day, the one thing that I would look most forward to, would be spending 45 minutes or so running by myself.  But as I said, fatherhood grows more complicated every year, it seems, and sometimes we just have to simplify for a bit.  And if my family allows me to do that for a little while today,then I'm happy.

Baseball Is A Simple Game

Youth baseball is now in full swing (pun intended), and after an extended period of irritatingly cold weather, we've had a stretch of heat that's fired up some thunderstorms that have cancelled some games recently, as sure a sign of summer as anything. 

Here's my problem with baseball: the adults who run kids' leagues.  No, let me try that again.  Here's my problem with baseball: because the action takes place in manic bursts of energy that die away almost as soon as they get started, people watching the games have too much time to think about, pick apart, examine, and analyze the game's minutiae.  And there's a hell of a lot of minutiae--it's the only youth sport that I've coached where it's not just advisable to carry a rulebook in the equipment bag, but where the chances are pretty good that on any particular play, you might have to consult the rule book to get clarification on something. 

Ive always hated when people use knowledge as a weapon to humiliate or intimidate other people, and unfortunately I see that type of behavior on the baseball diamond, particularly with obnoxious coaches and rookie umpires. 

But I'm getting away from what I really wanted to write about, which is the story out of Westfield, MA, about the 12-year-old Little League player who's been told by the league that he can't pitch, because he has too strong of an arm. He's pitching in Westfield Little Leagues "minor" league division, where most of the players are 9- and 10-years old. So the kid may have a good arm, or it may be that he's just got an advantage because he's a couple of years older than most of the other kids he's playing against. The story explains that some parents of opposing players actually heckled this kid while he was pitching. The move has upset the player and his family. The story also states that it's too late in the year for the kid to be moved up to the "majors" division.  It seems that the National Little League policy is to prohibit 12-year-olds from pitching in the minors, but Westfield's local rules permit it. 

That must mean that Westfield coaches have to carry TWO rulebooks in their equipment bags.

Now, I'm sure there are details that Ron Chmelis left out of his story for one reason or another, and that I don't know the full story.  But what I do know is that youth sports is supposed to be about developing in the participants the skills they need to enjoy playing that particular sport. While I'm sure the 12-year-old enjoys pitching against younger kids, I'm not sure that he's going to get much better at baseball playing against lesser competition.  And I'm not sure that the kids who have to bat against him will see much improvement, either.  Seems pretty cut and dry:  let the kids play against kids his own age.  I'm sure if left on their own, the kids would have figured this out themselves weeks ago. 

Stupid adults.

(Don't) Kill the Ump!

This hasn’t been a good run for Major League Baseball umpires. In one game, they mistakenly declared a home run to NOT be a home run, even with the help of instant replay.  In another game, they allowed a pitcher to warm up and then be removed from a game, which is illegal.  The umpires involved in these decisions have been suspended and some have even been fined. 

Nobody likes the ump; that’s one thing that even Yankee and Red Sox fans can agree on.  Umpires don’t have an easy job, to be sure, but what bothers me about Major League umpires is the general disdain they show for everyone in baseball who isn’t an umpire, players, coaches, and fans alike.  The next time you’re at a Major League game focus your attention for a moment on the first base umpire and watch how long it takes him to confirm a call.  If he’s a typical umpire, there will be a second or two between the ball and base runner getting to first and the official call. 

It’s not like he’s got anything better to do.  I mean, it’s only HIS JOB to make these calls.

And don’t get me started on the strike zone.  Not only is every umpired allowed to interpret the rules to mean he can make the strike zone be anything he wants it to be, but anyone who questions it is subject to immediate.    

So, much of the criticism the umpires are facing right now is justified and self-inflicted.  For people who work in a profession that will be replaced by robots or lasers hopefully any day now, I would think that they’d be nicer.  Instead, they act as if people pay to see them do their job and reject any notion that they can ever be wrong.  That’s all okay, though.  They’re professionals making big bucks.  What I can’t live with, though, is how their boorish behavior is spreading to college, high school, and youth baseball umpires.  This behavior may be a reaction to the other side of this ugly coin, the increasingly coarse behavior of parents and other fans, but no matter the cause, it turns what should be a celebration of baseball skill and passion into an adversarial exercise when it doesn’t need to be. 

I’ve disagreed—even sometimes, but rarely, vocally—with umpires many times over the years.  Like any father, fan, and coach, I can exchange bad umpiring stories with the best of them.  But I’m not going to do that as much anymore.  Why?  My 13-year-old son just began umping games.

Talk about a shift in perspective.

He decided to become an umpire not because of a power trip, but because he loves baseball and this gives him another way to be involved with the game. Prior to his first stint behind the plate this past weekend, he was so nervous that his whole body was shaking—he wanted very badly to do well.  The lesson to be learned here is that even if an umpire makes a call that goes against your team, it can still be a good all. 

 
I’ll try to ease up a bit on the umpires this year.  I won’t let the questionable calls get to me, and I’ll smile and shake hands afterwards with sincerity.  After all, as I’ve come to realize, even umpires have families who love them

Off the Cuff

It stares at me without pity from the pages of Wikipedia:

"Many rotator cuff tears are asymptomatic. They are known to increase in frequency with age and the commonest cause is age-related degeneration and, less frequently, sports injuries or trauma. Both partial and full thickness tears have also been found on post mortem and MRI studies in those without any history of shoulder pain or symptoms."

I could quibble over the questionable wording (commonest?) and how that might undermine the accuracy of the information, but the ache in my right shoulder tells me that the information is more accurate than not.

I never realized that I could get injured simply by doing nothing. So much for the "use-it-or-lose-it" philosophy of staying fit.  And then just below that result on the Google search was the medical article with this hope-crushing title: "Age-related prevalence of rotator cuff tears in asymptomatic shoulders."  

In other words, there are a lot of us walking around with bad shoulders, due to torn or strained rotator cuffs.  Some of us may not know it, and I suppose they are the lucky ones. Others know that there's a problem, but have no idea how they might have injured their shoulder, because it's something that just happens. 

It's hard to be an American male and not be able to throw. I've been thinking about it, and I've basically been throwing all my life.  Baseballs, footballs, balls of all types, of course; rocks, dirt clods, sticks; playing cards into hats, coins into fountains, chestnuts at kids from our rival neighborhood during the Chestnut Wars of 1978 to 1982.  Now I can still throw, but it really, really hurts when I do it.  This makes coaching baseball really difficult, and with baseball season just getting underway here in the Northeast, that's a problem. 

But what's really upsetting is that I haven't been able to play catch in the back yard with my kids. This injury has made me more aware of the fact that those moments are going to be fewer and fewer as the years go back.  A rotator cuff can happen for no apparent reason, but at least they can heal. The missed connections from a simple game of catch in the back yard is not as easy to correct.

Running for Peace

With the events of this week still freshly in my mind, I ran the Cave Hill Classic Road Race today in Leverett, Massachusetts.  This 5-mile race starts on the road in front of the Peace Pagoda, and finishes right in front of the Peace Pagoda.  The five miles in between features hills, lots and lots of hills.  This is the only race I've ever run where the race director, before firing the starting gun--in this case, banging the starting gong--gives the runners one last chance to opt-out. "The last mile-and-a-half," he said.  "Is all up hill."  He paused a moment to let that sink in before continuing.  "And the last part of the race is the steepest part." 

I've run a fair amount of races over the past five years, but I'm still not a confident enough runner to be able to completely ignore the specter of hills.  But it wasn't like I was going to turn around and just head back to my car. No, I was there to run. 

The hills were tough.  And the last part, the insane incline I had to run up before I could even catch a glimpse of the Peace Pagoda, that was just as hard as advertised.  But I ran up that hill, and I gratefully accepted the origami crane on a string that one of the Buddhist monks placed around my neck. 

This race just felt different.  There was a lot of pre-race chatter about what happened in Boston on Monday, and about the successful conclusion to yesterday's day-long manhunt.  Standing around a mountain top on a chilly April morning, the events of the week felt both immediately present and far away.  Thoughts of Boston were with me as I ran. I ran freely and with thoughts of peace flowing through my body. I ran hard and felt proud and safe. I ran because I'm a runner. 

We've Got To Keep Running

In 2008 I ran my first—and to this point my only—marathon, in Hartford.  I did not have an especially good race.  I hit the proverbial wall at around mile 20, and I spent way too much time walking instead of running.  But I finished.  And I was supported along with way by friends and family who met me at different points along the route to give me encouragement.

Near the finish, I willed myself back into a running pace, determined to run across the finish line.  About 300 yards short of the finish line, my family met me again.  My younger son, who was then five years old, darted out from the sparse crowd and ran with me towards the finish line.  I am not ashamed to admit that I had tears in my eyes: I’d trained hard for that moment, and not only was I going to finish, but my family was there to see me do it.  It was a triumphant and sweet moment.

That’s what I thought about when I saw the news coverage of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. What I didn’t sufficiently realize until I immersed myself in the news cycle was that a marathon is not just a moment of triumph for one runner.  Instead, it’s a moment of triumph for thousands of people, and not just the runners, but the families and friends of the runners and even for those who might not know anyone running.  A marathon—or any road race, really—is a celebration of human achievement.  Yesterday I thought about how I celebrated my marathon, and I thought about how that had been taken away by the cowardly scumbag(s) who set off the bombs, along with lives and limbs and feelings of personal security.  I felt a profound sense of loss and a growing tide of anger.

Now that the weather has finally turned here in New England, I’ve found myself contemplating doing another marathon this year, in part to erase the memories of a poorly run race five years ago. After yesterday, I realized that the stakes have been raised significantly.

Can I really be thinking about bringing my family to the finish line of a marathon after what happened in Boston?  Will big city marathons ever be safe, or be the same?  Will there still be people willing to run in marathons if in addition to worrying about the weather and pacing and training and fuel they now have to worry about their loved ones’ safety? 

This morning I had the same argument I have with myself every morning, should I run or go back to bed?  I ran. I ran this morning not because that’s what the training plan said I had to do or because I needed to build my base. Instead, I ran out of a sense of duty and out of anger.  I ran this morning for those people who, after yesterday, can no longer run for themselves.  And that’s why I’m going to run a marathon this year.  I refuse to let the scumbag(s) win.

A Spring Fever Breaks

At the end of a warm day in April, the kind of a day where you opened up all the windows to air out the house and invited in whatever hopeful, fragrant air might be out there, you walk into your bedroom after the sun has gone down and feel a bit of a chill.  It's dark out now and the temperature has dropped. Now the open windows are just letting in cold air. 

You shiver a bit as you close the windows, and your body reacts to a distant memory: spring days when you were young and the cooler temperatures and setting sun called you back home, and you ran into the house a little sweaty to finish homework or maybe to have a late dinner.  Then, the receding warmth of the day was easier to accept; it didn't portend anything because you'd already wrung out of the day all that you could. Now, the cooler temperatures and the blackness outside the windows serve as a reminder of wasted energy, and the relentless drive towards darkness that we all must face, regardless of the season. Another chance at fun simply thrown away.

Baseball Arrives

Mark Twain is credited with the quip about San Francisco's notorious weather, "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."  That quote popped into my head yesterday evening, the first baseball practice of the year. 

Now, I know cold.  I grew up in New Jersey and spent many fall and winter Sundays sitting in the stands of Giants Stadium in wind-blown East Rutherford, NJ.  I can remember a couple of times sitting in the stands and resting my feet on ice from a previous night's storm. Every year for the last 25 years or so, I've gone on an annual Spring golf trip to Pennsylvania, where snow flurries are the state bird.  In other words, it gets cold. 

Once when I was a kid, maybe 11 or so, a friend of mine called me up because he wanted to start a baseball team and he asked me to be on it.  The first and only practice we had was on a bitterly cold spring day.  Afterwards, I spent about an hour in our pantry, because it was warm in there. 

None of that previous experience prepared me for the 38-degree temperature and the 25-mile-per-hour wind that greeted us last night as we began to get ready for baseball season.  I had running tights on under my pants, two pairs of socks (sox, I guess, since we're talking baseball here), and three top layers.  And I froze my ass off. It was so cold that I didn't even remember to complain about my strained rotator cuff. 

I'll say it now: you won't here me complain at all this summer about the heat, after this crappy, cold spring. 

*$#@@ You, Winter

Poets have always written paeans to Spring.  It certainly makes sense: spring is the time of year when we feel alive, when the earth and all of its creatures emerge from a long winter's slumber.  Spring also serves as a nice metaphor for other important things in life, like growth, love, and lust.  But as I've sat and suffered through this winter that just doesn't seem to want to end (we had snow a week ago, and temperatures have been running 5- to 10-degrees below normal for weeks), it occurred to me that one of the reasons poets write so much about spring as opposed to winter is that they're all cowards. 

Winter is a bully and no one wants to stand up to him.  Instead, we collectively ignore the issue and praise spring.  I'm done with that.  Screw you, winter, and your life-sucking ways.  You arrive every year with promises of snowball fights and sledding, Christmas and hot chocolate.  Then you convince autumn to let you get started early and don't answer spring's calls four months later. That leaves us with four months of ice, snow, darkness, and cold.  Your job is over now, time to move on. 

I know that there are a lot of people out there who say that they love the winter.  I think they're lying. They may have found ways to cope with winter, such as skiing or skating or snowshoeing, but I don't think they really love winter.  They're just like the poets, though, too scared to call winter out for fear that it will retaliate. 

I'm over that.  I'm taking a stand and telling winter to hit the road.  Sure, I know winter will be back next year, but so will I. I could run away somewhere south (theoretically, that is) but I'm going to stay to keep an eye on winter, to keep it honest. 

Back in the Saddle

It's been sitting there, like a pair of pants in the closet that you swear you'll be able to fit into again, some day.  It's been gnawing at me, especially as I have come across something in my daily travels that I label "blog-worthy."  But there comes a point, I believe, where the plant that you haven't watered for a long time ceases to be a living plant and instead becomes a relic, a memorial to live plants.  It can't be brought back, no matter how much water and sunlight you might provide. 

I'll stop now because the needle of the metaphor meter is pinned to the red.  I think you get the picture: after a long hiatus, I'm resurrecting the Prospect Perspective.  I do it for no other reason than I enjoyed sharing my thoughts with those people lucky enough to happen upon my tiny corner of the web. 

Yes, I'm going to ask you to stay tuned.  But you won't have to wait too long for new content.  I promise.

A Thousand Sunsets

I'm sure everyone on Facebook has posted a similar picture of their vacation.  I thought about not posting it here, but then I realized that every sunset is unique and has special meaning for those who took it or saw it. 

Bike Trail Tales

I live in Northampton and work in Easthampton and I like to ride my bike, so last summer and fall I watched with keen interest the progress on the construction of the bridge over Route 10 that would mark the installation of the final link in the trail between the two towns.  (I'm still mad at myself for not going to the official opening).

With the bridge now in place, I can now enjoy a peaceful ride without having to constantly worry about traffic.  As I discovered yesterday, though, there are perils on the bike path as well, as with this downed tree I had to deal with.

And don't let the cuteness fool you here: I'm sure this was a killer deer I barely escaped from (I didn't dare get any closer to take a better picture):

Whether You Like It Or Not

It's an interesting twist on the 30-minutes-or-less idea: deliveries when THEY want. 

Come On, Groupon

I “belong” to Groupon, is that’s the right term.  By that I mean that at some point I signed up to receive their daily emails touting deals on all kinds of things, from clothing to restaurants to acupuncture.  I’ve even bought a deal or two.  But I have to admit that I’ve never really paid much attention to the content of the emails; I check out what it’s for and if it doesn’t interest me, I quickly delete it. This morning’s email caught my eye for some reason, and I actually read all of the copy related to an offer of discount golf: 

Like painting a portrait or fixing a computer, completing a round of golf is always more impressive when it’s done in the pouring rain. Enjoy equally impressive fair-weathered fores with today's Groupon

I’ve played golf in the rain before, but do people really paint in the rain?  Or fix computers?  And what does fixing computers have to do with golf, really?  I was confused. 

Then I dug in my trash folder for a couple of other offers: 

Though rubber-banding a photograph to a roly-poly super ball increases its utility, its picture quality plummets after playing just a few rounds of fetch. Put a photo in a durable place with today's Groupon:

The needle is a tool shared by quilters and tattoo artists, which is why most quilting conventions include a handmade tattoo in every goody bag. Celebrate the unifying power of the needle with today's Groupon

Like a carefully arranged leaf pile, the right outfit can make its creator appear put-together or hide an entire family. Stand out with today's Groupon

Then I got it: the copy is meant to be ironic, in a 21^st century hipster kind of way. 

I tried to think of a humorous way to wrap up this entry, but I found that reading through the Groupon dreck drained me of any humor I may have had.   Just give me the damned offer and spare me your drivel.  

School's Out

At 12:20 this afternoon, summer vacation officially begins for students in the Northampton Public Schools.  It’s a little later this year, when compared to previous years, because of the snowy (read: sucky) winter we had, and it’s more than a little strange that the last day is a half day on a Monday when graduation was on Friday.  But those are mostly adult concerns.  For the kids, the focus is, of course, on vacation and promotion.  As my younger said said to me this morning, “At 12:21 today, I will be a third grader.” 

I’ve also been amused by the way he’s been singing “School’s out for summer” over the past few days.  He took care to explain to me that he knows that the song is really only for those who are done with college, because that’s when school is really out forever, but he’s willing to sing a few bars to celebrate having the summer off. 

My older son graduated from Jackson Street School on Friday.  Since I’d been to other graduation-type events before involving my children—Safety Village, pre-school, CCD—I thought this one would be no problem.  I was wrong—I got caught up in the emotion of the event and found it to be completely bittersweet.  And when after the celebratory cake had been cut up and served and my son came up to me and asked if he could go to a friend’s house, I felt the significance of this momentous day.  For the past six years, Jackson Street School has been the center of our educational universe.  Next year, for the first time, our two sons will be going to different schools, with different schedules, teachers, and expectations.  We’ll adjust, of course, and everything will be fine, but that transition to middle school won’t happen until after this long stretch of summer is over, so the only thing I have to keep my company are all the fond memories I have of Jackson Street, and the reminders of what we’ve lost. 

So yes, school’s out for summer. But it’s never really out forever.  Instead, it visits us over and over again, in our memories, through our children, and in our forgot-the-locker-combination dreams.  And don’t forget Facebook, too, where friends from school bombard us with friend requests that completely ignore the reasons why we’re not really friends with them in the first place. 

But I digress.  And as I said, the last day of school is about looking forward, not backward. 

Bring on the summer!

Bloomsday

Rodney Dangerfield's class movie "Back to School" has become one of those cable staples that I can't help but watch whenever I notice that it's on.  I always chuckle to myself, in an admittedly obnoxious, I-am-so-much-cleverer-than-you kind of way at the scene where Rodney goes to his English class for the first time.  Sally Kellerman is his professor, and she begins the class by reading Molly Bloom's soliloquoy from James Joyce's Ulysses.

But wait: the fact that I know the passage she reads come from Ulysses is not the obnoxious part.  No, the obnoxious part is knowing--and then talking about it, I suppose--that the list of books she writes on the chalkboard that the class is supposed to read is completely absurd, as it includes Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses.  I can tell you that there are perhaps 12 people in the world who will tell you that they've read Finnegan's Wake and understand it, and most of them are lying. The ration of people who've read Ulysses, and who claim to have enjoyed it and understood it, is slightly better, but it's still a book that's more famous for being famous than it is for being read and discussed.  

Which brings us to Bloomsday, which is today, June 16.  It's the day in 1904 that Leopold Bloom, the hero of Joyce's Ulysses made his was around Dublin.  It's celebrated every year by devotees of Joyce, and by a lot of people who've never read the book. 

I'm of two minds about Bloomsday.  I have a Ph.D. in literature (American, not British) and read Ulysses in graduate school.  I also had the pleasure of teaching it to a bunch of mostly disinterested undergraduates.  So I appreciate the book on a couple of levels, and I appreciate a day devoted to literature.  But I can't help but think that somehow all of this celebrating of a book that most people haven't read is a bit silly.  And I can't help but think that Joyce would see it that way, and appreciate the irony.  Like the irony of a graduate student teaching a seminar on Ulysses and using the Cliff Notes as his bible. 

And don't get me wrong, I'll be hoisting a Guinness to James this evening. 

The Pull of the Blog

I cringed when I saw the date of my last post in this blog, because I shouldn't let that much time pass between insightful, entertaining posts.  But it is a vicious cycle, I'll be the first to admit. You see, I have these arguments with myself--well, discussions might be the better word--where on the one hand I tell myself that I shouldn't be wasting my time with my blog, because no one reads it.  Then, on the other hand, I tell myself that more people would read it if I wrote more.  These are not earth-shattering revelations here, but the ultimate point, I think, is that I need to decide what to do with this blog; it's a fish-or-cut-bait scenario.

But then it seems that every time I think about putting this blog out of its misery, something happens that forces me to once again sharpen my metaphorical crayon, like the kerfuffle over the Northampton Planning Board's requirement that the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish have a connection to the City's bike path in order to build its parish center.  Now the Gazette is publishing letters from supporters on both sides of the issue.  I've read these letters with great interest, particularly because I never thought that there could be people who would be against having a connection to the bike path. The Church maintains that its religious freedom is being infringed upon by the Planning Board.  I find that argument a bit ironic, because one of the things I've always loved about riding a bike is the feeling of freedom that comes with it.  Apparently there is some fear that older parishoners in particular will be subjected to hordes of cyclists riding through the parking lot of the church on Sundays when people are trying to find a parking space and get to mass. I never looked at it that way, and now that I have, I can honestly say that I still don't understand why it's a big deal to have a connection to the bike path.  But if I figure out a good reason, I'll post it right here, because I'm back.