First, we have an apology to all the parents and safe-biking folks out there. The Notebook rode his bike across town from our Southwest neighborhood near Arena Stage to MacArthur Boulevard in Northwest for the Palisades Fourth of July parade.
It was a great ride through the heart of the city, including on the new Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. Returning home, we experienced the car-free parkway from the Lincoln Memorial to the Jefferson.
Unfortunately, and this is where the apology comes in, we did this great ride without -- without -- wearing a helmet.
“Where’s your helmet?” was a question we heard more than once.
Jim Dougherty of the Sierra Club recounted his own bike crash, which left him with a concussion. His helmet prevented him from sustaining a more serious injury or being killed when he tumbled face forward after his front wheel broke loose.
We appreciate that Dougherty told this story only out of concern for us and without too much scorn.
But here and now we apologize for not setting a good example, both for other adults and for all the parents who are trying to teach their children bike safety. It doesn’t help them to have someone breeze by on a bike violating common safety sense.
• Where there’s smoke.
We went to the 44th parade in the Palisades because it’s a super community event, and we also wanted to see how the candidates for mayor were faring.
Mayor Adrian Fenty’s contingent was big and boisterous, with the mayor tossing out his trademark green beads.
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We know of one side bet made by a Council Chairman Vincent Gray supporter that Fenty would be booed. He lost that bet. If there was any booing, we didn't hear it, nor did anyone report it to us.
But the absence of booing doesn’t mean all that much.
Even in the depth of the worst troubles, then-Mayor Marion Barry would make it a point to be in the Palisades parade. There may have been grumbling as he passed, but we never heard booing for him either. (This is not to compare Fenty to Barry in any way, just a historical note.)
Gray appeared to have a slightly larger crowd of supporters than Fenty. And it was equally boisterous. Gray walked energetically and worked the crowd, but he was kind of lost in the Gray brigade. When his group first passed us, the Notebook missed the candidate completely and had to bike down another block to catch him walking by.
Fenty was wisely right in front of his group -- no one missed him. What’s our one grousing note for Fenty? We didn’t see him work the crowd along the parade route. Maybe he did later on, but we didn’t see him do it. But at least he was smiling and looking like a happy candidate.
And we do have our one sour note for Gray. He was preceded by a 1960s or early 1970s convertible Cadillac. A Gray campaign poster ineffectively covered up the tag, revealing that it was registered in Maryland. That’s not good for hometown D.C. boosterism.
But worse, the old car was belching exhaust that polluted the hot air. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was more than noticeable. It was not a good campaign moment. (And where was the Sierra Club’s Jim Dougherty when this was going on? He would have blown the whistle on the Gray car right away.)
• Battle of the signs.
The Gray campaign clearly did a thorough job of papering the parade route with signs. The MacArthur median was full of them. But as we rode the parade route up and back, we noticed that Fenty had more signs in actual front yards, where citizens appeared to have made a choice.
• Best handout?
That goes to Gray. He was passing out little silver-gray hand fans that lit up a Vince Gray campaign pitch. We thought this upscale campaign toy at least indicated Gray isn't having fundraising trouble -- or that he's spending what he’s got.
• Orange glow?
Vincent Orange, who’s running for council chairman, had his orange-bedecked supporters working the crowd. But we almost missed Orange, too. He was wearing an orange shirt and an orange straw hat. We’d never seen him in a hat and didn’t recognize him at all.
We suggested that maybe Orange could take off the hat so people would recognize him, but he said the sun was too hot for him to go hatless.
Kwame Brown, the presumed frontrunner in the race for chairman, had a different take. The at-large council member was walking just a few feet behind a massive truck carrying Kwame signs. Fortunately, this vehicle didn’t have any obvious exhaust issues. But it sure did block spectators’ views of the candidate. And, once again, we’re sure Dougherty would have had a Sierra Club opinion of this gas-guzzler.
• A sour note.
A fleet of Metro buses was used to block traffic lanes on Rock Creek Parkway and other areas around the National Mall for the holiday. The buses were pulled crosswise across many intersections and streets, even protruding on sidewalks and making it difficult for pedestrians to pass. Worse, all of the dozen or more buses we saw had their engines running. Looked like a big waste of polluting fuel to us. Get on it, Sierra Club!
• A happy note.
The Saturday ball game between the Nats and the New York Mets had a wow-factor ending for the Nats, who won after a ninth-inning rally. But better still was the fact that the near-capacity crowd included more Nats fans than Mets supporters.
Until pitcher Steven Strasburg arrived on the scene, backers of opposing teams like the Mets, the Red Sox and the Phillies, tended to dominate the stadium. It’s good to see the Nats fans showing up in big numbers.
