By Merlin Lessler —<\/p>\n
I was on the road on my 1983, Sears Free Spirit 10 speed bicycle last Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect autumn day with the temperature in the 70s paired with a beautiful collection of clouds sweeping across the sky. I was hoping to stumble upon a gem of an idea for this week\u2019s column. And, getting nowhere!<\/p>\n
I pedaled past a swath of houses along the river, with manicured lawns, well-kept gardens, and inviting front porches that faced the Susquehanna River. No people in sight, no walkers, no bikers, no porch sitters.<\/p>\n
I crossed Main Street into the village park. No pickleball players, no kids shooting hoops, swinging, coming down the slides, sweeping across the monkey bars, or buzzing around in the skateboard park. No people and no ideas for an article. <\/p>\n
I kept on pedaling, crossing the railroad tracks into what the residents there call \u201cThe Flats.\u201d It\u2019s primarily a residential area with a few commercial entities in one quadrant; it\u2019s separated from the rest of the village by an active set of railroad tracks.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t see any kids as I pedaled, no games of tag, hide and seek, no cowboys and Indians for sure, a childhood obsession in my day, long gone now.<\/p>\n
I next rode onto the school campus. The elementary school playground was empty. All that beautiful play equipment sat idle. <\/p>\n
I pedaled on and on through the complex, but not a soul in sight, not on the tennis courts or on the track around the football field. So, I stopped to \u201cspeed\u201d walk, as I call it, on the artificial turf, going from one end zone to the other, dodging imaginary tacklers as I ran kickoffs the length of the field, scoring a touchdown every time. You can do this when there\u2019s no one around. And there wasn\u2019t! <\/p>\n
There also wasn\u2019t anyone on the Little League or the high school baseball fields, nor on the soccer practice grounds. No one was playing a pick-up game of baseball.<\/p>\n
Kids don\u2019t play pick-up games today, for the most part. Everything is organized these days, maybe with a little too much parental involvement. Not like in my day, when no one but the players and the coaches showed up for Little League games. How could they? We played in the afternoon when Dad was at work and Mom was tending to things at home. <\/p>\n
But mostly, we played pick-up (sandlot) games: baseball, football, and basketball. Even if there were only two of us, we could devise a World Series game with Mickey Mantle at the plate. <\/p>\n
I still had no idea what to write. It felt like I was in a Stephen King novel where I was the only person left in an empty town. I guess I\u2019ll give it another try next weekend. All I can offer is this: my lack of anything interesting to comment on. Nothing going on in town; nothing going on in my head.<\/p>\n