Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; E4U, NBC News; SL |
| Goal: Southern California's pyramid, Cal State University, Long Beach campus (R.Hollister) |
LOS ANGELES - Wouldn't it be something to
ride bikes from the base of the mountains to the lip of the sea that foams as it surges towards the foothills? The wilds of the
Angeles Forest wilderness (part of the Sierra Madre mountain range) give way down the concrete expanse.
WARNING: Hip hop, rap, and dizzying POV bike ride
The bike path narrows, expands, consumes the sprawl from crumbling Angel's crest to Saint Monica's Bay. Below its miniature lanes, there's a river, the San Gabriel arm of the L.A. Ganges. It runs the Way of the winding arroyo-Tao.
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| The massive glass pyramid campus centerpiece, CSULB, Cal State Long Beach (wiki) |
We would sweat and we would tire; we would breathe and we would smile. We would widen the Tao of bound
shilagit sheets under our feet, oozing from our cruising. We exercise as we glide and glide -- Astro' to astral,
Hyperion to a Satyr, all the way down to the plant by the bay. Toward the sand, fumbling, standing on seats, sitting on bars, belly laughing, golden gleaming, feet warming, foreheads steaming.
We can walk the idle wilds in view of the skyscrapers, the fresh fragrance sky blue, cool, aerodynamic, washing over our skin.
Concrete banks glimmer like an ancient Roman pantheon, honoring an entire corps of engineers.
Bradbury could bury us in hardening sand, like so many skipping stones. We would wash out along the Long sand, soft again, by the
pyramid on the campus of Cal State Long Beach with its glimmering glass monument.
The many activities help us remember we did not grow up with, like listening to traditional music, Irish food and drink, and many other engaging aspects of Irish culture. Can Irish Americans play the Irish bodhran, commune with the Fay (faeries), dance like the island youth, or shop for Irish crafts? They can now.
