Lucky Day in Lakewood
I think today might have been my favorite St. Patrick’s Day in Lakewood since I moved here 24 years ago. After waiting out the hailstorm this afternoon, I disembarked on my tandem for a trip down Cook. As I was glancing down at the cold weather garb I was wearing I noticed it was perfect for a St. Patrick’s Day adventure.
I started at Lake Avenue by Lakewood Catholic Academy and was heading south when someone came up to me looking at my bike. After chatting we realized we were both friends with Rob Holland (I had just run into Rob riding down the Madison Avenue bike lanes two days ago). Rob had mentioned to me that he had a friend that ran all the streets in Lakewood last year, and here I was meeting Thomas just two days later. It sure made Lakewood feel like a small world, and I quickly snapped a selfie with this fellow “Every Street in Lakewood” traveler. What incredible luck!
Amazingly, my day was about to get even better. Matt Clark with Lakewood Alive had offered to walk the street with me, and I received a text that he was ready and waiting at the other end of Cook by Detroit. I motored the tandem up there and met him to walk the entire street in the opposite direction. We had a great conversation as we walked, reminiscing about my son and his daughter performing together at a Jazz concert at Lakewood High School just a few years ago (they are both in college now). We talked about the Lakewood Alive Tool Box that Matt coordinates, and I shared some stories of my journey thus far.
When we got to the end of the street, he offered to ride the tandem with me back to his house. It doesn’t get much better than two middle-aged Lakewoodites cruising on a 1978 Schwinn tandem up Cook Avenue on a sunny St. Patrick’s Day afternoon. He invited me in for a celebratory toast when we got back to his house, and I hope you can see the joyous expression on my face in the selfie we took with the tandem in front of Matt’s house. It was truly a “Lucky Day in Lakewood”.
