USA Bicycling Forever Stamps

We received a missive from Carl this week. His packages, you can’t really call them letters, they are so much more than that, are always a joy to receive. Carl’s writings are always humorous and frequently eclectic too. The theme of this communication was a less than desirable intersection between bicycling and baseball, the nexus of sports scandals. I think Carl’s impetus was Lance Armstrong’s latest and hopefully, but not likely, final debacle.

Armstrong has been stripped of all seven of his Tour de France yellow jerseys, for doping. Although he was the leader in this type of cheating and certainly the most successful perpetrator of it, he certainly was not the exception. After stripping Armstrong, the Tour elected not to award any of the other participants his former victories. Cheating and doping was deemed just that epidemic.

Carl then offered some sympathy. He commiserated about his similar hero-worship for Pete Rose, the Cincinnati baseball impresario. Rose ran afoul of MLB’s gambling rules and was analogously disgraced. I only take one itsy-bitsy, little exception to what Carl wrote. Carl inferred that I was only a fair weather Cardinal fan, rather could it be that he is that rare bird, a foul weather fan? 

Carl’s letter crossed with our real life results. Anne crashed her bike on Saturday. We spent the afternoon in the ER and she spent the rest of the weekend on the couch. She has managed to haul herself into work every day. Like a weeble, she may wobble, but she doesn’t fall down. She saw a hand specialist on Tuesday, who confirmed that her finger was broken. He plans on pinning her pinky this afternoon. This is surgery, and I will be driving. She saw the knee guy Wednesday. There was nothing broken there, but there is physical training in her future now. Regarding the stamps, that’s me in front and Anne in back, hauling all the baggage.