Benched

The scheduled morning bikeride with Older Daughter didn’t come off yesterday, morning being an alien concept to her at this stage of summer vacation… so I found myself again pedaling solo at Warner Parks. It’s a great way to cheat the heat on a day headed for 90+ degrees, under all those tree-shaded paved roads. Managed to circumnavigate both parks, about 18 miles or so from the Belle Meade entrance to Ensworth High School to the Steeplechase course and back to Deep Wells, in the process coming across a memorial bench I’d not encountered before near the summit of Percy Warner. (These lovely, simple commemorative tributes dot the parks in strategic locations, providing welcome respite and reflective pause for tired and thirsty hikers and cyclers.)

I lifted my insulated water bottle in silent homage  to James Miller Harrison (1954-2003), who sadly made it only to the bottom of the fourth (by Ethelbert Miller‘s reckoning) before being benched forever- a full half-century shy of Norman Corwin‘s impressive and growing tenure on this earth.  And, I tried to appreciate the gorgeous vista before me for Mr. Harrison and all those others who loved these woods and this view and this oasis of solitude in the city, but who no longer can appreciate it for themselves.

I’m sure he’d be pleased.

Being in this setting, in this state of mind, invariably evokes Whitman. What are these woods and trails and meadows? What is the grass?

Now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Tags: bicycling, commemorative benches, Ethelbert Miller, James Miller Harrison, Norman Corwin, Walt Whitman, Warner Parks