I was always on the look out for possible ideas when I started this blog. I was figuring out what topics worked while seeking out displays of creativity and inspiration behind them. Heading down North Greeley Avenue on a day in early April three years ago, I noticed a display of art work framed and screwed to a utility pole. I stopped, read the blurb about a man hit by a car at this cross walk and I’m sure I was moved by the memorial’s intensity. Then, I dutifully took pictures and filed them away.

Three years later I came across the images going through the photos on my computer. I had considered writing about it when I took the pictures. My spring cleaning/pandemic concept has given me a chance to revisit past ideas I didn’t have time to explore. This story had more to it than I realized.

While searching for information about the memorial, I learned things that made the story sadder. Local news agencies stuck to press release reports but the blog Bike Portland offered details that added another dimension of tragedy to the story. Fifteen months after Stanley Gochinski was fatally injured after being hit by a car in a cross walk, his sister was killed in Beaverton while walking her bike through a cross walk. I found out another man was seriously injured in another crosswalk in the Arbor Lodge neighborhood. I ended up going down a rabbit hole reading comments about the sister’s death that were alarming in regards to the press coverage of pedestrian deaths but I was comforted by people’s concerns about the situation.

The write up posted under the art described these pieces as something Stanley had with him when the accident occurred. There was no information on how the art was obtained but Bike Portland revealed it was collected at the scene. These tangible remnants of the victim made the display more intimate and provided a sense of Stanley’s imagination. It’s hard to tell the art from what may be deterioration from its outside display. It’s not about the quality of the art but that it was used to create a unique tribute honoring a senseless death.

The unsolved case became part of the Crime Stoppers of Oregon reward program. Hoping for an update, I called but the number led to an answering machine. The website was filled with information on other cases showing grainy surveillance footage. It felt like an amateur slueth’s dream, figure out whodunnit and collect reward money. Seeing so many languishing cases bummed me out. I recovered by reminiscing about the old spooky AM radio Crime Stoppers spots where a guy named Henry Gribber (or Gripper) had a funny way of pronouncing “cash reward.” It sounded more like “kaaysheee reward.” I was hoping to find information about this case being solved. Then it hit me, Crime Stoppers of Oregon was making a valiant attempt to stop crime but people were getting away with all kinds of transgressions.

No one should ever die crossing a street. My disappointment is compounded by those who think they can drive away from the scene of an accident. There’s someone out there living with the consequences. Maybe they managed to go on with their lives after taking someone else’s but having to live in hope of getting away with something seems like no way to go through life. In the end my angry curmudgeon side worked up another rant about how all drivers are speedy, inattentive, accidents waiting to happen. To overstate the obvious, there’s nothing anyone has to do and no where anyone needs to be that is worth someone’s life. Stanley Grochowski deserved better that late August night.

I broke my arm on June 22 along with my collarbone. It was gory enough to keep me sidelined from blogging and whatever else I would have been able to do this summer. The arm break required surgery in early July which seemed to go well. I slept through it. The collarbone, well there is nothing that can be done besides let it heal itself. New bone forms to connect the collar bone to wherever it ended up. I found out from a friend that’s called remodeling.**

Not that grate!

On a new bike heading down the hills of Tewilliger Blvd around the VA hospital, I clipped the edge of a sewer grate in the bike route. I was trying to get around it but I didn’t make it. I went head first into the asphalt managing to turn my head in time to bear the brunt of the fall on my shoulder. My numb, dead left arm and a knot on my collarbone were the result.

The kid is all right.

After the crash, I got up and wanted to be all right but I but I’m no Chuck Norris. There had been no cars or joggers around when it happened but then a line of cars materialized, slowed down and a driver spotted me hunched over sitting next to my bike. He could tell I needed help. I confirmed this. “I need to go to urgent care,” I said looking up at him. This stranger, who later became known as Scott, was willing and able, with a bike rack on his car, to take me and the bike.

The bike was fine. We had to take the wheel off to get it home.

Scott was one of many people who have helped me along the way to recovery. Whether it’s been doctors, nurses, X-Ray technicians, occupational therapists, friends offering encouragement and food, calls from my parents and brothers or other family members delivering jelly beans, the attention has been humbling. An accident with a two to three month recovery time is a drop in the bucket compared to other accidents I read about: A bicyclist in a head on crash with a car that ended up in a coma and Bono from U2 whose bike accident in Central Park required two surgeries. He also sustained eye socket damage (glasses failure?) and a mucked up finger that might threaten his guitar playing abilities.

Nothing calms pre surgery nerves like gift shop displays.

The view from my hospital room. The flag inspired me.

The accident taught me that I should never have taken for granted a fully functioning left arm and collarbone, whatever a collarbone actually does. I had a faint memory of reading about the dangers of grates. Now I was living proof. Here’s a bit of advice I figured out after the pain killer fog lifted. If you’re flipping on your bike make it a full flip.

Recently I unearthed the manual from my new bike. It was covered with warning signs and urgent pleas to read it before riding the bike which I neglected to do. It had me recalling that profane acronym RTFM. I’m not sure it if it mentions bike flips or sewer grate hazards. It might be time for me to contribute a chapter.

**Shout out to Mike Blau, who I thought could have been pulling my leg about my collarbone remodeling. (Too much kitchen remodeling on the brain.) I’ve yet to research it but since he’s practically a Rocket Scientist, I’m sure he knows his stuff.

Back next week with the long awaited follow up to my Pole Art piece.

Jelly beans having healing properties.

In Portland, Ore., we have bike corridors and bike lanes, both of which are marked with large images. Bike corridors are streets marked with bike symbols that provide easier access for bike transportation. The bike routes are recognizable thanks to the oversized bike symbols, while the bike lanes that run along side roads have lined borders and are marked by a thick, stick figure riding a bike with a floating head.

I didn’t know what they were called until I did some research. I didn’t care for the knick name “bike guys” somehow preferring my own more generic name of “lane markers.” Once I began to notice the footless people riding on these bike symbols in the bike lanes it was hard to miss the detailing added to the occasional markers. While huffing and puffing around town, their entertainment value is undeniable. Sure the thrills are cheap, but the designs also provide a bit of low-key joy to the world. If you study the generic nature of the stick figure person on the bike, you can imagine how some creative enhancements spice them up adding pizazz to the bland features.

I wasn’t sure who decorated these things before I researched the subject. I surmised it was the work of one person. The designs seem uniform and consistent in the number and style of additional elements. My theory had me under the impression that bike marker decorations were the work of a lone, talented vandal. Consulting the bible of all Portland Oddities, PDXccentrics, which exists in book and blog form, revealed that the lane markers are the work of PBOT, that’s the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Which makes sense because, when I had a look at the movie “Martinis in the Bike Lane,” I discovered there’s a bit of know-how involved in burning the thermoplastic material that makes the designs into the road. This isn’t something that gets pasted on the asphalt which negated another of my theories about the markers being giant stencils.

SW Terwilliger Blvd

How can I knock this? I just happen to think that a hobbyhorse is a goofy toy. I probably would have had hours of maniacal, improvised fun with one if I had one as a kid. The subtle use of green in the hat, belt and boot made me want to stop and take a picture. Of course there’s no shame in riding over a one legged hobbyhorse rider.

N Vancouver

Dubbed the transportation super hero, this female representation of the decorated bike lane markers is one of the reasons I don’t like the bike guys moniker. I can really appreciate this cape and glasses wearing female super hero. Usually it’s the exact opposite, when super heroes only wears glasses to disguise themselves as normal people.

N Broadway

I like how this marker celebrates the Rose Festival, a local event who’s spirit I’ve never really caught. It brings back memories of  the incline that stretches from Lovejoy and well past the Broadway bridge. When this Rose Princess marker showed up it provided comic and cuteness relief. It’s a nice acknowledgement of the rose parade tradition. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the significance of the half dozen roses she’s carrying, in case you’re wondering.

Here’s a blog entry as part of the PDXccentric web site.  Scroll down to get the history:https://pdxccentric.wordpress.com/c4-bike-guys/

Great coverage from a Portland bike community blog: http://bikeportland.org/tag/bike-lane-characters

Post Script:

A week or two after this post I discovered a photo I took of another lane person. This is more of example of the older “bike guys.” This one might be smoking a pipe and sporting horns.

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