My mail box has an inbox and a spam box.   The spam box is where the mail from the people who are more concerned about my manhood than I am, goes.  Before I delete that mail, I check it because sometimes mail that I want gets shuttled into that spam box.        

    The other day I found an e-mail from a fellow named, Rick in there.  He had questions about Cohos.  I want those e-mails so I moved his e-mail to the inbox and read it.  Along with his questions about bikes, he wrote that he lives in Cleveland, Ohio.  I wrote back and told him that I lived in Cleveland during my junior and senior high school days, and I told him what suburb I lived in.  Ha, he lives in the same suburb and told me what street he lives on.  Ha, ha, he lives a block away from where my mom lived when she was in high school.  Mom and Dad held their wedding reception at that house in June, 1950.

    Mom and Dad moved many times since that day.  Dad worked for a big company and when he got a promotion, we moved.  One of those moves was back to Cleveland and I lived just a few blocks from where Rick now lives.  It turns out that Rick also left Cleveland, but moved back after more than a decade.  That’s pretty cool and if Rick orders a Coho, he’ll be riding it on many of the streets I rode my bikes on when I lived there more than 35 years ago.

    Rick continued to e-mail me and his e-mails kept getting shuttled off to the spam box so I added his address to my address book hoping that the spam filter would figure out that I want Rick’s e-mails.  When I looked at his address, I saw that it is at a place called sulferstar so I checked it out.  It turns out that Rick is a cartoonist of some renown.  I read some of the cartoons that are on his web site and I have to admit that, while I find the premise interesting, I’d have to spend more time with them if I hope to get it.  I’ve always been hip, but a little behind; which isn’t really very hip at all.

    Rick and his wife, Tania, are, it turns out, very hip.  I yahooed them and found some interviews.  They’ve traveled in much of the world and, back in the United States, while Rick was suffering a lack of job issue, instead of moping, he began writing his comics.  

    One of the cool things about riding bicycles for me is that I meet lots of interesting people.  As a builder, I’m “meeting” them from far flung places, but who would have thought that I’d get an e-mail from a guy who lives in a neighborhood I rode bicycles in more than 35 years ago.  Ha, I even know his zip code and he didn’t share that information with me.

    Sometimes it is a small world and it’s full of interesting people.