Of bicycles and homelessness

(this is a repost of something written by 1pedicabdriver over @ fresno famous. i thought it was important, thoughtful, and am reposting it here. it deals with this story from the bee.)

I love to pedal, be it a bicycle or a pedicab. I don't ride as much as some, and a little more than others. And today I learned about the death of a fellow cyclist whom I have never met but feel the camaraderie that bicyclists feel when passing one another on the road.

A mutual friend was telling me of the cyclists death. He conveyed to me his final moments and the sense of loss he felt for a friend, having tried to resuscitate him through CPR. As I listened to the story I thought of my own mortality as a cyclist and the what-if's of dying from a heart attack.

I was told that the cyclist's obituary was in Tuesday's paper and that I should check it out. I don't get the paper except on the weekends so I asked a friend for the "local and state" section of the paper because I wanted to read the obit.

Upon looking through the "local and state" section I came across one of those often overlooked stories on page B2 titled: Driver sought in hit-run death in Tower District." I was thinking that I spend a lot of time in the Tower and I don't recall hearing of anyone dying.

So I started reading the brief summary of events. On May 31st I was heading home from a night of pedicabbing in the Tower and remember seeing what seemed to be a dozen black and whites parked in the south-bound lanes of Palm Ave, just south of Olive. I pondered what could possibly require so many police cars?

Well, nearly 10 days later I now have the answer. The homeless man known to me only as Matthew (Matthew Victor according to the report) was involved in a hit and run accident and killed. I suppose that to many the death of a homeless man isn't really important.

I saw Matthew as much as I saw some of my regular fares. I always saw him together with his black and white dog Lefty on Olive between the vacant lot (now a garden) behind and the Brass Unicorn and taking up a spot by the Circle K. I gave him a dollar here and a dollar there. I along with others gave him food for his dog.

On Wednesday I learned about the death of two men from opposite ends of the spectrum. I had something in common with both men. One I shared a love of cycling, the other I shared a neighborhood. One man is remembered in death, the other forgotten.