Mascot Mondays 2 of 12: Bicycles!

Okay, I am in a hotel bar in Chicago. I slept five hours two nights ago, and four hours on a train last night. Spent about 8 hours hanging around Chicago today. I am on the brink of exhaustion and must start my photography conference tomorrow at 6AM!! The next day we start at 4:30AM – so no partying with Chicago Rollergirls tomorrow night. Hopefully Wednesday night. More to come on the Chicago trip later…

So I will keep this short. And it is kind of a cheat since it was read at my lecture, and I have done silk screens of this image for my art for years. But I am determined to see Mascot Mondays through…

This post is dedicated to the UNO graduate student I met at my lecture who reads my blog and is working on an article/book about the history of bicylces in New Orleans. (I am sorry I forgot your name – and thank you for coming to lecture. Please stay in touch). I assume you have read “A City on Wheels: The Bicycle Era in New Orleans,” by Dale Sommers. Also, if you email me, I will send you any bicycle-related articles from the Mascot.

So here is today’s Mascot Mondays entry…

July 27, 1889

A certain well known society leader creates a sensation nearly every evening on St. Charles Ave. She is a good looker, stylish, of good family and so on, but is inclined to be mannish. She can ride a tricycle, but that style of locomotion is too slow and even for her, so she has secured herself a bicycle, on which she appears, and certainly creates a sensation, especially when there is a breeze that displays a tendency to play sad havoc with the folds of her drapery. Everybody knows her, so that it is hardly necessary to mention her name.