SPINNING ALONG

Tonight was my second to last spin class and I know it has been a great benefit to me. It is a great de-stresser and I can feel my legs getting stronger. My Spin trainer said, "Good job!" and that made me feel really good when our class ended. After all, I'm older than most of my classmates.

But it just reminds me that I have always loved riding bikes. As I've said before in my blog posts about Spinning, when we were raising our girls, we always rode our bikes around our neighborhood in Florida. We had recently moved to Florida from New Jersey and bought a house in Pinellas County very near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Old Tampa Bay. Some of the streets were paved with pink brick and we thought it was so lovely just riding along the edge of the bay on these pretty, pale pink streets. One day, as I was talking to my neighbor (a true Floridian!), I mentioned how we liked riding the pink streets that were known as "The Coral Way." She said, "You know why they are called The Coral Way, right?" I said no, I didn't know why. She said it's because there are known to be a lot of Coral snakes in that area near the bay - YIKES!!! How innocently I was subjecting my children to the perils of "the pink streets!" It was then we learned the little ditty that is taught to all Floridian children:

"Red and yella - kill a fella

Red and black - friend to Jack."

What this poem means is that if you saw a small snake with its red and yellow patches touching, it was a poisonous Coral snake...if red and black patches were touching, it meant that it was NOT a poisonous snake but a friendly snake that is a helper in the fight against rodents and other pests. Both snakes are red, black and yellow!

We did continue to ride the beautiful pink streets, however, but with a Mom who eyeballed everything that looked even the slightest bit "red 'n' yella!"