Spring is the Season for Baseball, Bicycles, Boats, and Buses. Hope Springs Eternal.

A winter that began with a great World Series ended last week with a great World

Baseball Classic. The tarps came off the boat; the bicycle came out of the shed. The light is back, the ice is gone, and though we haven’t seen the last of cold or snow, there’s no stopping it now. Hope Springs eternal.

The daylight lets me take the bike to work, slinging it on the Community Connector bus in the morning and then riding it home. It’s a good way to unwind at the end of the workday. The bike-bus combination is also a good way to get around in greater Bangor, at least during bus hours. In the evenings and on weekends, you’re confined to the distance you can ride your bike.

The boat is up on stands. It won’t touch water for another two months. But much cleaning, scraping, painting, gluing, fixing, troubleshooting, and whatnot lies ahead. It’s an old boat, almost as old as its owner, and it needs attention. But it’s only a short bike ride away. I can get there on the bus, too – again, during the hours it runs.

Longer days and warmer weather lead to more people out walking and bicycling and yes, riding the bus. I’ve seldom felt imperiled doing any of these things, and I’ve never thought that I was in any sort of competition with the drivers of cars. Use of the road is, or ought to be, a cooperative endeavor among people with shared interests: namely, getting safely to wherever it is they want to go. This happens most efficiently not when the users are all in cars, but when access is expanded for pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus passengers.

It’s hard to be hopeful in these times, but…

I hope we can set aside our belligerence, not only on our roads, but in our communities and our lives, and work toward a less hostile transportation system. I hope that people continue to learn about the costs of the private car and begin to consider alternatives. I hope that Bangor and neighboring communities will find a way to fund and staff Saturday and evening bus service. I hope we can be less angry at one another.

It was wonderful to see the World Baseball Classic embraced by not only the game’s best players, but by the world. The games were compelling and competitive. Venezuela, a country torn by war, gave its beleaguered citizens something to cheer about by defeating the U.S. in the championship game.

Baseball is the most hopeful of sports. It begins in the spring and lasts through the whole summer and well into the fall. Stories of individual successes and failures play out over the long tapestry of the season. An inning can last forever if no one makes that third out. A journeyman pitcher can throw a no-hitter in the World Series. Small victories come even to last-place teams.

I wish I could feel as hopeful about the world as I do about baseball. Internationally, the game is more popular than it’s ever been. I think the Red Sox will have a good team this year. Several of their players, including Wilyer Abreu of the victorious Venezuelans, played well in the WBC. I’m looking forward to listening to a few games on the boat.

But I don’t see life getting easier for Mainers who don’t own cars. Or for any of us, for that matter, save those benefitting from the current chaos. I don’t know what to do about it, either, except to write these small missives. And hope.