It doesn’t have to be a big curse or even a deadly curse . . . : While You’re in Town

With Southern California abounding in ecclesiastical joy, I hesitate to suggest that people who ride bicycles on quiet mountain trails ought to be condemned to hell for eternity, but I’m thinking about it.

It isn’t a pleasant concept, I know, and I intended to delay it at least until the Pope left town, but I need the column now, and too much sweetness rots the liver anyhow.

Also, John Paul isn’t exactly having a carefree trip when you stop to think about it.

Security is so tight he can’t even eat dinner without first having his food tasted by one of the Protestants brought along for that very purpose.

If the Protestant survives after the first few bites, chances are the chow, while not necessarily palatable, is at least safe.

Also, El Papa is being bombarded by Jews who want Vatican recognition of Israel, by priests who crave marriage, by feminists who demand new attitudes toward birth control, by Reaganites who want him to condemn the Sandinistas, by dog owners who want him to bless their pit bulls and by nuns who want him to endorse the possibility of a Popess.

Or, if you prefer, a Popette.

Since the visit by His Holiness is not exactly a casual stroll on the beach (he’d have to bless the gangs and the winos to do that), I am going to make a request that while he’s in town, he might do me a favor, too.

I was wondering, sir, if you’d mind casting a curse on those who ride mountain bikes in Topanga State Park?

It doesn’t have to be a big curse or even a deadly curse, just a little something to remind the damned fools that parks are for quiet walks and not for employing killer bikes to run down middle-aged strollers.

I’m not demanding that they be burned at the stake, just that a match be put to their kazoos.

It’s this way, J. P.

Whenever the absurdities of the world begin to assume an importance that outweigh their significance, I meander up a fire trail that takes me to a quiet hilltop in Topanga State Park.

I did so the other day after listening to Gary Hart ask my forgiveness for sleeping with women other than his wife.

I turned the stupid radio off in mid-confession and, later, couldn’t even remember the name of the ginger snap he’d spent the night with in the first place.

Was it Fawn Hall? Tammy Faye Bakker? Jessica Hawn? Corazon Aquino? The entire soprano section of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

“It was Donna Rice,” my wife said, “although we don’t know that they actually, you know, did it.”

Gary wouldn’t say. But since panting and moaning are primary forms of communication for two minds frozen in neutral, I’m sure they at least fogged up the windows a bit.

But then as I thought about it, J. P., I realized that I didn’t actually care if they slept together, sang together, jogged together or danced naked together on the rooftop.

Having reached that conclusion, I set off for a stroll up the fire trail at the back of my house.

I had not walked a mile when, suddenly, around a corner, came a fat atheist on a trail bike bearing down on me like the devil at a beer bust.

I jumped clear and instantly shouted an obscenity, which is the way my people express their displeasure under pressure.

This so startled the atheist that he went into a spin and ended up, as God would have it, on his fat caboose in a clump of poison oak.

He wasn’t hurt a bit, layers of excessive flesh having absorbed the impact of his fall, but I nonetheless inquired as to his health, being a former Catholic with residual inclinations to aid the stupid in distress.

Admittedly, I had mixed feelings when he replied that nothing was broken, but at least I had asked.

Then the jackass began cursing me for being in the way of his speeding bicycle and I replied with considerable restraint for a person whose life had been placed in jeopardy that if he kept it up, he would no longer have to mount the bike, it would be protruding from his lower anatomy.

He was bigger than me, as most people are, but I am always armed on the trail with a solid teak walking stick to ward off snakes, coyotes and Lutheran nymphomaniacs, so he simply swore at me again and pedaled on his way.

Since that confrontation, however, I have played bike-dodge with other fools on fire trails and have learned that what they do is legal.

I complained to the State Park office, but the woman who answered the phone said bikers have a right to be on fire trails, I’d just have to be careful.

When I suggested she was probably less than alert to the danger, she hung up.

I therefore feel, Holy Father, that the only way to deal with the problem is to employ extraordinary means.

I suggest that if you have time between placating Jews, politicians, feminists, priests and nuns, you might give thought to slapping a curse on people who ride bicycles on mountain trails, since most of them are not of the faith anyhow.

If they complain, to hell with them. That would work, too.